Quite a long passage; thanks for your help! Please give the thought process behind your answer, if possible!
Question:
17 . Which best describes the role of lines 17-23 in presenting the author’s argument?
(A) They shift the focus of the passage from instruments to performers.
(B) They introduce an alternative interpretation of information in the opening paragraph.
© They provide a transition from a broad overview to a specific topic
(D) They question the assumptions underlying earlier assertions.
(E) They offer examples in support of previously made claims
Passage (this is probably enough for the question; lines 17-23 are marked with ***)
I gave up the violin when I left school. In the twenty years since, I have come to understand as a listener what I never did as a mediocre player-that the members of the violin family (principally the violin itself, the viola, and the cello) are indisputably the kings of all the instruments. The violin, so deceptively simple, can both portray and inspire every emotion imaginable, imitating the braying of a donkey or delivering a tune of heart-rending beauty. Lyrical and expressive, or harsh and violent, it is the master of adaptability; only the human voice can match it. By comparison, the piano’s eighty-odd notes a semi-tone apart may make it a mechanical marvel of polyphony but where is the ability to thrill with almost imperceptible changes in
pitch or volume? As for the other members of the orchestra - woodwind, brass, percussion-the very names hint at
the paucity of their tonal range.
Not only do the violin and its sister instruments dominate the orchestra, there remains no question of who is their most famous maker-perhaps the most celebrated craftsman in history. From Melbourne to Milwaukee, the bus driver will ask you, as you struggle with your violin case, “Is that a Stradivarius?” His reputation for excellence is ubiquitous.
This reputation stems from the players themselves. To anyone, but most of all those lucky enough to perform on them, Strads are far more than just instruments. They are works of art, bringing together utility and aesthetics in a way that no other object can quite match. The British cellist Steven Isserlis borrows his Stradivarius from the Nippon Music Foundation: “My heart leaps every day when I take it out of the case. Its beautiful color glows.” Maxim Vengerov, a Russian who is probably the most admired of the younger generation of violinists, is even more direct about his relationship with his Strad: “It is a marriage.” The violin is such a feminine instrument that the metaphor seems almost inescapable, at least for men. Women are more likely to regard their violins as an extension of themselves. One friend told me this is why she does not use a shoulder-rest. The German virtuosa Anne-Sophie Mutter rests her Stradivarius on her bare shoulder: even clothes are too great a barrier. The exception only seems to prove the rule. When the young Soviet violinist Viktoria Mullova took a taxi across the border from Finland into Sweden in 1983, she left her government-owned Strad on the hotel-room bed. As a result her KGB minders wasted valuable hours on the assumption that she could not possibly be defecting.