Lev's Violin by Helena Attlee review – a musical quest
Jamie Mackay
© Provided by The Guardian
Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images
One summer’s night, at a concert in a small Welsh town, Helena Attlee finds herself blown away by the sound of an exotic stringed instrument. The timbre is sweet and rotund, like nothing she’s heard before. After the encore she hunts down the performer, a man named Greg, who plays with one of Britain’s major symphony orchestras, to find out more about his instrument. Greg tells her that his violin was once owned by a Russian man named Lev, and that he thinks it may have been made in the Italian town of Cremona, birthplace of the famous luthier Antonio Stradivari. Attlee inspects the body, expecting to find a resplendent antique. Instead she discovers something worn, matted with the sweat of many generations of musicians. The two agree this violin’s “voice” is unique in the world. And yet, Greg reveals, the auctioneers have declared it “worthless”, little more than junk.

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