Florian's interview in Ham & High journal

THE ACCLAIMED VIOLIN DEALER WITH MANY STRINGS TO HIS BOW

Florian Leonhard not only sells precious instruments - his workshop mends them

Last month, the world gasped when a particularly fine Stradivari violin made a record $15m at auction. But, according to Hampstead's resident violin authority Florian Leonhard, the public has no idea of how much rare instruments tend to make when they change hands because "the best rarely get put into auctions."

"The deal is private - no figure announced," he says. Leonhard has played a leading role in this discreet world for more than 15 years, running an international violin dealership and restoration workshop from his Frognal home. Hidden behind walls and gardens and formidable security, you wouldn't know it's there. But, when you get beyond the gates, you find yourself transported, Narnia-like, into violinist's El Dorado. On the ground floor is a showroom where you're lkely to be confronted by the sight of Strads, Guarneri and their like laid out across a table (it's enough to make you talk in whispers), with a staggering array of only slightly lesser fiddles in glass cases around the walls. Upstairs are the workshops where sophisticated craftsmen remedy the problems which beset three-centuries-old fiddles - taking them apart,applying molds and braces (often over months of minute readjustment), before reassembling with the broad objective that the fiddle should be playable in concert rather than stay hidden in a bank vault. Leonard's house is one of the few places in the world where this kind of craft is maintained.

"Most dealers don't have a restoration department," he says, "because it's not something you'd put your money into unless you were completely passionate about it - and I am."

The passion began as a teenager in Mittenwald, south Germany, where he was apprenticed to a celebrated luthier school. He then built up his experience with a London dealer before setting up on his own. His authority bring the world's greatest string players - Maxim Vengerov, Julian Rachlin, you name them - to his door for advice. 

Slow process

  He sells a fair proportion of the 15 or so Strads which filter through to the international market each year. Since they're usually sold to be played, it can be a slow process - anything from six months to two years from when the fiddle finds its way into his hands.

"It's like a dating agency. You might have the perfect body on your books but you're still looking for the right match - and matching the instrument to the player is the issue. I usually know who's looking so I call around to see if they're interested." "Players will always prioritise sound. But, although they might not admit it, the look of the instrument plays a role as well. There's a correlation between beauty and sound in the great Cremonese instruments. They work together." It's the output from a handful of workshops in 16th and 17th century Cremona, Italy, which form the bedrock of Leonhard's trade. He does, in fact, make a small number of modern copies - but it's the originals which count. Besides selling them, he's one of the handful of leading experts trusted worldwide to issue authentication certificates. In other words, he stands in judgment on whether what you think is a Strad or a Guarneri really is. 

"The market expects conservatism in that sort of judgment," he says, "because it doesn't want you changing your mind three years later. So you have to be careful if you want a clean reputation. It takes a good memory, a lot of hands-on experience and 15 to 20 years of patience."

That said the universe of top-quality fiddles in circulation will always be finite- Antonio Stradivari made 600 violins of which 450 survive. This this is why the market value is so high. The value means that, although Leonhard deals all the time with players, it will only be a tiny number who can buy the instruments themselves. Most will have an arrangement with an institution or investment consortium which puts up the money and then loans the fiddle out. Brokering those deals is something else that Leonhard takes care of - a role which make very much worth knowing to the struggling wannabees of the string circuit. The very best instruments, he says, tend to double their value every 10 years. This makes them attractive prospects in the current climate of investment. "There are a lot of new people interested in this market, looking for assets that are safe."

Lending a Strad to a musician who might well be so preoccupied with art that he leaves his fiddle on a train doesn't sound very safe to me, but  Leonhard says otherwise. "Losing an instrument does happen, but only very rarely does it disappear. When one of these violins goes missing everyone knows about it and it's usually recovered. That's why insurance premiums aren't as high as you'd think. Strads are actually low risk." If they do go, though, they're irreplaceable. No one has ever managed through the centuries to duplicate their quality. If you ask why, Leonhard will thell you it's because of the wood. "It came from alpine forests which were there for millions of years but have since been erased and replaced and the wood isn't the same. Before, it was lighter, thinner but stronger. I think that's what give these great golden age violins their combination of responsiveness, colour and power. 

"I don't say that there aren't good modern instruments which will mature well. But we'll have to wait 250 years to find out."

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