Paul Mercer
Atlanta, GA, USA

"Music Box"
Paul Mercer - violin
I think Paul's own description of this piece does it more service than anything I could write.
"Music Box" was recorded on a violin common to the Victorian era - a shop made German instrument finished in the style known as "Imitation Old" - the instrument was heavily antiqued at the time of its creation (it even has fake peg bushings and painted on "cracks") to make it resemble an ancient violin. The buyer paid extra for the finish. I was fascinated by the haunting sound of this instrument, made at the height of the Industrial Revolution and reflecting the era's yearning for antiquity, so often expressed in PreRaphealite art and the fondness of the rich for creating fake ruins on their property. The track features the instrument floating delicately above a mechanical march of pizzicato. When I played I imagined it a wooden boat, sailing through the noise and chaos of the 20th Century, still looking backwards to the simpler time it pretended to be from. There is irony in an instrument made to look old growing older still.