Hold on tight to your dreams, and your instrument

The story of Philippe Quint this past week was a study in how badly things can go wrong despite obsessive care and very high stakes. Quint is a concert violinist who briefly lost his $4 million Stradavarius when a cab driver, unaware that he was not finished unloading, drove away from Quint's New York apartment. Daniel Wakin writes in today's Times about why this happens and how musicians dread it. Most of these stories have a happy ending. Quint gave a solo concert for the cab drivers at their dispatch center as a thank you for returning the violin.