Violinist Joshua Bell Discusses `Red Violin' Score

CHARLIE ROSE: Joshua Bell received his first violin when he was 5 years old. By the age of 12, he was studying with renowned musician and concertmaster Josef Gingold. Two years later, he earned national prominence after winning the Seventeen magazine General Motors talent competition. That win led to his 1982 debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, also his first Carnegie Hall recital and an exclusive recording contract. Recently, he's broadened his scope to include other musical forms, collaborating with Edgar Meyer on the CD Short Trip Home, which fuses classical music and bluegrass. He also performed the music for the sound track of the film The Red Violin. It won an Oscar for best original score. I am pleased to have him, with violin, on this program. Welcome.

JOSHUA BELL, Violinist: Thank you.

CHARLIE ROSE: Great to have you here.

JOSHUA BELL: Thank you.

CHARLIE ROSE: How do you characterize yourself as a musician?

JOSHUA BELL: Oh, boy--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible], when you first heard that -- characterize yourself as a musician.

JOSHUA BELL: Geez, boy, that's a difficult question, you know. Playing classical music, you really kind of -- you become different things when you play different pieces of music, you know. And it's -- to categorize myself -- basically I would hope, actually, when I perform that the -- that the person who is watching doesn't go away even thinking about me at all. You know, I'd rather them -- the real stars of the show, when I play, are the Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Corigliano, whoever I'm playing. And so I -- the greatest thing I think I could give is if I make the pieces be as great as they are. And then -- and so actually one shouldn't even be aware of me, in a sense. So I -- it's hard to -- I wouldn't want to begin to characterize myself.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, I understand. How many instruments do you play?

JOSHUA BELL: Unfortunately, I only play one. I play the violin, and it's -- I play a little piano, but I never really did much with it. The violin is ever challenging, and so I've never been a violist or anything else, just -- I just play the violin. It's really -- it's like an extension of myself, really. I can't imagine playing anything else.

CHARLIE ROSE: This CD that we mentioned, and the fusion, how did that come about?

JOSHUA BELL: Well, it was a very -- it came about very naturally. It wasn't -- you know, you hear about these so-called crossover projects--

CHARLIE ROSE: Right.

JOSHUA BELL: --that are -- you think are concocted in the board rooms of record companies, and they often don't work because of that, I think, people from different worlds thrown together, and -- And -- but this was very natural. I knew Edgar Meyer, this incredible bass player who has his feet very solidly in the classical world and the bluegrass and jazz and many things. And we've known each other since school at Indiana University. We studied together, and years -- for years we've been wanting to do something.
So we found ourselves on the Sony label together, we said, Let's do it now. And so he brought together Mike Marshall and Sam Bush from the bluegrass world, and he wrote all the music for us. And it was a very natural thing. It was a kind of a fusion, and it didn't feel like a huge departure for me.

CHARLIE ROSE: Anything about your musical taste that would surprise us?

JOSHUA BELL: Well--

CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, have you become addicted to bluegrass [unintelligible]--

JOSHUA BELL: Well, you know, some -- that's -- the fact that I played bluegrass surprises some people, because some people think of bluegrass, erroneously, I think, as being some sort of hillbilly music and not very sophisticated. Some of the players I players I played with, Sam Bush and Mike Marshall and Edgar Meyer, they're some of the most sophisticated musicians I've ever played with.
So I think just in -- and sophisticated in different ways, rhythmically and harmonically different ways. So it's -- so that, I think, surprised some people.
I like some rock music too. I mean, I grew up -- Genesis was [unintelligible] -- big fan of Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins [unintelligible] years, you know, and Genesis and -- My tastes are broad, and classical music itself is so broad.

CHARLIE ROSE: Let me mention a couple things here. One, Short Trip Home--

JOSHUA BELL: Short Trip Home [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: --Short Trip Home is the--

JOSHUA BELL: --it's fusion--

CHARLIE ROSE: --yes, the fusion thing--

JOSHUA BELL: [unintelligible]

CHARLIE ROSE: --Meyers, Sam Bush, and Mike Marshall. And Red Violin, which you won an Oscar for, best original composition?

JOSHUA BELL: I -- well, I didn't win the Oscar. I didn't--

CHARLIE ROSE: Who won the Oscar?

JOSHUA BELL: The composer. The -- John Corigliano, the composer, won the Oscar. I played the music for the album. So we were very excited that he won this. This is a beautiful movie, too.

CHARLIE ROSE: What's the movie about?

JOSHUA BELL: It's about a violin. It follows a violin through several vignettes, and it follows the history of a kind of -- the life of the -- so in a sense, the -- this violin, this fictitious violin, is the main character, in a way.

CHARLIE ROSE: Would you play us--

JOSHUA BELL: [unintelligible]. Oh, [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: --[unintelligible] something--

JOSHUA BELL: [unintelligible]

CHARLIE ROSE: You're not going to do that?

JOSHUA BELL: I'll show you my violin. It's a--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible]

JOSHUA BELL: --it's a--

CHARLIE ROSE: Why won't you play? I mean--

JOSHUA BELL: Well, because--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible]--

JOSHUA BELL: I do play, [unintelligible] Milli Vanilli or something, I mean--

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, come on, prove it, then.

JOSHUA BELL: But I'm not -- I don't think I want to prove it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Not -- no Milli Vanilli, yes.

JOSHUA BELL: [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: That's a Stradivarius, isn't it?

JOSHUA BELL: This is a Strad. You can [unintelligible]. It's--

CHARLIE ROSE: How can you tell? [unintelligible].

JOSHUA BELL: There are people that can spot which year it was made from across the room.

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, is that right?

JOSHUA BELL: Yes, it's--

CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, they can? Across the room?

JOSHUA BELL: --yes, yes, good [unintelligible].

CHARLIE ROSE: What year is that?

JOSHUA BELL: This was made in 1732.

CHARLIE ROSE: That's a good year.

JOSHUA BELL: Which is a good year.

CHARLIE ROSE: For Stradivarius.

JOSHUA BELL: He was actually -- he was actually almost 90 years old when he made it, the end of his -- but--

CHARLIE ROSE: Now, why are Stradivariuses so special?

JOSHUA BELL: Nobody knows what -- certainly nobody knows how to recreate them. They're -- they're special to me--

CHARLIE ROSE: Would you trust me to hold it?

JOSHUA BELL: Sure. [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: You silly man.

JOSHUA BELL: [unintelligible] special--

CHARLIE ROSE: It's so light.

JOSHUA BELL: Yes, it's [unintelligible]. They're lighter than anyone would expect.
You know, the sound of a Stradivarius, there's -- it's, like, I mean, the quality of sound and the projection in the great hall, there's so many levels to the sound. It's like a fine wine, I think, once you get to know wines you realize the depth. And same with sound, and they just can't make them. So there's so few of them that the--

CHARLIE ROSE: I'm doing this very carefully.

JOSHUA BELL: That's fine. It's insured, and I'm sure you're insured. Sometimes [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible] JOSHUA BELL: Sometimes I wish it were -- somebody stole it, so I could just get the money for it [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: Have you ever lost it?

JOSHUA BELL: No, I'm kidding. I--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible]

JOSHUA BELL: --I haven't, I haven't--

CHARLIE ROSE: You never lost it.

JOSHUA BELL: --I haven't lost it, no, [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: Yo-Yo Ma has lost his cello several times. And his is -- it's worth $3, $2 or $3 million.

JOSHUA BELL: Yes, he left it in the back of [crosstalk]

CHARLIE ROSE: I was at that concert--

JOSHUA BELL: I shouldn't -- I could use that publicity -- [crosstalk]

JOSHUA BELL: --myself.

CHARLIE ROSE: You're doing just fine on your own.

JOSHUA BELL: I'm kidding. No, I -- it's [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible]

JOSHUA BELL: --it's with me all the time, it's like my baby.

CHARLIE ROSE: I want to play it like a guitar.

JOSHUA BELL: It's a beautiful thing, and I'm incredibly--

CHARLIE ROSE: It's a beautiful thing.

JOSHUA BELL: --incredibly lucky to have it. It's--

CHARLIE ROSE: Who had it before you?

JOSHUA BELL: It's been played -- I mean--

CHARLIE ROSE: Who's played it?

JOSHUA BELL: --it's documented back to apparently Paganini [unintelligible]--

CHARLIE ROSE: Paganini played this violin?

JOSHUA BELL: --instrument.

CHARLIE ROSE: And you won't play it for me, and Paganini played it? Paganini would have played it for me.

JOSHUA BELL: He probably would have.

CHARLIE ROSE: Here, let me give it back to you.

JOSHUA BELL: Apparently, Joachim, who is the friend of Johannes Brahms, Brahms wrote his violin concerto--

CHARLIE ROSE: [unintelligible] the sound there, didn't--

JOSHUA BELL: There you go. Joachim saved this violin from a fire once [unintelligible], the house is burning down, he said, ``We got to save the violin, forget about the people, we got to get the violin out of there.''
It's got its own amazing history [unintelligible].

CHARLIE ROSE: Congratulations on all.

JOSHUA BELL: Well, thank you.

CHARLIE ROSE: Joshua Bell.
Thank you for joining us. See you next time.
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