Reviewed by Nicole Laskowski

Arnold Steinhardt may not have always liked the violin when he was growing up, but after years of practice and lessons, he literally fell in love with it. Along the way, Steinhardt trained with some of the great violin teachers of his day only to go on and perform at some of the most prestigious music festivals in the country and compete at some of the most renowned violin competitions in the world until finally becoming the first violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet.

Now, after more than four decades of perfecting his craft, Steinhardt has decided to write Violin Dreams, a memoir documenting his passionate, intimate and sometimes frustrating affair with this beautiful and mysterious instrument.  He describes it as one might describe a lover:  “When I hold the violin, my arm stretches lovingly around its neck, my right hand draws the bow across the strings like a caress, and the violin itself is tucked under my chin, a place halfway between my brain and my beating heart.”

Violin Dreams is an incredible journey as one musician works to explain the relationship that can form between violinist, violin and the music that binds the two together. Steinhardt takes his readers inside a world that is rarely seen, where masterpieces like Bach’s Chaconne, described as being “the violinist’s holy grail,” are not merely notes, but poetry needing to be scrutinized, researched and interpreted before being truly played.

Throughout the book, Steinhardt makes references to his dreams and sometimes nightmares, how they act as a reflection or a meditation on his life and his craft. But dreams in this text become multi-faceted and also refer to the lifelong goal of becoming a well-respected musician and, perhaps most strikingly, the discovery of the perfect violin.

Steinhardt’s book will leave you with the desire to hear the violin speak, but he provides such a rich perspective of the instrument that it will be like hearing the violin’s voice for the very first time.

Included with Violin Dreams is an audio CD with two recordings of Bach’s Partita in D Minor, which includes the famous Chaconne. The first, recorded when Steinhardt was at the beginning of his career; the second recorded specifically for this book. The CD not only demonstrates a certain amount of maturity between the two recordings, how passion can be heightened by precision, but it also demonstrates how the same musical piece can sound different depending on the make of the violin.