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Violin Dreams | 
 enlarge | Author: Arnold Steinhardt
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $9.19
You Save: $6.76 (42%)
New (26) Used (6) from $9.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 185651
Format: Classical
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0547086008
Dewey Decimal Number: 787.2092
EAN: 9780547086002
ASIN: 0547086008
Publication Date: October 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
"A rapturous, witty, and passionate memoir ... Violin Dreams is not only the story of a man becoming an artist, it's a history of twentieth-century music." ? John Guare, Tony Award–winning playwright
Arnold Steinhardt, for more than 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. His story is rich with vivid scenes: the terror inflicted by his early violin teachers, the sensual pleasure involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, the 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 includes 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. A conversation between the author and Alan Alda on the differences between the two performances is included in the liner notes.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
wonderful book December 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just finished "Violin Dreams" and I would certainly recommend it to any music lover.
I really enjoyed Mr. Steinhardt's quest for a violin that would meet his needs as a professional musician, and I was fascinated by the look into this world of rarefied instruments.
On top of that, the book comes with a CD of Bach's works performed by Mr. Steinhardt. THAT was a great idea!
Buy the book, you will enjoy it.
A lifelong dream October 25, 2008
Violinist Arnold Steinhardt has produced a literary work that has the same richness and logic as a piece of classical music. Perhaps not strictly AABA, the work is organized nonetheless into a wonderful series of motifs, as the author follows - and recounts - the major dreams of his professional life. From early childhood to established career, the book follows Steinhardt's love affair with both music and the instrument that makes it possible. Reading it will be time very well spent.
Great book! March 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book - I am a pianist, not a violinist, but it was still fun and fascinating to read about Steinhardt's life with the violin.
Violin Dreams, a marvelous book September 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read Mr. Steinhardt's book in almost a single sitting. His explication of Bach's D minor partita, and particularly its final movement "chaconne" should be required reading for every serious, classical violinist. Despite my many years of involvement with the instrument, both as a dealer and amateur player, I was fascinated with Mr. Steinhardt's search for a suitable violin. Having heard the Budapest Quartet, it was a revelation to me that he acquired Joseph Roisman's fiddle; so appropriate that it would pass from one great quartet leader to another. A small error in the book was the date given for Jascha Heifetz's memorable Carnegie Hall debut; it was in October of 1917, not 1918. Aside from that
the book is a page turner, beautifully written and very personal.
a valuable, ennobling book September 9, 2007
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
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.
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