Concert Magic

The Power of illumination

In the newspaper business they have a saying that one picture is worth a thousand words. No matter how hard you try to describe a person or a scene, your portrayal can never come close to the accuracy of a camera. In the case of a musician, you could say that a minute of recorded sound is worth any number of words. How else can you convey a violinist's tone to someone who has never heard him? And if you have film of him, your task is made yet easier. Film cannot wholly replace the thrill of seiing and hearing a concert, but it can be a reasonable substitute. Strangely, film-makers were slow to appreciate the possibilities of capturing live music on celluloid. Many great musicians of the 1930s left us very little film of their playing or none at all, even though the means existed to make excellent documentary studies.