World renowned violinist and Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra conductor Pinchas Zukerman played a rare Guarneri violin at a concert in Moscow on Friday.

The violin was recently purchased by Russian businessman and collector, Maksim Viktorov, who reportedly paid a record price for the violin at a private auction in London.

Viktorov said he was really glad about the performance, because Zukerman has never played any violin publicly except his own for the last 28 years.

"Now, this is a true exception done purely for Moscow. This violin has not been played for the last hundred years. It was 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' as in the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So this violin will sound for the first time in Moscow. Definitely there is something patriotic in this event."

Zukerman was also quite excited about the performance.

"Very good feeling. I feel that it's having a new start. After 100 years, it is having a new start now. So, it feels good."

The violin was previously owned and played by the 19th-century Belgian composer Henri Vieuxtemps.

For several years, Vieuxtemps served as the chief soloist of Russian Emperor Alexander II and was in charge of the imperial theatres in St Petersburg.

After Vieuxtemps died in 1881, the precious violin went into a private family collection, where it remained for more than 100 years.