around 13 or so, i heard JS Bach's Chaconne in D Minor for Unaccompanied Violin on the car radio. I was stuck in the crappy Corsica with my dad while Karl Haas' radio program, Adventures In Good Music, came on the classical station. the violinist Nathan Millstein's Stradivarius came over the air playing this piece. this . . . leviathan . . . this fury of genius that is the Bach Chaconne filled my 13 year old head and jarred it into fruition.

i had started playing the violin when i was 8 years old, but it wasn't really until around this time that i actually wanted to practice. i would get home from school and practice for 5 or 6 hours a day. there's a performing arts high school in my city that I auditioned for and got accepted (que the theme to Fame). we actually took dance instead of P.E. the other half the day I went to the magnet school across the street for academics. when i went to this place i would bring copies of biographies of famous violinists and read those instead of the textbooks. I read the biographies of Nicolo Paganini, Jascha Heifetz, and Fritz Kreisler. names that only violinists, except for Heifetz maybe, know by heart.

the Bach Chaconne inspired me because I vowed that someday, however long it takes, I would play that incredibly difficult, beast of a piece from beginning to end without it sounding like crap.  

 

(the original sheet music for the Bach Chaconne for Unaccompanied Violin)

to be continued . . .