Paganini Quartet

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The Paganini Quartet is the name given to a collection of four instruments made by luthier Antonio Stradivari. There are two violins, one viola, and one cello in the group.

During the nineteenth century they were acquired and played by the violinist Niccolò Paganini, after whom the collection is named. Paganini bought this 1731^{[citation needed]} 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