Joshua Bell: Life-Changers

“I was five years old or six when my mother bought me my first violin album, of the great violinist Josef Gingold playing Fritz Kreisler,” Joshua Bell tells Apple Music. “Gingold ended up being the most important person in my musical life. He helped me fall in love with the sound of the violin.” Gingold’s performance is the first track in Bell’s celebration of the music and artists who have influenced him since his debut over 40 years ago. By way of homage to Gingold, we hear Bell himself playing Kreisler, followed by a historic recording of Kreisler performing his own music. Kreisler’s playing, adds Bell, “reflects the incredible, old-world charm that is a lost art today.” Other landmark moments in Bell’s life include Jascha Heifetz’s recording of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2, a piece that Bell performed at his first recital, aged 12. “Gingold heard me play, and he decided to teach me after hearing me play this piece,” he remembers. Bell also introduces us to performances by some of his collaborators over the years, as well as some of the symphonic works that influenced him early on. “Every musician has their own musical journey and pieces that influence them. And these are just some of mine.”