Ithaka Bound

A Case of Joshua Bell

The street musicians playing in the video below are some of the best musicians I’ve ever heard.  I have to state that outright because the sound quality on the 25 second video is very poor, and you’d never guess that their music could set a heart soaring simply by watching the video.  They stopped me dead in my tracks with Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” just as I was about to enter a shoe shop on Athens main shopping thoroughfare.  I literally stopped, put my hand to my chest, and said “oh my god.”

I stayed for the next five pieces, clapping enthusiastically after every set.  The man you see standing in front of the musicians was the only other person who stopped to listen.  You can see him staring at passerby, just as I was, wondering why no one else was stopping to take in a concert one would have had to pay at least 50 euro to hear in any other venue.

It reminded me of an experiment I read about in The Washington Post Magazine a couple years back.  The Post asked violin virtuoso Joshua Bell to play incognito in L’Enfant Plaza in downtown DC for 43 minutes.  Bell  was set up to play in an indoor arcade at the top of a metro station during the morning rush hour.  The purpose of the experiment seemed to be two-fold, and the questions it sought to answer were:  1.  If art is taken off its pedestal, would people still recognize it as high art?  Would ordinary people recognize genius?  2.  Would people stop for beauty?

The answer was a resounding no.  Apparently context is everything when it comes to art.

In the 43 minutes that Bell played on his multi-million dollar Stradivarius, 7 people stopped to listen for at least a minute, and 23 people gave money, most on the run.  The prodigy whose talents command $1,000 a minute earned $32.17 for playing in L’enfant Plaza.  1,070 people hurriedly passed by, most not even bothering to turn and look at the man who has played for the crowned heads of Europe, and fills concert halls with people who dare not even cough while he is playing.

Do we value art only when we have to pay for it?

When I first read this story, I cried because:

1.  I’m a big sappy cry-baby.

2.  I worry about losing sight of what really matters in this life, and not using my time on earth wisely.

I also felt sorry for all those people who had grown oblivious to beauty, and were so worried about making it to work on time they couldn’t get off the conveyor belt that keeps them going from morning to night.

There was once a time when everything–books, phones, brooms–were designed with beauty and artistry  in mind.  A time when buildings took centuries to complete because aesthetics were the primary concern  The buildings stood for something grander than their structures, they were a testament to the imagination, beauty, and devotion of mankind.

Although times have definitely changed, beauty surrounds us still. Let’s not miss it because we can’t take the time to turn our head or stop for a minute or two. Who knows…it might change our life.  Let’s all stop this week to notice beauty.  I’m going to prepare myself by listening to the Radiohead song, “The Tourist”.

© 2009, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved.