A favorite here for 20 years, violinist Bell is in his prime
2/16/08
A favorite here for 20 years, violinist Bell is in his prime
By Jon W. Sparks
Special to The Commercial Appeal
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Joshua Bell is 40 and that will alarm those who still say "violin prodigy" before uttering his name.
Still looking younger than his years, he is now prodigious and in his prime, which may well last far into the future.
Bell has been a hit in Memphis for a long time, having powered Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major with the IRIS Chamber Music Orchestra in 2004, performed a recital at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre in 1998 and played a Prokiefiev concerto in 1988 with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra at the old Auditorium South Hall.
Tonight, he is again at GPAC doing a recital. This time it is his "Romance of the Violin" tour with pianist Jeremy Denk.
Since his appearance at IRIS less than four years ago, he has turned out a half-dozen albums, the most recent being The Red Violin Concerto by John Corigliano. This premiere recording is a concert work developed from the Oscar-winning score for 1998's "The Red Violin," in which Bell soloed on the soundtrack.
Bell is deeply committed to this work, boldly declaring that, "This new piece will be around for centuries. It will be known as one of the great 21st century violin works, I'm confident about that."
It is typical of Bell's adventurousness that he embraces Corigliano's style. "The Red Violin Concerto has some wonderful melodies, yet it's very innovative," Bell says. "He's done things with the piece, effects that make the violin do things that I've never done with the instrument."
The disc also includes Corigliano's Violin Sonata that Bell performs with Denk. The pianist is, of course, a considerable talent himself. He first performed with Bell at the 2004 Spoleto Festival, and they have toured the United States and Europe since.
Bell's other 2007 release is a two-disc collection, The Essential Joshua Bell, which is a sampler of the violinist's range and interests. Disc 1 has standards from Chopin, Puccini, Paganini, Faure and others, while the second disc leans heavily on Gershwin, Bernstein and other more contemporary composers. Among those are pieces composed by and performed with Tennessee bass fiddler Edgar Meyer, another local favorite.
Although he's a certifiable classical music superstar, an experiment last year put a little perspective on such terms as "classical" and "superstar." Bell took his pricey Stradivarius into a Metro station in Washington to perform as an anonymous street busker. It was an admitted stunt, abetted and videotaped by a reporter for the Washington Post. The results? There were 1,097 people who passed by, but only a few stopped to listen and of those, only one recognized him. Bell performed for 45 minutes and pulled in $32.17, not counting the $20 from the one traingoer who knew who he was.
Bell will bring that same Strad to tonight's sold-out concert at GPAC and saw away to what is as close to a sure thing as can be imagined: a hugely receptive audience. With all his musical skill and a not inconsiderable flair for showmanship, there has come an expectation from listeners who subscribe to the comment made of the violinist by Corigliano: "Joshua Bell plays like a god."
