[Dixielandjazz] Itzak Perlman story/tuning

[brycejo at comcast.net]

In 1966 at the Mosque in Newark, NJ,  I saw Nathan Milstein break a string on the third movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin concerto, while playing with the NJ Symphony.  He immediately handed his instrument off to the concert master and took his to continue.  When he starting playing the replacement, it was obvious that he was in pain.  At the next orchestra passage, he passed the concert master's violin to someone and took another from someone in the section.  With this instrument, he finished the piece.

The next day, I spoke to a trombonist in the  Newark SO, who was a music professor at Montclair State College where I was studying.  He said the concert master sat with Milstein's stradavarius on his lap, terrified to move for fear of damaging it.  When Milstein retrieved his strad, he said, "Jesus christ, at least you could have put a string on it."  That's what I was told, but I saw the string break and the rest of the events.

I don't know how to pass this off to the rest of the DJML group and I'd appreciate it if you would for me.

J. D. Bryce

-------------- Original message -------------- 

> 
> Hello all 
> 
> Anyone who has seen a violin soloist break a string during a concerto would 
> be sceptical about the Perlman story. 
> 
> I saw it happen with Isaac Stern (in a Mozart concerto) and he hardly 
> missed a beat. He handed his violin to the leader of the orchestra, took 
> the leader's instrument and kept going with less than a bar or two hiatus. 
> 
> The incident made the next morning's newspapers and Stern was quoted as 
> saying that the leader's violin was better than his ! 
> 
> One wag observed that a really "on-the-ball" leader would have restrung 
> Stern's violin, re-tuned it, and given it back at the end of the movement 
> :-) 
> 
> On a different note, literally, I saw (and heard) John Sangster de-tune a 
> bandleaders banjo, while the leader had left his chair to go downstage to 
> talk to the audience. Yes, you've guessed it - the next number started with 
> a banjo introduction. What Ray Price sounded like has to be heard to be 
> (dis)believed. 
> 
> Have any of our listmates ever engaged in such subversive behaviour? 
> 
> All the best 
> Anton 
> 
> 
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