Joshua Bell's 'Red Violin' close to his heart

by MATT PEIKEN
St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 24, 2002©

Life imitated art for Joshua Bell, who performed the music for "The Red Violin," then lived the film's storyline.

Stolen in 1919 and again in 1936, rediscovered a half-century later in a deathbed confession, auctioned in 1988 and, finally, sold to Bell for close to $4 million, the 1713 Gibson Stradivarius now goes everywhere with Bell .

He will tuck it under his chin this weekend at the Ordway Center , where he performs Haydn's First Violin Concerto and a suite of music from "The Red Violin."

"I fell in love with it after playing it for a couple of seconds," Bell says of his Stradivarius. "It's funny because it's also a very red violin -- the most red violin I know."

Critics around the world have hailed Bell , who turns 35 in December, as both a torchbearer for technical virtuosity and model for stylistic dexterity. He had already taken a first-hand glimpse of the Gibson Stradivarius when he recorded the soundtrack for "The Red Violin," a 1999 film that follows the path of a mystical violin as it travels through the centuries from owner to owner.

Bell 's violin was created during Stradivarius' so-called "Golden Period" and named for one of its early owners, Alfred Gibson. It first came to Bell 's attention six years ago, when he performed alongside its owner, British violinist Norbert Brainin. Bell played a few notes on the violin and never forgot it.

Last year, when Brainin arranged to put the violin up for auction, Bell begged Brainin to sell it to him instead. Bell secured half the purchase price by selling his own Stradivarius, which he had played for "The Red Violin."

"I loved my own violin, but this one put my Strad to shame," he says. "It had a much bigger sound and a little more clarity, and I thought that would come in handy for playing concertos with big orchestras, because you're always fighting to have that power. Often, you sacrifice quality for volume, but this Strad had this depth of sound -- it could be bright, but also had this depth on the lower strings -- just the perfect balance."

After its recovery from a thief during the 1980s, the violin was almost blackened with the soot of neglect. With its restoration, Bell found the Gibson Stradivarius so responsive he had to rethink his fingerings.

"It's more like having a servant. You feel you can go anywhere on this violin, and it will speak," he says. "I've basically not touched another instrument since I purchased it. At this point, my violin is an extension of myself."