The South Korean violinist Inmo Yang has been notching up international awards and air miles since winning the Premio Paganini Competition in Genoa in 2015. This summer, 2025, he caused a flurry in the violin world when he was loaned a $20 million violin thought to have belonged to the great virtuoso, Niccolò Paganini.
Stories: Inmo Yang
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I‘m really lucky to have this instrument. It was made in 1743 by the same violin maker and in the same year as Paganini’s violin, Il Cannone del Gesù. It even comes from the same tree! I’m one of the few people who has got to play both instruments but this one – the Carrodus Guarneri del Gesù – felt it could give me more tools as a violinist because it seeks out contrast rather than balance.
With a Stradivarius violin, for example, all four strings have a similar resonance so when you play a chord it’s like a beautiful Greek statue, it’s so well balanced. But with del Gesù’s violin, it’s more like a Rembrandt painting with very strong contrasts with each note having a different texture as though walking on a very pebbly surface with different sizes of stones. If I reduce my bow speed just a little bit, the color changes immediately. So for me, it has quite a human quality.
This instrument came to me at the moment I was rethinking my sound. I wanted to be freer, exploring sounds that are not just beautiful but with more possibilities for ugliness, for example, and this instrument is capable of teaching me how to achieve these different colors.
Obviously, its connection with Paganini makes it an extremely expensive instrument. It’s thought Paganini owned it himself and gambled it away. You know, he was a fun guy who didn’t always have enough money. We don’t know if that’s true, but Paganini certainly made the violin maker Guarneri del Gesù very popular.
“This instrument came to me at the moment I was rethinking my sound. I wanted to be freer, exploring sounds that are not just beautiful but with more possibilities for ugliness…”
It’s actually easier to play Paganini’s music on this violin as it’s a bit smaller, and so it’s easier to reach high notes. It also has the most mesmerizing red varnish. You can see it’s almost bare, not polished like other old instruments but with some of the most beautiful craftsmanship. Del Gesù made it a year before his death. He was not gentle with it as he wanted something with more of a raw character. He went through much in his life and by this stage, he wasn’t seeking out beauty anymore.
Before it was loaned to me, this violin was played by the Australian violinist Richard Tognetti, who’s the concertmaster of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Prior to that it was in collections and hadn’t been played for decades, so that’s why I want to kind of bring this instrument to life and show people how it can sound, especially when I play Paganini’s music.
