Tom (a banker with a violin background) and Cheri (the first chair in the Louisville Orchestra) were politely amused when an elderly community member remarked that he had an old, valuable Italian violin. But when he passes and the estate is examined, the violin is indeed found to be a 200-year-old Cremonese masterwork—sparking a journey of discovery and appreciation for these acoustic machines, as well as the culture that created them.
Part investigation, part travel memoir, Thomas Walter Kelley’s MADE IN ITALY: Strings Attached—Four Seasons Of An Italian Violin, has the warm, conversational character of a story told by an excited amateur. Before his career in banking, Tom studied the violin, so he isn’t entirely new to this world. However, he begins the text with little knowledge of lutherie or history—making him an informed but accessible narrator for a general reader. The text evinces both the tactile pleasure of playing (in moments that remark with appreciative awe of how physically light a well-made instrument is, despite the tremendous tension it endures) and the compassionate warmth of discovering the humanity in history (especially following the career of Antonio Vivaldi, whose charitable work included conducting a small orchestra of orphan girls in Venice). Sometimes the text leans a bit heavily into the popular mythos of the violin (“Perhaps it’s just my sentimentality,” the narrator admits), but Tom is a determined investigator, and his appreciation for fine violins always has a bedrock of both historical data and expert opinion. In the end, he even offers a brief appraisal of Golden Age violins purely as investment objects!
MADE IN ITALY does, however, struggle to focus. Its biggest failing is the interposition of old travel stories—episodes in which Tom and Cheri vacation in Italy, adding little to the story of the Cremonese violin (which should be the spine of the text). In a few places, the narrator apologizes for flights of fancy regarding the instrument’s early history (as there is no record of it before its arrival in the United States), but these are mostly posited rather than explored. For instance, MADE IN ITALY never rises to the level of creative nonfiction or historical fiction, in which it might have more roundly imagined the sights, sounds, and smells of a lutherie shop in early modern Cremona. Imaginative explorations like these would better advance the central story than touristy reminiscences about Montepulciano or Bologna. Fully unrelated matter—such as raising a child with special needs—has enough meat to deserve its own treatment, rather than being a narrative cul-de-sac in a book about violins.
There is some unexplored matter in the central argument as well. The main arc considers the nature of ownership over such rare and specific objects, but does so from a very privileged position: though deep reflection and some sacrifice are part of the story, and it would be wrong to begrudge a violinist the fortune of playing such a violin, not every deserving musician has a banker spouse who can pay six figures down for a centuries-old Cremonese masterwork. MADE IN ITALY is spot-on when it notes that musician salaries are nowhere near enough to afford such instruments, and that these violins are instead owned by consortiums of owners or investors. However, because the text buys so heavily into the mythos of these instruments and the almost-spiritual relationship between an instrument and its player (for instance: “I like to think that when violinists pass, they leave a bit of their soul in the violin”), it neglects to consider that these joint ownership structures have an egalitarian effect: they make it possible for many different musicians (and audiences!) to enjoy the playing of unique historical artifacts for one or a few years at a time, instead of a single lucky individual monopolizing that artifact for a longer stretch. Especially in the context of the meandering storytelling about repeated trips to Italy, the overall effect is less sympathetic than it perhaps deserves to be.
Nonetheless, MADE IN ITALY is an accessible and personable primer on the world of rare violins. It will inform and entertain most readers in equal measure.
The work of an enthusiastic amateur and a loving husband, Thomas Walter Kelley’s MADE IN ITALY: Strings Attached—Four Seasons Of An Italian Violin, is an enjoyable effusion of historical detail and aesthetic judgment.
~Dan Accardi for IndieReader