Famous Violinist Joshua Bell performs at the Washington D.C. Metro subway incognito.

A chain email on Joshua Bell’s performance at L’Enfant’s Plaza Metro station lives on after four years.

Violinist Joshua Bell

Since early 2007 to this day, 3rd of September 2011, a chain email has proliferated about American virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell performing incognito at Washington D.C. Metro station. The message is a lesson on our perception, taste, and attitude.

Well, after four years, the latest from this chain email I got was just the other day, Sept 2.  A friend meant well in sending it, to share I’m sure.

The email forward claims that violinist Joshua Bell performed incognito at a metro station in Washington D.C. playing on a violin worth millions of dollars but his performance received very little interest from passersby.

On January 12, 2007, at 7:51 a.m.,  Joshua Bell performed incognito at a metro station in an experiment. The moment was  a morning rush hour.  In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six beautiful violin pieces, some 1,097 people almost all of them on the way to work passed by.

(It should be noted that contrary to what the chain email claims in which all musical pieces he played were Bach’s, they were not!)

Joshua Bell emerged from the Metro at the L’Enfant Plaza station, positioning himself against a wall beside a trash basket.  This area is at the nucleus of federal Washington, with work force mostly mid-level bureaucrats and other professionals, from policy analysts and project managers to specialists and consultants.

Bell appeared as a young man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. Removing his violin from a small case, he opened the case at his feet, throwing in few dollars and pocket change as seed money.

Bell began to play. To any avid classical music lover, aside from his brilliant performance, his repertoire is simply exquisite, including Bach‘s Chaconne, Schubert‘s Ave Maria, Ponce’s Estrellita, and that ever poignant Meditation de Thais by Massenet.  (Truth be told, I have listened to the audio many times, and still do mainly for personal reasons.)

This is a true story. Violinist Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The experiment raised several questions, among them:

• In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

• If so, do we stop to appreciate it?

• Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

Searching on the web for more insights of this test, I found this link, an interesting, provocative and insightful analysis of the matter, and various reactions through the  comments:  Famous Violinist Joshua Bell Plays at Metro Station.

For those interested in listening to violinist Bell’s Metro performance, listen to: Audio of Joshua Bell’s Full Metro Performance. (There is few seconds of adverts, please wait.) Audio by John W. Poole. Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell plays incognito for commuters in a Washington D.C. Metro station.

For an engaging article by Gene Weingarten, Washington Post staff writer, read:  Pearls Before Breakfast by Gene Weingarten. Washington Post Magazine Online.

Dear readers, I leave this post to your own perceptions, tastes and priorities.  Meanwhile, allow me to enjoy Joshua Bell’s repertoire once again.

Photo Courtesy:

Joshua Bell by Alexduff, Wiki Commons. Retrieved 3 Sept 2011.