Joanna Pitman

The timeless beauty of a Stradivari

Joanna Pitman says owning a valuable Italian violin is doubly rewarding if it is played by a great musician

How many investments can bring you joy as well as financial gain? Unless pure lucre flows in your veins and you’re the sort of person for whom an excursion into the derivatives market is your greatest pleasure, then there are not many. Wine and art spring to mind, but one relatively under-exploited investment opportunity that can bring pleasure on many levels is that of world-class violins. If the violin is a high-quality instrument, it will bring steady financial appreciation as well as the chance to enable a top-flight musician to conquer the world’s concert halls.

In the world of classical music, young and highly gifted musicians find it hard to lay their hands on the quality of instruments they need for a successful international career. The best violins, the ‘old masters’, were made in Cremona in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries; and of the finest makers of the era — Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppi Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ and Nicolò Amati — Stradivari is the best known. Almost without exception, the best violinists of the last 200 years have played on a Stradivari or a Guarneri del Gesù. ‘Italian instruments from the 18th century have always been the most sought after and still are today,’ says Simon Morris, managing director of the violin dealers J & A Beare. ‘It’s their ability to produce a range of colours as well as being able to project every nuance to the back of a hall that sets them apart from ordinary instruments.’

The finest instruments command millions of pounds. A year ago, an anonymous benefactor bought a 1743 del Gesù violin for £3.6 million to be lent to the leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti. Any 18th-century Italian violin of quality will cost at least £50,000.

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