Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Natalia has been with me for over forty-five years; Jess, over fifty.

Natalia and Jess have been my constant companions. They have accompanied me on journeys around the country and to foreign lands, accruing enough miles to circumnavigate the globe, twice. They’ve been there for every important event of my adult life. When I have needed them, in every instance, they have performed to the best of their ability.

I love them both dearly, and I want nothing for them but the best and fullest that life can offer.

Which is why it’s time for them to go.

Natalia is my viola. Jess, my violin.

I was a teenager when they first came to live with me. Jess (Jessica) came first. Natalia came to me a few years later and—full disclosure—she is my favorite; but you never forget your first love.

They’ve been transported by hand, by bicycle, by taxi, car, bus, boat, train, and plane. I took them to London, Jerusalem, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. They’ve been on stage hundreds of times, performing to cheering crowds, and we’ve been to more weddings than I can count.

Of course, we’ve had our trials, as well.

Back in the ’70s, Jess was stolen by twin brothers who smashed into my car and tried to sell her at a flea market for $40. (The Sheriff recovered her the same day, but it was weeks before we were reunited.) Natalia was repeatedly pulled out of security queues at airports for “enhanced inspection.” (This was before today’s draconian carry-on luggage limitations.) Jess even did duty as a drug mule, bringing a few grams of hashish back from the Middle East. (In retrospect, this was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Luckily, it was Natalia who got inspected, and not Jess.)

We’ve performed in triple-digit heat, in venues so cramped our bow-tip threatened to poke out the cellist’s eye, and to audiences who were so inebriated that, had we replaced Mozart with “Kashmir,” no one would have noticed (or cared). Natalia and I were on stage for an outdoor concert—a beautiful amphitheater surrounded by redwoods—when an errant gust unbalanced a mic boom, which fell on us both. (Natalia bore the scars until a few years ago, when she had reconstructive surgery, but the scars of memory often outlast those of the flesh . . . or wood.)

Over the years, they have been my lovers, my friends, my sisters, my confidants, my children. I love them dearly.

But for too many years, I have neglected them.

Patiently, solemnly, uncomplainingly, they have waited, in a corner or a closet or under the bed. Whenever I have taken them out, rehaired their bows, replaced their deteriorated strings, and played with them for an hour, a week, a month, it was never their talents that failed, but mine.

Since leaving the orchestral world, I have toyed with the idea of donating them to a school, but always in the back of my mind I would harbor the thought: When I retire, I’ll pick them up and play more.

The last time we all hooked up was in 2015, when I brought the girls to a luthier for repairs and then spent a month trying to find a way to reconnect with them in this, my post-orchestral life. It quickly became clear, though, that my fingers are not as nimble as they were, and playing at home, well, it’s not the same as being on stage (and the idea of me going back to hours of practice, rehearsals, tuxes, and concerts, is a total non-starter). Years of not playing, not practicing, years of hard hand labor have given me a good grip but destroyed my speed. My hands are still precise, but my fingers are no longer fast enough to handle the arpeggiated semiquavers of Beethoven or Mozart, much less the demisemiquavers of Hindemith or Stravinsky.

In short, my playing days are over.

So, yesterday, I summoned my courage and went out to the local arts/music college and inquired if they accepted the donation of actual instruments. I was prepared for some ambivalence in doing so, but was totally unprepared for the wave of emotion that crashed into me.

Grief, regret, heartbreak, hope, love, emptiness, fullness, I was inundated and overwhelmed.

All of which told me that finding them new hands, new arms, a new home where they will once again be able to take the stage, to play—to sing—this is the right thing to do. For them. For me.

It’s time to set them free. Time for them to leave the nest.

My time here is coming to an end. I can see the arc of my life bending downward. I have no heirs who will love them as I have, as I do, and keeping them with me until I die is a selfish, wasteful act.

These instruments, these collections of maple, ebony, spruce, and rosewood, of gut and horsehair and rosin, these works of curvilinear art, these resonant voices, they have lain silent for too long.

I will never sell them. But I will find new musicians who will adopt them as their own, and who will give them music old and (hopefully) new to play.

I will miss them. Their absence will be a hole in my soul, until my end, but knowing that they are out there, singing, and that they will be doing so long after I’m gone, that will be my recompense.

That will sustain me after they have gone.

k