Dallas ? As a concert pianist, Barrett Wissman believes top musicians should be able to play the finest instruments.

As a financier and investor, he realizes they often can’t afford those rare and expensive instruments themselves.

About six years ago, Wissman formed an organization that buys expensive classical instruments — many created by master craftsmen hundreds of years ago — for the sole purpose of loaning them to those who can play them to the fullest.

“They’re at the top of their profession, and they need an instrument that’s probably between $1 million and $4 million,” said Wissman, 40, who is married to cellist Nina Kotova.

Other wealthy benefactors have provided musicians with top instruments, but, Wissman said, “some systematically, others on a case-by-case basis. I decided to start something to systematically help people.”

Wissman has bought more than 10 instruments, mostly violins and cellos. He wouldn’t give specific prices but said they can range from $100,000 to several million dollars.

Christopher Adkins, the principal cellist of the Dallas Symphony, played an instrument on loan from Wissman’s Cremona Society Limited for four years. He said he could never have afforded the cello, made in Rome in 1714 by David Tecchler.

“It’s just one of the really glorious instruments in the world,” said Adkins. Getting fine instruments into the hands of the best players results in great music and can boost a musician’s career, said Joseph Regh, vice president of The Violin Society and a New York violin and bow maker.

Arthur Toman, president of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers and a violin maker in Massachusetts, said handmade violins of good quality are in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, cellos from $20,000 to $40,000.

But, Toman said, “when you come to the old Cremonese Strads and Guarneris — a million to the sky’s the limit.”

Antonio Stradivari and Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu worked in Cremona, Italy, the center of high-quality violin-making from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century.

Violinist Kurt Nikkanen holds an 1890 Grulli violin in New York. The violin is on loan to him from the Cremona Society, an instrument fund for musicians founded by businessman Barrett Wissman. About six years ago, Wissman formed an organization that buys expensive classical instruments, many created by master craftsmen hundreds of years ago, for the sole purpose of loaning them to those who can play them to the fullest.

“Because of the collectible value of these things — and they cannot be recreated new — they’ve gone way up in value,” Wissman said. “Where can you think of another object that has art value that is also actively used, something that’s 300 years old that somebody uses as a day-to-day instrument in their profession?”

There is a degree of risk in dealing with such expensive items, as Wissman found out when a Stradivarius turned up missing this year.

Cremona Society Limited sued Christophe Landon Rare Violins in New York, claiming the workshop was negligent in losing the 1714 Golden Period Stradivarius while acting as an agent for Cremona in the violin’s possible sale.

Cremona attorney Bill Brewer said the lawsuit asks for damages of up to $4 million, the instrument’s estimated value. Insurance paid $1.9 million, he said.

Landon, who builds, restores and sells violins, cellos and violas, told police he left the violin with a client in a private room, then discovered it missing two days later.

The company that insured the violin pulled the insurance on other Cremona instruments, and Wissman now keeps the more expensive pieces, including the cello that Adkins had been playing, in safekeeping.

A 266-year-old instrument used by New York-based concert violinist Kurt Nikkanen for the last five years is in safekeeping, but he also has use through Cremona of a violin made in 1890 by Pietro Grulli instead. It’s an excellent instrument, he said, but it handles differently.

“I haven’t found one violin that compares to my Guarneri,” said Nikkanen. “That sound that you hear under your ear: You can’t imagine being without it.”