I have decided to remove the fundraising bar for my page and that I will be converting this page into a blog page for future posts. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far. You will be hearing from me some time in the spring so I can play for you all in some fashion. The help I have received means so much to me. You can still donate if you want to by clicking the button above, but at $8,185 raised, I am calling this goal achieved. Thank you!

The cello is likely to arrive in Madison in January and I am so excited to see it, to play it and to hear it played for me. In the mean time I will be getting a visit from another luthier friend of mine tomorrow who will be bringing me a new cello to break in. I heard about plans to make this particular instrument more than two years ago and got a chance to see it in the white in August. It is a copy of the Comte de Saveuse Stradivari, a late period Stradivari that the Tarisio website says shows some of the hand of Carlo Bergonzi and was originally attributed to Ombono Stradivari, not Antonio. If I’m reading between the lines here it seems as though it was a shop collaboration. It is smaller in size, has deep ribs and a more voluminous back arching than most Stradivari instruments. The dimensions of the instrument are very pleasant and having seen it in person, I will be glad to see the final product and hear how these dimensions translate into sound.

This year I have been fortunate enough to help break in two really stellar new cellos for an extended period of time before they were sold, and to play on a fairly decent german loaner cello that punches well above its label. The first pandemic cello, A William Whedbee I played on after I shipped my Terry cello back to Boston seemed to almost phrase for itself. While I did enjoy the tone, I liked it much more so for its ease of playing and ability to show me where the phrase was supposed to go. I knew a good instrument could do that at some point, but I had forgotten that feature. When that cello was sold locally, my instrumental guardian angel gave me yet another instrument, a brand new Strad-ish model from a famous maker in the midwest, David Folland. This cello was brilliant, very playable and extremely powerful.

The kind of power it had was intoxicating and it took me back to an experience I had in college where I become aware of a 19th century French cello by ASP Bernadel, which was for sale in NYC. I picked it up and brought it back to BU for a few weeks for a trial. It was loud as hell and sounded, I thought, pretty good. I was intoxicated by the vibrations in those small basement practice rooms, but felt uneasy about the price. I also felt very uneasy about my interactions with the dealer, who seemed to occupy a very compartmentalized minimalist New York Apartment wherein I could see no other customers, no luthiers, no other instruments for sale, and no real signs that there was much of a business there except for a door with a smoked glass window which he would periodically go through if he needed the alleged luthiers to make some adjustments to the instrument. On top of this, I had some very pushy interactions with the professor who had helped me track down this cello in the first place. When I showed it to him and told him I was still unsure about it, he told me flat out that I would be an “idiot” if I didn’t buy it. Of course if I had been wiser and not 18 years old at the time, I’d have run the other direction right away. The cumulative effect of these interactions made it feel like a dark cloud of energy surrounded this cello, but I was being told by important people in places of authority that I would be missing out if I didn’t buy it and to an extent I bought into that scarcity mindset. Doing so heightened my anxiety considerably and my perception was clouded when it came to the cello. When I played it, the vibrations were incredible, but I couldn’t hear the sound away from myself. It was as if it was hiding from me in some way and that the outward shine masked a hollowness that I had not yet experienced on a conscious level, but felt in some subconscious way.

I decided to return the cello though it was still a question whether or not I would make an offer on it. I took the Amtrak back to New York and walked from Penn St. to W 66th st. This was an education in the length of New York City blocks, but that’s beside the point. On my way back to the shop in New York I had decided to visit my teacher’s home so he could have look before I returned it. I thought he could settle the matter for me since I felt so torn about it. We sat in his living room surrounded by beautiful artwork and Mr. Soyer played the cello for a while. He stopped, paused, and then told me in his very candid way that he didn’t like it. He said that everyone was so obsessed with power and volume these days, and he agreed the cello had plenty of both, but said finally that the instrument didn’t actually sound all that great. I thought I would be crushed if he didn’t like it, but actually it was a relief to me. The whole experience felt a bit off and Mr. Soyer seemed to have an intuition of that too because he promptly called one of his violin dealer friends to ask about the instrument and where it had come from. I remember sitting in the kitchen while he talked on the phone and his wife Janet warmed up some food for us. After he got off the phone and we sat down to eat carrot soup together, he explained that his contact advised us to stay away from it and even went as far as to say it might be a fake. Janet asked how they could know it was fake over the phone, and Mr. Soyer amusingly said that his guy was the biggest criminal of them all, so he would know a fake more than anyone. I returned the cello the next day and was met with disbelief which bordered on shaming. A few months later I ended up buying a cello that was about a fifth of the price. It was less powerful, but had a warm sound that was remarked upon by many over the seven years I played it. I am not equating the loaner I was given this year with the potentially phony cello I came upon, and was rescued from, in New York, except that it had a similar amount of power and in that way it reminded me of that experience. I mainly thought it would be useful to reminisce about that.

The takeaway is that if people are trying to push you into a particular instrument, you must ask yourself why. Perhaps they have some skin in the game. It has been the case in years past where teachers take a commission for instruments that get placed with their students. This is highly unethical in my opinion and the result of this behavior is music students who are saddled not only with instruments they hate, but also disappointment and resentment toward their former teachers who they trusted to help them.

Well, this post took a detour…I was going to talk about the cello I’ve been using since July…..When I received my next and last loaner it was a downgrade, but I found that it opened up significantly over the course of a few weeks and after playing concerts on it all summer and fall, it has become familiar and loved in a sense. It is easy to play, its tone is even, it has a rich lower register and while it’s not an instrument I could play forever, it has been a good companion for the time I’ve used it and even though I tell people jokingly how sick of it I am, I will miss it in a sense when I no longer have it.

I will try to give more updates when I have them. I expect that I will not have news to share about the new cello until after xmas, however I may post about the cello I’m breaking in and maybe post about some upcoming concerts or past musical experiences just for fun.