Re: The Red Violin WAS Re: playing outdoors

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 12:04:11 -0500, The Devil's Interval
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Hi, Jon,

>An Equal Music is by Vikram Seth, one of the most extraordinary and
>versatile young writers I know of. (For example, he's written an epic novel
>set in India and a novel told entirely in sonnets set in San Francisco.) I
>loved AEM and gave a copy of it to one of my kids' teacher who rather
>solipsistically said, after reading it, that the details in the book were so
>good that it seemed inconceivable to him a nonmusician could have written
>it. I've never quite forgiven him that (being a nonmusician who writes
>fiction about music.)
>

Absolute nonsense that one has to be a musician or a practicing
violinist to write fiction about the instrument.  An author aspiring
to such things has to go no farther than this NG to check out nitty
gritty details.  You will get sufficient input to write these details
anyway you choose :-).

One thing I will say about the film "Red Violin" is that the mechanics
of violin playing were done better in that film than in any other
movie having to do with playing the violin except those that actually
had Heifetz and Stern playing roles in them...e.g. "They Shall Have
Music" and "Tonight We Sing."   For example, "Hilary and Jackie" might
have been a decent movie as long as you didn't have firsthand
knowledge about string playing and if they hadn't portrayed Barenboim
as a total  wimp.

Jon Teske