This is what a $16 million violin sounds like

An Italian maestro violinist is currently on tour with one of the world’s most expensive instruments. The 1715 “ex-Bazzini – De Vito” violin, made by Antonio Stradivari, has an estimated price tag of $16 million.

Matteo Fedeli talks about the instrument and gives you a small sample of what it sounds like. Fedeli is currently conducting his A Stradivari for the People tour, where he seeks to bring the 300-year-old instrument to new audiences. “I believe these instruments can speak and tell something to all the people, not only the people who understand the music, but all the people,” he told CBC during his Canada tour.

The violinist was accompanied on tour by pianist Emilio De Mercato.

There are 60 violins made by Stradivari which are still playable. Fedeli has played 25 of them. His initiative A Stradivarius for the People is supported by the Italian government and has seen him travel around the world to play instruments made by the best known string instrument maker to hundreds of thousands.

As well as playing principal violin in Italy’s most renowned venues, such as La Scala, Fedeli has been associated with Stradivari for some time. In 2011, he played a fundraising concert in Cremona, a town renowned for its violin-making, in which he used a different Stradivarius for each movement of Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

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