Violin Dreams Author:Arnold Steinhardt Arnold Steinhardt, for forty years an international soloist and the first violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet, brings warmth, wit, and fascinating insider details to the story of his lifelong obsession with this most seductive and stunningly beautiful instrument. Steinhardt's story of life with violins is rich with vivid scenes: the zen of... more » terror perpetrated by the author's legendary early violin teachers, the frankly sensual pleasures involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, the zanily charged culture of high-level competitions. Steinhardt illuminates Bach's Chaconne as the holy grail for the solo violin, and he pursues — from the perspective of an ardent owner of a great Storioni violin — the history and mysteries of the renowned Italian violinmakers. "Violin Dreams" is also studded with musical pilgrimages, one of them to the all-but-vanished Polish shtetl where his mother was born, and where, he shows movingly, his own love for the eerily evocative sound of the violin was born as well. With "Violin Dreams" comes a remarkable CD recording of Steinhardt performing Bach's Partita in B Minor as a young violinist forty years ago and playing the same piece especially for "Violin Dreams" on his Storioni. Lively commentary on the differences between the two performances is included.« less