A man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.
A nameless, pill-popping drifter girl steps off a bus and into a New Jersey neighborhood bar owned by two middle-age brothers, Jimmy & Victor. She quickly befriends older brother, Victor––a good-natured lummox whose mind was affected by a childhood accident. The mysterious "Girl" soon upsets the delicate balance of the brothers' lives while bringing both trouble and new life into their resigned world and town.
The Professor will not allow his daughter to marry a non-musician, but Billy, her would-be suitor, cannot play a single note. When he is about to give up, Billy’s roommate suggests bluffing his way into the Professor’s favor with the aid of a suitably musical disguise and a well-hidden phonograph player.
A young violin prodigy is manipulated and pushed to her psychological breaking point by the composer she adores.
A violin-playing gunslinger accidently gets caught in a feud between two families. One of them forces him into a showdown and he kills him. He then must escape from the wrathful family and is accused wrongly for killing 2 deputies. He is saved by an old man, who helps him to get revenge and to prevent the girl he loves from marrying a murderer. Source: SWDB www.spaghetti-western.net
Violinist Mischa Elman performs a set of two of the most recognizable popular classic violin pieces: "Humoresque" composed by Antonín Dvorák, and "Gavotte" by François-Joseph Gossec. He is accompanied off screen by pianist Josef Bonime, although Bonime's instrument can be seen in the background behind Elman on screen. In one continuous single shot, the stationary camera focuses in squarely on Elman as he performs the two pieces.
Guitarist Al di Meola, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, and bassist Stanley Clarke, all of whom recorded numerous albums as leaders during the 1970s and 1980s, join forces for this 1994 concert in Montreux. Each musician's compositions are featured in this mostly acoustic performance, though charts were necessary to help them find their way through unfamiliar pieces. There is a noticeable lack of ego apparent on-stage, with no one player trying to steal the spotlight. For his solo feature, "Eulogy to Oscar Romero," Ponty incorporates the use of a digital delay to accompany himself, while Clarke's and di Meola's solo performances are more in the context of the concert. CD The Rite of Strings, which was recorded the following year.
A violin student wrestles with her motivations for studying what she loves.