BBC4TV showed a documentary of clips of Nigel Kennedy playing and speaking about music. Kennedy is one of the greatest living violin players and was identified as a child prodigy. He has lived-up to expectations, and fulfilled his potential entirely.

You can watch the film , here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04w0fyx

Kennedy is an interesting cross-over personality and plays jazz and Hendrix. There were interesting clips of him playing with the great jazz-violin player Stephane Grappelli, who had played with Django Reinhardt.

There’s a short clip of Django playing at the Tabarin club, in Paris, here

https://www.are.na/block/7275521

Kennedy’s career breakthrough was a recording of Vivaldi’s, Four Seasons…from 1989. More recently Max Richter ha deconstructed this Vivaldi in the most interesting way. You can watch Daniel Hope playing the Richter version, here

https://www.are.na/block/3094072

If you are interested, the history of violin making and the distinctive sounds made by different instruments is well-worth finding out about. I’ve posted about this on my New Pamphleteer blog, where there is also a post about the jazz scene in Paris (Boeuf sur le Toit).