An excellent article from the Toronto Sun about the choice young string players must make early in their careers: top-flight instrument or house?
When most 25-year-olds who have just landed their first full-time job start thinking big investment, they think house or condo.
For Jeffrey Beecher, now in his second season as principal bass player for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the decision came down to house or bass.
As of this fall, he is the proud – and deeply indebted – owner of a legendary musical instrument. It is, according to its fully documented history, the first double bass, made in 1690 by renowned luthier Vincenzo Ruggieri in Cremona, Italy.
“It is the first double bass that was not a violone,” says the player of a split in the bowed-instrument family tree. Today, the double bass is the only one of the modern string instruments that is tuned in fourths rather than fifths.
Its previous owner was the former principal bass of the Minnesota Orchestra, who, on retirement, decided to sell it. By sheer coincidence, Beecher had called his dealer in Holland within hours of the previous owner putting it on the market.
The decision to buy was a foregone conclusion. “Through the kindness of a (TSO) board member, I had a guarantor for the loan,” relates Beecher. He won’t say how much he paid for it, other than comparing it to the price of a house. In Toronto, that’s a substantial sum.