A.V. Club: David Aaron Carpenter Plays Bach on $45 Million MacDonald Stradivarius Viola at Sotheby's New York

Yes, behold the world's most expensive musical instrument.

If this doesn't get David Aaron Carpenter yet another Strad cover, nothing will. And surely, despite all the manufactured discontent about its ostentation, Mr. Carpenter deserves it.

Of course, it's hardly free this time.

Regardless, hearing DAC play from Bach's cello suite--surrounded by photographs from Cocteau, Man Ray, Edward Steichen and László Moholy-Nagy (themselves priced echelons above this writer's annual income)--was a rare treat.

And if you, too, love his Bach, you should've heard Carpenter's grand instrument do "Asturias" from Albéniz's Suite Espanola, Op. 47 there on the 10th floor of Sotheby's. 

Worth every penny, I'd say.