Violin Dreams
by Arnold Steinhardt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Arnold SteinhardtEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-04
ISBN: 0618368922
Number of pages: 255
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Book Reviews of Violin Dreams
Book Review: Lovely book
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a lovely book. Quiet. Respectful of tradition. Informative. The book is full of love for the violin and for the hard but fruitful life that mastering it has afforded the author. I note the five stars given by all the other reviewers, and while I share their affection for Violin Dreams, I withhold that last star because the book has only modest aspirations and consequently it is a shame to attempt to make too much of it. But I am really glad that I discovered it and that it sent me back to listening to Bach's compositions for solo violin.
Summary of Violin Dreams
A richly detailed love letter to the violin, with a bound-in audio CD recorded by the authorArnold Steinhardt, for 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.
Steinhardt's story is rich with vivid scenes: the terror inflicted by his early violin teachers, the frankly sensual pleasure involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, the zanily 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 is studded with musical pilgrimages, one of them to the all but vanished Polish shtetl where his mother was born, and where, he shows movingly, his own love for the eerily evocative sound of the violin was born as well.
With Violin Dreams comes 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 on his current Storioni violin. A lively conversation with Steinhardt and Alan Alda on the differences between the two performances is included in liner notes.
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