Wielding Rare Instruments as Weapons in a Power Play

The rich and well-connected have gathered in the plush, sunken living room of former Motorola Chief Executive Robert Galvin and his wife, Mary, for an unusual soiree.

In a suburban mansion adorned with oil paintings by Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, a dozen listeners sip champagne and whisper to one another as a 25-year-old violinist plays a mini-recital. Unlike most audiences, these listeners have paid nothing to hear the violin phenom, while the violinist has paid thousands for the privilege of giving the performance. The emerging virtuoso paid for round-trip airfare from his home in New York, accommodations in Chicago and other costs.

This is the price of borrowing a great violin from the Stradivari Society, which the Chicago violin dealership Bein & Fushi established in 1987. Though conceived as a way to help young artists use multimillion-dollar fiddles, the society wields power in today’s rare violin trade, which leaves rising musicians chasing the world’s top instruments and beholden to the wealthy investors and dealers who own them.

“It’s a privilege to play a violin like this--it’s a life-altering experience,” said Soovin Kim, who flew from Manhattan to entertain the Galvins and their social circle. He played a 1735 Guarneri del Gesu known as the “Sennhauser,” on loan from the Stradivari Society.

“But these instruments are getting so expensive,” added Kim, “that pretty soon no musician will be able to afford them, and everyone will have to borrow the way I do.” Although The Stradivari Society has put top instruments into the hands of such rising stars as Midori and Joshua Bell, the players pay dearly in dollars and in the emotional toll of serving at the beck and call of the lenders, as required by the Stradivari Society.

Told to curry favor with the wealthy owner of the instruments they are borrowing and instructed to promote the Stradivari Society wherever they perform or record, the young borrowers become international marketing tools for Bein & Fushi. Compared to the venerable violin firms that have been in the rare instrument trade for centuries, Robert Bein and Geoffrey Fushi are relative newcomers, having gone into business in the mid-1970s. But the Chicagoans quickly established one of the world’s most commercially successful dealerships.

Through its Stradivari Society, Bein & Fushi has placed itself at the fulcrum of the rare violin trade, with brilliant but financially hard-pressed young violinists on one side, wealthy investors on the other, and the dealership controlling the flow of instruments between the two.

merging violinists typically lack the funds to purchase instruments worth six or seven figures. The Stradivari Society affords them a rare opportunity to play otherwise unattainable Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu fiddles.

Bein & Fushi likens the Stradivari Society to the Medici family of the Italian Renaissance, which nurtured literature and the arts. “The philosophy of patronage--as practiced by the Medicis and other great individuals and families through history--enabled the arts to flourish in the past,” notes a Bein & Fushi publication. “This noble practice is thriving today at the Stradivari Society.”

But unlike other organizations in the United States and Europe that lend instruments to gifted young players, the Stradivari Society is strictly a for-profit venture that helps Bein & Fushi sell high-priced instruments, advertise its shop and win favorable publicity. For the investor, the Stradivari Society offers a chance to meet tomorrow’s musical stars, to decide who gets an instrument and who doesn’t, and to host intimate musical gatherings for friends.

“I believe we have helped many young players,” said Mary Galvin.

On this evening, the Galvins have gathered friends in the living room, an opulent space fitted with centuries-old wood paneling imported from a chateau in France. The Galvins purchased several precious instruments and helped decide which budding virtuosos were granted the privilege of borrowing them. After introductory remarks, Kim steps in front of the grand piano, places the inimitable 1735 Guarneri del Gesu under his chin and begins to play vignettes by Henryk Wieniawski and Fritz Kreisler. “This is the way to hear music,” Bein said after the recital.

Moreover, this world of privilege makes the Stradivari Society possible. When Bein & Fushi has a valuable fiddle to sell, the firm approaches a wealthy patron such as Mary Galvin to buy the instrument and recommends that the violin be placed in the Stradivari Society. All insurance and maintenance fees for the instrument are paid by the young musician borrowing the instrument.

“The amount is minuscule in relation to the gift--the artist should pay some amount of money,” said Bein. The Stradivari Society also requires three yearly maintenance checks on the instrument--at Bein & Fushi’s Chicago office.

Together, the insurance and maintenance costs run the young musicians several thousand dollars a year.

For the wealthy owner, membership in the Stradivari Society offers an additional perk: The recipient of a Stradivari Society violin must play three free performances per year for the owner of the instrument or for the society. The young musician picks up expenses for travel, accommodations and accompanist. “At one point, they tried to get me to play a concert in Egypt, and it was at a time when I don’t think anybody wanted to go to Egypt, and I would have had to pay the expenses,” said Elissa Koljonen, a former recipient of a Stradivari Society violin.

Koljonen refused to go and does not know if this was a factor in the Stradivari Society asking her for the return of her instrument in 1997 after her loan had been renewed. “When you have to add up the expenses of going to play these performances, and you’re also paying the insurance on the instrument, it’s a lot,” she said. “But you can’t complain.”

This is literally true, for in the Stradivari Society Artists’ Guide, Bein & Fushi has strict rules on what an artist can and cannot say. Guidelines instruct the recipient to phone donors about every six weeks: “The Stradivari Society will keep track of these phone calls both to ensure that they are made and to stay abreast of patrons’ needs and wants.... It is also important to note that these phone calls should consist of only ‘smooth seas and good sailing.’ In other words, it is essential that the patrons not be exposed to any negativity or problems the recipient may be having.”

Corey Cerovsek, a violinist from Bloomington, Ind., learned that “smooth seas and good sailing” are not always guaranteed.

Four years ago, Cerovsek, who was playing the “Sennhauser” Guarneri del Gesu on loan from the Stradivari Society, asked to borrow a 1742 Guarneri del Gesu named for Henryk Wieniawski, a great virtuoso in the 19th century. Because Cerovsek was recording music of Wieniawski, he thought it would be ideal to use the instrument for the CD, in 1997.

Bein & Fushi agreed. “They said, ‘Fine, Mrs. Galvin said it’s fine if you borrow it for two weeks,”’ recalled Cerovsek, 28. “So I came up to Chicago, swapped the ‘Sennhauser’ for the ‘Wieniawski’ and left.... And on the day of my first performance with the symphony--Sept. 4, 1997--Geoffrey Fushi calls to tell me he has to get the violin back immediately because he has a buyer somewhere in South America....

“This was very traumatic, switching a violin the day of a concert and just before the performance,” said Cerovsek.

Mary Galvin intervened and Cerovsek was able to keep the violin until last year.

When a young musician has a Stradivari Society fiddle, he is required to tout the virtues of the Bein & Fushi organization in media interviews.

The violinists are instructed to “generously credit the Stradivari Society in every concert program, recording and any other form of media coverage,” notes the Artist’s Guide.

Until May 1971, an owner of rare violins could not bank on getting rich quickly, if at all. The prices of even the best instruments were too low and the commissions too meager. But the sale 30 years ago of the 1721 “Lady Blunt” Stradivari for $201,000, roughly three times the amount that experts expected it would fetch, showed that the values of rare fiddles were taking flight.

Prices rocketed and the escalating values turned the world of rare fiddles upside-down, with Stradivaris and Guarneris in play not only as concert instruments but also as investment vehicles.

Meanwhile, the power of dealers and investors only will grow and organizations such as the Stradivari Society will loom large.

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Howard Reich and William Gaines are staff writers at the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune company.