Finally I got the chance to watch The Art of Violin, a great documentary which gives a wonderful overview of the greatest 20th century violinists, in their individual uniqueness and talented performances, it’s the only documentary I’ve heard about that gives such a wonderful historical information about the legends of the devil’s instrument.
Directed by a Paris-based concert violinist Bruno Monsaingeon, with the great contributions of Itzhak Perlman, Ivry Gitlis, Hilary Hahn and Ida Haendel sharing their experience and opinions about the greats, telling personal stories and analytics about them too.
The Art of Violin gave me the opportunity to see Fritz Kreisler, Misha Elman, Jascha Heifetz, David Oistrakh, Joseph Szigeti, Zino Francescatti, Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern performing in clearance and perfection, isolated from all around them, trying in every note to do more perfection to their performance, each one did it in his own way, none of them were the same, each had his own style, but all of them shared the love to the devil’s instrument, and always worked hard on Paganini’s works.
I really enjoyed the contributions all over the movie, I learned more, and got to know these performers much better, some of them were completely new to me even, and the rest I was hoping to see them playing, and here I did.
I recommend this movie for every classical music lover, for every violin player (if he didn’t already watch it). Go watch it and enjoy.
