Violin Forum/Message Board

[John Cadd]

A strange coincidence came about yesterday .I wanted to hear Joseph Hassid`s recording of Meditation to compare with so many bad versions all over the net .In the photo of the record cover was a picture of Ginette Niveu who`s recording were also on the disc.
During the Ukraine war I had discovered the islands of the Azores and had been looking at homes for sale as a kind of antidote to the Putin invasion .Islands half way across the ocean looked fairly safe .
I knew Ginette Niveu had died in a plane crash and looked up the details .She was just 30 years old .It was a shock to learn that the plane had crashed into a mountain in the Azores . The pilots approaching the landing strip should have been at 3000 feet before descending .But they were in clouds and flew at 2000 feet . Almost everything that could go wrong inside the plane happened . Bad communications and lack of professional flying standards mainly . A very tragic end for 48 passengers and crew . So Niveu and Hassid , both brilliant musicians died far too early in their tragic ends .

[John Cadd]

There are other aspects of this tragedy .On the same plane with 48 passengers was Marcel Cerdan.(see impressive films of his best knockouts on youtube ) . He was a former middleweight boxing champion. He was flying to see his lover in New York--Edith Piaf . She had persuaded him to come to her despite his fear of flying .
After the crash the remains of a violin case were found. One old man said he found it in the forest.One Hill bow survived (later identified in Paris )and was returned by the old man. When they asked about his violin ,it was dismissed as not much good as he was a poor player. There were originally two violins in the case.One was damaged --a Guadagnini ,and the other a Stradivarius made by Stradivari`s son,. The clues seem to run out there .
Weather reports for the crash day tell us the sky was clear .
There was a radio message from the very experienced pilot saying the sky was clear and they were about 5 minutes from the airport . Humidity and temperature drops can change the sky from clear to cloudy in just a few minutes. We noticed that sudden change one day coming up a cliff path from the beach . The boxer Cerdan was preparing for a match in New York shortly afterwards so he needed to fly anyway .