CREMONA – The ways of lutherie are infinite and can erase distances and decades, if not centuries, in the name of passion for music. And here it is Albert Einstein, Sergej Krylov and the luthier Gaspar Borchardt have in common the unbridled passion for music of Giovanni Viola, 12 years old, born in Voghera who has been playing the violin since he was four years old. «It all really started by chance – says the small and talented violinist -. My dad arrived home and read me an article in the Pavia Province that told of a teacher specialized in teaching piano to children. She convinced me to try. Then we found out that she actually taught violin and had written about piano to get more attention. I started without much enthusiasm, then my dad took me to do masterclasses all over Europe and I became passionate about the violin.”
Giovanni Viola
Giovanni is in seventh grade and, he says his father Gianmario: «He plays all day, he loves classical music. I don’t know where he got this passion, but we encourage him, his brother Peter At the age of 9 he started studying the cello.”
As often happens, a passion is nourished by encounters and so it was for Giovanni Viola who was given the violin that Einstein played during his summers in Pavia and which the Viola family – in nome hominem – entrusted to the luthier Borchardt: «I met the very nice luthier Gaspar, through my violin teacher, Dmitri Chichlov – he says -. The maestro, upon his arrival in Cremona from Moscow, was hosted for several years in the house of the luthier Krylov, father of his best friend Sergej. Here he met Gaspar, who is still his favorite luthier. After the owners decided to entrust Einstein’s violin to me, my dad took the instrument to Gaspar for restoration.”
Albert Einstein
And this is the first coincidence that brought Einstein’s violin into the hands of Borchardt and his colleague Claudio Amighetti. But the story of Einstein’s violin intended for the very young violinist is a mix of chance and encounters. “I received the violin from Mariano, a music enthusiast, who passed away last February, and nephew of the violinist Giovanni Bianchi of Pavia who in 1964 came into possession of the violin used by Einstein in the years in which he lived in the Pavia area – he tells a well-documented story -. Bianchi bought the instrument from the notary Davide Giulietti of Casteggio who frequented the literary salon of the villa owned by the Marangoni family, also in Casteggio”.
And as Viola tells the story he suggests: «We are at the end of the nineteenth century. Ernestina Marangoni, daughter of the owner of the villa, had met Albert Einstein in the summer of 1894 at Bagni sul Ticino river, and a liking was born between the two, as evidenced by several letters that the two exchanged for some years”.
The presence of the discoverer of the theory of relativity is linked to the history of Albert Einstein’s family that «after an unlucky entrepreneurial experience in Munich he arrived first in Milan and in 1894 in Pavia, where the father Hermann together with his brother Jacob, engineer Garrone and engineer Cerri, he founded the National Electromechanical Workshops in Pavia, Eng. Einstein, Garrone and Company – he continues in his story -. During the summers from 1894 to 1899, Albert Einstein moved to Pavia and also frequented the Marangoni house; he was passionate about the violin but, not having the instrument, he played what the notary Giulietti lent him. The musical afternoons, with Albert Einstein on the violin, accompanied by the notary Giulietti on the piano, they were followed by the local bourgeoisie”.
«All this was told to me by my friend Mariano and I learned it from the book ‘La Casteggio di Albert Einstein’ by the historian Fabrizio Bernini – concludes the young violinist -. With the passing of Mariano who followed me in my concerts, the owners of the violin who wish to remain anonymous, decided to donate it to me. It will have a certain effect to play it, when my friend Borchardt has brought it back to life, giving it a voice again. I can’t wait to play it and hear his voice.”
