350-year-old cello in town. Hush! It’s said to be worth $20 million

MUMBAI: An extraordinary event awaits music lovers in the city this evening: a sublime masterpiece played on an ethereally rare instrument passed down the centuries from one great cellist to another. On a crass note, the

cello

in question is said to cost nearly $20 million.

When the Hungarian

Istvan Vardai

starts bowing his

Stradivarius in Dvorak

’s Cello Concerto No. 2 at the NCPA today, the audience will listen to a musical heirloom whose most famous owner was the celebrated English cellist Jacqueline du Pre.

Vardai’s instrument, called Du Pre-Harrell after its two most illustrious possessors (the other being the great American cellist Lynn Harrell), was made by

Antonio Stradivari

in 1673, the only cello the Italian luthier, considered the greatest-ever maker of stringed instruments, crafted that year. “It’s a majestic cello and has a fantastic sound,” Vardai told TOI. The 31-year-old cellist, a rising star in the world of Western classical music, was granted an extended loan of the instrument last year after it was bought by an anonymous benefactor in an auction. “It is a bridge between the traditions of (Nicolo) Amati and Stradivari (Amati’s most famous student). By that I mean it has the (sonic) volume and size of an Amati instrument, and the clarity of sound and fine craftsmanship for which Stradivari is so renowned,” Vardai said.

Such an object, from the metaphorical mists of time, couldn’t have escaped its share of misadventure. In 2004, while the cello was with Harrell, he forgot it in a New York cab. That the instrument is today in Mumbai is perhaps solely because the cab driver, Mohamed Ibrahim, was an honest man.

The presence of the Du Pre-Harrell is almost enchanting for the members of the city-based Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), not to mention its brilliant cello section. After Tuesday’s rehearsals, one of them, a Russian, said in her idiomatic English, “I imagined Du Pre was playing, and started crying. She was like pure Sun. In and outwardly. The cello reminded me of her.”

Du Pre’s brilliant life was tragically cut short in 1987 by multiple sclerosis. She was only 42. Vardai said his cello’s pedigree is a great inspiration, but he has to “serve the instrument, not the past”. “An instrument has its own life and its own karma. This cello has found its way to me. It is my responsibility to bring the best out of it.”