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Searching for a Cello

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Back in the U.S., Jeff agreed to trade in his own cello -- a 1905 William Hill & Sons valued at $30,000 to $40,000 -- and wired the rest in two payments to the UK. His symphony schedule was tight, so he sent his wife, Wendy Smith-Butler, a cellist in the Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera orchestras, to retrieve the new purchase. The couple spent $800 on two round-trip tickets: one for Wendy and one for a cello. She rode with Jeff's old cello from Houston to London.

When the London dealer laid eyes on Jeff's cello, he didn't like its weathered varnish, among other things, so he demanded more money in addition to the trade-in. Having renegotiated the price, Wendy carried Jeff's new cello back to the U.S. to a well-reputed shop in Chicago to have it appraised.

To Jeff and Wendy, the Italian cello's papers looked impeccable. Two experts in Chicago took a good look. Then two others at a different shop examined it. All three had bad news. They felt Jeff's cello was of German, not Italian, origin. Instead of $130,000, they valued it at less than $40,000. Even when Shaw first saw it, he said, "It looks like a German cello."

Jeff and Wendy were devastated: Besides having their money, the shop had Jeff's cello, too. Though the English expert stood by his initial opinion, Jeff begged to renege on the deal. By this time, the London expert who had authenticated the instrument was livid. The shop proprietor feared for his reputation, so he agreed to refund the money and return Jeff's cello. All Jeff had to do was burn up one more round-trip ticket. Two weeks later -- and another $850 poorer -- he could have kissed his old cello.

Des, like every other serious cello shopper, is painfully aware of a similar controversy surrounding an instrument more far more notorious than Jeff's. A violin called the Messiah, supposedly crafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 and believed to be his masterwork, has recently been labeled a fake.

Last century, violinist Delphin Alard coined the instrument's name after asking its owner, Luigi Tarisio, if he could lay eyes on it. Tarisio had bragged of the violin's beauty but wouldn't bring it out in the open. Alard likened the fiddle to a messiah we all wait for but never see.

The instrument still sits behind sealed glass in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, and hasn't been played in 100 years. But last March, Stewart Pollens, an associate conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City told The Wall Street Journal that he'd stumbled onto an inconsistency in the violin's f-holes while scrutinizing it two years ago for a book he was writing. His questions, and a wood analysis by expert Peter Klein, led Pollens to discredit the Messiah's pedigree. Not surprisingly, the Hill family of violin dealers, who loaned the instrument to the English museum, have called in their own experts.

The moral of the story is obvious: When even the Messiah is in doubt, how can Des possibly know whom to trust?

For now, Des treats his chocolate-brown Guadagnini with care. After symphony gigs, when he drives to the restaurant Tasca, the Guad sits in the front seat next to him. Transporting it in the trunk or back seat is a no-no. Fellow cellist Bob Deutsch recoils in horror at the thought: "I'd sooner put my guest in the trunk than my cello."

Likewise, most symphony cellists fly with their instruments in the seat beside them. (Stories abound of student musicians, too poor to pay for the extra ticket, who checked their cellos and saw them splintered by baggage handlers.) Des figures that 80 percent of the time toting the Guadagnini to concerts is a hassle. Although FAA rules on carrying large instruments are standard for all airlines, most employees don't have a clue what they are. He has even been told, on his way to a concert, that regulations prevent the cello from going on the plane -- and has had to exchange his tickets for last-minute seats on another airline.

For the most part, the Guad also stays indoors, out of the Houston humidity. Des, Bob and the rest of the cello section keep throw-down cellos for playing outside, or for hauling around in their car trunks. Des inherited his backup cello from wife Alison, who paid $250 Canadian dollars for it, the bow, the case and a stack of sheet music. Bob's second cello is an orangish Chinese number that looks exquisite but sounds as if it's talking through its nose. Chris bought his second cello for $250 at a pawn shop.

Backstage recently at a Pops rehearsal in Jones Hall, several string players saw Arlington, Texas, violin shop owner Wayne Burak show off a carbon-fiber cello. It's perhaps the epitome of American instrument making: tough, cheap and high-tech, made of the same carbon-fiber material as F-117 fighter jets ("the Stealth cello," the symphony guys call it.) It retails for a minimum of $2,500, comes in a variety of colors (nail-polish red!) and can withstand far more than humidity. Burak, showing off, intentionally dropped one on the ground. The cellists were impressed. For a delicate wooden cello, the fall could have been fatal.

To help string players protect their instruments, the orchestra pays part of their insurance premiums, covering the instruments for damage up to $40,000. Des kicks in several hundred more every year to protect his Guad against normal wear and tear. It has been repaired a couple of times since he has owned it, once after a prop man knocked it over in the Wortham Center orchestra pit.

Instrument insurance also covers the Guadagnini for loss. Des doesn't know what its current value is, but he suspects it's several times what he paid for it in 1984. "Prices have gone crazy," Shaw explains; Japanese and Korean investors entered the market in the 1980s, and prices soared when the dollar weakened against the yen.

"When you have a cello worth the price of your house, you want to make sure it's not suddenly gone," Des says. He knows one cellist at the symphony who stows his 1786 Carcassi in a 300-pound gun case bolted to the floor of his house. Des doesn't think he's crazy.

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