Falling in Love with Winter in the Spring

Look out Daniel Craig. Someone is threatening your pole position on my hottie list.

My folks and I went to see Joshua Bell in concert last weekend. Joshua Bell, in addition to being the fellow that ruined this guy's marriage, is a world class violinist.

Although he was officially appearing as the director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Joshua Bell was clearly the key attraction of the night. My mom and I ran into a bunch of love crazy tweens in the lobby. He signed autographs after the show. He also dyed his hair black and grew his hair out. Is it classical goth? Who cares.

Joshua Bell, my dear readers, is a cutie. Plus, he can play a heck of a fiddle.

The program for the night was Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a chamber orchestra arrangement of Brahms' Quintet Op. 111 and a lovely encore of Tchaikovsky's Waltz from Serenade for Strings.

After grinding away at Spring in youth orchestra many years in a row, I had to shake off some misgivings about the piece. I shouldn't have worried. It was a fabulous, mature performance. Winter, in particular, took me by storm. No pun intended. The violin solo was gorgeous and I listened to the pizzicato in the second movement with nary a twinge for my days in the first violin section.

I had crammed for the Brahms Quintet by downloading the cheapest version I could find on iTunes. I liked it much more than I expected. The encore piece ended with a collective, dreamy sigh from the audience.

Big Hands Update: Little K, who has played the Rachmaninoff piece featured in the video, certifies that he undoubtedly had big hands. Furthermore, Gershwin did too. She reports that some of his pieces are nearly impossible to play by smaller people.