By Kate Holden
The 1728/29 Stradivari violin played by Principal Violin Satu Vänskä, a precious antique and the very first instrument bought by the nascent ACO Instrument Fund with an incredible donation by Peter Weiss in 2011, is currently giving her present-day consolation. “With all the troubles in the world, it’s good to be a musician, isn’t it?” she says, taking time out on a rehearsal day. “Having something that’s so enduring, to have that in your everyday life, is a reminder that things persist and things are real. This is a real violin from 1728. It’s not fake news, you know?”
She finds it comforting to reflect on the decades of effort she’s made and the reward of playing something “so beautiful”: “This is a good combination of things to remind that there’s something worth aspiring to in this world.” The violin is a hybrid of two Stradivaris, a not uncommon phenomenon. The scratches and flaws, too, are testament to persistence: “every single part is precious.”
Having for a time played a different Strad, the “Belgiorno”, Vänskä is convinced of the special properties of Golden Age instruments. All of them come from northern Italy, particularly Cremona. It may have been the cluster effect of competing talents, perhaps volcanic ash in the forests or the pre-industrial habit of floating timber down rivers, but “no one really knows why the instruments of that time are so good”. Producing a distinctive bright sound “with a velvety top end, very clear”, Strads are famously powerful, made at a moment when violinists were becoming more virtuosic and venues larger.
This one, Vänskä jokes, is like the iPhone 18 model. She’s not looking to upgrade but has become philosophical about her custody: not knowing much about the backstory, she’s relieved she needn’t tense at the thought of a celebrity predecessor. “To have that at the back of your mind would be a lot of pressure,” she says. “You can’t get too attached to them – it’s not yours, it’s for you just to use. But it’s a great privilege.”
