Instruments announced for Tokyo Stradivarius Festival 2018 exhibition

The organisers of the Tokyo Stradivarius Festival 2018 have unveiled the list of instruments that will be featured in the blockbuster exhibition in October. As well as 21 instruments from Antonio Stradivari’s workshop, the line-up also includes a c.1566 violin by Andrea Amati – one of the earliest violins in the world and part of the famed collection made for Charles IX of France.

The earliest Stradivari instrument is the ‘Sabionari’ guitar dated 1679, while the last to be made is the ‘Roussy’ violin, created just a year before the master luthier’s death at the age of 93. Nineteen of the instruments to be exhibited are violins, along with one viola and one cello. Also part of the collection is the 300-year-old ‘San Lorenzo’ violin (pictured), which was featured in Cremona 2018, free with The Strad’s March edition.

The full list of instruments, all from the Antonio Stradivari workshop, is:

• 1679 ‘Sabionari’ guitar (Museo del Violino)
• 1690 ‘Medici, Tuscan’ violin (Santa Cecilia Academia Rome)
• 1696 violin (Private collection)
• 1699 ‘Kustendyke’ violin (Royal Academy of Music)
• 1704 ‘Viotti’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1707 ‘Stella’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1711 ‘Marquis de Riviere’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1714 ‘Da Vinci’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1714 ‘Leonora Jackson’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1716 ‘Nachez’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1717 ‘Kochanski’ violin (Pierre Amoyal)
• 1717 ‘Hamma’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1717 ‘Bonamy Dobree, Suggia’ cello (Habisreutinger Stradivari Foundation)
• 1717 ‘Park’ violin (Tokyo University of Arts)
• 1718 ‘San Lorenzo’ violin (Private Collection) (pictured)
• 1722 ‘Rode’ violin (Ashmolean Museum)
• 1726 ‘Greville, Adams, Kreisler’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1731 ‘Maurin Rubinoff’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1732 ‘Red Diamond’ violin (Private Collection)
• 1734 ‘Gibson’ viola (Habisreutinger Stradivari Foundation)
• 1736 ‘Roussy’ violin (Private Collection)

Plus:

• c.1566 Andrea Amati ’Charles IX’ violin (Museo del Violino)

Taking place at the Mori Arts Center Gallery from 9 to 15 October, the Tokyo Stradivarius Festival exhibition will be the culmination of a five-month celebration of Stradivari’s life and works. The festival begins with a gala concert on 1 July at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, featuring violinist and cellist Dai Miyata, alongside an orchestra made up of students from the Tokyo University of the Arts and London’s Royal Academy of Music.

This will be followed by concerts and lectures throughout August and September, as well as a ‘summit concert’ in which musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic will perform on eleven Stradivari violins at ten different venues across Japan. Maxim Vengerov will also give a concert on 1 October at Suntory Hall. 

Official site: http://tsf2018.com/en

 Photo: Jan Röhrmann