Antonio Stradivari's 1700 "ex Cristiani-Stauffer" cello, considered to be one of the master's finest works, was purchased by the Walter Stauffer Musicology Center in Cremona. It is now on display at the Violin Museum in Cremona.

The history of this cello, though at times uncertain, suddenly becomes clear when it comes to Lisa Cristiani, a Parisian cellist who acquired the instrument, definitively linking her name to Stradivari and the cello. Lisa died very young in 1853 at just 26 years old, a fleeting star on the musical scene of her time: in just a few years, she enchanted audiences with her extraordinary cello. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy dedicated his Song Without Words, op.109, to her. But today, you can hear "The Voice of Stradivari", the voice of this precious cello, on this CD released by the Italian label MV Cremona. The excellent performers are the cellist Giovanni Gnocchi, born in Cremona like Stradivari's cello, and the pianist Alessandro Stella. According to the renowned Italian critic Angelo Foletto, on this CD, "Gnocchi exploits with loving interpretative skill and virtuosic ease every quality of the 18th-century 'Stauffer ex Cristiani' Stradivari cello, constructing a listening adventure of intriguing poetic subtlety and an intelligent assortment of accents" - SUONARE News, December 2025.

This CD includes some pieces written by cellist-composers themselves (Popper and Klengel). Other pieces were transcribed by famous concert performers and cello virtuosos of modern and contemporary times (Piatigorsky, Schiff, Isserlis). Others were dedicated by composers to their cellist friends, as in the case of Dvořák and Hanuš Wihan, Liszt and Bernhard Cossmann, the living composer Ducros and Jérôme Pernoo and Mendelssohn, who dedicated his Romances sans paroles, op.109 to Lisa Cristiani, then owner of this beautiful Stradivari.

The final piece is an Italian masterpiece composed by Gioacchino Rossini: Une larme, thème et variations. The combination of elegiac cantabile and explosive virtuosity encapsulates the characteristics that have inspired the musical choices in this CD. Rediscovered only in recent decades, it belongs to the Péchés de vieillesse, the "sins of old age" as Rossini called the many compositions he wrote in his later years and never published because, as he said, "I do not publish anything; I only write because I cannot do anything else". Composed in 1858, it offers the musician all the most typical elements of Rossini's genial style.