Always have a spare

Most musicians have a special bond with their chosen instrument. Afterall, if you play something larger than a piccolo, chances are you spent most of your younger years lugging the thing around, trying to play football with a cello on your back for example, or tobogganing down a steep hill of your housing estate. No? Just me then.

Most of us have that special bond but, like the characters of Australian soap operas, we secretly ogle those truly exquisite instruments owned by banks and hedge funds (which, incidentally, despite the best efforts of The Today Programme, I still couldn’t describe to someone else). To some the displays of Stradivarii at Bonhams instrumental auctions are like a trip through the more reddish tinted districts of Amsterdam after dark.

Imagine then, having the possibility of a spare one. That’s what International soloist and former child prodigy David Garrett now has at his disposal. Beares have had a £2.5m violin flown in from Milan to ‘stand-in’ for Garrett’s own £1.8m Stradivarius after he slipped backstage at the Barbican, causing £60,000 worth of damage to his violin which will be out of action for around 8 months. He slipped in his concert shoes whilst rushing down some steps on his way to dinner with family.

Imagine filling in that insurance form…

BBC News: Fall destroys rare Stradivarius

——————-Update—————————–

I particularly like the diargram explaining the damage on the http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7244441.stm