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Friday Night Jazz Classical

Friday, April 13, 2007 | 09:14 PM

in Digital Media | Friday Night Jazz | Music

A variation on our usual Friday Evening Jazz series:

What happens when one of the worlds top violinists plays in a subway station as an anonymous street muscian?

Play this in the background as you read the full article.

Digg this:

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.

The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught the sound and bounced it back round and resonant. The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.

So, what do you think happened?

Fascinating stuff, I found both the story and the writing beautiful.

Click for video

Source:
Pearls Before Breakfast
Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.
Gene Weingarten
Washington Post, Sunday, April 8, 2007; Page W10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html