IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?

Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post magazine pulled a stunt and nobody got the message.

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

Well, you guessed it, almost nobody stopped to listen. Which is a useful way to make the argument that most Americans have poor taste. But how about thinking about a society that has people in such a hurry that they can't even consider the beautiful things in live? Isn't this a story about pressure, not poor taste?

Apparently not. The story and video clips are available at the link above.

A follow-up article talks about the responses from readers.