Mozart’s Violin

The Stainer Violin

Overview

The instrument presented here was made around 1670 in Absam by Jacob Stainer, the seventeenth-century Austrian luthier. His instruments were the best known and most sought after throughout the eighteenth century, and before 1800 cost twice as much as a good Italian instrument (an Amati). Nearly all the great soloists of the period owned a Stainer (Bach, Tartini, Locatelli, Geminiani). As an aside, in Mozart's time a J. Stainer violin cost around 10,000 florins

It was in this context that Prince Lobkowicz, as a reward for the success of the performances of The Marriage of Figaro (whose first performances were given at the Burgtheater in Vienna, where P. Wranitzky had just been appointed director), gave Mozart a violin by this luthier in Prague in 1787. The violin is said to have been given to him because of a historical parallel Prince Lobkowicz drew with Mozart's own life: the instrument had been made while Jacob Stainer was in prison for his Lutheran activities, symbolizing, in the Prince's eyes, a desperate search for freedom. The story as told until now has been that Mozart actually owned only a later, eighteenth-century German instrument (a Klotz) bearing a spurious Jacob Stainer label — copies and forgeries of this luthier's work already being widespread at the time.

The probate inventory taken after Mozart's death does not list the Stainer, only an Anton Walter piano, a viola, and a Klotz violin with a false Stainer label — instruments now on display at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The story might have remained fixed in this form were it not for the discovery of this instrument, which had belonged to a virtuoso violinist and composer now largely forgotten, Anton Wranitzky, who owned this violin.

Anton Wranitzky, a friend and pupil of Mozart, was the brother of Paul Wranitzky, secretary of the Tonkünstler-Sozietät, the well-known composers' society whose president was Antonio Salieri. After Mozart's death, Prince Lobkowicz asked Anton Wranitzky to buy back from Constanze Mozart the Stainer violin he had previously given him. Constanze would later also call on Paul and Anton Wranitzky to negotiate the sale of Mozart's manuscripts to, among others, the publisher André of Offenbach.

Wanting to acquire an instrument that had belonged to W. A. Mozart, André — again through the Wranitzky brothers — obtained a dalla Costa violin, which likewise did not appear in the probate inventory (the dalla Costa is now owned by the Stiftung Mozarteum and is on display). Wranitzky, on becoming Kapellmeister to the Princes Lobkowicz on 1 January 1797, asked to buy the violin of the man whose pupil and friend he had been.

The transaction was concluded on 6 March 1797 and appears in the Lobkowicz family's registers as the sale of the "Mozart Stainer instrument, sold." The violin subsequently belonged to a number of celebrated violinists whose musical lineage traces back to the Austrian school, of which Wranitzky was one of the founders. The people involved, the probabilities, and the research carried out all support the conviction that this instrument was indeed "the property of W. A. Mozart."

Characteristics

The instrument is a violin by Jacob Stainer, made in Absam around 1670–1675, bearing a Jacob Stainer label reading "made in Absam" in [1]65_ (final digit illegible in the original).

The instrument measures 35.4 cm.

It received a Viennese-style setup around 1785.

It bears the mark "WRANITZKI" on the back, and inside, a restoration signature by Gand of Paris, dated 18__ (year illegible).

A dendrochronological dating (presented at Mundomusica Cremona in October 2014) shows a last measured growth ring dated 1666, from wood originating in the Obergurgl region (about 20 km from Absam).