(From my article in the New York Times January 15, 2006)
Croton-on-Hudson – WHEN a violin gets top billing along with the musician who plays it, that’s news. A case in point unfolded one recent morning when Elmar Oliveira, the prize-winning violinist, recording artist and violin connoisseur and collector, had a visit at his home here from Robert Iseley, an instrument maker in Rye.
Mr. Iseley had brought his latest violin for Mr. Oliveira to try. He often volunteers to test Mr. Iseley’s new instruments and this was not just any violin. It was a copy of a 1726 Stradivarius, an instrument made by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona, Italy. (He died in 1737.) The violin is known as the Sleeping Beauty, not to be confused with another one with the same name that Stradivari made in 1704, during his so-called golden period.