Russian high society got an earful of what their riches can obtain last week when a Japanese violinist serenaded them on one of the most expensive violins ever sold at auction.
To celebrate the 227th anniversary of the birth of Italian violin wizard Nicolo Paganini, Japanese violinist Kyoko Yonemoto on Tuesday played a 1741 Guarneri del Gesu that reportedly fetched $3.9 million when Sotheby’s sold it last year to Russian lawyer-cum-millionaire and music enthusiast Maxim Viktorov.
“I will probably only have one such chance to play such a violin,” Yonemoto said before performing in the grand hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
“To me, it [the violin] is like some old man who passes history on to me,” she added, having put together a program that very much reflected the violin’s illustrious past.
Accompanied by the Moscow State Academic Symphony, Yonemoto played an overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Nabucco,” followed by parts of Paganini’s Concerto No. 1 and Henri Vieuxtemps’ Concerto No. 4 in D Minor. The violin that she played was once known as the “Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu, when the composer owned it.
Though the economic crisis abruptly ended Russia’s decade-long boom, Moscow elite say the city is getting its groove back as international designers return, and work resumes on glitzy nightclubs.
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