The Library of Congress' Stringed Instrument Collection
The US Library of Congress Stringed Instrument Collection is a remarkable cultural asset held in the public trust
1: 1727 ‘Cassavetti’ Strad viola 2: 1700 ‘Ward’ Strad violin 3: 1704 ‘Betts’ Strad violin 4: 1690 ‘Tuscan Medici’ Strad viola 5: 1697 ‘Castlebarco’ Strad cello
No one knows the date of Antonio Stradivari’s birth, but the world does know the date that he died: December 18, 1737. To mark the bicentennial of that occasion, exactly 200 years later, on December 18, 1937, Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress presented a concert performed on a quartet of Stradivari instruments.
The concert was broadcast live on the radio.
The quartet of instruments used at that event, plus a third Stradivari violin and a fine Tourte bow for each instrument, were a gift to the American people from philanthropist Gertrude Clarke Whittall. On that day in 1937, in her only radio address, she said, “This collection of instruments belongs to every one of you, for they are given to our government to hold and protect forever. They may be heard in concerts held in the library, and through the medium of the radio, by an even larger audience. If the appreciation and enjoyment of music in America will be advanced thereby, the purpose of my gift will have been fulfilled.”
Whittall’s Strads were never meant to be museum pieces, though she built a handsome (and fireproof) pavilion adjacent to the concert hall for their display. Her gift included an endowment to fund free public concerts and—most unusual—money for maintaining the instruments in top playing condition. These instruments were intended to be heard. And so, Stradivari is still honored at the library with an anniversary quartet concert. This year, the concert is December 17. The concert is free, if you’re quick enough to get a ticket. (This year’s tickets for the Borromeo String Quartet performance on the instruments will be available November 9 at Ticketmaster.com.) Though they rarely, if ever, leave the building, instruments from the collection also appear onstage throughout the year at the invitation of the music division staff.
The Library of Congress stringed-instrument collection is often overshadowed by the more highly publicized collection at the Smithsonian Institution (see “Castle Made of Sand,” page 38).
The library’s Cremonese collection—a national treasure—has grown from Whittall’s original quartet, but remains small and select. Each instrument and bow is a beautifully preserved example of its maker’s best work, with celebrity pedigrees and ironclad provenance. Three violins made between 1699 and 1705 illustrate Stradivari’s evolution from his long pattern to a broader, more powerful model. The two Strad violas are among only 12 in the world, while the 1697 “Castelbarco” cello is one of only three Stradivari cellos that were never cut down to a more manageable size. Both of the del Gesù violins were made of the same wood in the same year, 1730—one of them was violin legend Fritz Kreisler’s concert instrument.
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