The Fulton Collection: A Guided Tour by David Fulton

This book is a treasure, not just as a resource for lovers and players of stringed instruments, but also as a fascinating and often very funny look at life through the eyes of a most remarkable man, David Fulton. It has my very highest recommendation.

James Ehnes
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Welcome

One of the world’s premier dealers in fine stringed instruments, Peter Biddulph’s London shop serves an international clientele of musicians and investors.

Biddulph’s influential exhibition “The Violin Masterpieces of Guarneri del Gesù” at New York’s Metropolitan Museum was hailed as a major contribution to violin scholarship. This led to the publication of “Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù”, a ground-breaking study of Guarneri’s life and work. We have also published two important books about Antonio Stradivari, “The Stradivari Legacy” and “The Violin Forms of Antonio Stradviari”, as well as a collection of photographs of musicians by Clive Barda, entitled “Performance!”.

Expertise

Recognised as a leader in violin expertise, Peter Biddulph’s certificates of authenticity are highly sought after by owners of fine violins worldwide. He also serves as a consultant expert to collectors and foundations, helping clients to buy and sell their fine antique stringed instruments.

To obtain a certificate for your instrument, please contact us to make an appointment.

Contact us for more information, or to arrange an appointment.

Biddulph Recordings

Hailed as “the best historical CD label in the world” (Musical America), Biddulph Recordings was founded in London in 1989 by leading violin expert Peter Biddulph. With the advent of digital technology, he set out to create an archive of recordings to document the great string players of the past. Working in close collaboration with Eric Wen, the eminent musicologist and historian of string performance practice, Biddulph established the first label to specialize in the restoration and commercial reissue of historical string recordings.

The early Biddulph titles included the first digital reissues of recordings by violin legends Fritz Kreisler, Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud and Yehudi Menuhin. By the mid-1990s, Biddulph Recordings had also released complete editions of the work of such master string players as Bronisław Huberman, Mischa Elman, Jan Kubelík, Henri Temianka, Ossy Renardy, Toscha Seidel, Nathan Milstein, Ruggiero Ricci, Alfred Dubois, Lionel Tertis, William Primrose, Pablo Casals and Emanuel Feuermann. The label soon expanded to include historical piano recordings, with the first digital reissues of recordings by Alfred Cortot, Harold Bauer and Percy Grainger, followed by Myra Hess, Moriz Rosenthal, Raoul Koczalski, Wilhelm Backhaus and Shura Cherkassky. Biddulph subsequently branched into historical orchestral and chamber music, reissuing the work of conductors Willem Mengelberg, Serge Koussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski, Thomas Beecham, Max Fiedler and Hermann Abendroth, as well as such legendary chamber ensembles as the Budapest, Busch, Capet and Primrose String Quartets.

In tandem with historical reissues, Biddulph Recordings has also produced a number of important original recordings. The first of these was the landmark recital recording debut of superstar violinist Maxim Vengerov, then an unknown 14-year-old prodigy. This was followed by Ruggiero Ricci’s accounts of the Beethoven and Brahms Concertos featuring 16 and 14 different cadenzas respectively (both concerto albums were tracked to enable the listener to choose which cadenza to program into each performance). Other notable new recordings on the Biddulph label include the luminous Bach interpretations of pianist Edward Aldwell, and the masterly violin performances of Oscar Shumsky, Aaron Rosand and Arnold Steinhardt.

Biddulph Recordings’ numerous honours include the Gramophone 1999 ICRC (International Classical Record Collector) Historic award for “Historical Recording of the Year”.

Biddulph Recordings catalogue is now available on all digital streaming platforms.

Contact us

We are open Monday to Friday by appointment only.

For more information or to arrange an appointment:

enquiries@peterbiddulph.com
+44 (0) 20 7636 1733

Peter Biddulph
99 Mortimer Street
London W1W 7SX
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