Riccardo ho investigato e forse siamo giunti alla verità:
"Gary Karr had recently retired from the concert stage, and he donated his bass to the Internatonal Society of Bassists. It was being loaned out at the moment to performers for use in recitals. I naturally agreed to it, although I was quite busy and hadn't prepared any repertoire. This opportunity was not likely to come again for me. I would only have the bass for two weeks before the recital, and I began to get apprehensive about my ability to play well on a foreign bass in such a short time. Also, I had heard that the bass, while possessing a beautiful sound, was very difficult to play. I will describe in detail the experience of playing this bass in Part II of this post.
This bass has for years been attributed to the Amati brothers of Italy. Recently, however, the origins of this bass have been called into question. A scientific study using tree ring dating was recently conducted on this bass. You can read the conclusions of the study here. I wrote a short piece on this study for my recital:
Gary Karr had acquired the Amati bass (the bass that this recital is being played on) at a special party after his Carnegie Hall debut by Olga Koussevitzky, widow of bass virtuoso and famed conductor Serge Koussevitzky. She gave Karr her late husband's bass in 1961 after telling Karr that she had seen the spirit of her late hus- band embrace Karr onstage as he performed. Before he became a conductor, Koussevitzky had been a virtuoso bass player.
Koussevitzky is said to have purchased the instrument from a French dealer in 1901 for $3,000. Nothing is known of its history before 1901, but it is reputed to have been made in 1611. Karr made all of his albums and played virtually all of his pub- lic performances on this magnificent instrument. He recently donated this famous instrument to the International Society of Bassists.
Most sources claim that the "Amati" bass was made in 1611 by the Amati brothers, Antonio and Girolamo, of Cremona, Italy. If this is true, it would only known dou- ble bass made by the Amati brothers. In 2004 this bass was carefully inspected and evaluated independently by four experts in bass design and style, and all agreed that inconsistencies in style suggest that the bass was constructed after 1611. The wood appears to date to 1761 at the earliest. Also, many attributes of this bass suggest a French origin. All of these facts suggest that this bass was not made by the Amati brothers. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic bass that has inspired countless bassists over the last few decades, and I feel very fortunate to have an opportunity to play this recital on it."
Insomma sembra proprio che i fratelli Amati e famiglia non hanno mai costruito questo contrabbasso nel 1611 e che poi è finito nelle mani di Gary Karr. Si tratta, in breve, di un contrabbasso di provenienza francese acquistato da Koussevitzky sul finire del Novecento ed il cui legno sembra poter essere datato intorno al 1761, come si legge sopra. Poi questa copia di un Amati, molto ben realizzata dai Francesi (del resto suona a meraviglia), venduta come detto a Kussevitzky per una certa cifra che non ricordo, venne donata a Karr dalla vedova Olga. Che storia!
Ma c'è un link in PDF che tratta scientificamente circa gli studi fatti su questo contrabbasso nel 2004 e che hanno disvelato l' origine non certo cremonese del contrabbasso di Karr e addirittura datato al 1611. Ed anch' io per molto tempo vi ho creduto
!
Vito Liuzzi
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ISB & IL FALSO AMATI 1611 di GARY KARR !?! (Read 11069 times)
