Frederick Pabst Wurlitzer

The Real Red Violin Frederick Pabst Wurlitzer

This book is intended to introduce the reader to a man who collected, authenticated, and sold an amazing number of Stradivari violins. Through the auction house, Tarisio, that has an extensive record of Stradivari instruments and the Violin Iconography of Antonio Stradivari by Herbert Goodkind, I have determined that Rembert collected, authenticated, and sold as many as 139 Stradivari violins. By some estimates, this was more than half of all known and accounted-for Stradivari violins. Rembert had an amazingly fine and well-educated ear for Stradivari sounds. This was so much so that one time he identified an unknown, red violin by just hearing it played. That incident, as told to me by my father, became the basis for the movie The Red Violin. This book is about this greatest collector ever of Stradivari violins. It is doubtful there will ever be again anyone who could be so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Stradivari instruments and, in particular, Stradivari violins as Rembert. Finally, this book is a detective story trying to determine what Stradivari violin known to collectors today is really the Red Violin.