Pearls Before Breakfast

Image via Wikipedia

This is not a new story but I have only just heard about it and still feel it is worth sharing with you.

Washington DC, the Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. A man with a violin plays six pieces by Bach for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately two thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. The musician plays continuously. In total, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves over 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look. Although it is a little sad in my opinion there is nothing unusual with that. Is there?

But perhaps when I tell this was all part of an experiment organised by the Washington Post and that the muscician was none other than Joshua Bell. A one-time child prodigy, at 39 Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. In addition the violin he was playing is one of the renowned Stradivari and is worth an estimated $3.5 million.

I guess we need to ask ourselves if we can be blinded to such beauty simply because we are in a hurry, how much more have we missed. The full WP article which includes several videos can be found here and is well worth a read.