For the first time in history, twelve of the most magnificent violins built by Antonio Stradivari have travelled the world for a groundbreaking new project from Decca and superstar violinist Janine Jansen. With Sir Antonio Pappano accompanying her on piano, the result is a unique album entitled "12 Stradivari". The repertoire, which ranges from Tchaikovsky to Clara Schumann to Johannes Brahms, allows Jansen to capture the individual characters of each instrument and represent them in the best possible way. Steven Smith, the managing director of the world's leading violin dealer J&A Beare, wanted to bring together twelve of the very best violins and so laid the foundations for this project. The aim was both to showcase the brilliance and differences between the twelve Stradivarius violins and to record the different sounds for posterity in a special album. Some of these twelve Stradivari have not been played for many decades and may never have been recorded commercially. Others belonged to legendary virtuosos such as Fritz Kreisler, Nathan Milstein, Ida Haendel and Oscar Shumsky. Despite numerous logistical challenges in times of the Corona pandemic, the twelve instruments were flown to London from around the world to record this magnificent project.