June 23, 2004 at 3:14 AM

Today I just sat down and played violin for the love of playing violin. Debussy's Reverie, Saint-Saen's Swan, Schubert's themes from "Rosamunde", waltzes from Die Fledermaus, the Pie Jesu from Faure's Requiem... I played for ninety minutes without even realizing it, and when I came away from the session I felt so free, so empowered.

Until I experience practice sessions like this, I tend to forget how passionately in love I am with this instrument. I always forget how much I love the violin itself, how much I love its shape and its form, how much I love its sound and its tone, how much I love just saying the word "violin", how much I love lugging around its huge case, how much I love waiting for the A in orchestra, how much I love ripping off an etude full-speed, how much I love slowing the vibrato and then making it wider and wider and wider until the note is so beautiful and so pure and so perfect there is nothing left except me and the music, and everything else in the world is - for that one split second in time - completely and utterly pointless...

Here's to our lovely instrument, the violin!

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