So my ‘younger brother’ is turning 50 on December 9. This is a shocking state of affairs - it means: a) that I must be over 50, and b) that Josh, for all his ever-boyish looks (how does he manage to combine that with constantly burning the candle at three ends at least?) has now reached a sensible age. It just won’t do – as Josh would be the first to agree.

I first met Josh at the Spoleto festival in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1987, when he was 19. I arrived at the festival before he did, and by the time he got there, a couple of days later, I was determined not to like this young talent of whom everybody spoke in such annoyingly admiring terms. Fate had other plans however; to our mutual surprise, we hit it off almost from the moment we met (he claimed never to have met anyone who was as rude to people as I was – what a sheltered life he’d led!), and have been close personal, as well as musical, friends ever since. 

That is not to say that we haven’t had our very fair share of quarrels. I am, of course, a saint with no trace of fault in any aspect of my personality; but Josh, I regret to say, can be quite difficult at times. He is stubborn, frequently refusing to relinquish an argument when it is quite clear (to me) that he is completely wrong and that the other point of view (mine) is completely right. Can you imagine? There have been many times in chamber music rehearsals when several pairs of eyes – those of the other players in the group – have been lowered uncomfortably to the floor as Josh and I go at it hammer and tongs, musical ego-antlers locked inextricably. Well, he IS my younger brother – with all the mutual annoyance and affection that that implies. 

Family is in fact very central to Josh’s life. Brought up by his irrepressible mother, Shirley - now something of a legend in the music world - and his now, alas, late father, Alan, in Bloomington, Indiana, Josh grew up in a wonderfully vital American-Jewish family. (Not that Alan was actually Jewish. Bell family legend enshrines a story about Shirley’s mother, who was in her late years sadly afflicted with ill health, to the point at which she no longer recognised her own family. Shortly before the end, Shirley and her two sisters, along with their three husbands, visited her. The mother looked from one to the other without recognition; but suddenly her eyes swivelled back to Alan. “You!’ she said accusingly. ‘You’re not Jewish!’) Josh’s three charismatic sisters, Terry, Toby and Rachel, made up the high-powered, thriving household. 

Josh’s musical talent was evident pretty early, it seems, and he was lucky enough to be taken as a boy to the great Josef Gingold, not only a great violinist and musician, who had studied with Ysaÿe, but also one of the warmest, most loveable men one could ever hope to meet. The refined, affectionate style of Gingold – holding very little in common with the aggressive, me-me-me style of string-playing that was all too often being promoted at that time – remains the greatest influence on Josh’s playing. Josh’s oldest son is named Josef in Gingold’s honour.

So, now he’s 50, will Mr Bell slow down? I doubt it. Frankly, I have no idea how he does it. On a recent 10-concert tour of the Brahms Double Concerto with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, we had just two (separate) days off in the middle. I was happy to stay at the hotel, practise and try to catch my breath. Not Josh – he arranged to see people in other cities, flying there as soon as possible after our concert, and joining us in the next city just before the rehearsal for that night’s performance. Perhaps his addiction to adrenalin comes from the fact that his brain works twice as fast as that of the average human being. His repartee is instant, ‘wont to set the table on a roar’; and tell him the date of your birth - within a few seconds, he will tell you what day of the week that was. He loves to gamble, too – on anything. Many years ago, he was to premiere the Violin Concerto by Nicholas Maw. We were all anxious for it to go well, not just for Josh, but also for Nicholas’s sake – he was such a lovely man, as well as a major composer. A few days before the premiere, Josh was at my place, and was for some reason trying to throw some object into a waste-paper basket from an impossible distance (a deeply worthwhile activity, of course). He was getting increasingly frustrated as the object failed to hit the target. ‘OK,’ he snapped. ‘If I don’t get it in this time – the Maw concerto is going to be a complete failure.’ Everybody in the room gasped – but then of course the object flew perfectly into the basket. (And the concerto was a great success.)

As a friend, not surprisingly, it can be quite a challenge to keep the attention of one whose mind is always firing away. My sister Annette was once having lunch with him, and telling him a story about some musical event. At one point, she realised that Josh was far, far away, lost in his dreams. So she stopped and said sharply (and completely irrelevantly): ‘And then she died’. Josh’s eyes swam back to her in panic. ‘Oh,’ he said with deep sympathy. ‘I’m sorry!’ (Now, every time she notices that my attention has wandered, all she has to say is ‘And then she died,’ and I’m right back with her – it’s a good trick.) 

Anyone who has been to a concert of Josh’s will be aware of the energy he radiates on stage. It is a wonderful quality – but could also be a danger, in that it would be easy to substitute physical energy for deep musical thought. A few years ago, I would occasionally annoy him with disapproving references to the increasing amount of time he was spending on ‘crossover’ projects, which call for less study than the classical repertoire, while frequently offering greater financial rewards. I, for one, felt that a few of these projects were just unworthy of his talent. But then he was invited to be artistic director of the Academy of St Martin. It has been a wonderful appointment – for him and for them. He now spends a large proportion of his time working on the great symphonic repertoire, which can only be of benefit to his musical growth. And he is still growing, never satisfied with what he’s achieved, always keen to learn more, as a serious musician must be. 

So, as he reaches the end of the first third of his life, the future looks bright for Josh. Outside of his career, he is the doting father of three extraordinarily gifted boys, and in a relationship with the very talented soprano Larissa Martinez. All irony aside – and despite the fact that we often drive each other mad (as I may have mentioned) – I can say that, in addition to his musical achievements, he is a wonderfully generous and loyal friend, as well as marvellous company. So – happy birthday, Josh!