Secret Lives Of Violins - And Berkeley Scholar Who Uncovers Them

If there's one thing Carla Shapreau knows, it's violins. Violins with a history, in particular - instruments that have traveled over centuries among families and throughout wars, sometimes disappearing for decades only to reappear in another country with another name.

A leading cultural property scholar, Shapreau holds several positions at UC Berkeley. She's a curator of the Ashley K. Salz Collection of Stringed Instruments in Berkeley's Department of Music, a senior fellow with the Institute of European Studies and a continuing lecturer at Berkeley Law. But perhaps what she's best known for is spotting a long-lost 316-year-old Stradivarius - after years of painstaking research - that had been plundered at the end of World War II. She identified it among photos from a 2018 exhibition of Stradivarius instruments in Tokyo. The New York Times covered it. So did Le Monde and El País. Documentary filmmakers are now pursuing the rights to the story.

"I am surprised," Shapreau said of the media attention. After all, she's been doing this work for much of her life - she's currently working on a book project about Nazi-era looting of musical material culture, which includes research highlighted by the New York Times in 2012. But this is the first time her expertise has garnered this level of outside fascination.

Shapreau's interest in violins began as a biology student at Humboldt State University, where she heard a fellow student playing the instrument. "I was so struck, I changed my major to music," she said. The school loaned her a violin, and she learned to play. "I was always driven by the depth and beauty of the sound of the instrument and getting as close as I could to the transportive nature of music at its best," she said.

While browsing in the library one day, she came across the 1950 DIY book, You Can Make a "Stradivarius" Violin. "That's how I got the idea," she said. Soon after, a professor introduced her to a violin maker in the hills of Oregon, where she went for a summer apprenticeship. Shapreau made her first violin at age 19, and three years into college, she dropped out to make string instruments full time. She soon became a professional violin maker, working in San Francisco music shops, where she also did repairs and restoration.

Shapreau was compelled by the experience of making something from nothing, and of the creative process that goes into building each instrument. The creation of cultural objects like a violin, she said, "draws from the well of human intellect, experience and emotion and can transport both the artisan and those who interact with the object."

A decade later, Shapreau finished her degree, went to law school and has worked since in intellectual, art and cultural property law. She came to Berkeley in 2007.

Shapreau's involvement with the Salz Collection goes back a long time. As a young violin maker in the 1970s, she visited the collection to study the instruments, and went on to maintain and restore them as an outside expert for 20 years. Appointed as curator in 2015, Shapreau carries out a broad scope of work that involves examination, analysis, conservation, preservation and documentation of the rare Salz Collection instruments, as well as engagement with students, faculty, staff and members of the public, both locally and internationally. She's often engrossed in historical documents, researching the provenance of the collection's antique instruments.

One of several collections of rare, historic and beautifully preserved instruments in the music department, the Salz Collection was donated to Berkeley from 1955 to 1957 by lifelong collector Ansley Salz and his wife Helen, a prominent civil rights advocate. The collection, which has grown over the years through a number of independent donations, today includes around 50 antique violins and violas and dozens of bows, all made by master builders like Grancino, Gagliano, Lupot, Villaume and Amati.

Intended primarily for educational use by Berkeley students and the campus community, the collection never leaves the music department's Morrison and Hertz halls. Berkeley musicians are encouraged to visit, where they can play the instruments and study them for their research.

"Students have a rare opportunity to experience and understand many facets of these instruments," said Shapreau.

The bright, rich tones of the Pressenda

Before coming to Berkeley, sophomore Momoka Yanagisawa knew about the Salz Collection, but never dreamed she'd have a chance to play one of its instruments.

Yanagisawa has been playing violin since she was 4, when her parents started her in private lessons in her hometown of San Jose. She went on to play with the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, one of the most prestigious youth orchestras in the world, and is now the assistant concertmaster of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. A sophomore, she's double-majoring in music and chemical biology.

A few weeks into fall semester, she got an email from Shapreau saying that one of her instructors recommended that Yanagisawa try out a violin from the Salz Collection to level up her performance.

When Yanagisawa arrived at the collection room in Morrison Hall, Shapreau presented three violins - one French violin, a Villaume, and two Italian violins, a Gagliano and a Pressenda. After playing all three, the bright yet rich tone of the 1834 Pressenda stole Yanagisawa's heart. She now has it on loan for at least the rest of the semester.

Whenever she has the time, usually on the weekends, Yanagisawa locks herself in a practice room to spend time with the antique instrument.

"My teacher always says that the violin is going to tell you whenever something's not working," she said. "If you play it naturally, it is going to blossom and tell you what to do. It's like talking to someone - if you try to control what they say, they'll stop speaking. You need to let the violin be free and let it sing in its more natural state."

While playing with the Symphony Orchestra, known for its broad repertoire, Yanagisawa is amazed at how easily the Pressenda can move from the subtle whisper of harmonics in a contemporary piece to the sneaky spiccato and majestic moments in traditional classical music. It can also capture dissonant and jazzy chords in songs like Leonard Bernstein's 1954 Serenade After Plato's Symposium, which Yanagisawa plans to perform for the orchestra's annual concerto audition this weekend.

When students play and learn about these instruments, Shapreau said, it's an opportunity for them to learn about the historical maker and the instrument's path through history - a lesson she tries to impart to others when she's introducing them to the collection.

Bridging sound and spirit across centuries

The Department of Music hosts Bay Area public school students on campus every semester, introducing them to a range of musical offerings, from its free noon concerts to its rare instrument and manuscript collections.

In May of last year, Shapreau joined music professor Nicholas Mathew to share one of the collection's most precious instruments with those students: a stunning viola dating from 1620, made by artisans in the legendary Amati family, who were celebrated violin makers in Cremona, Italy, from the 16th to the 18th century. It's considered a masterpiece of the Cremonese school of violin making from the early Baroque period.

In tracing the history of the viola, Shapreau discovered that it belonged to the famous Mendelssohn family of Berlin, whose members faced various degrees of persecution by the Nazis during WWII. Amid the chaos, someone got the viola out of the country, perhaps cellist Francesco von Mendelssohn, who sold it in 1942 after he immigrated to the United States. In 1971, it was gifted to the Department of Music by philanthropist Leo Eloesser in honor of the late Professor Albert Elkus, who chaired the department from 1935 to 1951.

Learning about where each of the instruments came from, who made them and how they got where they are today enhances our understanding of not only music, but also of social, political and cultural history, explained Shapreau.

"What's so important about so many of these instruments is that the histories they come with are multilayered - and from that, we can learn a lot," she said. "They bring so many worlds into focus for us, from historical to current."

The Salz Collection also draws notable musicians from around the world. In March, renowned violinist and violist Sergey Malov traveled from Berlin to Berkeley to see a highly rare viola pomposa, also known as the violoncello piccolo and violoncello da spalla. It was built in 1731 by Johann Christian Hoffmann, a friend and colleague of Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach. Malov is one of very few players of the instrument, which has five strings and thus greater range than a traditional viola.

"It's the earliest dated instrument of this type by the maker that exists today - it may be that Bach played it," said Shapreau. Some scholars from the 18th century and later even believed Bach invented the instrument, though several contemporary scholars dispute this.

Although Malov wasn't able to play the viola pomposa during his visit - the instrument is in need of substantial restoration - he's eager to return to Berkeley to play Bach's cello suites on the instrument when it's ready.

For Shapreau, taking care of the collection's violins and violas and educating others about their importance is a labor of love. It always has been.

"Each of these objects came from the efforts of the maker who created something that others enjoy and benefit from," Shapreau said. "Throughout the histories of these instruments, some of which have survived several wars and transfers from nation to nation, the maker's spirit and all those who came after are forever a part of the instrument.

"I think that informs the sense of why these objects matter so much, in addition to their sonic and aesthetic beauty."