Lost and Found: Frank Almond’s Strad Violin

Reports of the theft of a world famous violin from MSO concertmaster and St. Robert parent Frank Almond recently rang through media outlets worldwide.  On January 27th, 2014, three robbers stunned Almond when he was leaving a performance at Wisconsin Lutheran College and stole his violin.  Almond was borrowing the violin from an anonymous owner.  Soon after the discovery of the theft, the suspects discarded the violin’s case in the Washington Park area.  On February 6th, the violin was recovered by the police in a suitcase in an attic on the east side of Milwaukee.  After recovering the violin, the police carefully traced one of the subjects back to the taser gun he had previously purchased and used against Almond.  Three culprits have been identified and arrested, one known for art theft in the past.  After its recovery, the violin was inspected and found to be undamaged, and Almond has recovered from the shock.

Why did this theft receive worldwide media coverage?  The particular violin that Almond possessed, known as the Lipinski Stradivarius, is a delicately crafted, 300-year-old violin that was created by Antonio Stradivari, a celebrated violin maker.  These instruments are worth millions because of their age and rarity and they are among the most famous instruments in the world.  Only a couple of hundred are still in existence, and publicized records of their whereabouts are kept.  After the robbery, the violin was listed in Wikipedia’s record as “Stolen in an armed robbery on January 27, 2014 and subsequently recovered.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stradivarius_instruments, scroll to “Lipinski.”)

In an interview conducted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Almond described the Lipinski as being shaped a specific way that many Stradivarius violins from the same time period were.  Another peculiar feature that sets the Lipinski apart from most other violins is the attachment of smaller pieces of wood to make a larger back piece of the Strad.  Almond states that Stradivari didn’t have a piece of wood large enough to craft the whole back of the violin, so he had to add wooden extensions to complete the violin.  Almond enjoys playing the violin because it is capable of producing sounds with enormous volume and because it has no “dead spots,” places where the violin cannot play very well.  When Almond describes playing notes quickly on the violin, he says that “The notes just kind of tumble out.”  (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXz3TKvwhkM)

The question is why someone stole the violin from Almond in the first place.  Stradivarius instruments are valuable, but only to certain people.  They are valuable financially to those who wish and can afford to own them, and valued for their usefulness and beauty to those who play them.  If the thieves wished to sell the violin, it would be extremely difficult to do it secretly, or for its publicized value.  And only an extremely talented and established musician, such as Mr. Almond, could understand and utilize the sound the the violin is capable of producing.  Whether the thieves in this case considered all this before stealing the violin may never be known.

 

 

 

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