The Fiddle of Fiddles…

In a video clip on the Guardian’s website, Joshua Bell plays the Vieuxtemps del Gesù, which is about to go to auction for a record-breaking asking price of $18 million.  In the clip below he explains why his infatuation for this pinnacle of violins just keeps on growing.  There’s an advert with dodgy sound at the beginning (at least on my machine), but it quickly settles down a sublime and tantalizing little film.

Click here to enjoy the video clip.

To see fascinating images of the Vieuxtemps (sadly, not seen here!) check out these shots from when it was sent for a CT scan.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 17:17 and is filed under It's dark o'clock in the morning again. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

2 Responses to “The Fiddle of Fiddles…”

  1. MAXIDUS says:
    11/07/2010 at 06:32

    i listen to Joshua Bell play and two of many things happen: 1. inspiration 2. the questioning of my abilities on this beautiful instrument.

    great post!

    -m.

  2. Melanie Garrett says:
    12/07/2010 at 10:17

    Great to hear from you, Maxidus. Your post made me smile. I too feel inspired, only not so much to pick up my violin (which would be absurd with JB’s unearthly skill still ringing in my ears…I have to wait until there has been a prolonged spell of jackhammer blasting outside the window before I can feel any level of ‘ability’ on mine!) Did you see the footage of him playing in the Washington Metro? By sheer coincidence, I stumbled upon it at a time in which I had been obsessively playing (is it possible to stalk a CD recording?!) Arnold Steinhardt’s recordings of Bach’s Chaconne which came with his book Violin Dreams. So when I clicked on the JB link, my head nearly exploded. Fortunately, as my agent says, Bach defrags the brain…In fact, I’ll try to upload the JB video in a new post now, in case you’ve not seen it. Hope things are good there! Melanie

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