SOURCE: Foss, Michael. “Yours for Twenty Pence.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5148 (30 November 2001): 21.

In the following review, Foss offers a mixed assessment of The Countess of Stanlein Restored, faulting Delbanco for focusing too heavily on renowned persons such as cello-craftsman Antonio Stradivari and cellist Bernard Greenhouse, among others.

This curious little book [The Countess of Stanlein Restored] promises to tell the story of the life, and the restoration, of a musical instrument. The instrument is the so-called Countess of Stanlein cello, made by Antonio Stradivari in 1707 and now in the possession of the respected American cellist Bernard Greenhouse.

The history of a fine old instrument is a rich field for all kinds of investigation. In fact, a whole sociology lies implicit in such an instrument. Many tricky questions are relevant to this story: matters of craftsmanship and technology; the commercial life of Cremona in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries...