Walter Meyer ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>There was a TV series called, I think, *Northern Exposure*, or something
>like that, which I watched only sporadically, about a Jewish medical school
>graduate who, I believe, had to pay off his scholarship money by practicing
>in a remote Alaskan outpost, one of the episodes of which, if I recall
>correctly, involved a precious violin the owner of which deemed it too
>precious to be played.
>
>(How's that for a vague memory dimly recorded?)

Rings an almst equally vague memory with me.

It's not a good idea for the instruments not to be played though.  For a
number of years the Lafayette Quartet (based in Victoria) played on 4 Amati
instruments on loan from, IIRC, the University of Sakatchewan.  They were
(again IIRC) donated to the University by a (presumably eccentric) farmer
and, before the LSQ were loaned them, they had been sitting in a case for
some 20 years.

I was told, by one of the quartet, that it was roughly six months before
the instruemnts really began to "speak" again.

Stringed instruments need to be played.  It's something to do with the
vibration.

deryk barker
([log in to unmask], http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~dbarker)