by Nicholas Jones

String players sometimes say that instruments can “remember their past” — that one can tell the quality of the previous owner by listening to the violin’s tone. Played for years by a mediocre player, the violin settles into mediocrity; played by the best, the violin becomes the best. The violins played in last week’s community concert at Severance Hall have a long and heavy past. Now, restored to life, they seem to remember the tragedy and the hope of the Holocaust, a memory that can remind us of the worst and the best in human life. [Read more…]