One night, many years ago, I was having dinner at home—a Saturday, and as luck would have it, my birthday—and I made the mistake of answering my phone. Rather than a family member with congratulations, it was a violinist in near hysterics. He lived just around the corner; there was no putting him off. When he arrived and took out his violin—a lovely Gagliano—the reason for his distress was readily apparent. Most of the violin was in his right hand, but the left side of the top, from the middle of the soundhole to the edge, was in his other.

After 250 years, how did the two happen to become separated?

He had a recording date the next day; he was checking the violin for openings. It looked a bit loose at the lower edge, under the chinrest; he wiggled it, and suddenly—there it was, in his hand. Or so he said. It turns out that he hadn’t just wiggled it to see if it was open. He finally admitted that he had, well, you know, tried to glue it himself.

He hadn’t seen the crack in the top. . . .

But I only got the whole story when I pulled up the lid to glue the top back together. My professional violinist (and amateur repair person) apparently had his own soundpost setter, too. The inside of the top—soft, unprotected spruce—had been so gouged by the sharp edges of the end of the soundpost that the violin now required a soundpost patch. He was not alone; after the celebrated violinist Mischa Elman died, his Strad had to be patched, too.

Maybe it’s just me, but there are a few things I wouldn’t try—like going out onstage to play a Bach partita, or doing my own dental surgery. Repairing and adjusting a violin requires as high a level of skill as playing it. Only after three years of violin-making school was I admitted to the repair shop and taught to do the most basic maintenance—and it was a lot longer before I was given a six-figure instrument to work on.

Full Article By James N. McKean