RIN:16 Chicago Mortician?

Throughout the past two years [1996], REUTER'S FOCUS REPORT has had a provocative impact. It has focused attention upon the aberrant practices which are common among many violin dealers and other musical merchants. Some readers -- certainly the aberrant practitioners themselves! -- claimed that the REPORT's iconoclastic attacks were damaging the image of the violin business. Yet many others let me know that my reports were a positive contribution to broader understanding of the differences which separate Violinmaker-Dealers from Musician-Dealers, especially in the area of professional-ethical standards and commitments. And, indeed, many have urged me to continue prying open closets and exposing those skeletons which, over the years, have given the violin business a putrid smell -- the foul odor of a racket.

2. The aim of every feature in the REPORT; this "News Focus" included, is to increase readers' understanding and to provide practical information -- all in conformity with the "Code of Ethics" established by the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, Inc. Here, therefore, I want to enter into a dialogue with my readers. I will attempt to answer typical questions put before me (sometimes in letters, often in face-to-face conversation) by various participants in the musical world. Though the following question does not reproduce the precise words of any one individual, it touches on many issues. And it is clearly representative. We know, from the responses we have received, that it asks about things of interest to numerous readers.

3. QUESTION: Your FOCUS REPORT for Summer; 1985, accuses Chicago violin dealers (the original Lyon & Healy, the original Wm. Lewis & Son, Kagan & Gaines, Kenneth Warren & Son, and other new comers) of engaging in a grossly unethical shop practice: re-graduation or "thinning out" the wood of antique and contemporary stringed instruments. You also demonstrate that this secretive shop practice causes irreversible damage to the artistic and antique value of high-priced instruments. Yet what about your credibility? You say that others do these things. Perhaps so, but have you yourself ever engaged in or permitted this same practice within your own establishment?

4. ANSWER: I will be quite direct, but the question is more complicated than it may appear My response involves both a NO and a YES. Allow me to explain.

5. The emphatic NO is in reference to our firm, Fritz Reuter and Sons. Founded in 1922 at the Hague, Reuter and Sons has never; to the best of our knowledge, engaged in such practices. Moreover; the denial is even firmer when made with reference to our 1963 re-founding in Chicago; here, the NO is absolute and unconditional. For this complex of unethical, irreversible, destructive shop practices is anathema to every ethical principle of truly professional violin makers and restorers.

6. The affirmative response to our question has nothing to do with the firm Fritz Reuter and Sons, Inc. Strictly speaking, it is irrelevant to the query so many have voiced. It is, however; instructive.

7. In 1955 -- years prior to Reuter and Sons' reestablishment -- I, Fritz Reuter; was employed as a repairer-restorer at Wm. Lewis and Son, then the largest violin dealer in the U.S.A. Lewis, managed and owned by non-violin makers whose only interest was the "bottom line," was a Musician-Dealer. The firm employed the gifted Carl Becker; Sr. as director of its extensive repair shop. For decades (especially under his direction) enormous shipments of string instruments -- purchased wholesale from all sorts of European sources -- were E.N.D. processed, subjected to what I have termed Enhanced Natural Decay. (See the FOCUS REPORT for Summer; 1985, RIN:041)

8. In this context, the Beckers -- Sr. and Jr., both, each in his own right a highly respected copyist -- seemed almost to enjoy overseeing and participating in the apparently deliberate destruction ("butchering," so to speak) of instruments' essential original parts. It is these, however, which determine the artistic and antique (or collector's) value of a violin, viola, etc. It is these which are crucially important to, and highly prized by, those men and women who invest their monies in antique violins. Even so, Wm. Lewis and Son now sold its "enhanced" -- i.e., terminally damaged, internally destroyed -- instruments to unwary customers. And at quite inflated prices.

9. To me, it felt as though Lewis' more gifted employees were victims of an addiction -- an addiction to debased and debasing practices: re-thinning the top, the back, and the ribs of formerly-perfect specimens created by great masters. I did not then, and I do not now, understand the motives for such conduct. But the conduct itself of course affected me as an employee, and it led to many heated arguments. Even today, I recall these with a sense of amazement. Truly, I wonder --If the Guinness Book of Records recorded the person(s) who oversaw the destruction of the largest number of antique string instruments, who would be listed? Mr.'s and Sr.'s Becker, as a team?

10. Musician-Dealers, evidently without scruple, engage in "creative" merchandising efforts directed at little more than a quick sale. So they order these short-cut practices -- temporarily beneficial, ultimately terminal. Often, they have the willing collaboration of some amateur woodworker who lacks basic ethical-professional understanding. No professional restorer I can think of would subscribe to practices which violate the principle of reversibility. An employment situation might, for the moment, force one's hand. But subscribe to practices like these? To do so would be dishonest and fraudulent. And the picture is even more tragic where the individuals are authentically gifted. For then, so it seems to me, they miss their inward calling and become, in a phrase, undertakers and embalmers: those who, having "gutted" the inside of a violin, beautify the corpse's exterior and -- euphemistically -- speak of all this as "restoration."

11. Who benefits? Performing musicians? Collectors of antique instruments? Such benefit as there is -- and it is strictly monetary -- falls directly into the pockets of the "professional" who runs the store. Unfortunately, the purchaser has trusted him to really act as a professional with professional-ethical standards. The issues are much like those which surface in a seemingly-unrelated area: horse racing. Consider the "professionalism" of esteemed professionals -- degreed chemists and veterinarians -- who knowingly participate in the illegal doping/chemical vitalizing of old mares. The horse may win the race, but is afterwards good for nothing but the glue factory (see "The Looming Menace of Designer Drugs" in the August, 1986, Discover, for details -- esp. pp.32-33). Who is responsible? The horse? That would be absurd. What we are discussing is a crisis within professions--the emergence of the "Mengelist" (sic), someone who deliberately practices outside of the moral and ethical precepts of his profession.

12. Even Hans Weisshaar (first president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers) was forced --so he tells me in correspondence -- to E.N.D.-process innumerable instruments during his employment in Chicago shops. When independent, however; professional violin makers and restorers have no need for these practices.

RIN:016	homepage: www.fritz-reuter.com	.
REUTER'S FOCUS REPORT English Report Summaries-Available German Titles