HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L’ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
That is how this wonderfully funny, and yet poignantly dismaying, story in The Washington Post begins describing how Joshua Bell, one of the world’s leading violinists, stood on a Washington subway platform and performed six Bach pieces on a violin worth $3.5 million. As the article explains:
Called the Gibson ex Huberman, it was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari during the Italian master’s “golden period,” toward the end of his career, when he had access to the finest spruce, maple and willow, and when his technique had been refined to perfection…Twice, it was stolen from its illustrious prior owner, the Polish virtuoso Bronislaw Huberman. The first time, in 1919, it disappeared from Huberman’s hotel room in Vienna but was quickly returned. The second time, nearly 20 years later, it was pinched from his dressing room in Carnegie Hall. He never got it back. It was not until 1985 that the thief — a minor New York violinist — made a deathbed confession to his wife, and produced the instrument. Bell bought it a few years ago. He had to sell his own Strad and borrow much of the rest. The price tag was reported to be about $3.5 million.
And how much did Bell make that day from busking on the Washington subway?
$32.00
You can hear his subway performance here. Its spectacular. But I can’t help but feel that I too would have just walked by, and not even dropped a coin in the bag!
Oh, how I lament my musical illiteracy!
Here is Joshua Bell playing Ave Maria:
