cello quartet

What a great group! Fearlessly innovative, yet incredibly skilled.
Too bad all these guys were at my school before my time...
(Dave, you would have loved this!)

voices of the violin

On this special day, I loved listening to this interview about a collection of violins from the Holocaust concentration camps.

"We are trying to show people the story of the Holocaust from an easy point of view. Because music is making everything a little bit softer, it is easier for us to understand."
I think that is true of most things that are difficult to understand...

"Those people who had the violin in their hand could dream for 5 minutes they are playing in a concert hall. And to have these 5 minutes of dream in a most horrible world, that is the most valuable thing you could have in your lifetime. We cannot understand."
What would you or I do if perchance to dream in that world? Would you be open to what was in your hands? Reminds me of one of my favorite movie scenes ever, where Roberto Benini in Life is Beautiful turns on the opera aria over the loudspeaker as an unspoken love letter to his wife.

"In the minute that you hear the sound of the violin, you hear everything around it. It is horrible in one case, and wonderful in another case."
Listening to music makes us aware of the world around us, giving us a sense of wonder, empathy and sorrow... how is it that we do not always take advantage of that?


{CNN}

Patience

Dear Students, Irritating Directors, Drama Queens, and 7 Recitals in the next 8 days,

I regret to inform you of the following budget cuts: 

the patience I've budgeted for the semester was exhausted sometime mid-November. 

Please be sure to practice. 

A lot. 

And seriously, don't get on my nerves.

listening

Today, I heard in an interview about jazz
that music was color for the heart. 

I would like to think of it as sunshine.

I recently learned of David Fulton's 

Italian violin collection in Seattle. 

Yowzah!!! 

And I suddenly wanted to finally figure out 

the family trees once and for all. 

What a legible graph from Sheila's Corner

via {grace galleries}

"Cremonese & Brescian  
Violin Makers 


Looking at a map of Italy. It's interesting to notice that Cremona, Brescia, and Mantua all fall within a 30-mile circle. If you add in Venice which is just a little farther away, you have the entire home of the great Italian violin makers encompassed in a very small area, smaller than the state of Ohio. A tiny area to produce such a great result.

This a chart of the greatest and most famous Cremonese and Brescian violin makers. The red line across the chart is where famine and plague struck Cremona and Brescia in the 1630's. That plague wiped out the entire Brescian violin-making school with the death of Gio Paolo Maginni in 1632. The Cremonese school hung by a thread with only one master remaining, Nicolo Amati. Nicolo was the teacher of both Antonio Stradivari and of Andreas Guarneri. Just imagine if Nicolo had died ... no Strads and no Guarneri's!"

via {maestronet}

Bean and Beethoven

Ysaye's Secret?

Is this all it takes to conquer any movement of the 6 behemoths?

I ran across this humorous post while drooling over Tubbs bows up for auction from the Moenning collection. I assume they play like butter--if only I could try one someday...

What a cheater!