stradivarius

A Courageous Experiment that will Make you See Music and Beauty Differently

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“Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art.” ~ Oscar Wilde

At 7.51 am on Friday 12th January 2007, an unassuming lone male figure dressed in a long sleeved T-shirt and baseball cap played the most spiritually uplifting violin music there is, on a £3.5 million Stradivarius, to oblivious passing commuters at the L’Enfant Plaza on the Washington Metro.

The subway experiment:

Normally classical music fans, and in particular, violin aficionados pay around $100 to attend a Joshua Bell concert, for the chance to listen to one of the greatest living violinists.

I saw Joshua Bell in a performance of Schubert with Jeremey Denk in Vienna a few years back. It was very special. I got to meet him briefly afterwards, and I cannot think of a more down to earth, approachable and lovely person as he. It also helps that he’s pretty much flawless on the violin too…

Joshua Bell in Vienna

The experiment was thought up by Joshua Bell and Gene Weingarten, a Washington Post journalist, curious to see if someone of Joshua’s fame and reputation would elicit large crowds and a hefty amount of coinage in his case.

The outcome of the 45 minute busking session was shocking – of the 1097 people that passed by Joshua that morning, only 7 people stopped to listen for a minute or longer, and the ones who tended to want to stop most were children.  Joshua had received little over $32 for the entire session.

I’m not sure many other professional violinists would have undertaken a similar experience…

For lesser virtuoso’s that kind of reception would likely have cleaved a severe dent in their ego, but Joshua Bell, I think, was able to look objectively at what happened. It had no bearing on his skill on the violin.

It had everything to do with perception, placement and people’s capacity to enjoy something despite its context and their preconceived ideas.

Buskers, although many are highly talented, are not usually in the same league as a concert soloist. We tend to disregard them unless we like what we hear. No matter their skill level my children always stop for buskers.

It was early in the morning and people were naturally rushing to work so they weren’t really focused on anything else. The dismal results highlight how often we can live in a kind of manic, 21st century stress bubble.

Our schedules are crammed to the hilt; we don’t appear to have a nanosecond to enjoy the finer things in life. But such a blinkered attitude means we miss out on what’s really around us.

“Some of the most thrilling things in life are done on impulse.” ~ Syrie James (The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen)

It’s time to open up our awareness and take a deep, abdominal sniff of the roses – really smell and devour their glorious scent – make it a part of us.  Let that divine aroma mingle in our blood as it pulses around our body and nourishes our cells.

Stop and listen to the music if you can, it’s highly beneficial for human beings. Pause and appreciate a work of art, read an excerpt of a classic text and truly digest what message, what heart-felt passion and skill went into its creation.

One of the best violinists in the world was playing music that speaks to the soul on a Golden Period Stradivarius, and barely anyone could truly appreciate it. This wasn’t just any old music played on a shoddy instrument by an amateur – this was mastery – mastery of composition, of violin construction and musicianship.

It makes you think what else we might miss if our radar isn’t attuned to art, nature, beauty, literature and music, our whatever it is that elevates our soul. The universe is ‘speaking’ to us all the time, but are we listening?

Many opportunities for joy may pass us by if we are in a kind of awareness stupor, only concerned with the banalities of life. To be fair, maybe some people didn’t recognise or know who Joshua Bell is; but surely the heavenly music would have roused them from their cultural cocoons for just a minute?

It’s a sad day when a person’s life is so devoid of feeling or joy that they cannot spare such a short time to enrich it.

Here’s the article that Gene wrote after the experiment in the Washington Post.

The Man with the Violin

The experiment prompted children’s author Kathy Stinson to write a glorious book about it: The Man with the Violin. Kathy put herself in the shoes of one of one of the children who may have passed Joshua that cold wintry morning and wrote it from a young boy’s point of view.

When I discovered this book I had already seen the experiment and knew that my daughters would love it. They do, and so do I, because it reminds me to pay attention to what my children pay attention to, and to live in and enjoy the moment.

It’s beautifully written with a beautiful message and evocative illustrations.

Context

One of the lessons of this enlightening experiment was context. It turns out that time and place matter, that expectation has an impact on our experience and enjoyment. When we have paid a considerable amount of money to sit in a concert hall and hear the amazing acoustics of a hotly billed soloist we are in the right frame of mind to get the most out of that experience.

Spontaneity is not something that the majority of people who passed him seemed to possess. It also demonstrated that people tend not to value something unless they pay for it.

His follow-up performance at Washington Union Station in 2014 was much more successful! It helped that the event was publicised, so people knew in advance what was happening.

Joshua Bell is very eloquent when he talks about the experience and classical music in general:

I love his passion for children to have a musical education and how that impacts on their lives as well as their test scores. Music (of any kind) is not a nice to have, it’s as essential as maths and literature. It’s fundamental to our well-being on a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual level.

So whatever floats your boat, be it music, literature, art, or being in nature, take time to enjoy it and let its beauty infiltrate your life and revitalise your soul.

“No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it.” ~ Carol Bryant

Guarneri (del Gesù), Stradivari and Nagyvary – The Debate over Ancient Violins vs. Modern Masterpieces

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“’Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio.” ~ George Eliot

When it comes to the value of violins, (and for that matter violas and cellos); provenance matters. The allure of such revered names is enough to send any stringed player into a frenzy…

Ultimately, the quality and rarity of Amati, Stradivarius and Guarnerius violins will render them more expensive than their modern counterparts, no matter how good and comparable the modern violins may be. With only around 600 Stradivarius instruments left in the world not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to play on one, (at least all of the time), let alone own one. And of course, the provenance greatly affects the asking price. Who has owned it, and when, who has played on it, what music has been written for it, the condition, these elements all add to the mystique and desirability of the instrument. Much like a work of art, a painting is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And in many instances they pay millions.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAPaganini’s violin, the priceless ‘Il Cannone’ was made by a contemporary of Stradivarius; Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri of Cremona, in 1743, and is famed for its power and resonance. Interestingly, when it needed maintenance and repairs, these were undertaken by luthier Jean Baptiste Vuillaume in Paris, who constructed a replica violin so precise in every detail that even Paganini could not distinguish one from the other! Eventually he came to recognise the slight differences in tone, and was able to tell the original by sound. The violin and its replica are kept on display in Italy at the Genoa Town Hall. Occasionally it’s lent to performers.

The Devils’s Violinist (trailer) – A film about Paganini, played by violinist David Garrett:

Jazz violinist Regina Carter recorded an album on his beloved ‘Il Cannone’ (Paganini: After a Dream). Here is the track After a Dream arranged from Faure’s classic:

The debate over the sound quality of ancient Italian violins compared with each other and mostly to their modern counterparts has endured for years. Virtuosos past and present, such as Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Nigel Kennedy, Midori and Sarah Chang have owned, or played, and in some cases preferred, Guarneri over Stradivari.

Amati violinWho can say exactly what that special ‘je ne sais quois’ is, that elevates the Cremonese creations from all other violins? There are so many aspects to making a stringed instrument, and to me it makes sense that skill in every area of construction affects the finished product.

I think it’s worth making the point that for most musicians it’s the relationship that they develop with their instrument that’s the most important thing. After so many hours of practice and performance the feel and touch and memory of every curve and angle is interwoven into your psyche, and it can feel like part of your body!

My own violin is Hungarian, (late 19th Century), and to me its tone is amazing, considering it’s probably a gypsy violin. That’s why I was so interested in the story of the Hungarian born Dr. Joseph Nagyvary.

As the violinist and heroine of my novel, Isabelle Bryant does get a little caught up in this debate. In my story, she plays the Nagyvary violin that was once played by Yehudi Menuhin.

Here’s a brief excerpt that touches on this subject from chapter 1 of The Virtuoso. The protagonist has just given a masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music:

She made her way south on the underground from Baker Street to London Victoria. The dreary grey sky hung like a heavy cloak over the platform. As the train jolted to halt she quickly found a seat by the window, and nestled her case vertically between her feet and knees. As more passengers entered the carriage she touched the edge of her violin case lightly, smiling with resigned humour as a passing stranger made a joke about her carrying a machine gun.

Her violin represented another limb to her, it was that precious. It felt so natural, like an extension of her body. She gently rubbed her neck which was feeling a little sore. The rough, red patch of skin on her neck just below her jaw was often mistaken for a love bite, when in fact it was what she affectionately referred to as a violinist’s hickey. Many hours of gruelling practise had left their marks.

Her mind drifted to her earlier private viewing of the Academy’s museum, where she had been shown round by the curator in person. She had spent a blissful afternoon paying particular awe and reverence to their recent acquisition of Italian virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti’s 1709 Stradivarius, renamed as the Viotti ex-Bruce to honour its British donor, which the Academy extolled as one of the most important and well preserved Stradivarius violins in the world.

She had studied the sheen of the dark, pinky brown maple, picturing the old master craftsman huddled in his workshop in northern Italy; surrounded by the distinctive wooden shapes that would become so valuable over three hundred years later. Sadly there were so few of them remaining.

Her own violin, a modern Nagyvary, was crafted by the eminent Hungarian professor Joseph Nagyvary, who had spent his life studying the craftsmanship of Cremonese violin makers; namely Stradivarius and Guarnerius.

Nagyvary violins were made as closely to those of the ancient genius as possible, and there had been many debates about whether or not they actually sounded as good as those of the master. Isabelle adored its sonorous tonal qualities and projection power. If a Nagyvary violin had been good enough for Yehudi Menuhin to play for fifteen years, then it was good enough for her. Gerry, in his nothing is too much of a challenge for me attitude, had managed to do a deal with Joseph Nagyvary to loan Isabelle the instrument indefinitely.  It was her most precious possession – except that she didn’t own it.

Here is an interesting article in Scientific American

Can you tell the difference?

Dr Nagyvary discovers what preserved the violins from Cremona and Venice:

The Stradivarius Mystique – By Joseph Nagyvary

New York Times Article: What Exalts Stradivarius? Not Varnish, Study Says

Smithsonian: Scanning a Stradivarius

List of Stradivarius Violins and their provenance

Wonderful video from the Library of Congress with Peter Sheppard Skaerved, an award winning British violinist, who has performed on ‘Il Cannone’ five times.

An Introduction to Stradivari:

The mystery and romance of centuries old Italian violins has filtered into film making, with the brilliant 1998 movie, The Red Violin. The actual violin that inspired the Red Violin is Stradivari’s 1721 ‘Red Mendelssohn’, currently owned by Elizabeth Pitcairn, heiress to the PPG fortune, whose grandfather purchased it for her 16th birthday at auction for $1.7 million at Christie’s in London.

And on that note, I will leave you with the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack to the film, composed by John Corigliano and performed by Joshua Bell on his Gibson ex-Huberman Stradivarius: