“ …it is 52 years since I met Bronislaw Huberman [and] I shiver … I knew I was in the presence of a great artist, but I learned that Huberman was a great man, too … . Huberman was flabbergasted at what was happening in [Germany] a country that prided itself on its advanced culture. One day, a musician was a respected member of society, and the next day he was in the gutter, helpless. It was then that the idea came to Huberman to create a new orchestra in Palestine. I was an eyewitness to these great events.”

These words were spoken by David Grunschlag (“Grunschlag Reminisces: ‘We Always Kept Going,’” Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, 8/24/1986), a founding member and concertmaster of the Palestine Orchestra, a protégé of Huberman, and the father of Dorit Straus, Chubb’s World Wide Fine Art Manager, who organized the March concert in Vienna.

Bronislaw Huberman – An Enduring Legacy
Bronislaw Huberman, born in 1882 in Czestochowa, Poland, began to study the violin at the age of six. Recognizing the young musician’s talent, friends urged the family to go to Germany, where Huberman would find better instructors. In June of 1892 the family arrived in Berlin intending that Bronislaw study under the renowned Josef Joachim, a violinist and composer for whom Brahms wrote his only violin concerto in 1878. Though Joachim at first refused to hear Bronislaw play – many young violinists at the time were touted as “virtuosos,” – Huberman’s father persisted, and Joachim was ultimately stunned by the 9 year-old’s talent.

Huberman continued to study in Berlin and began to tour Europe. It was in Paris that he and the “Gibson Ex-Huberman” Stradivarius (valued at 20,000 lire in 1895; today worth over $5 million) became an inseparable pair; it was gifted to him in 1895 by Polish Count Zamoyski, a wealthy music lover who immediately recognized Huberman’s talents. One year later – at the mere age of 14 – Huberman played the Brahms violin concerto on it – to Jonhannes Brahms himself.

Bronislaw Huberman grew to adulthood within the ranks of Europe’s musical elite, but the darkening political climate in Europe during the 1930s fostered an increase in anti-Semitism, and a disdain for avant-garde creative pursuits. Hitler sought to destroy all visual art which he deemed “degenerate,” and the musical arts suffered as well, with many prominent musicians forced to resign from their posts. Foreseeing Hitler’s plan of destruction, Huberman made several trips to Palestine during the 1930s. Though not a self-proclaimed Zionist, he sought “to unite the desire of the country for an orchestra with the desire of the Jewish musicians for a country.” Investing countless hours, he pursued the establishment of an orchestral center in Palestine, to which Jewish European musicians could escape the rising Nazi terror. In 1932 Huberman published Vaterland Europa (Fatherland Europe), in which he remarked presciently, “Those who help us, do not only altruistically…but they protect themselves and their dear ones from the destruction of property, from poverty, from collective murder, and from their own ruin” (“IPO History,” American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra).

In 1936 Huberman transformed his dream into reality. He resigned as a professor of music from the Vienna State Academy and established the Palestine Orchestra in Tel Aviv. The famed Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, another vociferous opponent of Fascism, conducted the inaugural concert. Huberman also provided 75 European musicians with immigration certificates and subsidized the cost of their relocation to Palestine, effectively saving them from destruction at the hands of Hitler. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Palestine Orchestra became the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, which continues to attract musicians of the highest caliber from around the world.

The “Gibson Ex-Huberman” Stradivarius
In the same exhilarating year that Huberman created the Palestine Orchestra and saved the lives of countless musicians, he would lose his “partner” of 41 years. The tumultuous legacy of Huberman’s Stradivarius, known as the “Gibson Ex-Huberman,” begins in 1713, when the instrument was made by the Italian master craftsman Antonio Stradivari. Stradivari’s violins are commonly named for their owners, and the sobriquet “Gibson” represents the instrument’s previous owner, English violinist George Alfred Gibson.

In fact, the violin’s provenance includes two thefts, the first occurring in 1919 when the violin was stolen from Huberman’s Austrian hotel room, but quickly recovered. The second theft resulted in a much more sensational tale. During a 1936 performance at Carnegie Hall, Huberman left the “Gibson Ex-Huberman” in his dressing room while he played his Guarnerius violin on stage. While Huberman was performing, his secretary noticed that the Gibson was missing. Despite an active police search, the violin would not be seen again until 50 years later. Huberman was devastated. He died in 1947 never having known the fate of his prized violin. His only compensation was the £8,000 ($30,000) he received from Lloyds of London.

In 1985, 49 years after the theft and miles away in Connecticut, Julian Altman, a former nightclub violinist imprisoned for child molestation confessed to his wife, Marcelle Hall, on his deathbed that he carried with him a dark secret. He instructed Marcelle to open a tattered violin case stored in the couple’s home. There, Hall found newspaper clippings recounting the theft. Altman had not purchased the violin for $100 as he had claimed. Rather, coached by his mother on how to conceal a violin under his coat, and having befriended the guards at Carnegie Hall, he had effortlessly slipped into Huberman’s dressing room and absconded with the precious instrument (“History of Joshua’s Violin,” Joshua Bell Official Website.

It was not until 1987 that Marcelle Hall returned the violin to Lloyds of London in exchange for a $263,000 finder’s fee: the “Gibson Ex-Huberman” had finally been recovered. The violin was subsequently purchased by violinist Joshua Bell. He will play it at the upcoming concert in Vienna.

As a footnote to a sordid tale, Sherry Altman Schoenwetter, the daughter of thief Julian Altman, has since sued her stepmother, claiming that the $263,000 finder’s fee Hall received should be included as part of Altman’s estate. (“Stolen Stradivarius Divides a Family,” The New York Times, 11/6/96).

Stolen and Missing Stradivarius Instruments

The recovery of the “Gibson Ex-Huberman” represents a rare occurrence in the realm of stolen instruments crafted by Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737). Of the approximately 1,200 violins, celli and other string instruments produced by Antonio, the most highly regarded member of the Stradivari family, some 600 have survived. Stradivarius violins, especially those produced during the craftsman’s “Golden Period” (1700-1720), are prized for their superior craftsmanship and ethereal sound, the latter of which has puzzled music critics, craftsmen and scientists for centuries. Two scientists recently proposed that the unique sound derives from the wood Stradivarius used. The low temperatures present during the European “Little Ice Age” (1645-1670) caused slower tree growth, which resulted in denser wood across Europe. (John Pickrell, “Did ‘Little Ice Age’ Create Stradivarius Violins’ Famous Tone?” National Geographic News, 1/7/04).

Instruments produced by Antonio today fetch millions of dollars, making them a target for numerous thefts. According to Stradivari Invest, an investment company focusing on rare stringed instruments, values for Stradivarius instruments have steadily increased by 10-15% per annum. Recent highlights include the sale of the 1714 Dolphin Stradivari for $5.5 million, and the La Pucelle Stradivari of 1709 for $6 million. As of this writing, no fewer than twenty of the approximately 600 extant instruments are known or assumed to be stolen. These include the 1714 “Le Maurien,” reported stolen in the United States in April 2002; the 1734 “Ames,” stolen in the United Kingdom in the 1980s; and the 1732 “Herkules,” reported stolen in Russia in 1908 and still missing.

While no other recorded case of theft quite rivals that of the “Gibson Ex-Huberman,” a 2004 case in Los Angeles evidences the precarious fates shared by these cherished instruments. A woman in Los Angeles found an abandoned cello and asked her boyfriend, a cabinet maker, to either fix the instrument, or convert it into a CD case. Upon seeing a television news report she realized that the instrument was a recently stolen 1684 Stradivarius cello, valued at approximately $3.5 million. That story had a happy ending: the woman turned the instrument over to the authorities, who returned it to Daniel Rothmuller, its cellist of 25 years and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s associate principal cellist (“Stolen Stradivarius almost ended up as a CD Holder,” USA Today, 5/19/2004). Unfortunately, the fates of many other stolen and missing Stradivarius instruments remain uncertain.

Conclusion
More than a generation separates Bronislaw Huberman and Joshua Bell. While they never had the opportunity to meet, the two musicians remain inextricably linked through the prized instrument they shared: it has born witness to Huberman’s trials and triumphs, and continues to preserve his enduring artistic and philanthropic legacy.