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Barikada
- World Of Music - Svastara - 2009
JOSHUA BELL Ljudi među nama
Joshua Bell Washington Post's social experiment
Metro stanica, hladnog januarskog jutra 2007. godine. Čovjek
na violini svira Bachovo djelo nekih 45 minuta. Za to vrijeme, približno 2.000
ljudi prođe stanicom,
većina na svom putu na posao.
3 minute nakon što je počeo sviranje, sredovječan čovjek uočava muzičara
koji svira. On usporava korake, zaustavlja se par sekundi, a zatim žurno odlazi
kud je namjerio.
4 minute kasnije: Violinista prima svoj prvi dolar: žena baca novčić u šešir,
te bez zastajkivanja, nastavlja hod.
6 minuta kasnije: Mladi čovjek se naginje nad ogradom kako bi ga poslušao,
zatim pogleda na ručni sat i nastavlja žureći.
10 minuta kasnije: 3-ro godišnji dječak se zaustavlja. ali
ga majka odvlači žureći. Malac zastaje da ponovno pogleda violinistu, no majka
ga vuče i oboje
odlaze žureći. Nekoliko
druge djece je ponovilo ovu radnju. Svaki roditelj, bez izuzetka, prisililo
je svoje dijete da nastavi hodati.
45 minuta kasnije: Glazbenik svira bez prestanka.
Samo 6 ljudi se zaustavilo i poslušalo ga, na kratko. Nekih 20-tak ljudi je
dalo novac, ali je nastavilo
hodati nepromijenjenim
ritmom. Svirač je sakupio ukupno $32.
1 sat kasnije: Glazbenik završava svirku i nastupa tišina. Nitko to ne primjećuje.
Nitko ne plješće, niti daje bilo kakvo priznanje.
Prava istina:
Nitko nije znao da je muzičar u stvari bio Joshua
Bell, jedan od najvećih glazbenika
današnjice na svijetu. Svirao je jedan od najzahtjevnijih komada ikada napisanih,
na violini vrijednoj $ 3.5 milijuna (US dolara). Samo dva dana prije ovoga,
Joshua Bell je rasprodao koncertnu dvoranu u Bostonu gdje je prosječna cijena
sjedala
$100.
Ovo je istinita priča. Inkognito svirka Joshue Bella na stanici
metroa je organizirao Washington Post kao dio sociološkog eksperimenta o percepciji,
ukusu i ljudskim prioritetima. Postavlja se pitanje: "Da li u uobičajenom
okruženju, u nepogodno vrijeme, uopće prepoznajemo ljepotu? Da li stanemo da
tu ljepotu cijenimo? Prepoznajemo li talent u neočekivanom kontekstu? Koliko
snobova ima među nama koji idu na koncert plaćajući basnoslovne iznose, a
to isto ne prepoznaje u drugim prigodama?"
Jedan mogući zaključak ovog eksperimenta bi mogao biti: Ako
nemamo niti trenutak vremena da zastanemo i poslušamo jednog od najboljih glazbenika
na svijetu,
koji svira jedan od najljepših komada ikada stvorenih, na jednom od najljepših
instrumenata ikada načinjenih...
KOLIKO TEK MNOŠTVO DRUGIH STVARI PROPUŠTAMO?
JOSHUA BELL - Ave Maria
Autor priloga:
Časlav Vujotić
Podgorica, Crna Gora vujotic@gmail.com
Ova priča ima i svoj nastavak. Ponukan gornjim tekstom, kontaktirao sam Joshua
Bella. Poslao sam mu e-mail poruku sadržaja:
Dear Joshua,
I hope this message will get your attention. I am Dragutin Matosevic, from
Bosnia & Herzegovina, owner and editor of music related web portal - Barikada
- World Of Music (www.old.barikada.com).
Good friend of mine from Montenegro forwarded to me beautiful story which involved
you - Washington Post's social experiment.
That is very sad story, but might teach each of us to be much better human
beings. Although that described event occurred in 2007, that is still vital
and very interesting.
http://www.old.barikada.com/svastara/2009/2009-12-18_joshua_bell.php
I would like to add to already posted article and your statement regarding
that experiment. What are your experiences of it? What are you suggesting to
an ordinary people?
Thanks in advance.
Kindest regards from Bosnia and Herzegovina,
D r a g u t i n
Evo i odgovora koji je stigao od Jane Covner, Press Representative
Joshua Bella:
Dear Mr. Matosevic,
What you have posted to your site is
a shortened version of a 10,000 word article that won the Pulitzer Prize.
The entire article is attached for your reference.
What Mr. Bell learned was: "I realize that when I play before an audience,
people are coming as willing participants. To enjoy music, or art, one must
be an active partipant and engaged
in the experience."
Hope that will suffice.
Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!
Sincerely,
Jane Covner
Press Representative / JAG Entertainment
Za sve vas koji volite znati više slijedi integralan tekst
koji opisuje događaj iz metroa:
April 15, 2007 -
Beauty out of context Joshua Bell's subway debut a muted affair. But why?
By Gene Weingarten Of The
Washington Post
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 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.
It was 7:51 a.m. on a Friday in the middle of the capital city's morning rush
hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces,
1,097 people passed by. Each passerby had a quick choice to make: Do you stop
and listen? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change
if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty?
Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the subway
in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical
musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written
on one of the most valuable violins ever made.
His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context,
perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public
taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have
drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured
for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur
of cathedrals and concert halls.
The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian
design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught
the sound and bounced it back round and resonant. The violin is an instrument
that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly
hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning,
adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.
So, what do you think happened?
Ask the expert
Hang on, we'll get you some expert help.
Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was asked
the same question. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of
the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour
audience of 1,000-odd people?
''Let's assume,'' Slatkin said, ''that he is not recognized and just taken
for granted as a street musician. … Still, I don't think that if he's really
good, he's going to go unnoticed. He'd get a larger audience in Europe … but,
okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize
the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening.''
So, a crowd would gather?
''Oh, yes.''
And how much will he make?
''About $150.''
Thanks, Maestro. As it happens, this is not hypothetical. It really happened.
''How'd I do?''
We'll tell you in a minute.
''Well, who was the musician?''
Joshua Bell.
''No!''
Who is he?
A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally
acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell
had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty
good seats went for $100. This week he won the coveted Avery Fisher Prize for
accomplished U.S. musicians, an honor he now has in common with Yo-Yo Ma and
Midori.
Bell was first pitched this idea of playing in the Metro shortly before Christmas,
over coffee at a sandwich shop on Capitol Hill. A New Yorker, he was in town
to perform at the Library of Congress and to visit the library's vaults to
examine an unusual treasure: an 18th-century violin that once belonged to the
great Austrian-born virtuoso and composer Fritz Kreisler. The curators invited
Bell to play it; good sound, still.
''Here's what I'm thinking,'' Bell confided, as he sipped his coffee. ''I'm
thinking that I could do a tour where I'd play Kreisler's music … ''
He smiled.
'' ... on Kreisler's violin.''
It was a snazzy, sequined idea -- part inspiration and part gimmick -- and
it was typical of Bell, who has unapologetically embraced showmanship even
as his concert career has become more and more august. He's soloed with the
finest orchestras here and abroad, but he's also appeared on ''Sesame Street,''
done late-night talk TV and performed in feature films. That was Bell playing
the soundtrack on the 1998 movie ''The Red Violin.'' (He body-doubled, too,
playing to a naked Greta Scacchi.) As composer John Corigliano accepted the
Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score, he credited Bell, who, he said, ''plays
like a god.''
When Bell was asked if he'd be willing to don street clothes and perform at
rush hour, he said:
''Uh, a stunt?''
Well, yes. A stunt. Would he think it … unseemly?
Bell drained his cup.
''Sounds like fun,'' he said.
So it begins
To get to the Metro from his hotel, a distance of three blocks, Bell took
a taxi. He's neither lame nor lazy: He did it for his violin.
He always performs on the same instrument and ruled out using another for
this gig.
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 the violinist shows his Strad to people, he holds the instrument gingerly
by its neck, resting it on a knee. ''He made this to perfect thickness at all
parts,'' Bell says, pivoting it. ''If you shaved off a millimeter of wood at
any point, it would totally imbalance the sound.'' No violins sound as wonderful
as Strads from the 1710s, still.
The front of Bell's violin is in nearly perfect condition, with a deep, rich
grain and luster. The back is a mess, its dark reddish finish bleeding away
into a flatter, lighter shade and finally, in one section, to bare wood.
''This has never been refinished,'' Bell said. ''That's his original varnish.
People attribute aspects of the sound to the varnish. Each maker had his own
secret formula.''
All of which is a long explanation for why, in the early morning chill of
a day in January, Bell took a three-block cab ride to the Orange Line, and
rode one stop to L'Enfant.
As Metro stations go, L'Enfant Plaza is more plebeian than most. At the top
of the escalators are a shoeshine stand and a busy kiosk that sells newspapers,
lottery tickets and a wallfull of magazines with titles such as Mammazons and
Girls of Barely Legal. The skin mags move, but it's that lottery ticket dispenser
that stays the busiest, with customers queuing up for Daily 6 lotto and Powerball.
Bell decided to begin with ''Chaconne'' from Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita
No. 2 in D Minor. He calls it ''not just one of the greatest pieces of music
ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's
a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect. Plus,
it was written for a solo violin, so I won't be cheating with some half-assed
version.''
He'd clearly meant it when he promised not to cheap out this performance:
He played with acrobatic enthusiasm, his body leaning into the music and arching
on tiptoes at the high notes. The sound was nearly symphonic, carrying to all
parts of the homely arcade as the pedestrian traffic filed past.
Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already
passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered
his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to
be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.
A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck
and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone
actually stood against a wall -- and listened.
Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua
Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take
in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of
them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people
who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.
No, Mr. Slatkin, there was never a crowd, not even for a second.
Epistomology of a stunt
If a great musician plays great music but no one hears … was he really any
good? It's an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about
the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia
afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or
merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate
state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)? We'll go with Kant, because
he's obviously right, and because he brings us pretty directly to Joshua Bell,
sitting there in a hotel restaurant, picking at his breakfast, wryly trying
to figure out what the hell had just happened back there at the Metro.
''At the beginning,'' Bell says, ''I was just concentrating
on playing the music. I wasn't really watching what was happening around me
... ''
Playing the violin looks all-consuming, mentally and physically, but Bell
says that for him the mechanics of it are partly second nature, cemented by
practice and muscle memory: It's like a juggler, he says, who can keep those
balls in play while interacting with a crowd. What he's mostly thinking about
as he plays, Bell says, is capturing emotion as a narrative: ''When you play
a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story.''
With ''Chaconne,'' the opening is filled with a building sense of awe. That
kept him busy for a while. Eventually, though, he began to steal a sidelong
glance.
''It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah
... ''
The word doesn't come easily.
'' ... ignoring me.''
Bell is laughing. It's at himself.
''At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cell phone
goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate
any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone
threw in a dollar instead of change.'' This is from a man whose talents can
command $1,000 a minute.
Before he began, Bell hadn't known what to expect. What he does know is that,
for some reason, he was nervous.
''It wasn't exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies,'' he says. ''I
was stressing a little.''
Bell has played, literally, before crowned heads of Europe. Why the anxiety
at the Washington Metro?
''When you play for ticket-holders,'' Bell says, ''you are already validated.
I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there
was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence
… ''
He was, in short, art without a frame. Which, it turns out, may have a lot
to do with what happened or, more precisely, what didn't happen on Jan. 12.
Kant took beauty seriously: In his ''Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,'' he
argued that one's ability to appreciate beauty is related to one's ability
to make moral judgments. But there was a caveat. Paul Guyer of the University
of Pennsylvania, one of America's most prominent Kantian scholars, says the
18th-century German philosopher felt that to properly appreciate beauty, the
viewing conditions must be optimal.
''Optimal,'' Guyer said, ''doesn't mean heading to work, focusing on your
report to the boss, maybe your shoes don't fit right.''
So, if Kant had been at the Metro watching as Joshua Bell played to a thousand
unimpressed passersby? ''He would have inferred about them,'' Guyer said, ''absolutely
nothing.''
And that's that.
Except it isn't. To really understand what happened, you have to rewind that
video and play it back from the beginning, from the moment Bell's bow first
touched the strings.
Rewind
White guy, khakis, leather jacket, briefcase. Early 30s. John David Mortensen
is on the final leg of his daily bus-to-Metro commute. He's heading up the
escalator. It's a long ride -- 1 minute and 15 seconds if you don't walk. So,
like most everyone who passes Bell this day, Mortensen gets a good earful of
music before he has his first look at the musician. Like most of them, he notes
that it sounds pretty good. But like very few of them, when he gets to the
top, he doesn't race past as though Bell were some nuisance to be avoided.
Mortensen is that first person to stop, that guy at the six-minute mark.
It's not that he has nothing else to do. He's a project manager for an international
program at the Department of Energy; on this day, Mortensen has to participate
in a monthly budget exercise, not the most exciting part of his job: ''You
review the past month's expenditures,'' he says, ''forecast spending for the
next month, if you have X dollars, where will it go, that sort of thing.''
On the video, you can see Mortensen get off the escalator and look around.
He locates the violinist, stops, walks away but then is drawn back. He checks
the time on his cellphone -- he's three minutes early for work -- then settles
against a wall to listen.
Mortensen doesn't know classical music at all; classic rock is as close as
he comes. But there's something about what he's hearing that he really likes.
As it happens, he's arrived at the moment that Bell slides into the second
section of ''Chaconne.'' (''It's the point,'' Bell says, ''where it moves from
a darker, minor key into a major key. There's a religious, exalted feeling
to it.'') The violinist's bow begins to dance; the music becomes upbeat, playful,
theatrical, big.
Mortensen doesn't know about major or minor keys: ''Whatever it was,'' he
says, ''it made me feel at peace.''
So, for the first time in his life, Mortensen lingers to listen to a street
musician. He stays his allotted three minutes as 94 more people pass briskly
by. When he leaves to help plan contingency budgets for the Department of Energy,
there's another first. For the first time in his life, not quite knowing what
had just happened but sensing it was special, John David Mortensen gives a
street musician money.
After ''Chaconne,'' it is Franz Schubert's ''Ave Maria,'' a musical prayer
that became among the most familiar and enduring religious pieces in history.
A couple of minutes into it, something revealing happens. A woman and her preschooler
emerge from the escalator. The woman is walking briskly and, therefore, so
is the child. She's got his hand.
''I had a time crunch,'' recalls Sheron Parker, an IT director for a federal
agency. ''I had an 8:30 training class, and first I had to rush Evvie off to
his teacher, then rush back to work, then to the training facility in the basement.''
Evvie is her son, Evan. Evan is 3.
You can see Evan clearly on the video. He's the cute black kid in the parka
who keeps twisting around to look at Joshua Bell, as he is being propelled
toward the door.
''There was a musician,'' Parker says, ''and my son was intrigued. He wanted
to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time.''
So Parker does what she has to do. She deftly moves her body between Evan's
and Bell's, cutting off her son's line of sight. As they exit the arcade, Evan
can still be seen craning to look. When Parker is told what she walked out
on, she laughs.
''Evan is very smart!''
The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with
a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic
meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us.
It may be true with music, too.
There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed
to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried
on past, unheeding. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely
consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop
and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.
Busy is as busy does
If there was one person on that day who was too busy to pay attention to the
violinist, it was George Tindley. Tindley wasn't hurrying to get to work. He
was at work, at Au Bon Pain, the croissant and coffee shop where Tindley, in
his 40s, buses tables in a white uniform restocking the salt and pepper packets,
taking out the garbage.
Tindley labors under the watchful eye of his bosses, and he's supposed to
be hopping, and he was. But every minute or so, as though drawn by something
not entirely within his control, Tindley would walk to the very edge of the
Au Bon Pain property, keeping his toes inside the line, still on the job. Then
he'd lean forward, as far out into the hallway as he could, watching the fiddler
on the other side of the glass doors. The foot traffic was steady, so the doors
were usually open. The sound came through pretty well.
''You could tell in one second that this guy was good, that he was clearly
a professional,'' Tindley says. He plays the guitar, loves the sound of strings,
and has no respect for a certain kind of musician.
''Most people, they play music; they don't feel it,'' Tindley says. ''Well,
that man was feeling it. That man was moving. Moving into the sound.''
And then there was Calvin Myint. Myint works for the General Services Administration.
He got to the top of the escalator, turned right and headed out a door to the
street. A few hours later, he had no memory that there had been a musician
anywhere in sight.
''Where was he, in relation to me?''
''About four feet away.''
''Oh.''
There's nothing wrong with Myint's hearing. He had buds in his ear. He was
listening to his iPod.
For many of us, the explosion in technology has perversely limited, not expanded,
our exposure to new experiences. Increasingly, we get our news from sources
that think as we already do. And with iPods, we hear what we already know;
we program our own playlists.
Let's say Kant is right. Let's accept that we can't look at what happened
on Jan. 12 and make any judgment whatever about people's sophistication or
their ability to appreciate beauty. But what about their ability to appreciate
life?
We're busy. Americans have been busy, as a people, since at least 1831, when
a young French sociologist named Alexis de Tocqueville visited the States and
found himself impressed, bemused and slightly dismayed at the degree to which
people were driven, to the exclusion of everything else, by hard work and the
accumulation of wealth.
If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to
one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written;
if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to
something like that, then what else are we missing?
Finally ...
The cultural hero of the day arrived at L'Enfant Plaza pretty late, in the
unprepossessing figure of one John Picarello, a smallish man with a baldish
head.
Picarello hit the top of the escalator just after Bell began his final piece,
a reprise of ''Chaconne.''
In the video, you see Picarello stop dead in his tracks, locate the source
of the music, and then retreat to the other end of the arcade. He takes up
a position past the shoeshine stand, across from that lottery line, and he
will not budge for the next nine minutes.
Like all the passersby interviewed for this article, Picarello was stopped
by a reporter after he left the building, and was asked for his phone number.
Like everyone, he was told only that this was to be an article about commuting.
When he was called later in the day, like everyone else, he was first asked
if anything unusual had happened to him on his trip into work. Of the more
than 40 people contacted, Picarello was the only one who immediately mentioned
the violinist.
''There was a musician playing at the top of the escalator at L'Enfant Plaza.''
Haven't you seen musicians there before?
''Not like this one.''
What do you mean?
''This was a superb violinist. I've never heard anyone of that caliber. He
was technically proficient, with very good phrasing. He had a good fiddle,
too, with a big, lush sound. I walked a distance away, to hear him. I didn't
want to be intrusive on his space.''
Really?
''Really. It was that kind of experience. It was a treat, just a brilliant,
incredible way to start the day.''
Picarello knows classical music. He is a fan of Joshua Bell but didn't recognize
him; he hadn't seen a recent photo, and besides, for most of the time Picarello
was pretty far away. But he knew this was not a run-of-the-mill guy out there,
performing. On the video, you can see Picarello look around him now and then,
almost bewildered.
''Yeah, other people just were not getting it. It just wasn't registering.
That was baffling to me.''
When Picarello was growing up in New York, he studied violin seriously, intending
to be a concert musician. But he gave it up at 18, when he decided he'd never
be good enough to make it pay. Life does that to you sometimes. Sometimes,
you have to do the prudent thing. So he went into another line of work. He's
a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service. Doesn't play the violin much, anymore.
When he left, Picarello says, ''I humbly threw in $5.'' It was humble: You
can actually see that on the video. Picarello walks up, barely looking at Bell,
and tosses in the money. Then, as if embarrassed, he quickly walks away from
the man he once wanted to be.
Does he have regrets about how things worked out?
The postal supervisor considers this.
''No. If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not
a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever.''
Coda
Bell thinks he did his best work of the day in those final few minutes, in
the second ''Chaconne.'' And that also was the first time more than one person
at a time was listening.
As Picarello stood in the back, Janice Olu arrived and took up a position
a few feet away from Bell. Olu, a public trust officer with HUD, also played
the violin as a kid. She didn't know the name of the piece she was hearing,
but she knew the man playing it has a gift.
Olu was on a coffee break and stayed as long as she dared. As she turned to
go, she whispered to the stranger next to her, ''I really don't want to leave.''
The stranger standing next to her happened to be working for The Washington
Post.
As it happens, exactly one person recognized Bell, and she didn't arrive until
near the very end.
For Stacy Furukawa, a demographer at the Commerce Department, there was no
doubt. She doesn't know much about classical music, but she had been in the
audience three weeks earlier, at Bell's free concert at the Library of Congress.
And here he was, the international virtuoso, sawing away, begging for money.
She had no idea what the heck was going on, but whatever it was, she wasn't
about to miss it.
Furukawa positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She
had a huge grin on her face. The grin, and Furukawa, remained planted in that
spot until the end.
''It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in Washington,'' Furukawa
says. ''Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were
not stopping, and not even looking, and some were flipping quarters at him!
Quarters! I wouldn't do that to anybody. I was thinking, Omigosh, what kind
of a city do I live in that this could happen?''
When it was over, Furukawa introduced herself to Bell, and tossed in a twenty.
Not counting that -- it was tainted by recognition -- the final haul for his
43 minutes of playing was $32.17. Yes, some people gave pennies.
''Actually,'' Bell said with a laugh, ''that's not so bad, considering. That's
40 bucks an hour. I could make an OK living doing this, and I wouldn't have
to pay an agent.''
These days, at L'Enfant Plaza, lotto ticket sales remain brisk. Musicians
still show up from time to time, and they still tick off Edna Souza. Joshua
Bell's latest album, ''The Voice of the Violin,'' has received the usual critical
acclaim. (''Delicate urgency.'' ''Masterful intimacy.'' ''Unfailingly exquisite.''
''A musical summit.'' '' … will make your heart thump and weep at the same
time.'')
Bell headed off on a concert tour of European capitals. But he was back in
the States this week. He had to be. On Tuesday he accepted the Avery Fisher
prize, recognizing the Flop of L'Enfant Plaza as the best classical musician
in America.
Emily Shroder, Rachel Manteuffel, John W. Poole and Tom Shroder contributed
to this report.