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April 08, 2007
Pearls before swine — Or, what happened when world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell played his Stradivarius in a subway station?
Long story short: Bell (left, above) played real good for free.
Here's a link to a 35-second video of Bell playing one of six classical pieces during an impromptu solo recitation on Friday morning, January 12, 2007 at the L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station in Washington, D.C.
During the 43-minute concert, passers-by tossed a total of $32.17 into his empty violin case.
Here's a link to today's superb Washington Post magazine cover story by Gene Weingarten about the experiment.
April 8, 2007 at 02:01 PM | Permalink
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Comments
I've been thinking about this all week -- it's complicated. People in a hurry to get to work so they can feed their families and afford to buy tickets to Joshua Bell concerts are going to be a remarkably tough audience. And there is the instrument itself: Those people who aren't particularly knowledgeable about classical music but who do have some interest in listening to it might not count the violin as the instrument they'd want to hear it on. (I'd stop and stare at Joshua Bell, though, 'cause he's so cute.) If you stuck Maria Callas out there and had her singing at the peak of her vocal brilliance, people would probably run screaming in all directions. An operatic voice is not tolerable to everyone. (Some people, vermin that they are, even despise a harmless, fuzzy little instrument like the piccolo.)
But that's all a bunch of blah-blah. I see the point. Do (can) people recognize brilliance? Will they then stop and marvel? Some will, some do. But contexts are extremely important in this experiment. If Coleman Hawkins (well, his ghost) showed up at the local DMV office, whipped out his tenor and started laying "Body and Soul" on the crowd -- "old" music, but not nearly as old as Joshua Bell's offering -- what would folks do? It'd be interesting.
Posted by: Flautist | Apr 14, 2007 5:31:03 PM
Truly painful, Joe. I've only heard him on CD, that would have been an incredible opportunity. Such a sad commentary on our world's hecticness and lack of appreciation of beauty.
Posted by: Enoch Choi | Apr 14, 2007 4:11:36 PM
i don't know exactly why, but that WP article literally made me cry.
Posted by: IB | Apr 8, 2007 11:10:33 PM
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