When I posted that blog about Stradivarius on Friday, I didn't realise I had an encounter with one of his instruments written in my diary just two days later.  Weird.

I took the cellist in my family to see Steven Isserlis play his annual Oxford concert. He is the patron of the Jacqueline du Pre music building here and as part of the job he does family events plus a real full scale chamber music concert once a year.

We had attended one of his family concerts before, so I had heard his Strad in a couple of short pieces and heard him talking about it. He also writes about it here:

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1320794,00.html

Yesterday it was 3 Beethoven sonatas and one by Schubert, so that was a different dimension from a kiddies event with easy pieces.  

I'm not qualified to review the music, of course, but as a scientist I am sure that between them, the instrument and the player must have violated several laws of physics.  For instance, ordinary people like myself need to move the bow pretty fast to get a reasonable sound. Last night we've had passages where one could hardly see the bow move at all and the cello was still singing its heart out.

And the fact that someone glued the thing together nearly 300 years ago and nobody to this day has been able to match this quality, that is truly mindboggling.

Anyhow. Back to the bowing technique ...

PS. Steven Isserlis has a nice website here:

http://www.stevenisserlis.com/flash.html