How to spend it

Investing in a fund that buys remarkable, rare violins and cellos and then loans them to gifted musicians benefits the instrument itself, the players' careers - and even one's bank balance, says Claire Wrathall. ...

Back in 2002, a 12-year-old from Cheshire called Jennifer Pike was named BBC Young Musician of the Year. She won the competition playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor on a Stradivarius borrowd from the Royal Academy of Music, on eof an estimated 550 such instruments still in existence. …