Violin Dreams [Paperback]

Arnold Steinhardt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

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

"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

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 255 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (October 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618368922
• ISBN-13: 978-0618368921
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a valuable, ennobling book, September 9, 2007

By 

Nathaniel R. Brown (Edmonds, Washington) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Violin Dreams (Paperback)

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.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful and fine account., December 13, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Violin Dreams (Paperback)

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

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humanity wins!, February 6, 2007

By 

Michael Davis (Columbus, OHIO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Violin Dreams (Paperback)

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!