The Rainaldi Quartet (24 page)

‘“The youngest ring on the front of the Messiah is 1682. If we allow for the removal of sapwood and ten years or so to season, this is perfectly consistent with the attributed date of manufacture by Stradivari in 1716.”
What's that all about?'

‘The dendrochronological analysis of the wood,' I said. ‘The case for the defence.'

‘The defence?' Guastafeste said.

‘Yes. You see, some people think the Messiah is a fake.'

*   *   *

In the silence, I heard the custodian sitting on a chair by the exit turn a page of the book he was reading. The rustle of paper seemed abnormally loud, reverberating disquietingly around the confines of the room.

‘A fake?' Guastafeste said. ‘The Messiah is a fake?'

‘There are doubts as to its authenticity, yes,' I said carefully.

‘Don't they
know?
Can't they be sure?'

‘In the violin world, there is no such thing as absolute certainty,' I said.

‘But isn't its provenance established?'

‘To some extent. But not all the way back to Stradivari. We know for certain that this is the violin Vuillaume said was the Messiah. Its history since that moment can be proved beyond doubt. But what happened before that point is less clear.'

‘Less clear?' Guastafeste said impatiently. ‘What do you mean?'

‘It's complicated,' I said. ‘To explain it we need to go back in time, to early January 1855.' I paused. Guastafeste's gaze was fixed on my face. ‘Have you ever played a party game called Fly on the Wall, when you have to choose a moment in history at which you would like to have been present? You know, to have witnessed the end of the dinosaurs, Vesuvius burying Pompeii, the birth – or Resurrection – of Christ, Hitler's last days in the Berlin bunker, to have stood at the window of the Texas Book Depository when Kennedy was assassinated. The list is endless. If you asked me, I would choose a moment only a handful of people have ever heard about, concerning two individuals who will never be more than footnotes in history.

‘In late 1854, the great violin collector, Luigi Tarisio, died. The news of his death took a while to reach Paris, but the instant it did, Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume leapt on a coach and headed straight for Milan. He went to Tarisio's apartment in the Via Legnano, a small, squalid attic room Tarisio used for storing his treasures. I would love to have been there, watching from the wall as Vuillaume walked in and found Tarisio's violins – piled high on the floor, strung from ropes suspended across the room. Close on a hundred and fifty of them, including twenty-five Stradivaris.'

‘The Messiah among them?' Guastafeste said.

‘To be strictly accurate, no,' I replied. ‘Vuillaume actually found
Le Messie
at Tarisio's family farm at Fontanetto. But we're talking myths here. It makes a better story if it was in the attic with all the other violins. Vuillaume bought the entire collection from Tarisio's relatives and took it back to Paris with him. The Messiah then passed through various hands before the Hill family acquired it and donated it to the Ashmolean.'

‘So what's the problem?' Guastafeste said.

‘The problem is the people who owned it before Vuillaume: Tarisio, Cozio di Salabue and Paolo Stradivari. Cozio is beyond reproach, but both Tarisio and Paolo had dodgy reputations. Vuillaume too is not entirely above suspicion. We have only his word for it that the violin he claimed was the Messiah was found at the Tarisio family farm.'

‘But I thought Tarisio boasted for years about owning a perfect, unplayed Stradivari,' Guastafeste said. ‘That's what you told me.'

‘I know. But Tarisio is not the most reliable witness in this story. He was a dealer, a somewhat shady character who wandered northern Italy picking up old fiddles, no doubt not always honestly. He kept no records of any of his transactions, left no inventory of his collection. We know he acquired a number of Cremonese instruments from Count Cozio in 1827, but exactly which instruments is unclear. And we know Cozio bought some dozen or so Stradivari violins from Stradivari's youngest son, Paolo, in 1775, thirty-eight years after the Master died – and one of those was undoubtedly a magnificent violin of 1716 because Cozio kept detailed notes of his collection.'

‘So we know Cozio owned the Messiah,' Guastafeste said.

‘Yes, but was that 1716 violin he documented the same Stradivari he later sold to Tarisio? And was it the same one Vuillaume found at Fontanetto?'

‘You're losing me here,' Guastafeste said. ‘There are too many names, too many owners.'

‘I know,' I said. ‘It's not easy to follow.'

‘Are you saying the violin here, in the case, isn't the Messiah?'

‘It may not be. In fact, it may not be a Stradivari violin at all.'

‘What?' Guastafeste was frowning at me. ‘If it's not a Stradivari, what is it?'

I glanced at the custodian by the door, but he was too engrossed in his book to be taking any notice of us.

‘Stradivari supposedly made the Messiah in 1716, and never parted with it. That in itself is a little problematic. According to legend it was so perfect he couldn't bear to sell it. That doesn't fit with what we know of Stradivari. By 1716 he was a rich and successful luthier. He had far more commissions for instruments than he could possibly handle. Every minute of his time was taken up with making violins that someone had ordered. So why did he make a violin that he didn't sell? He wasn't a sentimental man. As far as we know, he didn't play the violin himself. Why did he make that violin and hang on to it for the next twenty-one years, until his death in 1737?

‘In any case, this instrument here in the Ashmolean isn't perfect.' I turned to the glass cabinet and pointed at the belly of the violin. ‘Up here, to the right of the fingerboard – it's difficult to see, but it's there – is a blemish in the wood, a sap pocket. That too is suspicious. Stradivari didn't use wood with defects in it. He was too much of a perfectionist and, besides, he didn't need to. He could afford the very best timber and his customers were prepared to pay for the very best.

‘Now we move on a little. Stradivari dies, leaving behind a number of complete and incomplete instruments. His sons, Francesco and Omobono, finish the uncompleted violins and when they die the remaining instruments pass to Paolo who gradually disposes of them. But are the instruments he sells all his father's? Some are probably more Francesco and Omobono than Antonio. There are doubts about Paolo's probity, so much so that when Cozio di Salabue buys the final dozen violins he makes Paolo swear an affidavit that the instruments are truly all his father's work.

‘Included in that dozen instruments is the violin of 1716. Cozio describes it in his records. Only there's another problem. There are inconsistencies between Cozio's records and the violin we know as the Messiah – inconsistencies that put a question mark over the authenticity of the instrument.'

‘So if Stradivari didn't make this violin,' Guastafeste said, ‘who did?'

‘The finger points at Vuillaume,' I said.

‘But it's been analysed.' Guastafeste pointed at the notice next to the glass case. ‘It says it's consistent with the date of 1716.'

‘That proves the age of the wood,' I replied. ‘Not the age of the violin. In 1855 it was only a little over a hundred years since Stradivari had died. Vuillaume – if he
did
fake the violin – would have had no trouble in finding old wood, though not necessarily of the right quality. Maybe that's why the sap pocket is there on the belly. Because that was the only wood Vuillaume could lay his hands on.'

‘Why would Vuillaume fake it?'

‘Who knows? To fulfil his dreams, perhaps. He'd heard so much from Tarisio about this fabulous, perfect Stradivari. But Tarisio was a braggart, an embroiderer. What if when Vuillaume went to Milan after Tarisio's death he found that the violin wasn't there? That perhaps Tarisio had been lying and the Messiah had never existed at all. Or that it had disappeared from his collection. Can you imagine Vuillaume's disappointment? So he decided to make a Messiah himself.'

‘One good enough to fool all these experts since?' Guastafeste said sceptically.

‘It was well within his powers. Vuillaume was a master copyist. On one famous occasion, Paganini took his Guarneri “del Gesù”,
Il Cannone,
to Vuillaume's atelier in Paris and left it there. When he returned, Vuillaume had made not one, but two, copies of the instrument and Paganini couldn't tell which one of the three was the original – and this is the amazing part – from either the appearance
or
the sound of the instrument.'

‘So how come Vuillaume isn't one of the great luthiers like Guarneri?'

‘Because copying and original creation are two different things. There are artists who can take an Old Master and copy – or fake – it perfectly, but they couldn't have produced anything original of a similar quality themselves. Vuillaume was the same with violins. His own instruments are very fine, but his copies – and he made several of the Messiah – are in a class of their own.'

Guastafeste was walking around the glass case, taking in every detail of the violin.

‘And what's your view?' he said. ‘Do you think Vuillaume faked it?'

Did I? I've often wondered whether Jean-Baptiste and I had more in common than just our Christian names.

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘You must judge for yourself.'

Guastafeste stared at me pensively. ‘Let me get this right,' he said. ‘This violin might, or might not, be a fake. This fellow Tarisio might, or might not, have owned a perfect, unplayed Stradivari. Am I correct so far?'

‘Yes.'

‘But we know for certain – and it's about the only thing we
do
know for certain – that Count Cozio di Salabue did own an outstanding 1716 Stradivari.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘That fact is documented beyond doubt.'

‘So if this isn't that 1716 Stradivari, then what happened to it? What if the violin Cozio gave to Thomas Colquhoun – that went missing somewhere on its journey to England – was the 1716 Stradivari?'

‘That's possible.'

Guastafeste's eyes were gleaming with suppressed excitement.

‘So what we're looking for … might not be a sister to the Messiah. It might be the Messiah itself.'

12

Violin auctions are not overtly exciting events – you'd probably see more explicit passion in a village cattle sale – but it is their very restraint that, to me, makes them so gripping. On the surface everyone is so controlled, so reticent, so perfectly well-mannered, yet underneath I know the emotions are seething away, a cauldron bubbling over with the basest human impulses. I love that charged atmosphere, the sense of anticipation, the smell of desire and greed in the air. It is one of life's most intoxicating experiences.

The room was almost full. There were one or two empty seats scattered around the floor, but then a great crowd of people standing up at the back, talking in low murmurs, waiting impatiently for the auction to begin. We were five minutes past the scheduled start time, but that was all part of the game – keep the audience waiting, build up the heat until the pressure cooker was ready to explode.

I could see Rudy Weigert at the front, pink-faced and spruce in a dark suit and red bow-tie. He was chatting to one of his colleagues. I saw him glance at his watch, gauging the moment at which to make his entrance, then he stepped up on to the podium and the whole room fell silent. Rudy checked his lapel mike. Above his head the digital electronic display lit up to show the lot numbers and the prices in sterling, US dollars, Swiss francs, euros and Japanese yen.

‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen…' Rudy rattled off his opening patter, smooth, relaxed, putting us at our ease. He announced a couple of withdrawals, outlined the rules of bidding, then the show began.

‘Lot 1, a violin by Giuseppe Zamberti. I'll start with twelve hundred pounds. Twelve hundred with me … thirteen hundred … fourteen hundred … fifteen hundred … with you, sir, at fifteen hundred … fifteen hundred … do I have any more bids?' Rudy's gavel banged down. ‘Sold to you, sir, for fifteen hundred pounds. Could I see your paddle, please?'

The successful bidder held up his numbered paddle and Rudy moved swiftly on to Lot 2, a violin by Otto Moeckel. The early lots were mostly the cheaper instruments, interspersed with groups of bows, scraps thrown out to get the buyer's salivary glands going before the real meat came out and Rudy – he hoped – stepped back to watch the feeding frenzy. He went through the lots at a lick – a hundred in just over an hour. It was a pleasure to watch him in action, the master of ceremonies playing to the crowd, his innate showmanship to the fore.

‘Have I missed anything?' a voice whispered beside me.

I turned my head to see Vincenzo Serafin slipping into the adjacent empty seat.

‘Not much,' I said.

‘Good.'

He adjusted his trousers to preserve their knife-edge creases and opened his catalogue. I could smell his aftershave lotion, hear the faint hiss of his breathing as if he'd had to hurry to get here and overexerted himself in the process. It must have been a long walk from the taxi to the kerb.

‘What lot are we on?' he asked, though the number was prominently displayed at the front of the room.

‘Lot 109,' I said. ‘Carlo Loveri.'

Serafin flicked through his catalogue without haste. He hadn't come all the way to London to buy a Carlo Loveri.

‘Now, Lot 110,' Rudy said. ‘A violin
circa
1900, labelled
Josephus Cerutti filius Joannis Baptistae Cremonensis fecit anno 1825.
Who will give me two thousand? Thank you, sir. Two two … two five … two eight … three thousand.' The bidding went up steadily. ‘Do I have four five?' Rudy asked. ‘Four five, thank you, sir … four eight … five … five five on the telephone…' Rudy turned his gaze to the side of the room, to the row of telephones manned by the thin-lipped thoroughbred women all the London auction houses seemed to employ. ‘Five five with Emily on the phone … six thousand, thank you, sir … six five on the phone … seven … seven five?' Rudy looked to the phones. Emily shook her head. ‘Do I have seven five? Seven five at the back there … eight … with you, sir, for eight thousand pounds … eight … eight five … nine, with you, sir…'