THE VIOLINIST'S SONG

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I thought I would drop you a line with a note about the music the street violinist plays when Alastair breaks down on the street (season nine).

He is playing the "Meditation" -- the entr'acte from Act II, scene I, of the opera by Jules Massenet (based on the novel by Anatole France).

The concertmaster plays this solo violin passage as the audience sees silent action on the stage. This is in her bedchamber just on the threshhold of her conversion from the life of a hedonistic courtesan to that of an ardent and devout Christian (in fourth-century Alexandria). The "Meditation" traces in music the process of that complete conversion.

The audio [in ATGB] picks up the melody at about the end of bar 6.

many thanks to Frank Young for sending the note       Return