Prodigious tango composer/singer/dancer Carlos Gardel with one of his famous contributions – Por Una Cabeza, featured in the motion picture “Scent of a Woman” starring Al Pacino. A small sample of a larger work.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Will one of the nation’s greatest musicians be noticed in a D.C. Metro? Will any passerbys stop during rush hour? Violinist Joshua Bell experimented for Gene Weingarten’s Sunday Magazine story in The Washington Post.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

In 2002, a friend of mine invited me to play violin at a skilled nursing home in Pleasant Hill, CA. I was never the same after that day.

As I walked through the sterile, ghostly halls, the odor of stale urine pervading, I knew I had arrived and was in the right place. “Twenty years ago I never would have dreamed I’d be here,” said one man, slumping in the corner. It was truly the “stations of the lost.”

I continue to play in the “Unit” as it is called and enjoy every moment. Eyes that once brightly sparkled with life and hope are dimmed and gray with brain degeneration…until, that is, the moment the bow touches the string…then magic begins.

“It’s a miracle!” one orderly comments. “Gloria hasn’t related like this with us for a long time – now look…her eyes are lighting up. It’s the music, the music!”

ScienceDaily (May 13, 2010) — Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have shown that patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are better able to remember new verbal information when it is provided in the context of music even when compared to healthy, older adults. The findings, which currently appear on-line in Neuropsychologia, offer possible applications in treating and caring for patients with AD.

Where can you get a story whose adventures lead from 1681 – present, is translated in four different languages, explores remote German monasteries, displays wandering virtuoso gypsies, echoes music in starched concert halls, reveals steamy romances, auctions priceless antique instruments, boasts an incredible score written by John Corigliano and is played masterfully by Joshua Bell and lastly, an unforgettable role by Samuel L. Jackson, all in a two hours?

The last violin of Niccolo Busotti is auctioned in a riveting account of the life of a violin that has realized itself through the centuries.

I don’t remember ever seeing a film with violinists that actually appear as if they are playing the violin. Most people would not notice this, however, a player can tell immediately.

Be sure to pick up a copy of the Red Violin DVD at you local video store and watch, listen and enjoy this pinnacle of filmmaking and storytelling. You’ll want to watch and listen again and again!

In the 1600-1700′s, a wit could safely jeer that Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi did not write 450 concertos but wrote one concerto 450 times. Today we know that this couldn’t be further from the truth. So nicknamed the “Red Priest” because of his seminary background and flaming red hair. No matter what great classical music I’ve discovered in my travels, Vivaldi’s concerti and choral works continue to capture my mind & heart.

The Four Seasons is probably Antonio Vivaldi’s most popular work in modern times. But I encourage the discriminating listener to dig even deeper and discover some hidden jewels that are lesser known pieces. 

I was first introduced to Vivaldi’s music via the 1980’s film, All That Jazz, starring Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon.  Based on an autobiographical account of the late Bob Fosse, famed Broadway director and choreographer, Scheider portrays Fosse’s alter ego in a wild ride of amphetamines, alcohol, womanizing and workaholisism which ultimately leads to Fosse’s demise. The classic scene played over and over throughout the film depicts Scheider in the bathroom, commencing each day with popping a handful of uppers, dropping a couple of Alka Seltzer in a glass of water, throwing a Vivaldi cassette tape into the player, looking into the mirror and saying,”It’s showtime, folks.” 

Not being able to get this concerto out of my mind, I went on an all out search into record stores (yes, vinyl) as the movie soundtrack was released after the film was well out of the theaters. As a result of this search, which ended up being the Alla Rustica concerto featured in the movie’s bathroom scene, I continued to hit and miss, only to stumble upon a virtual wealth of other music which Vivaldi had composed.

Renowned “Golden Age” luthier Antonio Stradivari may never have dreamed that one of his violins would sell for more than the cost of 25 Steinway and Sons concert grand pianos.  Named after Christian Hammer, the 19^th Century collector who was its first recorded owner, this extraordinary violin was auctioned at Christie’s Auction house in May of 2006, to an anonymous bidder.  It is the highest price ever paid for an instrument at a public sale. 

So, what makes this violin so special?  Some say the wood, some say the varnish, others maintain that Stradivari made a deal with the devil.  But it’s likely, that even in the 1700′s, this fiddle was valued at more that a large home at the time.

Violin values are chiefly based on their antiquity and pedigree.  I have had the honor to play a Stradivarius once in a San Francisco dealership.  It was the eeriest feeling holding a violin of this value (list price $2M), but when I played it, I found no discernible difference to other fine instruments.  My opinion was validated when a San Francisco Symphony soloist played it after me in the next room.  When he finished an incredible cadenza I could hear him say from next door, “Nothing special.”

Widely acclaimed violin virtuoso, conductor and instructor Itzhak Pearlman, will be performing the Bach Violin Concerto #2 this evening at Davies Symphony Hall.  My daughter asked me if I, like J.S. Bach, would walk 200 miles to hear a great violinist play?  I responded that I wouldn’t trudge the 200, but would brave the Bay Bridge at the 6pm rush hour and meet my buddy Steve Shoen at Ruth Chris Steakhouse for a cocktail before the concert.  My, have times changed.

Prodigious composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, not only walked 200 miles just to hear Buxtehude play the violin, but composed some of the most incredible concertos, partitas, sonatas, and suites ever experienced.  In fact, Bach wrote so much music that his second wife used some of it to make curlers and the Lutheran Church wrapped sandwiches with Bach’s music.  At the end of every single piece of music, he inscribed “For God Alone the Glory.”

Bach’s written compositions took ten editors over 50 years to publish.  Felix Mendelssohn is greatly responsible for the revival of Bach’s music with Mendelssohn’s premier of St. Matthew’s Passion.  J.S. Bach was once challenged by a French musician named Marchant to a harpsichord contest – when all of the ladies and gentlemen of the court gathered to hear the contest, they were informed that Marchant was spooked and slipped out the back door.  Not to disappoint the audience, Bach sat down and improvised the Chromatic Fantasy.

NASA launched a CD sampling the Earth’s music in the hope that an extraterrestrial nation would discover it. Recordings by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis & The Grateful Dead were included.  For a moment, NASA thought to burn a recording of one of J.S. Bach’s works on the CD but  at the last moment decided against it.  They thought it would be bragging.

One of my favorites is Partita #1 in B minor play masterfully by Yehudi Menuhin: