We’ve heard of soldiers falling on their swords, but never a violinist falling on his Stradivarius.

It was at the Barbican, London, back in December when music prodigy David Garrett, 25, fell on his priceless violin, reducing it to bits.

He was walking off stage down some “slippery” steps when he fell. The prize object ended up beneath him and may even have prevented a bad injury, Garrett surmises.

The broken fiddle is now in New York, where a team of experts are determining what should be done with it. If it’s repaired it probably won’t be as good as it was before, and certainly wouldn’t be worth anything like as much. But it may have some value as a museum piece.

The instrument was made by one of the Master’s best pupils, but bears the famous “brand” nonetheless — a common practice among artists in those days.

Meanwhile David Garrett goes from strength to strength. He is being dubbed classical music’s David Beckham for his boyish good looks. At 13 he was the youngest artist ever to record for prestigious classical label Deutsche Gramophon, and in the next four years he released four albums, the last being the Tchaikovsky and Conus concertos, with Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra.

Naturally, legends abound. At four years his father gave him a violin to play with. Without a single lesson, the toddler is said to have picked it up and started to play. How well, we’re not told.

“After two months without a teacher I was playing better than my older brother,” claims Garrett. “I think that my parents thought there must be some talent there, so they started to send me out to teachers.”

Tonight, he faces an eerie sequel. He’s back at the Barbican playing a concert.

Let us hope the management put some non-slip carpet on those stair.