STRAD TALE HAS HAPPY ENDING
Stolen treasure makes stunning return
No two Strads are alike, they say, but the violin that Mira Wang reintroduced to the world Monday night is truly special. It was gone for decades, stolen after a concert in 1980, and its owner, Roman Totenberg, died in 2012 thinking it would never be seen again.
At a few minutes after 8 p.m., Wang proved her beloved teacher wrong.
“May he hear the violin tonight,” she told an audience of 200 people at a private club in Manhattan, and then launched into the Ysaÿe Violin Sonata No. 2.
Wang, 49, a masterful soloist who emigrated from China in the 1980s to study with Totenberg, performed a movement that seemed scripted for the instrument, the moment and the player, with shifting tempos, dashing runs and delicate, crying notes. It’s not a piece you can hide behind — and she didn’t.
When Wang was done, she declared, “I’m holding the Totenberg Ames Stradivarius in my hands.”
Such a declaration would have seemed unthinkable as recently as two years ago. Philip Johnson, a talented but erratic younger player, stole the violin after a performance by Totenberg in Cambridge, Mass. He seemed to have gotten away with the crime.
Among the 200 people at the concert were three sisters in the second row: Nina, Jill and Amy Totenberg last watched their father perform on the Stradivarius during the waning days of the Carter administration.
The sisters plan to sell the Stradivarius, but want to make sure that it ends up in the hands of a player instead of tucked away by a wealthy collector. And first, they wanted it to be heard in public again. They knew exactly who should unveil it.
Wang met Totenberg in 1986 at a competition in Poland. With the help of a translator, she wrote Totenberg a letter that led to her being awarded a scholarship to Boston University, where he taught. Wang showed up in the United States not speaking any English and with a rickety violin. Totenberg loaned her another instrument, and he and his wife, Melanie, gave her a place to stay. At some point, he told her about the stolen Stradivarius.
“He told me of the suspicions, of who took it,” Wang said before the concert. “But of course, it had been so many years, he thought probably it was long gone. He didn’t like to talk about that. Because it would bring him pain, for sure.”
Over the years, she remained close, seeing Totenberg every few months and talking to him often. A few days before he died in 2012, she made the trip to Newton, Mass., to sit by his bed and play Bach and Brahms.
“I just wanted him to listen to some music and bring him peace,” Wang said.