Messiah Stradivarius

The Messiah - Salabue Stradivarius of 1716 is a violin made by the Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari of Cremona.

[1] The neck has been lengthened and at minimum the bass bar, bridge, tailpiece, and pegs have been replaced.

"One day Tarisio was discoursing with Vuillaume on the merits of this unknown and marvelous instrument, when the violinist Jean-Delphin Alard, Vuillaume's son-in-law, exclaimed: 'Really, Mister Tarisio, your violin is like the Messiah of the Jews: one always expects him but he never appears' ('Vraiment, Monsieur Tarisio, votre violon est comme le Messie des Juifs: on l'attend toujours, mais il ne paraît jamais').

Hill to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for preservation as "a yardstick for future violin makers to learn from".

However it was played by the famous violinist Joseph Joachim, who stated in a letter of 1891 to the then owner of the Messiah, Robert Crawford, that he was "struck by the combined sweetness and grandeur of the sound".