Violinist reunited with stolen violin
Published: August 15, 2005
A violin built in the mid 18th century has been reunited with its owner after being offered to a London auction house. The instrument built in 1760 by Edward Lewis was stolen from the car of violinist Alan Brind in June 2004.
Philip Scott, the head of musical instruments at Bonham’s was offered the instrument by a dealer and recognized the instrument from a list of stolen or missing instruments created by an insurance company. He said “This was a much finer instrument that those usually offered by this dealer, so we decided to do some more research,”
Alan Brind won the coveted title of Young Musician of the Year in 1986 by playing the Sibelius’ ‘Violin Concerto’ and then went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music. He took a change of career for a short time as he tried his hand at snooker.
When returning to the instrument he studied with Viktoria Mullova (Mullova plays the 1723 “Julius Falk” Stradivari violin) and led the European Union Youth Orchestra. He also made several recordings including, the Sibelius ‘Violin Concerto’ as well as a CD of Stravinsky Chamber works with Vladimir Ashkenazy. Brind is now an orchestral musician and for a time a member of the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Brind was equally surprised and relieved at the return of his instrument saying, “After a few months without it I had resigned myself absolutely to never seeing it again, so I really am delighted that this process has brought it back to me.”
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