Music: Old World Fiddler

The dapper little man with the impassive face stood alone on the stage of Manhattan's Carnegie Hall fiddling his way through the tortuous technical complexities of his own "Paganiniana" Variations. While a wisp of broken horsehair from his bow floated around his head, he dazzled his listeners with a performance full of flashing colors, amazing fluctuations in volume and, on occasion, blazing speed. Then, after peeling the shredded hair from his bow and shooting the cuffs of his immaculate dress shirt, he launched into the quieter strains of Ernest Bloch's familiar violin war horse Nigun (from Baal Shem), shaping an interpretation...

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