Editor’s letterANGELA LYONS W hen French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras

ContributorsTOMÁS COTIK (Technique, page 80) studied with Ana

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A JOURNEY THROUGH TIMERecording Beethoven’s ‘Triple’ Concerto last June allowed French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras to step back into near normality, among colleagues and friends. He tells Pauline Harding about recording at a social distance, the importance of musical ‘family’, and why working with living composers has helped him to find contemporary relevance in music from every era

SECRETS OF THE ‘MESSIAH’In 2016 the ‘Messiah’ Stradivari was the subject of an extensive CT scanning project. Francesco Piasentini and Gregg Alf examine the resulting data, discovering repair work in the neck, and attempt to determine how it had originally been set

GEORGE NEIKRUG MEMORIES OF A LEGENDCellist George Neikrug, who died in 2019 at the age of 100, was a celebrated performer and orchestral principal. However, his skills as a pedagogue were second to none, writes University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor Benjamin Whitcomb, who has gathered personal recollections from fellow former students

RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIMEFor Renaud Capuçon, recording Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle was a dream come true – and one that he couldn’t allow to be derailed by Covid-19’s lockdown restrictions, as he tells Charlotte Gardner

AVOIDING INSTRUMENT CARNAGELuthiers often see the same basic problems when repairing instruments – and most of them could be solved by some simple care and attention from the players themselves. Korinthia Klein presents a simple guide to violin maintenance, without encroaching on the experts’ territory

BEATING THE ODDSDespite losing the function of the third and fourth fingers of his left hand through focal dystonia and a shoulder injury, violinist Clayton Haslop was determined to continue playing. Here he shares his story

Lost at sea?More musicians than ever are speaking out about struggles with their mental health, but what support services are available in this time of crisis?

Top lots from the London salesDespite the problems of Covid-19, the October sales went ahead as planned in the capital. Kevin MacDonald reviews some of the highlights

The big revealA celebration of a celebrated violin

LifelessonsRohan de Saram

OBITUARIESALEXANDER BUZLOV The Russian i nternational solo c

YCat musicians to give classes in musicianshipCOMFORT AND JOY: For the first time, the

JENS NIELSEN FROSTALL PHOTOS JONAS BUTHLER LINDBJERG Jens Nielsen Frost

Making a partial plaster castA useful restoration method that can be used when a full cast is unnecessary

MY SPACEA peek into lutherie workshops around the world

Making fingerboards greenMAKING MATTERS

SAINT-SAËNS CELLO CONCERTO NO.1MASTERCLASS

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From the ARCHIVEThe weights of a Stradivari violin’s plates are revealed for the first time, although modern readers will likely be left none the wiser

NAREK HAKHNAZARYANFor the Armenian cellist, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations allows for incredible freedom of expression – and even has the ability to heal