Pearls Before Breakfast：A true story to think about
The street musician was standing in the subway station "Children's Plaza" in Washington DC. He began playing the violin. It was a cold morning, last January. He played for forty-five minutes.
To begin, he played the 2nd Partita of Bach, then Schubert's Ave Maria, Manual Pounce's Massenet and again Bach. At around 8 o'clock in the morning, some thousand people had crossed this corridor, mostly on the way to work.
After three minutes, a mature man noticed the musician playing. He slowed down his step, stopped a few seconds then continued walking while gaining speed. A minute later, the violonist received his first dollar, while standing right in front of a woman who threw some money in his small jar. Some minutes latter, a lady leaned on the wall to the outside to listen, but she looked at her watch and began to walk. It was clearly late.
The one person that called most of the violinist's attention was a small boy that had to be about three years old. His mother pulled him, in a hurry, but the child stopped to look at the violinist. Finally his mother shook him and grabbed him so that the child continued on his way. Nevertheless, while walking, he kept turning his head towards the musician.
This scene repeated itself several times with other children. And the parents, without exception forced them to move on. During the forty five minutes of the musician playing, only seven people really stopped themselves to listen at a time.
A group of about twenty gave to him money while continuing on their way. He collected 32 dollars. When he had finished playing, no one noticed it. No one applauded.
Only a person recognized him in more than one thousand people. No one knew that this violonist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians on earth. He played in this lobby some of the most difficult music scores ever written with a Stradivarius of 1713 worth 3.5 millions dollars.
Two days before playing in the subway station, he played for a fund raising event for the Boston Theater which was packed with prices being close to the 100 dollars a seat.
This is a true history. Joshua Bell playing incognito in a subway station. This was organized by the Washington Post in the framework of an investigation on the perception, tastes and priorities in people's actions.
The questions remain:
In a common environment, at an inappropriate hour, can we perceive beauty?
Do we stop ourselves to appreciate it?
Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions of this experience could be: if we do not take the time to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the most beautiful scores, ever composed, then how much more else are we missing?
Look at the video at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
