“The ‘Beatrice Harrison’ is not here right now,” says David Fulton as if explaining that a family member has just stepped out. Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk came by to take her out the other day, he adds, trading in the Montagnana.

“He admitted his mistake!” Fulton chuckles, mildly amused.

Fulton knew Mørk would be back for the Harrison, made in 1735 by Pietro Guarneri of Venice and named for the British cellist who made her career on it.

Fulton understands players and he knows his instruments. As the most important violin collector of our time, he routinely hears them played by the world’s great concert artists and he has developed an uncanny sense of which two will suit each other.

A long, successful career in the computer industry has allowed Fulton to indulge his longtime fascination with fine bowed instruments. As his fortunes increased so did the collection: 16 violins, mostly by Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, four violas, and three cellos, plus three dozen bows to date.

“There has not been a collection of such quality since that of Richard Bennett in the second and third decades of the 20th century,” writes violin expert, dealer, and author Charles Beare.

Bennett’s collection was somewhat larger, numbering 30 instruments, but owning the greatest number has never interested Fulton. He is interested only in the best-preserved, best-sounding examples of the best work by the greatest Italian makers.

“David has become very knowledgeable and has always shown a real passion for the finest old instruments, as well as great love for those that have come his way,” continues Beare.

“An awful lot of what I have is tied up in the instruments,” Fulton admits, during an interview on a recent sunny morning of the kind not taken for granted in rainy western Washington.

This sunny day also happens to be his birthday. Friends drop by bearing gifts, and preparations are on for a party later in the evening, but Fulton is content to spend his time talking about his violins. The spacious living room of Fulton’s house is set up for music; he hosts weekly rehearsals with members of the Seattle Symphony and their long-standing quartet performs regularly for charity events. An ornately carved quartet stand, created for J.B. Vuillaume’s 1872 exhibition of Cremonese instruments in London, occupies the place of honor in front of spectacular picture windows. It’s one of three antiques in sight—two from the 1872 exhibition, and one from the studio of his friend Isaac Stern. Otherwise, the house, furnishings, and artwork are all decidedly modern. Hard, formal surfaces of marble and glass are softened by thick area rugs, and comfortable green and blue furniture. Acoustics in the room are warm but dry, allowing the nuances of each instrument’s voice to be heard clearly. A grand piano stands nearby on its own carpet, waiting to play chamber music with the violins.

But later today the piano’s generous lid will be covered with them.

"Dr. Dave,” as he is known in software circles, is a remarkable man. Throughout the interview his laser-like focus shifts among various passions—violins, music, computers, photography—revealing a formidable depth of knowledge in each area. He entered the University of Chicago at 16 to study mathematics, then earned masters and doctoral degrees in statistics before chairing the nascent computer-science department at Bowling Green University from 1970 to 1980. Various businesses developed out of his associations there, including Fox Software, which was purchased by Microsoft in 1992.

Fulton has earned a fortune and makes no secret of it, but he can also be generous with very little fanfare. From time to time he quietly lends instruments to deserving musicians, famous and not so well-known alike. The David and Amy Fulton Foundation endows the concertmaster’s chair of the Seattle Symphony and supports the arts locally. He once turned down Stern’s request for a large donation to Carnegie Hall saying, “But Isaac, I don’t live in New York!”