Monthly Archives: February 2012

It looks fat enough in the photographs to be a viola, but it’s doubtful the folks at Strings would have missed that detail—even though its “discovery” has been announced several times in the past two decades. Nevertheless, it does now seem to be the actual fiddle that went down with the Titanic.

Well, not down down. It was found strapped to the chest of Wallace Hartley, apparently the bandmaster of the ship’s 8-man strings ensemble, who was found dead on the surface. He had famously led them in playing soothing music on the foredeck before it slipped into the icy North Atlantic. I suppose none of the other instruments survived. There’s even—you guessed it—a new book about it. Hundredth anniversary, after all.

And what brings me to this subject? Partly my subscription to Strings and also my now 2-hour practice days, following the guidance of Carl Flesch in his famous (to violinists) The Art of Violin Playing. It seems to be working, though I’m still unable to play anything entirely mistake-free. I’m increasingly interested, though, in pretty much all things violin.