Violin Dreams

Violin Dreams
by Arnold Steinhardt

Violin Dreams
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Book Summary Information

Author: Arnold Steinhardt
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-15
ISBN: 0547086008
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Mariner Books

Book Reviews of Violin Dreams

Book Review: A "Moveable Feast"!!
Summary: 5 Stars

I hardly ever read a book twice. Arnold Steinhardt's "Violin Dream," on the other hand, is not an ordinary book. By the time I devoured it the second time I realized that the book is an incredibly delectable and satisfying odyssey of a violinist who makes a full circle of his life as an artist. The title of the book just doesn't quite convey this, my only "criticism" of the book. It's a rare treat, regardless, as it's quite extraordinary to find in a performing artist who's as equally talented in prose.

The odyssey begins at his apartment house in Los Angeles and ends there several decades later. It begins with dreams and ends with dreams after many dreams confessed. It begins with Bach's Chaconne and ends with Bach's Chaconne after so many attempts to analyze it and understand it, yet elusively haunted by it. The odyssey takes you along on homages that are deeply meaningful to the author: to his mother's Jewish roots in Dlugosiodlo, Poland, to his Storioni violin's roots in Cremona, to Maria Barbara Bach's grave site to play for her Chaconne that her husband composed yet she had never got to hear. Without wallowing in any sentimentality, the author pulls subtly at your emotion as he takes you along on these journeys.

The odyssey is replete with recurring themes. Dreams, for instance. You suspect that he has actively participated in Jungian analytical psychotherapy with his dream diaries short of confessing to being on the couch on a regular basis. What a pleasant surprise to come across an old name of Joe Henderson who's a well known figure in the Jungian circles back then. Many sexual undertone and references vis-à-vis his violin... Chaconne. It nags and haunts and ultimately ennobles the author all through the book. He returns again and again to this work that has mystified him all of his life. The book even comes with a CD recording of the author performing Bach's Partita in D Minor as a young violinist and the same work 40 years later.

The odyssey is also about the author's quests that came in a variety of forms: his violin competitions that began with winning a local music store talent show (performing Monti's Czardas!) and securing his school's orchestra concertmaster position, to winning a couple of solo competitions in youth orchestras, to winning the Leventritt International Violin Competition and the 3rd place finish in the Queen Elizabeth Competition as a young adult. Along with these came the quests in the form of finding his dream violin, his teachers, and his opportunities from solo artist to Assistant Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra to the eventual founding of the Guarneri String Quartet at one of the Marlboro Music Festivals.

The odyssey also takes you to the author's encounters with significant individuals that have shaped and influenced his career: Jascha Heifetz (along with Mischa, Toscha and Sascha), Ivan Galamian, Efrem Zimbalist, Isaac Stern, Arthur Rubinstein, Joseph Szigeti, Pablo Casals, George Szell, and so many more. It's like the "Moveable Feast" of the Hemingway's world in Paris in the `20s.... How can the book not be delectable with such a feast?

Other tidbits that strike me as unforgettable: needing to practice while waiting at the Denver Airport, he found himself at the rooftop facing the perfect practice spot overlooking the Rocky Mountain landscape.... He called it the "Mother of all practice spots." (I live in Colorado so I know how he must have felt at that moment!); while on a hiking trip after the Aspen Music Festival, leaving his treasured violin well tucked away in the trunk of a car wrapped in a blanket only to discover to his horror upon returning the violin and the case baptized in a flood of gasoline that leaked out of the car.... Oh my.... What about his career threatening injury? His hiking trip to Machu Picchu with a violin and playing for the natives... His prized violin broken in an accident while running to catch the subway train... A numerous trips to the most well known luthiers of the times...

It's a wonderful world that we live in with the likes of Arnold Steinhardt to give us as a gift the times and places that we missed out on. Just as Hemingway gave us the times and places and characters who inhabited his world through his eyes in the "Moveable Feast," I'm so grateful that Arnold Steinhardt gave us his musical version of the "Moveable Feast" that I can only wistfully wish I was a part of.

Summary of Violin Dreams

“A rapturous, witty, and passionate memoir ... Violin Dreams is not only the story of a man becoming an artist, it?s a history of twentieth-century music.? — John Guare, Tony Award–winning playwright

Arnold Steinhardt, for more than forty years an international soloist and the first violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet, brings warmth, wit, and fascinating insider details to the story of his lifelong obsession with the violin, that most seductive and stunningly beautiful instrument. His story is rich with vivid scenes: the terror inflicted by his early violin teachers, the sensual pleasure involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, the charged atmosphere of high-level competitions. Steinhardt describes Bach?s Chaconne as the holy grail for the solo violin, and he illuminates, from the perspective of an ardent owner of a great Storioni violin, the history and mysteries of the renowned Italian violinmakers.
Violin Dreams includes a remarkable CD recording of Steinhardt performing Bach?s Partita in D Minor as a young violinist forty years ago and playing the same piece especially for this book. A conversation between the author and Alan Alda on the differences between the two performances is included in the liner notes.

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