Valentina Crespi

Valentina Crespi (March 14, 1892^[1] – after 1959^[2]) was an Italian-American violinist and composer, based in New York City in the 1910s and 1920s.

Crespi was described as being from Milan,^[3] the daughter of Lucrezia Crespi, and a "protegee of the Queen of Roumania".^[4][5] She trained with Armand Parentin Paris,^[6] and with Jenő Hubay in Budapest.^[7]

Crespi was a "celebrated violinist"^[8][9] who toured in the United States, Canada,^[10] and Europe. She played Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D at the Promenade Concerts in London in 1912.^[11] "Her technique is excellent and she gave the work with intelligence and artistic insight of no small order for a young violinist", reported the Musical News of her Proms appearance.^[12] She also played at Bechstein Hall in 1912^[13] and 1914.^[14] In 1914, a British collector gave Crespi a manuscript of a "secret exercise" written by Niccolò Paganini, along with a letter in Paganini's hand.^[15][16]

Crespi lived in New York City in the 1910s and 1920s.^[17][18] She performed at a "socialst musical festival" in Carnegie Hall in 1914.^[19] She gave concerts in Maine^[20] and Michigan in 1915.^[21][22] In 1916 she played at a benefit for the Italian Red Cross the Biltmore Hotel,^[23][24] and for the Humanitarian Cult at Carnegie Hall.^[25] In March 1919, she was part of the musical ensemble for an Irish music festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.^[26] In late 1921, she performed at New York's Aeolian Hall,^[27] and in a radio concert.^[28] She toured American Midwestern states^[29] in 1922 and 1923,^[30][31][32] and at the University of South Dakota in 1927.^[33] One of her last American performances was for the Mozart Verein in Port Chester, New York, late in 1929.^[34]

Crespi was also a composer, who wrote music to accompany silent films,^[35] and published musical compositions,^[36] including:

• "Steluta" and "Variations on a Roumanian Air" (1915)^[37]
• Frills and Furbelows (1917)^[38]
• Thoughts (No. 35) (1917)^[39]
• Memories (No. 50) (1917)^[40]
• Serenata (No. 105) (1917)^[41]

Crespi spent the summer of 1922 in Rigi Kaltbad, Switzerland with her American accompanist, Susie Kirk-Schneider, and the two young Kirk-Schneider children.^[42][43] Crespi became a naturalized United States citizen in 1925.^[1] She moved to Switzerland with Kirk-Schneider in 1930.^[44] On Christmas night in 1939, she was shot and seriously wounded by Kirk-Schneider's 23-year-old son, known as Robert Kirk, at their home in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland.^[45][46]

When Susie Kirk died in Switzerland in 1960, from cancer, Valentine Crespi inherited Kirk's jewelry, cars, horses, cattle, and Swiss dairy farm.^[2] She owned a 1699 Stradivarius, known as the Crespi;^[47] it was sold to the Fridart Foundation in Geneva in 1960.^[48] In October 2025, the Crespi violin was loaned to Australian musician Christian Li.^[49]

• A performance of Crespi's "Memories" (1917), by pianist Maeve Brophy, on YouTube