In the Bavarian village of Toelz during the 18th century, there lived a violin maker names Johannes Lais. He was a magician who could transform pieces of wood into priceless instruments that would bring beauty and joy to world down through ages.

One day in 1739 an old woodcarver brought Jais a short, thick section of maple log.

„Johannes“ , he said, this log is too hard form my work. Perhaps you could use it for one of your violins.

For Jais it was a mighty task to saw into the iron-hard log, but its unusual color inspired him. Days later, he extracted from the log´s heart an oblong block with flaming, deep-orange whorls. With his plane and knife he shaped it laboriously into the hardest and thinnest back he had ever made for a violin.

Jais completed the instrument and tested it for tone. “This little violia from the heart of your iron stump.” he hold the woodcarver “ has enchantment in her voice. Happy will be the artists who can awaken the soul of this instrumental”.

So began the legend.

About 175 years later, in 1914 it was my good fortune to begin sharing my life with Jais´s creation. As the 18-year-old concertmaster of the opera house in Koenigsberg, East Prussia, I needed a fine violin for solo performances. From those offered by dealers, I picked out one slightly smaller than rest – at first, because of its glowing rust color. The faded inscription inside read: “Johannes Jais, Toelz, Lute and Violin Maker 1739.” I tuned the instrument and then began to play Beethoven F Major Romance.

It was love at the first sound. What a tone – sparkling crystalline, unique. “Ah, my little beauty,” my heard cried to her, “we bring out the best in each other!”

I purchased her immediately and called her my Jaisie.

For a few brief months, she made concerts sparkle. Then World War I interrupted. For four years, my Jaisie lay silently sound away in a chicest in my nature Boneman village of Trossau, near Carlsbad, Austria.

After the war, I hurried home to liberate Jaisie. As the lights came on again in the glittering music palaces of Europe, what days we had, Jaisie and I! Her resonance and versatility began winning me acclaim. I adored her. She said for me all the things other violins could only try to say.

One night, returning after a concert, I climbed the darkened four flights of stairs to my rooms. I was fumbling for my key, when Jaisie fell on, of her case and went hurtling down the marble steps. Nearly paralyzed with shock. I turned on the stairwell light, dreading what I´d find.

As I searched, the timed electric light shut off. With shaking fingers I lit a match….. another…..another. Finally, through the dim light appeared the outline of the violin, lying at the very bottom of the stairs. I rushed to what I feared would be her shattered remains.

I could not believe what I saw. The Jais hard survived the four flight slide down hard marble edges with only minor damage. The delicate violin had ridden all the way down on her flexible and shielding strings. Her two exquisitely wrought upper corners bad been binned a little, but needed no repair, recoloring.

Her tone was a good as ever, as she proved during a performance in a famous Mendelsohn Violin Concert. The audience responded with shouts of “Bravo!”

And one cities, quite properly, was more generous to the Jais than to me. “The violin, under the versatile, command of Josef Totzauer´s bow, performed with crystal-clear brilliance. Its magnificent sound will linger long in our memory”.

Johannes Jais´s enchanted violin was a great help when I began studying with the master teachers at conservatory in Leipzig. One morning, as I was biking to the conservatory, I started across a broad late wood thronged my way through a barrage of fast-moving trucks and carriages. The bicycle suddenly skidded, the violin case torched under my arm fell to the street and my priceless Jaisie spilled onto the wet cobblestones. A huge truck ran straight over it. My heart stopped. Frantically, I zigzagged buck through the traffic to the disaster site.

There was Jaisie, lying on her belly in almost exactly the same position I´d found her at the bottom of the staircase. If the truck´s wheel had bit her at all, they must only have grazed her with the gentlest whisper. I sent a prayer heavenward, wiped off the sound and rushed home to examine her more closely.

Incredibly, her tone was almost the same as before, but I say almost. I began to feel that she had lost some sparkle, and the feeling grew. Perhaps her sound post had been jostled hairbreadth from its original position. For weeks I tried to send just it---- never quite to my satisfaction. Or was I just imagining that the ton tone had dulled. 

I´m afraid I had come to take the faithful Jais´s rare gifts for granted. Besides, to tell the truth, I was becoming infatuated with a French Vuillaume that was for sale- a gorgeous, darkly burnished violin with a much more powerful voice. Fox months I struggled with my conscience. The I betrayed Jaisie trading her in for the temptress Vuillaume.

That was one of the great mistakes of my life. The voluminous sound of Vuillaume diminished considerably after it was played for several hours in succession. But its main fault was that it did not speak to and for me.  I rushed back to the Leipzig dealer. “ Sorry,” he said, “ a gentleman from Czechoslovakia purchased  the Jais last week. He paid cash and withheld his name and address.”

I cursed my fickleness. But there was no time to search for Jaisie. Czechoslovakia had taken over the Austrian territory of my birth, and I rebelled against serving in the Czechoslovak army. I fled to America, leaving behind, at ages 26, an established reputation for anonymity in a strange land.

I traveled across the vast new country and the train deposited meat town called Lawrence, Nebrasca. There I was greeted by my great-uncle, Josef Keilbert, who had immigrated to America 60 years earlier and done well. He and his friends lined up some concert engagements and soon the big-voiced Vuillaume – a good friend after all – was hard at work. Still, my thoughts kept returning to my lost Jaisie.

The years passed. At 33, I married and moved to New Jersey to be close to New York City and its musical opportunities. Bighearted America was good to us, as both my concert and teaching careers flourished. Eventually I was able to buy a Guarnerius, a violin that can answer any demand an artist makes upon it. Yet now even this instrument kept me from remembering the more satisfying violin of my youth

I was 56 when a Nebraska musician I had completely forgotten about wrote asking a favor. He reminded me that, 25 years earlier, he asked me where in Europe he could find a master violin. From one of the dealers I had recommended, his letter said, he had found the instrument he wanted. Now the ailing musician could not longer play this violin. Would I take it and find a buyer who would really appreciate it? (N.G. 1982)