Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1565915 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-15
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Steinhardt (Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony) turns this memoir about becoming a classical concert performer into an adventure. Beyond the specifics of a lifetime spent learning music (Steinhardt hated to practice but remembers swooning to Beethoven as a six-year-old), the first violinist of the celebrated Guarneri Quartet shapes his story with a series of almost mythical odysseys and visions that parallel his technical and intellectual progress. There is the search for the right teacher and the right violin, as well as quirky impressions of such virtuosos as Heifetz and Swigeti. But above all is Steinhardt's ultimate challenge: interpreting J.S. Bach's Chaconne, the most moving but inscrutable of all violin solos. Throughout, Bach is the standard by which Steinhardt measures himself, the artist whose "interlocking qualities of intelligence and sensitivity" he emulates. He knows Bach's history, deconstructs his music, even dreams about the man. When Steinhardt writes of his own fondness for mountain climbing or playfully labels an 18th-century instrument crafted by Sanctus Seraphim "the violin's answer to a fashion model—slender, high-arched, shapely," his subtext is, inevitably, the effect on playing Bach. Watching this accomplished violinist take on the master is riveting; the feeling of immediacy he creates in its telling is an opus at once heroic and brillante. (Oct.)
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Review
*Steinhardt (Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony) turns this memoir about becoming a classical concert performer into an adventure. Beyond the specifics of a lifetime spent learning music (Steinhardt hated to practice but remembers swooning to Beethoven as a six-year-old), the first violinist of the celebrated Guarneri Quartet shapes his story with a series of almost mythical odysseys and visions that parallel his technical and intellectual progress. There is the search for the right teacher and the right violin, as well as quirky impressions of such virtuosos as Heifetz and Swigeti. But above all is Steinhardt's ultimate challenge: interpreting J.S. Bach's Chaconne, the most moving but inscrutable of all violin solos. Throughout, Bach is the standard by which Steinhardt measures himself, the artist whose "interlocking qualities of intelligence and sensitivity" he emulates. He knows Bach's history, deconstructs his music, even dreams about the man. When Steinhardt writes of his own fondness for mountain climbing or playfully labels an 18th-century instrument crafted by Sanctus Seraphim "the violin's answer to a fashion model—slender, high-arched, shapely," his subtext is, inevitably, the effect on playing Bach. Watching this accomplished violinist take on the master is riveting; the feeling of immediacy he creates in its telling is an opus at once heroic and brillante. (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

"Entrancing...There are marvelous stories here...this is a delightful and deeply touching book." (Richard Goode, pianist )

"My heart soared while I read this book. I actually was moved both to laughter and tears."
(Alan Alda )

"Arnold Steinhardt has written a rapturous, witty and passionate memoir of his life-long search for the perfect violin." (John Guare, playwright )

About the Author

Customer Reviews

a valuable, ennobling book
Violin Dreams, on the surface, is a simple book, recounting Arnold Steinhardt's life as a violinist from his first days of playing, up to his career as first violin of the Guarneri Quartet - the quartet, by the way, from whom I first "learned" the Beethoven quartets. The book also tells of Steinhardt's lifelong quest for the "perfect" violin. But this is only the surface of the book. Intentionally or not, Steinhardt's very simple prose conceals a sub-stratum of deep feeling, musical insight, and a man's search for meaning in his own life.

As a sports professional, I found Steinhardt's confrontation of the possible loss of his ability to play at all deeply moving. What are we, when the thing we have lived for is taken away? If we are nothing without our profession and our tools, then we are nothing with them - as Steinhardt points out.

Arnold Steinhardt, it turns out, is a great deal more than just his violin. He grows increasingly curious about the music behind the music - repeatedly, we return to the Bach Partita for Violin solo No. 2 in D minor, from which the chaconne becomes a touchstone of Steinhardt's "journey towards music", as Victor Gollancz once memorably put it. He travels to wonderful places such as Machu Pichu (on foot, which says something about the man). He pays homage to the luthiers of Cremona. He grows through friendships with some of the world's great musicians, and from friends less musically exalted. And each journey brings Steinhardt, and the reader, closer to music, and to something both basic and ennobling.

At the end the book, I was taken by surprise at how emotionally engaged I had become. John Steen has pointed out that the real purpose of the critic is to make us hear music better and to lead us to deeper engagement with it. Away from his violin, this is exactly what Arnold Steinhardt has done with this book. I loved it, am buying multiple copies to give to musical friends, and recommend it heartily.

Now back to practicing, with no hope of every playing at Mr. Steinhardt's level, but with an increased love of the instrument, and of making music.

A powerful and fine account.
A cd of the author playing Bach's Partita in D Minor forty years ago at the beginning of his career and recently on his Storioni violin accompanies VIOLIN DREAMS, a blend of memoir and violin history which recounts the author's affection for the instrument. From his first violin and early teachers to his rise to professional status, his journey accompanies a survey of the history and backgrounds of the world's great violin makers in a powerful and fine account.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Humanity wins!
This eminently readable book is a beautiful insight into the mind of one of America's most outstanding musicians and, coupled with the idee fixe of the great Bach Chaconne for Solo Violin it moves freely through centuries of great violins and a lifetime of contacts with many outstanding musicians of yesteryear. It is both inspiring and heartwarming!