Paganini Quartet

During the nineteenth century they were acquired and played by the violinist Niccolò Paganini, after whom the collection is named. Paganini bought this 1731 Stradivarius viola after performing numerous concerts in England where he earned GB£6,000 to acquire the viola. He even considered giving up the violin for the viola, but after commissioning Hector Berlioz to write a piece for viola, he gave it up, complaining that there were too many rests for the viola solo, even though the piece, Harold en Italie, was a whole symphony. He finally kept the instrument and used it as part of the Paganini quartet, which is now played by the Tokyo String Quartet.

The Quartet instruments are currently owned by the Nippon Music Foundation. Since their acquisition in 1994, the foundation has lent them to the Tokyo String Quartet and only lends these four instruments as a string quartet set. Prior to 1994 The Quartet was owned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.Paganini Quartet instruments

• Paganini-Desaint violin 1680 - currently played by Kikuei Ikeda
• Paganini-Comte Cozio di Salabue violin 1727 - currently played by Martin Beaver
• Paganini-Mendelssohn viola 1731 - currently played by Kazuhide Isomura
• Paganini-Ladenburg cello 1736 - currently played by Clive Greensmith

See also

• Stradivarius