SARASATE’S CAPRICHO

One of the most admired instruments ever made by Antonio Stradivari, the ‘Boissier, Sarasate’ is in an excellent state of preservation. Roberto Jardón Rico examines the violin and its best-known owner, the Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sarasate

INSTRUMENT PHOTOS TUCKER DENSLEY

In his 1856 book Antoine Stradivari, luthier célèbre, the Belgian musicologist and critic François-Joseph Fétis listed the five violins he considered the master’s finest. They were, in order: the 1690 ‘Tuscan-Medici’, the 1715 ‘Alard’, the 1709 ‘Viotti’, the 1716 ‘Cessole’, and the 1713 ‘Boissier, Sarasate’. A few years later the Hill brothers confirmed Fétis’s opinion, and so have many experts since, most recently Charles Beare. Of course, at the time Fétis was writing, the last of the five was known simply as the ‘Boissier’, since in 1856 the great soloist and composer Pablo Sarasate was only twelve years old. However, it is entirely down to Sarasate, and his reverence and affection for the instrument, that it now remains in almost the same pristine condition in which Fétis must have seen it. Since 1908 it has been owned by the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, where it is on display in the conservatoire’s museum and is rarely taken out and played.

However, from 2014, in a number of sessions at the museum, a team consisting of luthiers George Stoppani, Fernando Fernández, Francesco Piasentini and myself, have been performing a series of measurements and tests aimed at documenting Sarasate’s so-called ‘red violin’. This constituted measurements of geometry and thicknesses, endoscopic inspection, structured light scanning, and several acoustic tests consisting of sound radiation, interior sound pressure, bridge admittance and finally modal analysis. The results of this analysis can be found on page 34. It has been an overwhelming joy to inspect this pristine example of Stradivari’s genius, which still retains a huge amount of original varnish and has barely needed any restoration over its 310-year life.

Why was it known as the ‘red violin’? Because Sarasate owned two Stradivaris: this one and another from 1724, known today as simply the ‘Sarasate’. That was the one that Sarasate used as his principal performing instrument for most of his career, and which he christened ‘the yellow’, because of the striking colour of its varnish. It is now part of the collection of the Musée de la Musique in Paris.

There is a legend that somehow the ‘Boissier, Sarasate’ was not tonally satisfactory, and it was, therefore, kept as a lowerquality choice compared with the 1724 violin. However, this supposition does not hold water if we consider the following factors. First of all, Sarasate was at the top of his career and was the highest-paid violinist of all time. He could afford virtually any instrument on the market. Secondly, we can note the perception of the instrument in the eyes of players, dealers and experts such as F.J. Fétis. Sarasate acquired the instrument in 1888 from the Gand & Bernardel shop in Paris. Apparently, at the time of the transaction, Charles François Gand said he would be willing to sell the instrument to no one other than Sarasate, the most famous soloist of his time. He sold it with no profit for 20,000 francs but we can see the obvious prestige that such a sale would have represented to the shop. In 1909 a biography of Sarasate by his friend Julio Altadill stated that Gand had somehow regretted the sale and, the following day, offered Sarasate 5,000 francs more to recover the instrument.

As much as all this literature is prone to romanticism, there is no doubt that dealers, connoisseurs, musicians and Sarasate himself were perfectly aware of the violin’s importance. In a letter to a friend, Sarasate wrote that a wealthy collector called M. Johnson had offered to buy the instrument from him for 80,000 francs during a tour of America only one year after the acquisition, and he had rejected the offer. This also allows us to assume that he treasured and admired the instrument enormously. The purchase was a capricho (whim) for him. Why did he not use it on stage? He once said the instrument was hard to ‘tame’, but this is not something uncommon in Stradivaris, and in fact our tests have shown that it is a healthy, robust and good-sounding Strad. Otto Goldschmidt, Sarasate’s piano accompanist, secretary and manager for decades, stated that his decision was taken ‘out of respect for the violin’.

Pablo Sarasate in 1898, aged 54

The colour of the violin’s varnish led Pablo Sarasate to christen it ‘the red’

FINDING THE ARCHING CONTOURS

The gluing surface between the top plate and the ribs of the ‘Boissier, Sarasate’ does not lie on a plane. The rib height is fairly constant from the bottom-block to the upper corners, where it starts decreasing until it reaches a mininum at the top-block. When glued to the rest of the body, the top plate is forced to follow this taper. Additional deformation is caused by the body torsion. On the other side, the back gluing surface deviates only slightly from an ideal plane. The top deformations will inevitably be visible in a contour plot.

For this reason, the top and back plates were digitally cut from the body and virtually deformed to flatten their gluing surfaces. This process mimics the real clamping that makers and restorers perform before making a cast or a light scan of a plate. The contour plots reported in this article and in the accompanying poster were calculated in the virtually deformed state.

Despite being preternaturally talented as a violinist, Sarasate had not enjoyed the easiest path to success. Born in 1844 in Pamplona, he was a precocious child who learnt to read music before the alphabet, as recalled by his father Miguel Sarasate, a military musician and his first teacher. He first performed for an audience in public in A Coruña at the age of seven. Soon those around him became aware of his exceptional talent, and he began to attract financial support for his education from aristocrats. It was Juana de Vega, Condesa de Espoz y Mina, who provided the financial support to Pablo’s family for him to study in Madrid with the violinist Manuel Rodríguez. This concern about the child’s education materialised in another stipend, this time from Queen Isabella II of Spain, when he reached the age of twelve. This allowed him to travel to Paris and continue his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris under the guidance of the famous Jean-Delphin Alard (owner of the eponymous Stradivari).

There is an interesting legend that Queen Isabella bought the ‘ex-Boissier’ Stradivari violin (as it was then known) and gave it to Sarasate as a present when he was a child. This story haunted the violinist until his death, and out of frustration he always struggled to clarify that both of the Stradivari violins in his possession were bought with the ‘sweat of his brow’. Continuing with this romantic legend, both Napoleon III and Pedro I of Brazil were also said to have presented Sarasate with Stradivari violins! Unfortunately for him, this never happened. Sarasate was in fact 44 years old when he bought the ‘ex-Boissier’. Not much is known about the previous owner, Boissier from Geneva, but there is no reference to him as a soloist and he is usually referred to as a bourgeois collector.

Pablo Sarasate as a young boy

ARCHING MAPS FRANCESCO PIASENTINI

In 1855 Pablo and his mother started on their trip to Paris, but they had only reached the city of Bayonne in the Basque Country when both were infected with cholera, and his mother Javiera died. Nevertheless, the plan continued unchanged and the child, with the help of another stipend, this time from the regional government of Navarre, settled in Paris with the family of Théodore Lassabathie, administrator of the Paris Conservatoire. Young Pablo’s life had changed radically. He was in another country speaking a language he had not mastered, in a big city without direct contact with any family members as his father and sisters had stayed in Spain.

But he was fiercely driven, and the proof is that just 18 months later, in 1857, he was awarded the first prize of the Conservatoire of Paris by unanimous decision. The whole amount of the prize was given exclusively to him and not divided among other participants as was the custom. This caused some opposition, although it also gives a hint of Sarasate’s uniqueness, as all his competitors were at least six years older than him. Paris brought most of the best students in Europe together, but Jean-Delphin Alard and Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, the director of the Conservatoire, both ruled that Pablo deserved the privilege. Part of the award was a violin by Charles François Gand, with the ribs decorated with the following inscription in gold letters: ‘au Premier prix du Conservatoire de Paris en l’année 1857’.

This could be considered a great start for young Pablo, but the following years would not be easy either. The excitement of the Parisian cultural milieu was at its climax: composers rubbed shoulders with painters and writers, and there were musical salons such as Rossini’s. Young Pablo had to find his way in the soloist world and develop his talent as a composer.

Sarasate’s approach to repertoire was very innovative and influential, to the extent that he changed the structure of his performances. In his time, top soloists would primarily play their own compositions, in the fashion of Paganini a few decades earlier. But Sarasate wanted to offer a repertoire of living composers other than his own, in addition to the classical staples such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Mozart. This started when, at the age of 13, he asked Camille Saint-Saëns to write a concerto for him, which would become the composer’s Violin Concerto op.20 ten years later. No other violinist has had more compositions dedicated to him than Sarasate: Auber, Auer, Bruch, Dvořák, Joachim, Lalo, Wieniawski and Wilhelmj are among those who wrote Sarasate’s name as dedicatee. His own compositions, mainly used as celebrated encores at the end of his concerts, were at first considered frivolous or superficial by some, but gradually became enormously appreciated for their virtuosity and emotional temperament. His role as a player–composer also influenced his performance technique. His travels through most European countries were followed by tours in North and South America, and his fame made him a universal celebrity, an idol of the Belle Epoque.

Sarasate’s pride and joy, the 1713 ‘Boissier, Sarasate’ violin, is unquestionably one of the finest examples of Stradivari’s ‘golden period’. Apart from its historical value, arising from the simple fact that it belonged to Sarasate, there are several features that make this an ‘out of the ordinary’ specimen, despite the relative lack of published research on the instrument.

The instrument was probably built on the ‘PG’ mould. The choice of wood is outstanding. The back was made with the most handsome maple available, symmetrical and cut on the quarter; the deep, broad flames descend with a good angle to the flanks, producing a high contrast of dark and light bands in the edges where the varnish is eroded by wear. The maple of the ribs and scroll also has broad flames but not so deep, and they do not follow the angle of the back.

Stradivari’s label inside the ‘Boissier, Sarasate’

INTERIOR PHOTOS FRANCESCO PIASENTINI

A sculpture dedicated to Sarasate at the Conservatorio in Madrid

SARASATE’S FAME MADE HIM A UNIVERSAL CELEBRITY, AN IDOL OF THE BELLE EPOQUE

The spruce of the top is extremely attractive, but the two sides do not appear to be book-matched: the treble side presents wider rings in the central area than the bass side, but they both increase in width towards the flanks.

The corners are robust, retaining an attractive, flat tracing in their outline, but at the same time they are delicate. It is overwhelming to see how little distortion the violin presents, as seen in the 3D scan performed in situ in the Conservatorio Museum by Francesco Piasentini. The gluing surface of the back to the rib garland is almost completely flat. Everything lies in place the way it would in a new instrument. The scroll is magnificent and shows very little wear, to the extent that the pinholes used to trace the outline to sculpt the back of the pegbox are visible.

This interior image shows the holes of the nails that were used to attach the original neck to the top-block

It is remarkable that the violin’s surface has not been ‘protected’ with a layer of French polish

ALL INSTRUMENT PHOTOS TUCKER DENSLEY

The ‘Boissier, Sarasate’ is in very good condition. It has two cracks on the top, both of which are very well repaired, and a bell patch, a normal practice in the day, probably performed by Vuillaume or at the Gand & Bernardel shop where Sarasate acquired the instrument.

At the time, a bell patch was commonly used instead of a soundpost patch if there was also a crack running along the bass-bar area on the top. It is essentially a larger patch in the shape of a bell, which covers the area between the f-holes. The treatment was only used for valuable instruments, as the repair process is difficult and not all shops were able to carry it out. The bass-bar was also replaced at this time.

This all occurred at the point in history at which most Stradivari and ‘del Gesù’ instruments underwent a transition from ‘Baroque to modern’, a requirement of the demands of 19th-century repertoire, which called for a new performance style and technique. Most of these transformations occurred at the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, and would have included performing a neck graft: inserting a new neck handle into the original pegbox to increase the length, gluing a longer fingerboard and resetting with a different projection angle. Vuillaume may well have done this to the ‘Boissier, Sarasate’, but there is no documentation of this repair.

The surface retains a very good amount of varnish. It is remarkable that it has not been ‘protected’ with a layer of French polish, making it ever more outstanding and appreciated in today’s shop standards. The colour of the varnish is a light reddish-brown over Stradivari’s wonderful golden ground.

THE COLOUR OF THE VARNISH IS A LIGHT REDDISH-BROWN OVER STRADIVARI’S WONDERFUL GOLDEN GROUND

THE SCROLL IS MAGNIFICENT AND SHOWS VERY LITTLE WEAR, TO THE EXTENT THAT THE PINHOLES USED TO TRACE THE OUTLINE TO SCULPT THE BACK OF THE PEGBOX ARE VISIBLE

In his testament, Pablo Sarasate donated his 1724 Stradivari to the Paris Conservatoire, while he donated the 1713 ‘ex-Boissier’ (now the ‘Boissier, Sarasate’) to the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, where it is proudly displayed in a beautiful museum among other instruments. A copy of the decorated violin from Sarasate’s childhood, awarded by the Paris Conservatoire and built by Gand, and a Vuillaume violin were donated to the city of Pamplona. They can be seen in the Museo Sarasate with thousands of other objects that belonged to the violinist and composer.

Sarasate, an innovator in many aspects, was ahead of his time, displaying concern about the patrimonial dimension and conservation of precious violins. Otto Goldschmidt, soon after Sarasate’s death in 1908, determined to satisfy his wishes, wrote a communication in which the destiny of his instruments was established following Sarasate’s will: ‘These two instruments, as with Paganini’s violin in Genoa, must be conserved for future generations. If one day in the future, all Stradivari’s instruments were to be wrecked by violinists, then at least these two specimens will remain and would serve as models.’ So, the instrument was supposed to be displayed to the public in a glass cabinet, again according to Sarasate’s will. Goldschmidt commissioned Caressa &François to manufacture such a cabinet for this purpose. Sarasate donated 100,000 francs to the then ‘Conservatorio de la Villa de Madrid’ and stated that the revenue from this amount could be used to give an annual prize to the best violin student. But contrary to general belief, he never suggested or allowed the use of the violin by the winner of the Sarasate Competition sponsored by the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid.

Sarasate in 1905, aged 61

The ‘Boissier, Sarasate’ is in the same state as it was in 1909, and it was a very sensible decision to keep it like that: retaining even the dark colouration of the rosin in the bridge area. The violin is still on display in its glass cabinet at the Museum of the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, (Doctor Mata 2, 28012 Madrid).

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