8 May 2025 | Cooranbong, Australia [Aleta King with tedNEWS]
In the subway station, rush-hour commuters didn’t notice the man in the baseball cap.
He opened a violin case and started into Bach’s iconic “Chaconne”, the most emotional and difficult of violin solos. No-one cared.
After a few minutes, a man turned for a quick look as he walked by. Then a woman dropped a dollar into the violin case and kept walking.
No one noticed the four-million-dollar violin. Made in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari and named the Gibson ex-Huberman Stradivarius, it was once owned by the Jewish virtuoso who founded the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra just as Hitler was rising to power. Bronislav Huberman realised he could secure exit visas for Jewish musicians and their families to escape the Reich and join his orchestra. He raised funds for this mission during a packed concert tour of America in 1936, supported by Albert Einstein. The tour was a brilliant success—except for one concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Huberman decided to play the second half on his other violin—and his Stradivarius was stolen from his dressing room. He was told the terrible news as he came off stage, but he stayed calm and returned for the encores. The Strad had been stolen once before in Vienna and recovered after a few days, but this time he wasn’t so lucky. He never saw it again, though he did receive a large insurance payout from Lloyd’s of London.
The thief tried to sell the Stradivarius to a pawnbroker but was told it was “too hot.” So, for more than 50 years, he played it—disguised with boot polish and stained by cigarette smoke from seedy bars. After serving a jail term for another crime, he confessed on his deathbed. His abusive, alcoholic girlfriend received a 263,000-dollar finder’s fee from Lloyd’s—an enormous sum at the time. She blew it all within a few years and died in a trailer park.
But nothing stopped Huberman from playing—or from raising enough money to save more than 1,000 Jewish people from Hitler’s gas chambers.
Back to the present—and that subway station. The Gibson ex-Huberman Stradivarius wept, laughed, flirted, questioned, raged, and worshipped through five other masterpieces, yet only six people stopped briefly to listen. After 43 minutes, the violin case contained just 32.17 dollars.
Yet three days earlier, the same violinist—minus the baseball cap—had packed Boston’s Symphony Hall, where the cheapest seats cost over 100 dollars, and his fee was 1,000 dollars per minute. Only one person in the subway recognised him as Joshua Bell, a superstar of classical music since his debut at Carnegie Hall at age 17. Bell’s parents had realised they had a prodigy when, at four years old, he stretched rubber bands across dresser drawers and twanged out songs by moving the drawers to vary the pitch.
Joshua Bell likes to think that his mother’s Russian Jewish ancestors heard Huberman play his violin in Palestine. Every time he performs in Israel with the orchestra Huberman founded—now called the Israel Philharmonic—he knows there are musicians and audience members who would not be alive if not for what Huberman did with that violin.
A music critic once said Bell’s playing “does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live.” But none of the subway commuters queueing for lottery tickets even bothered to look.
Similarly, when a luminous choir of angels exploded into song to announce the birth of God’s Messiah—Peace on earth! Goodwill to all people!—the leaders and priests didn’t even notice. So the angels sang to a few shepherds who couldn’t read but were fascinated by ancient prophecies.
Messiah’s birth took place in the city of His ancestor, King David—but not in a palace. His relatives were all there for a tax census, yet not one of them offered the young mother a comfortable room for her first birth. An animal shed was deemed good enough for a pregnancy out of wedlock.
Israel’s religious scholars knew the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, but none came—only some foreign philosophers. They, at least, began to comprehend who was actually in front of them.
At twelve, when He walked into the Jerusalem temple and asked questions of the learned elders, Messiah seemed bright—but just another Bar Mitzvah boy.
He worked hard in a rough town for another eighteen years, just another carpenter.
When His teaching delighted crowds, He was called uneducated, illegitimate, a threat to Pax Romana. Even His mother and brothers at times wondered whether He was divine or simply not quite right in the head. But no man ever spoke like this Man. Lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors and fishermen—and even a few priests—sensed that this was God incognito. Even blind people saw it.
When He healed the sick and raised the dead, He was accused of being devilish, and was finally executed in the most cruel and shameful way the Romans knew—like just another criminal. Most of His friends ran, but a former prostitute, a few other women, His mother, and His youngest disciple stayed to witness His final minutes.
The hardened Roman centurion who ordered all His pain saw such tough kindness that he blurted out, “This man was definitely the Son of God.” One crucified thief recognised Him as Lord and was promised paradise—but the crowd mocked, “If you’re really God’s Son, come down off the cross!”
It was just as Isaiah the prophet predicted six centuries earlier:
“Who believed what we tried to tell them?
Who noticed God’s hand at work?
. . . He had no image or majesty to draw our attention,
No special appearance that made us want him.
He was despised and rejected by people,
A man who knew sorrow, well acquainted with grief.
People turned their faces away from him.
He was despised, and we thought he was nobody.
Yet it was our grief he was carrying, our sorrow that he shouldered . . .
He was wounded for our arrogant foolishness,
And punished for our sins.
He endured a flogging to make us well,
And because of his wounds, we are healed.” (Isaiah 53)
Three days after dying, Messiah reclaimed the eternal life and glory He had shared in heaven as Almighty God. Ruling the vast universe, He will one day take over this poor, little rebel planet and reign as the Prince of Peace—so that there will be no more death or pain, neither sorrow nor crying, and all tears will be wiped away—from your eyes and mine, if we let Him.
His music still plays today, though many ignore it, underestimate Him, laugh at His followers, or dismiss His teachings—some even twist them to serve their own ends. But those who truly listen know: He gives joy even in sorrow, a love stronger than hate, hope in the worst of times, and a truth that makes you free.
His music plays for everyone—in everyday life, even during rush hour. Stop and listen.
[Featured image: AI Image generated on Midjourney. Other images: Shutterstock].
The original version of this article first appeared in the Record.
Dr Aleta King, a violinist and conductor, won scholarships two years running to the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Academy in Hungary. She is the director of the conservatorium at Avondale University and loves the music and theology of JS Bach, and once served as an Adventist Volunteer Service at Stanborough Park Church and School, England.
