The Red Violin

About the Artists

The Red Violin

About the Violin

History of the “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius

Celebrated violin virtuoso Elizabeth Pitcairn performs in partnership with the legendary 1720 “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius, the 1990 Christie’s auction of which is said to have inspired the 1999 Academy Award–winning film, The Red Violin.

The historic violin was crafted by Antonio Stradivari, who lovingly made his instruments centuries ago in his small shop in Cremona, Italy, and remains the most famous violin maker of all time. Not long after its creation, the instrument vanished from the radar screen; no one knows where or to whom the violin belonged for more than 200 years, spawning any number of historians, writers, journalists, critics—as well as Canadian filmmaker François Girard—to speculate on the violin’s mysterious history. Girard’s imaginative speculations became the narrative for his beloved film, The Red Violin.

The 1720 “Red Mendelssohn” would eventually surface in 1930s Berlin, having been purchased by an heir to the great composer Felix Mendelssohn. In 1956, it was acquired by a New York industrialist, who kept the instrument in impeccable performance condition; much of its original burnish has survived, and it is thought to be one of the best sounding and most beautiful of Stradivari’s remaining violins. On Thanksgiving Day in 1990, the industrialist opted to put the Red Violin on the auction block anonymously at Christie’s of London. While some of the world’s most powerful people sought to win the coveted instrument, it landed in the hands of then 16-year-old American solo violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn. Pitcairn would remain silent about owning the violin until her rapidly burgeoning career brought her into the public eye on international concert stages, after nearly three decades of rigorous training by the world’s most esteemed violin teachers.

Pitcairn would come to view the violin as her life’s most inspiring mentor and friend. Many have said that the violin has finally found its true soul mate in the gifted hands of the young violinist. She is the first known solo artist to bring it to the great concert halls of the world and has made it her goal to share the violin’s magical beauty of sound with people of all ages, professions, and cultures. Today, Pitcairn and the “Red Mendelssohn” Stradivarius violin continue to foster one of classical music’s most compelling partnerships.

—Suzanne Marcus Fletcher

The Red Violin

Program Notes

Sara Carina Graef (b. 1971)
Blue Vishuddha (2014)
For Elizabeth Pitcairn

Vishuddha is the Sanskrit name for the fifth chakra, also known as the “throat chakra.” Vishuddha controls the principle of sound and the sense of hearing. It is thought to govern our speech and our creative expression, and its balance defines our honesty and how well we express ourselves.

Vishuddha’s color is sky blue and its element is ether. It is represented by a circle surrounded by 16 purple or smoke-colored petals containing a downward-pointing triangle. Within the triangle sits a circular white region, representing the full moon.

We express our choices and our internal truths by speaking them through this fifth chakra. The secret of immortality is said to reside in the fifth chakra. When it is open, the negative experience is transformed into wisdom and learning. When Vishuddha is closed, we undergo decay and death.

In mythology, after a battle between the gods and the demons, the god Vishnu attempted to resolve the conflict between good and evil by churning up the ocean. This released many things from the ocean, including both poison and the nectar of immortality. The gods drank the nectar, but only Shiva would drink the poison, which became lodged in his throat.

When the throat chakra is blocked, it is believed that self-expression is difficult. When the throat chakra is in balance and awakened, the poisonous aspects of existence become powerless, internal and external negatives are neutralized, and the nectar of immortality is restored and the body stays young.

Singing is believed to stimulate the throat chakra.

Blue Vishuddha explores the interplay between being open (acceptance, tolerance, receptiveness) and being closed (disagreement, dissent, friction), with pervasive exchanges between major seconds and minor seconds, between smooth consonances and gritty dissonances, and between flowing lyricism and harsh, percussive rhythms. The opening motive, with its falling and rising shape, mirrors that of the downward-pointing triangle inside Vishuddha, within which sits the moon. The repetition of that rising and falling motion throughout the piece recalls the petals around the outside of Vishuddha. Blue is both the color of Vishuddha and it is also the term in music when a minor interval is used when a major one is expected. The fifth chakra is associated with trusting one’s intuition and expressing one’s needs so that the universe may provide them, and this piece was written with a great deal of trust placed on intuition. I did a lot of singing throughout the process of writing this piece—both a physical and a metaphysical element in the creation of the work.

The piece was commissioned by Elizabeth Pitcairn in the summer of 2014, and is dedicated both to her and to Vishuddha.

—Sara Carina Graef

Fisher Center Presents

The Red Violin

Elizabeth Pitcairn, violin
Cynthia Elise Tobey, piano

Franz Schubert
Rondo for violin and piano (“Rondeau brillant”)

Gabriel Fauré
Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano

Sara Carina Graef
Blue Vishuddha (World Premiere)

Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata No. 9 for violin and piano

Running time for this performance is one hour 40 minutes, including one intermission.