Giovanni Grancino (fl Milan, c1685-c1726) A cello Milan, 1693

Christopher Bunting was born on 8th August 1924 and started to play the cello at the age of six.  He studied music at Cambridge, and was a pupil of Maurice Eisenberg and Pablo Casals.  He soon gained a reputation as a performer and teacher, and performed most of the standard repertoire and gave master classes all over the world.

He was a great supporter of contemporary music and gave the first British broadcast of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto. He premiered Gerald Finzi's Cello Concerto in 1955, Alan Rawsthorne's concerto in 1967, and his own Concerto For Cello And Strings in 1984.   In addition to his concerto he also published a Fugue For Six Cellos, Three Pieces For Cello Ensemble and an Elegy For Violoncello And Piano. 

His principal concert instrument was a very fine Carlo Giuseppe Testore which was sold in these rooms in November 1989, lot 589.  The Testore and Grancino cellos will both be featured in the forthcoming book Four Centuries of Violin Making – Fine Instruments from the Sotheby’s Archive.

Sold with the certificate of D.R. Hill & Son, Great Missenden, dated 6th September 2005