‘It was like the earth moved beneath me’ - violinist Leonidas Kavakos on playing the ’Willemotte’ Stradivari

I first encountered the ‘Willemotte’ in 1994 at the Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. I met the owner, Mark Ptashne, in a hotel lobby and he showed it to me along with some other instruments. I was still on cloud nine after buying the ‘Falmouth’ Stradivari of c.1692 and wasn’t expecting any instrument to be as good, but when I put my bow on the string it was like the earth moved beneath me. I thought it couldn’t be true – the violin had so many overtones, it was as if every note gave new possibilities, and opened my eyes to what a great instrument could be. Obviously the ‘Willemotte’ wasn’t for sale, so I just hoped that one day I could get an instrument with such sound…