Dwight J. Partello: his life & violin collection
Philip E. Margolis

Part VI (continued from Part V)

As executors of his estate, Partello had named George W. White, President of the National Metropolitan Bank, and his “life long family friend,” Flora B. Thompson, with whom Partello had been very close in his last years. Partello’s daughters didn’t trust Thompson and charged that she had unduly influenced Dwight to leave his valuables to the Smithsonian instead of to his children. Carita was still in Germany, so it was left to Adeline and her husband, Arthur Abell, to contest the will.

Since her father’s testament seemed to be in order, Adeline and her husband decided that their best chance of recovering Partello’s violin collection was to convince the Smithsonian to denounce the gift as not in the public good. To this end, they rallied the musical community to their defense. Arthur Abell, who had been a music critic for more than 20 years and was therefore acquainted with all the great international musicians, was particularly effective in this part of the strategy. Word was spread through the music grapevine that Partello’s collection of 25 important instruments were about to be lost to musicians forever and that the best chance of preventing this calamity was to write letters in opposition.

The letters began to stream in. On October 27^th, Fritz Kreisler wrote that “In my opinion it is wrong to place fine instruments of old masters in museums.” Not only does it deprive musicians of their use, argued Kreisler, but instruments stored in museums often seem to deteriorate. Like many other letter-writers to follow, he highlighted Paganini’s violin at the Museum of Genoa, “which in spite of great care became worm-eaten and utterly useless. . .” [1]

Others who wrote included such luminaries as Leopold Auer, Eugene Ysaye, Walter Trammell, Jacques Thibaud, Franz Kneisel, Kubelik and Leopold Stokowski. The great conductor Arturo Toscanini wrote a letter in Italian, which (translated) included this memorable analogy: “To put rare violins in a museum and thus deprive them of their tone is like condemning valuable paintings to a cellar and depriving them of a light.” Along the same lines, Auer wrote that “it would be equivalent to shutting up a Caruso, or a Schumann-Heink in a glass case where they could be looked at but no longer heard.” Kubelik wrote that “there is a crying need of such master violins among artists of our day.” [2]

Some of these letters were certainly written as a genuine reaction to news of the bequest, but others probably required some prodding. Nearly all of the letters were addressed to “Mr Abell,” indicating the large role he had in this campaign.

The controversy was played out in public following an editorial by the NY Times columnist Richard Aldrich on Feb. 27, 1921, in which he stated that “the collection of fine violins is an injurious pastime” and that “the assemblage of fine violins for any other purpose than having them used for the purpose for which they were intended is an injury to the whole musical world.” Without mentioning Partello by name, Aldrich made it clear that he was deeply offended by the idea of leaving the instruments to the National Museum.

In response to Aldrich’s article, a certain Barnard G. Taylor wrote to the Times to protest, pointing out that collectors served a useful function of protecting instruments so that they might be used and appreciated by future generations. He also remarked that many consider violins to be works of art that can be appreciated visually as well as aurally. He compared them to oriental rugs, which were originally made to be walked on, but are now often hung from a wall to be displayed. This was a particularly apt comparison because, in addition to collecting violins, Partello also collected oriental rugs. He seems to have had a special interest in objects made for functionality that later acquired the merit of artistic works.

Aldrich responded to Barnard’s comments with a second column on March 13, in which he quoted a series of articles and letters in the Louisville Post. It seems that the editors of the Louisville Post were particularly upset with the Partello bequest and had published many of the letters from prominent musicians that had been sent to Arthur and Adeline.

The most interesting letter, however, was written by Partello’s brother, Colonel J. M. T. Partello, which was published in the NY Times on March 27, 1921. In the letter, the colonel claims to have had a close relationship with his brother and to have discussed with him many times what should happen to the collection after Partello’s death. The colonel generally supports the arguments of Barnard, and he states that his brother would probably have left the collection to his son “had the latter shown sufficient aptitude and interest in that direction” and then goes on to point out that the son had anyway died a year before his father. Regarding the possibility of leaving the collection to his daughters, the colonel writes that Partello had regretted that “no direct member of his family possessed sufficient ability or appreciation to warrant him in assigning it to them.”

This was a very odd statement considering that both his daughters were extremely musical. Carita had played the piano semi-professionally, had devoted many years to running an opera school in Coburg, and had herself written an opera. For her part, Adeline had studied violin at the Stuttgart conservatory and had married a violinist and correspondent for the New York Musical Courier. It is difficult to fathom what more Partello expected from his children, if indeed the colonel was accurately conveying the feelings of the deceased father.

According to the Colonel, Partello’s main purpose in leaving his collection to the museum was to prevent it from being broken up and falling into the hands of dealers who would simply sell the pieces for the highest price with no regard to the final fate of the instruments.

Perhaps it was coincidence, of perhaps Adeline was reacting to the letter by her uncle, but on that same day, March 27, 1921, she sent a long letter to Walcott, the director of the Smithsonian, laying her cards on the table. She threatened to generate a public relations nightmare for the institution if they did not denounce the gift. “You no doubt are wholly unaware of the magnitude of this storm that is brewing, “ she wrote, “and have probably not given a thought to the consequences which the carrying out of my father’s mad bequest would bring about. Thus far, we have kept these letters out of the press, but the demand for their publication is becoming more and more insistent. We realize that because of the world-wide fame of the writers, their publication would lead to a newspaper sensation, and we wish to avoid that if possible.” [3] (Actually, as already noted, the letters had not been kept out of the press as they had been published a few weeks earlier in the Louisville Post.)

Finally, Adeline argued that she and her sister deserved the instruments because their father’s obsession with violins had inflicted great hardship on the family. “My father was a man of limited means,” she wrote. “He could not afford such luxuries as these expensive violins, and in order to purchase them he deprived his family of many needed things.” [4]

Again, this is an odd remark, considering what’s known of the family. The 1870 and 1880 census show the family living in a house in Washington D.C., with two live-in servants. Both daughters were sent to Stuttgart Conservatory for their studies, probably at great expense. Carita married shortly thereafter and she and her husband became very rich, though they lost much of their wealth during von Horst’s confinement in England. Adeline lived with her father for many years in Berlin before marrying Arthur Abell, but there is nothing to suggest that their life there was impoverished. While Partello was probably not as wealthy as many violin collectors, he certainly had enough money to live comfortably. Where this money came from remains an open question since it’s unlikely that he could have indulged his tastes solely on the salaries given to him by the State Department and later the Treasury Department. It’s very probable that much of the money for his instrument collection, as well as the land in Iowa, came from his wife.