Amati, Stradavari, Guarneri, and I

Bill writes: I went to the Royal Academy of Music yesterday to visit their museum. I'd read about how they'd just purchased what is perhaps the most important violin in existence, the Stradivarius "Viotti ex-Bruce."

When I first entered the academy and asked to visit the museum, they thought it was closed. But after I mentioned that the sign out front said it was open on Sundays and some checking on their part they realized that it was, in fact, open. They were very gracious and the man at the info desk went and got keys for the lights to the museum. He then took me down to the basemant, through an incredibly twisty maze under the school, passing through set after set of doors, double doors, through rooms where people were having conversations, etc. Finally, into a back room where he turned on the lights, gave me a brief but friendly intro to the museum and said to follow the same way out when I was done. And with that he left me alone in the museum.

The museum spans three floors, but to me the most interesting one is the second floor, for the strings. This room was filled with glass cases containing Amati, Guarneri, and Stradavari violins and violas. Imagine, there I was with an entire room housing perhaps the finest musical instruments ever made, and I had it all to myself! For the next hour I just roamed from instrument to instrument by my lonesome. It almost made me wish I'd taken up the violin instead of electic guitar. Almost.

I hope to come back on one of the rare occasions when they take out a violin to play it. The most valuable violin in their collection, and arguably the most valuable violin period, was on display, too. In case you want to know what it looks like, here are a couple of pictures. Sorry for the quality, I had to take the pictures off angle through a smudgy glass case (probably due to violinist drool).