Classical Music

Battling Joshua Bell

Yesterday, I attended the Joshua Bell recital at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. The most extraordinary living violinist, it also bears noting that Bell won the Crystal Caliburn World Championship in 1996. Yes, he is a pinball wizard. And he placed 4th in the National Tennis something or other as a teenager. Bell defines over achievement.

Joshua Bell is also a very mean man. Listening to him play the violin is a struggle and occasionally, a war. From the moment I seated myself, I felt as though I were about to engage in the Battle of the Hornburg, except the elves never show and Legolas wanders off somewhere. Bell is the antagonist, his violin the army, each note an arrow, a ladder, a spear. And there are 10,000 of him and 1 of me. I am no Aragorn. Instead, I am that little long-haired boy that has seen too few winters and doesn’t know how to wield a sword.

It might seem strange to refer to a Joshua Bell concert as a battle, but his violin is truly cruel. It will thrash you upside one movement and down the other. Throughout the duration of the recital, my body was tense, my palms sweaty, my neck stiff, and I had trouble breathing. Every angling of his wrist to lay the bow against the strings and every note that rang thereafter was an exquisite torment.

Yesterday, I passed 3 hours of my life in the most confusing state of anxiety and ecstasy. I could not release my body from the tension. I could not will myself to breathe with any sort of regularity. I could not stop my eyes from watering, and above all else, I could not help but mourn that it would be over. I would regain my agency, my breathing routine, my posture, my muscle control, my sanity. Being in front of Joshua Bell was like staring at the sun. Nothing could be more bewitching, more beautiful. Yet nothing would more certainly harm you. And then the recital ended. And even though I could breathe again, I felt utterly empty. And I yearned for the battle once more, yearned to stare at the sun and go blind.

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