Pictured: Professor Mateja Marinkovic, a former Royal Academy of Music associate
A suburban music teacher has won her court battle against a world-renowned classical musician over an antique £80,000 Italian violin he allegedly offered to buy from her with cash hidden inside a piano in Belgrade.
Ruzica West, 38, sued Professor Mateja Marinkovic, a former Royal Academy of Music associate who has toured the world as a solo performer, for ripping her off after she sold her historic 250-year-old violin to him below its estimated £80,000 value in desperation.
The Ilford teacher had been short of money for medical treatment in 2015 and had trusted violinist Prof Marinkovic, her ‘mentor’ and former tutor at the Purcell School for Young Musicians in Hertfordshire, to help her get the best deal for her instrument.
Miss West argued in court that her violin was valued by insurers at £80,000, but that she had agreed that Prof Marinkovic could buy it for £40,000 plus £20,000 for a bow, as she wanted a quick sale.
However, she pulled out of the deal when she was told she would need to travel to Belgrade, Serbia to collect the £60,000 cash, which Prof Marinkovic had told her was hidden inside a piano.
Desperate for money, she approached the professor again in 2016 and agreed to a deal worth £40,000, including £26,000 in cash and the proceeds of the sale of a second violin, made in France in the 19th century.
But Miss West, from East London, claimed that soon after she accepted that deal, she learned from an expert that the market value of the second instrument was between just £1,500 and £2,000.
The dispute made its way to court, as Miss West and her mother sued Prof Marinkovic for breach of contract and leaving her £12,500 out of pocket.
At Central London County Court this week, Judge Ian Avent said the professor had short-changed Miss West and would have to pay her the difference.
Prof Marinkovic ‘knew very well’ the second violin was not worth a five-figure sum, but led Miss West to believe that it was to get her to sell the Landolfi, he said.
Ruzica West (left with her mother Olgica West) was given the Landolfi instrument as a present by her grandmother in 2002, but decided to sell it when she fell short of cash in 2015
Mateja Marinkovic: Classical musician who toured the world, coached prodigies and was honoured by the Royal Academy as ‘one of the leading violinists of his generation’
Mateja Marinkovic in concert in 2009
Mateja Marinkovic was described by the Royal Academy of Music as ‘one of the leading violinists, recording artists and teachers of his generation’.
The musician has performed in concerts in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Russia as well as the UK ever since winning the Nicanor Zabaleta International Virtuosi Competition and prizes in the Flesch, Abbado and Lipizer International Competitions.
Marinkovic, from the former Yugoslavia, has made live and studio recordings, while his concert performances won him acclaim in Britain and led to his tutoring career.
He has coached many students including Jack Liebeck, who have gone on to win international competitions and performed as soloists at the Royal Festive and Royal Albert Halls as well as the Louvre in Paris.
Marinković became a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1993, and was made an honorary associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of his high achievements.
It is understood he left the Royal Academy at the end of June 2017 to take up a post as professor of violin at the United International College in Tangjiawan, Guangdong, China.
The maple Landolfi violin, which is valued for insurance purposes at £80,000, was made by Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi, an Italian craftsman considered to be one of history’s finest stringed instrument makers.
The court heard Miss West was given it as a present by her grandmother at the start of her career in 2002, but decided to sell it when she needed money for medical treatment in 2015.
She took it to Prof Marinkovic, who had taught her as a 14-year-old music prodigy at the Purcell School, as well as privately as an adult.
The professor offered to buy the Landolfi for £40,000, together with an expensive bow for £20,000, but Miss West pulled out of the deal when told she would have to travel to Belgrade to collect the cash, which Prof Marinkovic said was hidden inside a piano.
The professor however denied he owed a penny more, insisting the agreed price was the £26,000 he paid and denying he ever suggested a monetary value for the French violin, but only that as a professional musician he valued its sound as being worth ‘over £12,000.’
He claimed all of Miss West’s allegations were ‘fabrications, contradictions and lies’ and that her Landolfi was not worth £40,000. The £26,000 he had paid was more than she would have got at auction, he said.
And although he has since played the Landolfi violin at concerts in Serbia and China, he says he never wanted it, and that it has only brought him trouble, including being ‘harassed’ and ‘pursued’ by the Belgrade mafia.
Ruling on the case, Judge Avent said the deal had been for £40,000, the same as had been agreed at the time of the aborted sale in 2015, which Miss West had pulled out of for understandable reasons.
‘It must have been a difficult decision for her to have made but I apprehend that she instinctively felt uncomfortable with what was proposed, as indeed I would have done,’ he said.
‘Firstly, the sum of £60,000 is a very significant sum of money especially to keep in cash; secondly, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would keep such an amount of cash in a piano rather than a financial institution, not only from the point of view of security but where it might earn interest.
‘This was never explained in any way, even tangentially, by Prof Marinkovic and it suggests that in some way it was necessary to keep the money hidden; and, thirdly, I am uneasy as to the provenance of the money which was said to be as a consequence of a land or property transaction by Prof Marinkovic’s father but with no details of what this involved.
‘The most obvious thing to have done would have been for Prof Marinkovic to simply transfer this money to Miss West’s English bank account and not require her to travel to, and open an account in, Belgrade.
‘The fact that he did not apparently even advance that suggestion reinforces the suspicion, in my view, that in some way these monies were tainted.
‘Nonetheless, what I find that the abortive 2015 sale of the Landolfi demonstrated was that Prof Marinkovic was quite willing, and able, to pay £40,000 for the Landolfi at that time and I take it from that he must therefore have considered the Landolfi to have been worth that money.’
Pictured: A violin similar to the Landolfi instrument sold by Miss West
Prof Marinkovic had written a note ‘clearly designed to lead Miss West to the belief that the monetary value of the French violin was in excess of £12,000 and as an inducement to proceed with the transaction,’ he added.
‘However, I find his statement of that value was not true. Prof Marinkovic obviously did not believe that the French violin ‘had an obtainable value of £12,000’.
‘My finding is clearly supported by the evidence of Mr Horner whose expert evidence categorically disposes of any valuation in the region of £12,000.
‘Accordingly, I find that despite his protestations to the contrary, Prof Marinkovic cannot have had a genuine belief that this was the value of the French violin and therefore knowingly made a false representation or was otherwise reckless as to the truth of that statement.’
He said Prof Marinkovic ‘knew very well’ that the French violin would not be sold for £12,000 and ordered he pay the £14,000 he owes, plus another £1,139 in interest.
‘The agreement was for the sum of £40,000; it was incumbent upon Prof Marinkovic to pay that sum; he was bound to do so and he has not done so,’ he concluded in his judgment.
Prof Marinkovic represented himself at the trial in December, but was not present for the judgment, having contracted Covid-19.
Miss West had to give up her hopes of a career as a concert violinist due to medical problems with her jaw and now works as a music teacher.