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A guy wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a ball cap walked into a Washington, D.C. Metro station and took out a $3.5 million violin. He left the case open on the floor in front of him, as buskers do. He played for 40 minutes. Seven people paused, however briefly, to listen. One recognized him. A few placed money in the case. Eleven hundred people ignored him.
Sound about right for a street performer?
Not in this case: the violinist was Joshua Bell, an internationally acclaimed virtuoso widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest violinists, conducting an experiment on behalf of The Washington Post.
As Billy Oppenheimer notes in his weekly newsletter, Post reporter Gene Weingarten called it proof of “the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world… If we can’t take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth — then what else are we missing?”
Maybe Weingarten was right.
But Bell was also ignored because, like seeing a tiger in a zoo, people encountered him outside his natural habitat. In a train station, Bell just seemed like a dude hanging out by the subway trying to score a little cash.
Put Bell onstage at Carnegie Hall and the opposite would likely occur: even on his worst night, he’s Joshua Bell. At Carnegie Hall. The audience will probably still walk away feeling his performance was incredible.
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