Just two fiddles in a case. That’s how an old friend described the rare Cremonese violins he had just seen on their way from one recital to another. Together, they are worth in the low 8 figures, so I can’t help wondering what their maker, Guarneri del Gesù, a solitary, ailing man who produced relatively few instruments, would have made of the market’s enthusiasm for his work.

It seems to me he might well have been astonished his violins survived at all, through the changes of musical taste and circumstances of the centuries, and somehow disappointed he did not live long enough to reap the financial reward of his work. Many old violins, violas and violoncellos did perish in accidents or were neglected. Many more survived, and are, centuries later, still working for a living (many more survive than could have been made then, but that is another story…).