Violin Dreams

Violin Dreams
by Arnold Steinhardt

Violin Dreams
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Book Summary Information

Author: Arnold Steinhardt
Edition: 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: A lifelong dream
Summary: 5 Stars

Violinist Arnold Steinhardt has produced a literary work that has the same richness and logic as a piece of classical music. Perhaps not strictly AABA, the work is organized nonetheless into a wonderful series of motifs, as the author follows - and recounts - the major dreams of his professional life. From early childhood to established career, the book follows Steinhardt's love affair with both music and the instrument that makes it possible. Reading it will be time very well spent.

Summary of Violin Dreams

A richly detailed love letter to the violin, with a bound-in audio CD recorded by the author

Arnold 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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