"Isserlis often has nightmares about his cello. Losing it. Leaving it somewhere. The strings falling off without warning. At sixty-seven, he is one of the world's most celebrated concert cellists, but when he thinks about these scenarios he frowns and gently shakes his baroque gray ringlets. For more than fifteen years, Isserlis has been playing an eighteenth-century Stradivarius cello named the Marquis de Corberon, for the French aristocrat who once owned it."
"Though it spends most of its time in a white hard-shell case, it faces an array of dangers limited only by the whims of fate and, perhaps, the scope of its owner's imagination. Speaking to me at his living-room table, in North London, Isserlis suddenly stood up and began speed-walking away. "I'm just going to rush into the other room and put the cello in the case," he said, his voice growing fainter, "because I'm worried it's getting cold.""
Steven Isserlis, a celebrated cellist, owns and plays a 1726 Stradivarius cello, the Marquis de Corberon. He experiences recurring nightmares about losing, damaging, or abandoning the instrument and responds with anxious, protective behavior. The cello spends most of its time in a white hard-shell case, yet remains vulnerable to many threats because of its age, value, and fragility. The instrument was crafted late in Antonio Stradivari's career and exemplifies a model that influenced modern cello design, combining unique, highly prized sound with practical concerns about preservation and handling.
Read at The New Yorker
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