Joshua Bell

Joshua Bell

HEART OF THE CLASSICS

Joshua Bell Collects His Favorite Melodies on Romance of the Violin
Violinist Joshua Bell enjoys a flourishing international career, performing Beethoven, Brahms, and the other great classical masters in the far corners of the world. And while Bell, 36, has also recorded many of these staples of the violin repertoire, in the studio he's been no slave to tradition. Recent albums have found the violinist fiddling alongside Nashville all-stars on Short Trip Home, taking in the sounds of Broadway on Gershwin Fantasy, and paying homage to Leonard Bernstein with West Side Story Suite -- he even makes an appearance on young crooner Josh Groban's latest chart-topper, Closer. Bell's newest disc, Romance of the Violin, is similarly aimed to please. It's a treasury of great melodies from composers through the ages -- from Monteverdi to Saint-Saëns, by way of Mozart, Schumann, Chopin, and several others. Each selection was handpicked by Bell and transcribed for violin and orchestra by Craig Leon, who, oddly enough, was the producer behind such pop acts as The Ramones and Blondie. Barnes & Noble.com's EJ Johnson reached Bell at his Manhattan home while he was on a practice break and talked about his latest project and more.

Barnes & Noble.com: How did you choose the music on Romance of the Violin?

Joshua Bell: Basically, the idea of the album was to have my desert-island favorite melodies of all time. There's a lot to choose from, and since I didn't want to stick to the violin repertoire, pretty much everything on the album was transcribed from either voice or piano or other instruments. I kept narrowing down a list of favorite things, seeing which ones would really work well on the violin, and I started working with an arranger, Craig Leon, and ended up with this group.

B&N.com: And you wanted an album that's on the lighter side.

JB: Well, I wouldn't say that, exactly...

B&N.com: OK. Maybe I should say it appeals broadly.

JB: Well that's a different thing. And I'm only making a point of it because people often toss those words around, "light" and "serious," and I'm not comfortable with that, because there are so many great pieces that are often called light that are worthy and serious pieces. I think the danger with this kind of project is to think of these pieces as being sort of light and over-schmaltz them, and then they end up sounding light.

They're beautiful melodies, so it's going to have a wide appeal. I've done albums of short pieces -- virtuoso, flashy pieces -- and I've found over the years if you're talking about wide appeal, people who are not normal classical music lovers, they occasionally hear something on the radio and say, "Oh I really like that, I have to go buy that." And I find that it's usually just beautiful music and not necessarily flashy stuff that they want.

B&N.com: The Massenet "Elegie" stood out to me. It's very beautiful, of course, but why not include Massenet's Thaïs "Meditation" on, as you say, a "desert island melodies" album? I mean, talk about a great tune!

JB: Well, initially, Thaïs was on my list. I've recorded it before and wouldn't mind recording it again. I could have included it as well, except each piece on the album was written by a different composer, and I decided just to keep the one by Massenet. As I was listening to and looking through all kinds of different music, I came across this "Elegie," which I didn't know, and I thought it would be nice to show people another piece of Massenet's that's not quite so famous, but I think is as beautiful and quite a bit darker.

B&N.com: You've made several crossover albums in recent years, and you even appear on Josh Groban's new disc. Do you see your popular work as a separate aspect of your career, or is it all of a piece?

JB: You know, a career in music and what I do has so many parts to it -- I do chamber music and play with orchestras, there are so many things. But they're all part of the same thing: It's making music. In the case of Josh Groban, he and I met at a concert that we shared, and we became friends. And he was making a new album and, simple as that, he asked if I would be a part of one of the songs. It was one day's work that was something fun and enjoyable. That's a very small part of my career. But I like variety, I like doing all kinds of things, and there's a history. Lots of violinists have done things like that; Heifetz used to do things with Bing Crosby -- "White Christmas." Nowadays I think people are a little hesitant to offend critics, because they'll think that they're not serious anymore if they do things like that. But I've stopped worrying too much about that. I mean, I think as long as what I'm doing is varied enough and I'm doing enough meat and potatoes that satisfy my longing for Beethoven and Brahms and Bach, then I feel free to do these things.

B&N.com: Do you hope to draw a younger crowd to classical music?

JB: There is that element, too. It's interesting that this has already panned out. To use Josh Groban as an example, he's got a huge fan base; he sells millions of records. And I've already gotten many emails from his fan site from people who have never heard of me, who don't go to classical concerts, but through that one piece on the album have gone out and listened to my other records and are now getting into classical music. I've always been interested in getting younger people to listen to classical music, and hopefully I can break some of the stereotypes, that classical music is for old people, that it's somehow stuffy, which is ridiculous, you know.

B&N.com: You also do a lot of performing. In fact, we were originally supposed to speak last month, but you had to fly to Europe last minute to fill in for a sick soloist. Does that happen to you often?

JB: No, not very often. I'm pretty booked, so usually when those calls come in, nine out of ten times there's no way for me to do it. But it turned out that was my month off -- December has become traditionally for me a time I take off from concerts, and there are very few things I would have accepted to do during my break. But Amsterdam and the Concertgebouw and the wonderful hall, and it was the Brahms concerto, which I love, and I've got friends there. So, after some deliberation, in the end I did it.

B&N.com: Well, you must spend plenty of time the rest of year jetting around the world.

JB: I'm on the road 200-some days a year. Yeah, I'm constantly traveling.

B&N.com: Where do you find the most enthusiastic audiences?

JB: It varies. Every place is different. This past year, some of the most interesting audiences I've had were in eastern Europe, Hungary and Prague and St. Petersburg. I found them to be very enthusiastic. It depends. I was just down in South America, and I had some really neat audiences there, and ... they're all different.

B&N.com: Let me turn it around: What's the toughest audience you've ever played for?

JB: The hardest audiences are usually at gala-type dinners, either fundraising events or something where there are people eating and clinking their glasses and not really there to listen to music. I recently had an experience like that where they were making so much noise that I literally had to stop after the first piece and say, "The next piece is very quiet, and if you all could just put down your glasses." And they did, and it made a humongous difference! I would have been too shy to do that ten years ago, but now I can't put up with that anymore.

B&N.com: During your month off when you're back home in New York, what do you like to do?

JB: Well, I catch up with friends, whom I don't get to see the other times. I try to be like a normal person who lives at home, go to the gym regularly and play tennis and also catch up on all the movies and eat out. Eating out, of course, in New York is a great hobby.

B&N.com: Speaking of your home, I saw that story in The New York Times recently about your apartment. Looks like a terrific place.

JB: The story in the Times was about my loft that I'm living in right now, except after that story came out, I bought another place, and I just sold the loft. After spending two years of renovating, I just decided to buy a new one and start all over. But for me, that's also a hobby; I like creating a space where I can come home and feel like it's mine, because I'm in hotels most of the time. I was kind of sad to see the end of the renovation process; I enjoy that whole thing more than the final product. So ironically, after all that, I'm starting again!

B&N.com: Well, it looked like a great space for a party.

JB: [laughs] You should see the new one!

January 2004

EJ Johnson