In one of our favorite episodes yet, The Travel Channel's docu-drama Mysteries at the Museum recently featured the archive and research room at the world-famous Carnegie Hall in New York City. Via the episode entitled "Stolen Strad, Fall From Space, Czech Dream," host Don Wildman examined a concert program that marked one of the most infamous nights in the history of the hall (as well as a space capsule used by a heroic astronaut during a harrowing mission and a DVD from an unusual film that blurred the lines between fact and fiction).
Season 8, episode 4 first aired on Friday, April 24 at 9 p.m., leading off with the notorious 1936 theft of Bronisław Huberman's Stradivarius fiddle. And while we hasten to spoil the first segment outright, Huberman's instrument mysteriously resurfaces in 1987--after 50 years in limbo--in the hands of a 69-year-old Connecticut housewife.
Then, of course, Joshua Bell buys it.
Have a look-see for yourselves...
"Stolen Strad, Fall From Space, Czech Dream" is indicative of Mysteries at the Museum's overall theme--scouring the world's great historical institutions in an effort to unearth relics that reveal secrets from the past. From preeminent museums to unexplored archives, Wildman delves into extraordinary tales of intrigue, daring and wonder, all the while focusing on the fascinating objects and displays that speak to the world's most amazing events and achievements. Through conducting compelling interviews, enchanting redramatizations and rarely seen records, Mysteries at the Museum delves into history's most sensational tales of triumphs, tragedies, crimes and encounters.
We Classicalites look forward to Wildman's own look at Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, who was walking to his car one Monday evening when the "Ex-Lipiński" was taken right out from under him.
Surely, it'll make for better TV than Min-Jin Kym's £1.2 million, err, mistake.
