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Li Wei Qin is a performer who can change a potentially fine performance into a great one. He is undoubtedly one of the finest cellists performing today. Music lovers in Australia are lucky his family lives in Adelaide, giving him many reasons to visit and play in this country. His contribution to last night’s concert by Tinalley String Quartet was manifold and stretched far beyond the addition of his impeccable technique and ample musicianship. This is not to downplay in any sense the participation of another fine musician, Roger Benedict, Sydney Symphony’s Principal Viola, who also brought much to the evening. Nor should it in any way detract from the performance of the other four, regular members of Tinalley, all of whom are ...

All you readers are of course connoisseurs of string instruments, so you will recognise the allusion. If you don’t, it comes from an inscription on a ancient lute. Google it. It is a lovely thought.

In April last, your correspondent wrote Part 1 of “In Death I Sweetly Sing”, a commentary on the fine range of old instruments in Adelaide for the Second Adelaide International Cello Festival. It was a joy to see and hear these played in concert and in masterclasses. More recently on this blog he has commented on the poor state of fine old instrument ownership in this country (Of Music, Mortals and Metamorphoses), notwithstanding the recent sterling efforts by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Jurlique, and

A “new” Stradivarius is purchased and needs a name

Australian investors, it seems, have been slow to embrace the idea of buying rare instruments of the violin family. This is a great pity, since it could be argued the nation has well and truly missed the boat, at least insofar as large returns are concerned. This notwithstanding, it is great to see a fund being established by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, intended to build a bank of fine instruments for the orchestra. This is not the first such fund, the Music Council of Australia having established a National Instrument Bank (NIB) in 2008, with the purpose of lending quality instruments to young professionals. The NIB has managed to gather together some six instruments,

Dr Martin Jarvis is a brave man. He has taken on the mighty worldwide collective of musicologists and Bach scholars to present a fascinating case that J S Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, may well have written the six cello suites. His interest and investigation developed into a doctoral thesis. His new book, published recently by ABC Books, is not simply that thesis, but rather a layman’s story of his journey of discovery, exploring new avenues of scholarship and new ideas in the development of knowledge about Anna Magdalena Bach and her real role in the J S Bach mystery.

Along the way Jarvis accepted ridicule, mendacious commentary, simple disbelief and an academic ambush at a learned conference, as he developed and