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Video/Audio LinkI have loved opera and classical music all my life and this is the most beautiful piece I think I have ever heard.

"Alexa, play Fritz Kreisler." I say that command several times a week (sometimes twice a day) to my Echo Dot. Why? Because after discovering the violin music of Fritz Kreisler, I have become hooked. His style is incredibly soothing and makes me relax. He also plays in quite a haunting manner as you can hear in his LIEBESLIED. I first discovered Kreisler several months ago after watching the movie, "Music of the Heart" about a violin teacher. It featured a cameo by Isaac Stern. As is often the case I did a bit of research on Stern and found out...

Leading concertmasters* and close friends have shared reports of the death today of Joseph Silverstein, legendary concertmaster of the Boston Symphony from 1962 to 1984. He was 83. After stepping down at Boston he became music director of the Utah Symphony, 1993 to 1998, a most uncommon upgrade.

The violinist Stefan Arzberger had planned to play the music of Beethoven, Haydn and Mendelssohn with his colleagues in the Leipzig String Quartet later this month at Wigmore Hall in London, where he fondly recalls once sipping sherry with patrons after a concert.Instead he finds himself facing a charge of attempted murder in New York City, accused of barging naked into the room of a 64-year-old woman at a Midtown hotel he was staying in while on tour this spring and trying to strangle her. His defense is hardly less lurid: His lawyers say he was drugged by a prostitute...

Joshua Bell recently made a surprise appearance on TMZ, the website infamous for its scandalous and prurient celebrity news and gossip. It's not normally where you expect to find a classical violinist, celebrated though he is. While touring in Spain, Bell had been robbed. "Thief Jacked My $38K Watch In Masterful Heist," the TMZ headline roared... Bell is doing several interviews this day; we have 15 minutes. With a new record out and a U.S. tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields just on the horizon (they'll be at Segerstrom Concert Hall on April 26), there is...

Josef Suk, one of the best Czech violin virtuosi, grandson of composer Josef Suk (1874-1935) and great grandson of world-famous Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904), died last night at the age of 81 ...

F&F had a violinist close out this mornings show. i thought he was great. They said he would play some more on the "After the Show Show" but he didn't. Did anyone catch his real name?

I'm trying to remember the name of a movie, that I only saw ads on TV for, and it's been a while... The movie plotline, goes something like this: Two friends, one a virtuoso violinist, go their separate ways. Years later, the one who was not the violinist, runs across the one who was, who apparently suffered a mental breakdown, and was playing on the streets for change from passersby. Anyone remember the name of this movie, or even a actor who was in it?

Alexander Knecht unpacked his violin and sheet music and slipped into Marvin Baker's dimly lit hospital room. "Hello, Mr. Baker, is it OK if I play a hymn for you?" he asked brightly. The 81-year-old patient, bedridden by a series of illnesses and unable to respond, stared blankly at the wall. Knecht lifted his bow and played "Rock of Ages," the lilting sounds swiftly displacing the room's cold quiet. "I hope you liked that," he said. Silence. "I play for him every week," Knecht said, stepping into the corridor. "He can't speak very well, but he appreciates the music, I...

The Washington Post recently carried out an unusual experiment. It hired Joshua Bell, one of the world's most famous classical musicians, to dress like a common street busker and play his Stradivarius in a D.C. metro station during rush hour. The anonymous Mr. Bell played Bach, he played Schubert, he played some of the most beautiful music ever to emerge from the minds of mortals. And virtually nobody stopped to notice. The point was not that most people are uncultured clods. The point, rather, is that we are so caught up in the routine of our lives that we fail...

There's no business like show business, especially when you're thinking of buying a $3.5 million (U.S.) violin. When American violinist Robert McDuffie, now in his mid-40s, broke through into the top rank of international stars a decade ago, he decided he should upgrade to the best instrument he could get his hands on...... McDuffie is nothing if not brave. So he found a violin he liked, a $3.5 million Guarneri del Gesu from 1735..... So he incorporated, setting up 1737 del Gesu Partners, L.P., and convinced 16 friends and acquaintances (including himself) to invest in the instrument. The return on...

BERLIN (AP) - The son of Yehudi Menuhin was ousted as head of the German branch of the music foundation set up by the violinist and humanist, after comments he made to a newspaper run by Germany's leading far-right party, the foundation said Saturday. The German branch of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation had asked Gerard Menuhin to step down earlier this month, after comments he made to the German Voice, the newspaper of the National Democratic Party, surfaced on the Internet. In the article, Menuhin says it was "not healthy" to hold Germany to the crimes it committed 60 years...

NEW YORK - A violinist who claims the New York Philharmonic fired him because he is a man says some of the women who were promoted ahead of him gave flowers and other gifts to their bosses. Anton Polezhayev, 29, says in a lawsuit that he was asked to leave after the 2003-2004 season, in the last month of his 17-month probation, despite being told by orchestra officials that he was doing "a fine job" and that his playing was "perfect." Polezhayev's lawyer, Lenard Leeds, said Friday that the Philharmonic's personnel manager, Carl R. Schiebler, even wrote a letter to...

<p>Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin.</p> <p>The incident was not as shocking as the recording of an Israeli officer pumping the body of a 13-year-old girl full of bullets and then saying he would have shot her even if she had been three years old.</p>