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NYT: Roman Totenberg's Stolen Stradivarius Is Found After 35 Years
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Frank Forman
Aug 7, 2015, 8:04:30 PM8/7/15
to
Roman Totenberg's Stolen Stradivarius Is Found After 35 Years
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/arts/music/roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivarius-is-found-after-35-years.html
By MICHAEL COOPER
The label inside the violin said "Stradivarius," but plenty of fakes
claim that, too. So after a California woman asked Phillip Injeian,
a violinmaker and dealer, to appraise the instrument, he met her at
a Manhattan hotel in late June and examined every inch of it, from
its nicks to the somewhat pointy curve of its F-holes to its
distinctive wood grain, before delivering his verdict.
"I told her, 'I have good news and bad news,' " Mr. Injeian said in
an interview Thursday. "I said: 'The good news is that it's a
Stradivarius. The bad news is that it's a stolen Stradivarius. And
this is one that has been gone for 35 years.' "
The Stradivarius--which was made in 1734 by Antonio Stradivari and
is known as the Ames Stradivarius--disappeared after it was stolen
in 1980 from the violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg. So as soon as Mr.
Injeian recognized it, he called in law enforcement officials,
setting off a train of events that ended on Thursday afternoon with
the return of the long-lost violin to Mr. Totenberg's three
daughters: Amy, Jill and Nina Totenberg.
"The mystery was solved," Nina Totenberg, the legal affairs
correspondent for NPR News, said at a news conference at the United
States attorney's office in Manhattan, where the violin was returned
to her family. She said it appeared that her father, who had long
harbored suspicions about who had stolen his violin, had been right
all along.
The violin was stolen in May 1980 from Mr. Totenberg's office at the
Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., where he was then the
director. Mr. Totenberg, a teacher and virtuoso who performed as a
soloist with major orchestras and worked with Igor Stravinsky, Aaron
Copland, Leopold Stokowski and Arthur Rubinstein, died in 2012 at
age 101. His violin was valued at $250,000 when it was stolen; these
days, the finest Stradivarius violins often sell for millions of
dollars.
The violin did not surface again until June 26, when a California
woman, identified in court papers as Thanh Tran, brought it to New
York to have it appraised by Mr. Injeian at a meeting at the Ace
Hotel in Manhattan. According to Mr. Injeian, Ms. Tran said that her
ex-husband gave it to her before dying in 2011. But it was in a
locked case, so she put it aside for several years before she and a
boyfriend broke the case open.
Nina Totenberg said that the man who had left Ms. Tran the violin,
Philip S. Johnson, whom she described as "an aspiring violinist,"
had long been suspected of stealing it.
"He was seen loitering around the place where it was taken, and
later his ex-girlfriend would tell my father that she was quite sure
that he had taken it," Ms. Totenberg said at the news conference.
"That, however, was not enough for a search warrant, and my mother
was so frustrated that she would famously ask her friends if anyone
knew someone in the mob who would break into Johnson's apartment and
do a search for the violin."
That led Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern
District of New York, to weigh in. "Just one point of practice," he
said, looking around at the assembled prosecutors, F.B.I. agents and
New York Police Department officials. "If you do lose something, and
it goes missing, and you don't know how to get it back, don't
actually call the mob."
A stipulation and court order that was signed this week, paving the
way for the return of the violin to the Totenberg family, said that
Ms. Tran had "voluntarily relinquished" the violin to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation after learning that it might be stolen. She
"represents that she received the Ames Stradivarius from her former
spouse prior to his death, and that she did not have knowledge" that
it had been stolen, the papers said.
Ms. Tran did not return several calls seeking comment. Law
enforcement officials said they had no evidence she knew the violin
had been stolen.
Little was immediately known about Mr. Johnson. He was not named in
the court papers, but several law enforcement officials confirmed
that he was the woman's ex-husband, and had been a longtime suspect.
One law enforcement official said the F.B.I. case file and
subsequent leads shed no light on a motive. An official at Boston
University said that a Philip Johnson with the same birth date had
attended Boston University's School for the Arts from 1976 through
1979; Mr. Totenberg was on the faculty during part of that period.
Detective Michael O. Gildea of the New York Police Department, who
worked on the case with Christopher McKeogh, an agent with the
F.B.I.'s Art Crime Team, said that it was strange that the violin
had apparently been locked away for so many years, only to surface
now. "It was very odd to me that someone would risk so much, and yet
did so little with it," he said. Stolen Stradivarius violins, like
famous purloined paintings, are hard to sell because they are so
recognizable.
Ms. Totenberg said she was sad that her father was not alive to see
his instrument restored. The bond between musicians and instruments
is a powerful one. After the theft, Mr. Totenberg, who had owned the
violin for 38 years, told CBS News in 1981 that it had taken two
decades of playing the instrument before it reached its potential.
"It took some time to wake it up," he said, "to work it out, find
all the things that it needed, the right kind of strings and so on
and so on."
But she said that he would have been furious "if he'd known that the
person that he'd thought took it had in fact taken it, and all these
years had it hidden away, not maintaining it the way one should, not
caring for it as a special baby, not having it played."
Ms. Totenberg said that the family had now paid back the insurance
money that Mr. Totenberg collected after the violin was stolen, and
that it planned to have the Ames Stradivarius restored and sold--
but to a musician who will play it, not a collector who will lock it
away.
"None of us play the violin, and we know that Stradivarius owners
are really just guardians of these great, great instruments," she
said. "They are meant to be played by great artists. And so the Ames
Strad--now perhaps known as the Ames-Totenberg Strad--will
eventually be in the hands of another great artist, like my father,
and the beautiful, brilliant and throaty voice of that violin, long
stilled, will once again thrill audiences in concert halls around
the world."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/arts/music/roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivarius-is-found-after-35-years.html
By MICHAEL COOPER
The label inside the violin said "Stradivarius," but plenty of fakes
claim that, too. So after a California woman asked Phillip Injeian,
a violinmaker and dealer, to appraise the instrument, he met her at
a Manhattan hotel in late June and examined every inch of it, from
its nicks to the somewhat pointy curve of its F-holes to its
distinctive wood grain, before delivering his verdict.
"I told her, 'I have good news and bad news,' " Mr. Injeian said in
an interview Thursday. "I said: 'The good news is that it's a
Stradivarius. The bad news is that it's a stolen Stradivarius. And
this is one that has been gone for 35 years.' "
The Stradivarius--which was made in 1734 by Antonio Stradivari and
is known as the Ames Stradivarius--disappeared after it was stolen
in 1980 from the violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg. So as soon as Mr.
Injeian recognized it, he called in law enforcement officials,
setting off a train of events that ended on Thursday afternoon with
the return of the long-lost violin to Mr. Totenberg's three
daughters: Amy, Jill and Nina Totenberg.
"The mystery was solved," Nina Totenberg, the legal affairs
correspondent for NPR News, said at a news conference at the United
States attorney's office in Manhattan, where the violin was returned
to her family. She said it appeared that her father, who had long
harbored suspicions about who had stolen his violin, had been right
all along.
The violin was stolen in May 1980 from Mr. Totenberg's office at the
Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., where he was then the
director. Mr. Totenberg, a teacher and virtuoso who performed as a
soloist with major orchestras and worked with Igor Stravinsky, Aaron
Copland, Leopold Stokowski and Arthur Rubinstein, died in 2012 at
age 101. His violin was valued at $250,000 when it was stolen; these
days, the finest Stradivarius violins often sell for millions of
dollars.
The violin did not surface again until June 26, when a California
woman, identified in court papers as Thanh Tran, brought it to New
York to have it appraised by Mr. Injeian at a meeting at the Ace
Hotel in Manhattan. According to Mr. Injeian, Ms. Tran said that her
ex-husband gave it to her before dying in 2011. But it was in a
locked case, so she put it aside for several years before she and a
boyfriend broke the case open.
Nina Totenberg said that the man who had left Ms. Tran the violin,
Philip S. Johnson, whom she described as "an aspiring violinist,"
had long been suspected of stealing it.
"He was seen loitering around the place where it was taken, and
later his ex-girlfriend would tell my father that she was quite sure
that he had taken it," Ms. Totenberg said at the news conference.
"That, however, was not enough for a search warrant, and my mother
was so frustrated that she would famously ask her friends if anyone
knew someone in the mob who would break into Johnson's apartment and
do a search for the violin."
That led Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern
District of New York, to weigh in. "Just one point of practice," he
said, looking around at the assembled prosecutors, F.B.I. agents and
New York Police Department officials. "If you do lose something, and
it goes missing, and you don't know how to get it back, don't
actually call the mob."
A stipulation and court order that was signed this week, paving the
way for the return of the violin to the Totenberg family, said that
Ms. Tran had "voluntarily relinquished" the violin to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation after learning that it might be stolen. She
"represents that she received the Ames Stradivarius from her former
spouse prior to his death, and that she did not have knowledge" that
it had been stolen, the papers said.
Ms. Tran did not return several calls seeking comment. Law
enforcement officials said they had no evidence she knew the violin
had been stolen.
Little was immediately known about Mr. Johnson. He was not named in
the court papers, but several law enforcement officials confirmed
that he was the woman's ex-husband, and had been a longtime suspect.
One law enforcement official said the F.B.I. case file and
subsequent leads shed no light on a motive. An official at Boston
University said that a Philip Johnson with the same birth date had
attended Boston University's School for the Arts from 1976 through
1979; Mr. Totenberg was on the faculty during part of that period.
Detective Michael O. Gildea of the New York Police Department, who
worked on the case with Christopher McKeogh, an agent with the
F.B.I.'s Art Crime Team, said that it was strange that the violin
had apparently been locked away for so many years, only to surface
now. "It was very odd to me that someone would risk so much, and yet
did so little with it," he said. Stolen Stradivarius violins, like
famous purloined paintings, are hard to sell because they are so
recognizable.
Ms. Totenberg said she was sad that her father was not alive to see
his instrument restored. The bond between musicians and instruments
is a powerful one. After the theft, Mr. Totenberg, who had owned the
violin for 38 years, told CBS News in 1981 that it had taken two
decades of playing the instrument before it reached its potential.
"It took some time to wake it up," he said, "to work it out, find
all the things that it needed, the right kind of strings and so on
and so on."
But she said that he would have been furious "if he'd known that the
person that he'd thought took it had in fact taken it, and all these
years had it hidden away, not maintaining it the way one should, not
caring for it as a special baby, not having it played."
Ms. Totenberg said that the family had now paid back the insurance
money that Mr. Totenberg collected after the violin was stolen, and
that it planned to have the Ames Stradivarius restored and sold--
but to a musician who will play it, not a collector who will lock it
away.
"None of us play the violin, and we know that Stradivarius owners
are really just guardians of these great, great instruments," she
said. "They are meant to be played by great artists. And so the Ames
Strad--now perhaps known as the Ames-Totenberg Strad--will
eventually be in the hands of another great artist, like my father,
and the beautiful, brilliant and throaty voice of that violin, long
stilled, will once again thrill audiences in concert halls around
the world."
O
Aug 8, 2015, 9:15:39 AM8/8/15
to
In article <Pine.NEB.4.64.15...@panix3.panix.com>, Frank
bridge base plate, pegs. It looked like your typical flea market
violin. I'm sure it will take some serious work to get it back to
playing shape.
-Owen
Forman <che...@panix.com> wrote:
> Roman Totenberg's Stolen Stradivarius Is Found After 35 Years
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/arts/music/roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivar
> ius-is-found-after-35-years.html
>
> By MICHAEL COOPER
>
> The label inside the violin said "Stradivarius," but plenty of fakes
> claim that, too. So after a California woman asked Phillip Injeian,
> a violinmaker and dealer, to appraise the instrument, he met her at
> a Manhattan hotel in late June and examined every inch of it, from
> its nicks to the somewhat pointy curve of its F-holes to its
> distinctive wood grain, before delivering his verdict.
>
There was a photograph of it in the Times, and it was missing the
> Roman Totenberg's Stolen Stradivarius Is Found After 35 Years
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/arts/music/roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivar
> ius-is-found-after-35-years.html
>
> By MICHAEL COOPER
>
> The label inside the violin said "Stradivarius," but plenty of fakes
> claim that, too. So after a California woman asked Phillip Injeian,
> a violinmaker and dealer, to appraise the instrument, he met her at
> a Manhattan hotel in late June and examined every inch of it, from
> its nicks to the somewhat pointy curve of its F-holes to its
> distinctive wood grain, before delivering his verdict.
>
bridge base plate, pegs. It looked like your typical flea market
violin. I'm sure it will take some serious work to get it back to
playing shape.
-Owen
Peter T. Daniels
Aug 8, 2015, 2:47:14 PM8/8/15
to
secured by a combination lock that the thief was unable to open. Any
"disrepair" seen in the photograph must have been of it in the luthier's
workshop undergoing 35 years of deferred maintenance. The report included
archival audio of Mr. Totenberg playing the instrument. It is presumably
available at npr.org.
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