The solitary violinist in the Place des Vosges
Place des Vosges, Paris – in the last 20 years or so this ancient and once-neglected part of the city has become one of its most chic quartiers, and firmly on the map for every visiting tourist. And on this hot Sunday in early August there are thousands of them: sprawling on the grass in the square, thronging the surrounding boutiques and trendy cafés, and swarming up and down the stairs of the Victor Hugo house overlooking the gardens, admiring the great man’s taste in home furnishings. A randomly multinational and multilingual multitude, an invading army with no leaders, no strategy, no battle plan and no flag.
And there, under the arches by one of the four entrances to the square, is a busking violinist. In his 40s I’d guess, he’s wearing full-length cargo pants and a fashionable linen jacket – he certainly doesn’t look like any kind of a street person – and, apart from the violin case open to receive coins, he’s curiously detached from what he’s doing. He makes no eye contact with anyone and he doesn’t wish to be photographed, nor does he acknowledge me when I drop a euro into his case, or even when I mime applause before walking away. Because he plays sublimely – if one was paying 50€ to hear him at a recital rather than hearing him for free in the open air one wouldn’t be disappointed.
The piece is Bach’s Partita No. 3 for solo violin (you can see and hear it on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waxat-_tRH8), one of the pinnacles of the repertory, a piece which only top virtuosi can even attempt. As I stand there, transfixed by this incredible music which is being produced a couple of yards away from me, I observe that I seem to be almost the only person who’s even noticed the musician. Everyone else is bustling around and treating him with less attention than if he was an ice cream vendor – as if he was a piece of street furniture.
Not surprising perhaps – I was reminded of the incident a few years ago when the world-famous violinist Joshua Bell busked during the rush hour at a subway station in Washington DC, and only seven people stopped to watch him (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html). And of course the same point applies, about the desensitization effected by modern media, the endless and pointless busyness which prevents us from noticing what’s around us even when we’re on holiday.
But there’s more to it than that – why, I wondered, was the violinist so unwilling to engage with his “audience”? No doubt he’s not a habitual busker – and I noticed that there were few coins in his case, and those mostly low-value ones. Could he have felt ashamed in some way of what he was doing – and if so, then why? What could be a more generous and selfless act than to share his great gift with the crowds of visitors drawn on this glorious day to one of Paris’s most architecturally perfect monuments – and why should he not receive something from them in return?
But there’s a problem: we’re not living any more in a world where the exercise of an artistic talent might have been an end in itself, or where the artist’s income might be independent of any particular services rendered. In today’s world all commercial transactions are precisely delineated and fenced around by complex legal agreements; a brilliant violinist playing in a public square is stepping outside the commercial framework that we all live in and know so well, violating the pricing structure that governs all legitimate professional activity. (Imagine a ‘busking lawyer’ drawing up contracts in a public park for a few dollars flung into his hat.)
So the beauty goes by us, and we go by it – the spontaneity that might make someone just simply want to play Bach in the Place des Vosges on a sunny Sunday in August, for sheer joy, a thing of the remote past.
Except that it needn’t be. Need it?
Place des Vosges, Paris – in the last 20 years or so this ancient and once-neglected part of the city has become one of its most chic quartiers, and firmly on the map for every visiting tourist. And on this hot Sunday in early August there are thousands of them: sprawling on the grass in the square, thronging the surrounding boutiques and trendy cafés, and swarming up and down the stairs of the Victor Hugo house overlooking the gardens, admiring the great man’s taste in home furnishings. A randomly multinational and multilingual multitude, an invading army with no leaders, no strategy, no battle plan and no flag. 
And there, under the arches by one of the four entrances to the square, is a busking violinist. In his 40s I’d guess, he’s wearing full-length cargo pants and a fashionable linen jacket – he certainly doesn’t look like any kind of a street person – and, apart from the violin case open to receive coins, he’s curiously detached from what he’s doing. He makes no eye contact with anyone and he doesn’t wish to be photographed, nor does he acknowledge me when I drop a euro into his case, or even when I mime applause before walking away. Because he plays sublimely – if one was paying 50€ to hear him at a recital rather than hearing him for free in the open air one wouldn’t be disappointed. 
But there’s more to it than that – why, I wondered, was the violinist so unwilling to engage with his “audience”? No doubt he’s not a habitual busker – and I noticed that there were few coins in his case, and those mostly low-value ones. Could he have felt ashamed in some way of what he was doing – and if so, then why? What could be a more generous and selfless act than to share his great gift with the crowds of visitors drawn on this glorious day to one of Paris’s most architecturally perfect monuments – and why should he not receive something from them in return? 
Is this the fellow ?
ReplyDeletehttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2421/3588925722_2d2a9c0609.jpg