Bronislaw Huberman, Nocturne Op.9 No.2 (Chopin)

Bronislaw Huberman (Poland 1882-1947) was the most individual violinist ever to record. Huberman’s admirers included Brahms, Dvorak, Joachim, Furtwängler, and Toscanini. In January 1896 Brahms wrote a musical dedication to Huberman after hearing him perform his violin concerto Today, in an age of standardization, his playing constantly challenges our expectations. Huberman’s 1713 “Gibson“ Stradivarius was twice stolen. It was stolen from his hotel room in Vienna in 1919, but was soon recovered. It was stolen a second time from Huberman’s dressing room during his only Carnegie Hall performance of 1936. He collected $30,000 from Lloyd’s of London. A 20-year old thief kept the instrument for half a century and confessed on his death bed. His wife received a $263,000 finder’s fee from Lloyd’s of London. In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the $263,000 should have been included in the thief’s estate and inherited by his only heir, his daughter. By then, however, the thief’s wife had exhausted all of the money. Lloyd’s sold the Gibson Strad in 1988 for $1.2 million. It was a case of life imitating art when the Gibson was recently purchased by a young superstar violinist, Joshua Bell for $4 million. Bell had played the violin for the sound track of “The Red Violin,“ a movie following a violin through the lives that it touches.