The return of a rare cello leaves a trail of question marks

It was a surreal mixture of humor and pathos - both unintentional.

There were stone-faced cops, cranky journalists, spotlight-grabbing city officials, and a restorer of priceless artifacts who spoke cryptically in hushed tones.

All surrounded the guest of honor, presented as "the happiest man in Los Angeles today" - a relieved but still red-faced cellist who looked as if he just swallowed a small string quartet and a couple of percussionists.

All were gathered in this city's newest shrine to high art, the titanium-skinned Walt Disney Concert Hall, for an example of that rare media phenomenon: a good-news conference.

With national and international press packed cheek by jowl in the Philharmonic's Choral Hall, sound booms were lowered, lights aimed, and pens poised.

But somehow, despite the best intentions, the Tuesday affair raised as many questions as it answered with this announcement: The Philharmonic's $3.5 million Stradivarius cello, stolen from the principal cellist's home last month, had been found.

The objet du jour was not there - only oversized, full color photos of the vintage 1684 instrument. Perched on giant easels were images of the city's seemingly most-talked-about single crime since the Black Dahlia murder in 1947 - sprawled on a white-clothed operating table in an unnamed location.

A professorial-looking man in blue rubber gloves hovered next to a bulb-lit magnifying glass, examining damage to the instrument as if it were wounds of a human victim on TV-hit "CSI: Crime Scene Investigators."

But those wounds - appearing as a nearly imperceptible crack down the cello's face (perhaps 10 inches long), cracks on the back (not shown), and loosened strings - were only explained as "routine." The instrument would be restored to full value by October, said Robert Cauer, the Philharmonic's string technician.

"I wasn't there to see the injuries happen so I couldn't say," Mr. Cauer told me, rebuffing a query about what they were and how they could be fixed.

Second on the list of question marks was Philharmonic Principal Cellist Peter Stumpf, who had been in personal purgatory since the theft. The musician had arrived home late and weary after performing in Santa Barbara on April 25, and carelessly left the cello on the front steps.

How could an instrument - one of 60 cellos made 320 years ago by master instrumentmaker Antonio Stradivari - be left like a forgotten sack of groceries? Los Angeles Philharmonic Association President Deborah Borda cheerfully reminded reporters this kind of forgetfulness happens all the time. In January, violinist Gidon Kremer forgot his $3 million Guarneri del Gesu instrument on a train. In 1999, Yo-Yo Ma left his own $2.5 million Stradivarius cello in a New York City taxi.

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