Finally a readable memoir about becoming and being a professional musician! I learned so much about the passion, determination, talent and hard work of these remarkable people. This book clearly "paints" rather than describes, music theory and interpretation and makes astonishing points about the fluidity of music, music teachers, composers and instruments. Impressive, enjoyable and very enlightening.

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 this most seductive and stunningly beautiful instrument.

Steinhardt’s story of life with violins is rich with vivid scenes: the zen of terror perpetrated by the author’s legendary early violin teachers, the frankly sensual pleasures involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, the zanily charged culture of high-level competitions. Steinhardt illuminates Bach’s Chaconne as the holy grail for the solo violin, and he pursues — from the perspective of an ardent owner of a great Storioni violin — the history and mysteries of the renowned Italian violinmakers. Violin Dreams is also studded with musical pilgrimages, one of them to the allbut- vanished Polish shtetl where his mother was born, and where, he movingly shows, 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 B Minor as a young violinist forty years ago and playing the same piece especially for Violin Dreams on his Storioni. Lively commentary on the differences between the two performances is included.

Book & CD; 272 pages
Publication Date: 10/04/2006
Trim Size: 6.25 x 8.25