According to an online source, Elizabeth Pitcairn’s grandfather purchased the Stradivarius “Red Mendelssohn” for her when she was sixteen years old. The price: one-point-seven million dollars. The same source states that she is “heiress to the PPG fortune.” Their 2009 global sales are reported to have been twelve-point-two billion dollars. I suppose someone with that magnitude of wealth might well be able to purchase a Stradivarius or two and have time to practice as well.

That alone would not guarantee that she would become such a masterful player, able to move audiences with such finesse and skill and passion. But even such talent as hers cannot accomplish the full expression of the music that has been written without other musicians and conductor. And all of them are dependent upon the composers. Someone has to imagine, comprehend and express in some understandable manner the arrangements.

It is not in the strength of our own talent that we make our contribution to life but rather in the degree to which that talent blends into and helps the whole fulfill its purpose.

H. Arnett
3/30/10