No one can remember when I loaned the violin to Penny Schultz. Penny thinks it was 1979. I know for certain that she mailed it back to me in 2002. I also know that I put the un-opened Kraft-paper wrapped box on a basement shelf. From its high perch, overlooking the laundry area, it haunted me for the next sixteen years.
When I was five, my parents began taking me to cultural events, including concerts and art museums. This was in addition to the un- ending supply of paper, pencils, crayons and paint with which they had supplied me as early as I was able to use them. There were no art lessons, but music was a different tune.
It was arranged, when I turned six, that I should begin the study of piano. Helen Berkley, an excellent music educator, would be my piano teacher. She was a close family friend and lived just up and across the woodland road.
In 1954, my parents took me to hear Jascha Heifetz, a living legend. He gave a recital at Pierce Chapel, the concert hall at nearby Wheaton College. I loved the sound of his violin. He was handsome and moved with the music in a fluid way that made it look easy. After the performance, I declared to my parents that I would become a violinist. It looked exciting and, to an 8 year old, appeared an easy way to gain fame.
I was allowed to start violin lessons, though I continued piano lessons. A couple of years later, I played in a students’ recital on that same Pierce Hall stage. When it was my turn, I strode with great confidence to the proper spot by the pianist. After a few bars, I stopped and asked to start again. I’d forgotten to tighten my bow.
This embarrassment notwithstanding, my playing improved, and I was growing both musically and physically. I arose early each morning, practicing diligently before school. My parents changed my teacher from Mr. Panzella, the schoolteacher who, like the Music Man, taught all the instruments, to Mr. Maltese, a real violinist teaching at Wheaton College.
John Maltese had no difficulty convincing my parents that I needed a full-size violin and one of better quality than the 3⁄4 model with which I had begun my study. He found a 1922 Ladislav F. Prokop for me and I played that instrument through junior high and the beginning of high school.
As a freshman, I worked even harder and practiced more. The wrestling team recruited me because I weighed only 90 pounds. I could win matches just by showing up and making weight for the 95-pound class. Sophomore year, I quit wrestling because I’d been invited to play with the Wheaton College Orchestra. Now, it appeared to all concerned that I should be playing a professional instrument. I kept the 1922 Prokop as a backup, for when the “new” violin had to go into the shop for repairs.
My new 1776 Giovanni Baptiste Gabrielli was a fine, high-bellied beauty. From the Vivaldi and Bach concertos I had played previously, I moved on to Mozart concertos, which sounded wonderful on the Gabrielli. I played it thereafter in numerous orchestras and chamber groups during high school and at Harvard College. The Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO,) conducted by Dr. James Yannatos, was the best orchestra I ever played in.
I felt close to my fellow musicians and Dr. Yannatos. I enjoyed my identity as a violinist often seen crossing the campus with a violin case under one arm. I earned money playing in ad hoc groups for weddings, church services, and the occasional Bach or Handel choral performance. Social life included chamber music with friends. For the HRO, I took on various responsibilities for rehearsals, concerts, and tours.
At the outset of college studies, I had enrolled in a program called Architectural Sciences, the only major with studio courses and one of the few majors that left plenty of room for a wide range of courses in other fields, which was my goal for a college education. First, there was a 2-D design course, then color theory, then 3-D design, taught by the sculptor Wil Reimann. I took that in my sophomore year, though it was a third year course. Mr. Reimann would roam around the studio workstations checking our progress and engaging us in conversation. One day, he asked each of us what our plans were after graduation. When I replied with a long list of possible careers, he asked if I had ever thought about becoming an artist. I think he asked this of every student, because it was obvious to him that most students at Harvard had never considered becoming an artist. In spite of the household in which I had grown up, with artists for parents and parents with artist friends, I had never thought I could simply choose to be an artist. I somehow thought one had to be called to service from a supernatural place. Reimann’s question changed that.
My third year at Harvard had no studio courses. I ran into Reimann on the street one day in the fall. He asked how things were going. His genuine concern touched me. Not given to displays of emotion, I was surprised that I choked up a bit before saying I really missed being in the studio building but I had already taken all studio courses offered. He suggested I apply for an independent study with him and spend the next semester drawing.
Within two weeks of commencing to draw for Mr. Reimann, I found out what I was supposed to be doing with my life, and it wasn’t playing violin.
I quit the orchestra and the violin. I had decided to become an artist and could not serve two masters.
I finished my schooling and met Molly Day, who was teaching in a Cambridge public elementary school. We married and moved to Chicago, where I set up a studio. Penny Schultz, a musician and a childhood friend of Molly’s, came to visit several times. On a visit in 1979, she told us that she had taken up the fiddle as a folk instrument, in addition to her other instruments. She didn’t own a violin of her own, so Molly and I offered to loan her the now unused Ladislav F. Prokop. It would be better for the instrument to be played rather than to sit on a shelf.
Nearly twenty years passed. I turned fifty. In an attempt to prove that I wasn’t getting old, that I could do it all, I began violin study once again. Eighteen months of daily practice and weekly lessons with the best teacher I had ever had convinced me that, in fact, there is only so much time in a day. Giovanni Baptiste was eating into my studio time. I’d been right about the two masters bit. I quit again, and decided to sell the Gabrielli to help pay college tuition for my son. Or, that was the reason I gave myself. Maybe I was insuring that I would never again take up with that fine, high-bellied beauty!
I had proved to myself that I wasn’t going to play again, but, as years passed, I noticed that not having any instrument around didn’t feel right. I asked Penny to return the loaner. She put it in its black cardboard case and boxed it up.
Soon, the United States Postal Service delivered the carefully Kraft- paper wrapped box via registered mail. As required by postal regulation, every seam of gummed paper tape fastening the brown paper was brightly stamped in red ink with a round seal indicating postal origin and a date in 2002. There was no trace of damage, so I felt no need to open it for inspection. I put it on a high shelf in our basement, safely out of the way.
Some kind of guilt or dread descended on me whenever I saw that box, which was often. Every load of wash I did was overseen by The Box. What was the source of this unpleasant feeling? Was my neglect hurting the violin? Was the guilt a sub-conscious flashback to having skipped a practice session? The longer The Box watched over me, the worse became my discomfort. I began to imagine it might have suffered serious damage through my inattention. I became afraid to open it. I didn’t even know why it was important to have the violin. Was it a souvenir of childhood, a teddy bear in disguise? Did I have a vague hope that I might play it some day, or, worse, feel that I should play it?
I had betrayed the Gabrielli, first by quitting, then selling it. Would I now betray not only the remaining instrument but also Mrs. Berkley, Mr. Maltese, and Dr. Yannatos? Perhaps this violin provided a last, thin thread connecting me to those teachers and all the other people in my musical past.
Sixteen years after putting the boxed up violin on a shelf in my basement, I was working on a sculpture project at Thuli’s Tables, near Dodgeville, Wisconsin, where my friend Rick Thuli had given me access to his CNC router. There I met Lane, who was introduced to me as a luthier doing some woodworking for Rick.
Lane and I had some chitchat about violin bows, his specialty, and about violins and their maintenance. I sensed an opportunity. Two weeks later, I brought the unopened box to Thuli’s Tables. Now, after all these years of anxiety about the condition of the violin, I felt strangely relaxed to have Lane, the luthier, look at it. Together, we opened the box.
The bridge was down, which I had expected. It was smart of Penny to have loosened the strings and removed the bridge before shipping. The sound post, missing the pressure of the strings on the bridge, had fallen. This was not a big deal. Lane said the pegs were good, but the fingerboard needed replacing because it had been well used. There were two separations between the top and sides in need of re-gluing.
After that quick report, Lane suggested he take the instrument for a closer look by his business partner, who specialized in stringed instruments rather than bows.
I felt relief to have the violin out of the box. I was also pleased that the repairs needed seemed minor. While I had no plans to play again, it would be worth spending a modest sum to have the maintenance done.
Lane called ten days later. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, John. The back has a hairline split pretty much the full length. Given the violin’s low value, it wouldn’t make sense to repair it.”
I was surprised that I felt no strong emotion at the news, though I was glad I wouldn’t be tempted to spend a lot of money on repairs.
When I returned to Thuli’s to get the violin, I asked Lane how much it would cost to put the sound post up and re-install the bridge and strings. He quoted me ten dollars and said it would be fine to play. With the crack in the back, the sound would never be as good as it had been, but a student or fiddler wouldn’t notice the difference.
Ten dollars later, I took it to my studio in Chicago. I laid it in an old, velvet-lined crocodile case with raised scales, a case Mr. Maltese had given me. Now, it’s on a shelf I walk by every day to wash my brushes.