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Joshua Bell | 7 Vignettes
THE CASUAL
ROMANTIC
Joshua Bell and the Piedmont have history together. The first time
he played in the region, in 1986, he was a budding violinist from
Indiana. By his last visit, in 2002, he had risen to the top ranks
of fiddlers.
Bell
returns next Sunday in a different guise: as a recitalist sharing
the stage with simply a pianist. Here are seven vignettes from his
phone interview with classical-music critic Steven Brown.
Bell
was a 17-year-old prodigy who had already performed at Carnegie
Hall when the Western Piedmont Symphony brought him to Hickory. He
went over so well that the orchestra invited him back two years
later. The trips obviously made an impression on Bell, too: At the
mention of the city, he exclaims: "Hickory!
"I have
very fond memories of those crucial times in my career, when I was
building my repertoire and playing with smaller orchestras, and
everything was new to me. That was an exciting time. ... It's less
scary (now) than when I was 18 and traveling, and getting up in
front of an orchestra where they didn't know me at all, and I had
to prove myself."
Bell
also remembers the family that he stayed with in Hickory. Carl
Cline was a percussionist with the orchestra, and he had children
around Bell's age. Cline, now a Hickory financial adviser, and his
family have occasionally caught up with Bell at concerts.
"He
was the most delightful kid. The funny thing was, he was just a
kid when he was around us. He was so unassuming -- so real. Yet
this kid had the confidence and willingness to go out in the world
by himself. He liked cars. One time (a few years later) we were in
Charleston for the Spoleto Festival. We were almost run off the
road by a guy in a fast Porsche. My wife said, `That's Josh.' "
Bell
has long since outgrown staying with families on the road. But he
still tries to keep a semblance of normalcy, despite his travels.
"I
bring my tennis racket on the road sometimes, or my golf clubs. At
home, if I have a week off, I'll take three or four days without
touching the violin and just recharge -- see friends, see movies."
Bell
has jettisoned some of the longtime trappings of the concert hall,
such as white tie and tails. He thinks the concertgoing experience
could use more loosening up.
"Often
I feel like I'm most casual person in the room, because I just
wear shirt and pants these days. Music doesn't have to be in a
stuffy environment. I look at the Proms concerts in London (a
summer series at the Royal Festival Hall). Eight thousand people
can fit into that hall, and they fill it every summer. They take
out the seats at the bottom level, and everybody stands. It's
almost like a rock concert that way. And they listen to great
music -- Beethoven symphonies and Shostakovich and things like
that. I think more places should experiment with different
atmosphere. The music doesn't have to be dumbed down."
Bell's
Charlotte recital will culminate in a few pieces he plays on his
latest CD, "Voice of the Violin." It's a follow-up to "Romance of
the Violin," his big-selling disc from 2003. Both discs are built
mainly from violin arrangements of vocal music.
"I'm
always trying to find ideas that are musically interesting to me,
yet have a chance of selling more than a few copies. I had the
idea of making an album of beautiful melodies one after another.
... I could make five albums or 10 albums, filling them with new
arrangements of beautiful melodies. There are endless
possibilities."
Before
Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk get to the lyrical morsels in
Charlotte, they'll play three heftier works: Beethoven's Violin
Sonata in G major, Op. 96, his last in the genre; Robert
Schumann's Sonata in A minor; and the "Concert Piece" by Edgar
Meyer, the double-bass player and composer who soloed with the
Charlotte Symphony last spring.
"The
Schumann sonata is impetuous and heart-on-sleeve. And incredibly
dramatic. The last Beethoven sonata is his most poetic, and in
such an ethereal realm. It's a great contrast to the Schumann. (As
for the Meyer piece:) He combines elements of bluegrass and Irish
fiddle and a very modern classical sound. He manages to combine
these in a very natural voice that's not contrived. It's a very
effective, fun piece."
Bell
was touring with a British chamber orchestra -- the Academy of St.
Martin in the Fields -- when he visited Charlotte in 2002. Besides
soloing in a concerto, he led the group in other works from the
first-violin chair. He has moved on to directing bigger pieces,
such as Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. There's a logical next step.
"I
guess I'm on my way to waving a baton. I'm not quite doing that
yet. ... I've always heard the Beethoven Seventh Symphony and
Mozart symphonies and imagined the way I thought they should go.
It's so nice now to be able to sculpt the performance the way I
always envisioned it."
Joshua
Bell | 7 Vignettes PREVIEW
Joshua Bell
The
violinist plays music by Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Edgar Meyer
and others for the Carolinas Concert Association.
WHEN: 3
p.m. next Sunday.
WHERE:
Belk Theater, Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St.
TICKETS: $25-$65.
DETAILS: 704-527-6680;
www.carolinasconcert.com.
Joshua Meets Josh
Joshua
Bell moonlighted a few years ago by recording a duet with crooner
Josh Groban for Groban's CD "Closer." He has drawn a lesson from
the results. "I can't tell you how many people have written me
e-mails or shown up at my classical concerts saying, `I had never
heard of you before the Josh Groban CD, and now I've bought all
your classical CDs,' " Bell says. He thinks that shows that there
are potential audiences for classical music yet to be reached.
"Sometimes it takes doing something outside" the usual, he said,
"to bring them in." ()
Source:
Charlotte Observer
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