The Ignored Master

"It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by."

It's not unusual for downtown pedestrians to pass streetcorner musicians playing for pocket change. But one morning in January, the musician that commuters rushed past in Washington, D.C.'s Metro station was an internationally acclaimed virtuoso playing on a 294-year-old Stradivari violin valued at $3.5 million.

Washington Post staff writer Gene Weingarten wanted to know if ordinary people would recognize genius and true beauty, so he persuaded Joshua Bell to join him in an experiment. Standing in front of an open violin case with a few dollars and pocket change in it, and dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and baseball cap, Bell played pieces that people normally paid a hundred dollars and more to hear:

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. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.

Nearly 1100 people passed by the musician that morning. Seven stopped what they were doing to hang around and briefly take in the performance. Twenty-seven gave money, for a total of $32 and change.

It was fascinating to read about the people who stopped. One was John David Mortensen, early 30s:

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. 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."

Weingarten shared the stories of a few others who stopped. But of those whose attention turned to the violinist, he said that there was one common denominator:

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. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. 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.

The reporter asked, "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?"

Fascinating article. It reminded me of another ignored master I've read about. Children seem to be drawn by his song, but most adults rush by. Calvin Miller wrote about him in his narrative, The Singer:

The Father and his Troubadour sat down
Upon the outer rim of space.
"And here,
My Singer," said Earth maker,
"is the crown
Of all my endless skies --the
green, brown sphere
Of all my hopes." He reached
and took the round
New planet down, and held it
to his ear.

"They're crying, Troubadour,"
he said. "They cry
So helplessly." He gave the
little ball
Unto his Son, who also held
it by
His ear. "Year after weary
year they all
Keep crying. They seem born to
weep then die.
Our new man taught them crying
in the Fall.

Earthmaker sent Earth spinning
on its way
And said, "Give me your vast
infinity
My son; I'll wrap it in a bit
of clay.
Then enter Terra microscopically
To love the little souls who
weep away
Their lives." "I will," I said,
"set Terra free."

And then I fell asleep and all
awareness fled.
I felt my very being shrinking down.
My vastness ebbed away. In dwindling dread,
All size decayed. The universe
around
Drew back. I woke upon a tiny
bed
Of straw in one of Terra's
smaller towns.

And now the great reduction
has begun:
Earthmaker and his Troubadour
are one.
And here's the new redeeming
Melody --
The only song that can set
Terra free.

The Shrine of older days
must be laid by.
Mankind must see Earthmaker
left the sky,
And he is with us. They must
concede that
I am he. They must believe the
Song or die.