Director: Tim Meara.
On the ribs of the oldest surviving Cello made around fifteen thirty eight its maker inscribed the words “Justice” and “Piety”, yet beneath its civilized surface the world of rare string instruments is a realm of undisclosed alliances, fierce rivalries and denigrating whispers; it’s history of fraud and fakery dates almost to the inception of the violin itself… The title of the documentary is inspired by the most perfectly preserved Stradivari violin in existence: The Messiah, which is displayed in a glass case at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum and was donated with the condition that it must never be played again. This film explores a rare and exclusive world. Owning one of Stradivari’s instruments now equates to great power and influence in the Music World. These instruments are so valuable that they are well beyond the capability of even the most famous musicians to own. Yet they have the unique capacity to produce sound so intensely beautiful and powerful that 350 years after their creation they remain one of the only objects in our cultural history to be unrivalled by anything modern technology and science can produce. What right, if any, will musicians have to play these unique instruments in the future? The film follows the Brit award winning violinist Ruth Palmer as she circumnavigates the globe in search of an instrument to play, and we hear the magic of Stradivari in the hands of the world’s greatest musicians including: Joshua Bell, James Ehnes, Heinrich Schiff, Natalie Clein and Steven Isserlis.