Violinist Mavis Bacca Dowden reports from the fourth edition of the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition, where Jaime Laredo was victorious and Joseph Silverstein came third

MARCO BORGGREVE

T

This pinpoint of the earth which is Brussels has momentarily assumed a musical importance quite irrelevant to its size. Brussels may yet be the matrix of a second Ysaye; the springboard of another Oistrakh. How salutary to note that the headlines in the Belgian daily Le Soir are not of the latest murder or abortive diplomatic demarche, but of music, of youth and hope: of an eternal reality. he capital is obsessed by the event and one is suddenly aware that the great Belgian school of violin playing was not fortuitous, but the logical development of a gifted and musically aware people.