Less than a master stroke

It now looks like the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra actually paid retail for those 30 vintage Italian strings it purchased from philanthropist and con man Herbert Axelrod. And guess what? It may not have been such a bad deal anyway.

As The Star-Ledger detailed on Sunday, the orchestra thought it had the opportunity of a lifetime - instruments appraised at $49 million for the cut-rate price of $17 million. But the appraisal was inflated, to put it mildly, and the pedigrees of some are suspect.

The manner in which the orchestra conducted its negotiations with Axelrod, now being held in a German jail on U.S. tax fraud charges, deserves another look. For one thing, the orchestra administration - driven by its ardor to complete the purchase - should have been more forthcoming with its board of directors and with the public about misgivings expressed about some of the strings. And the credentials of the remaining instruments should be checked yet again.

A group of experts assembled by The Star-Ledger contended that five of the 30 instruments were likely fakes - they were indeed classic instruments but were not made by the craftsmen to whom they were attributed. In addition, three Strad violins were actually composite instruments, meaning only a few pieces were made by Antonio Stradivari. One violin, said to be worth $3.3 million, was erroneously attributed to Giuseppe Guarneri del Ges, when it was crafted by his father, a lesser violin maker, according to the experts.

But the orchestra still got a remarkable collection of strings at something close to a fair price. No one should question the artistic significance of the acquisition - the instruments, be they worth $5 million or $50 million, provide a richer sound, according to the orchestra's musicians.

Nor should anyone be prompted by the controversy to withhold support, either in attendance or contributions, from one of New Jersey's most important cultural institutions.

Famed violins certainly don't hurt the image of an orchestra. What matters, however, is how they are played. The way the deal was done could have used some tuning up, but in the end, the value of the instruments will be determined by the skill of the orchestra's renowned conductor, Neeme Järvi, and its talented musicians.