New Year's Resolution 2012: "Baby Steps to Virtuosity"

Bill Murray once made a movie "Was ist mit Bob?" (in the German version) where he plays a multiphobic personality coached by his psychotherapist into taking "baby steps" to confront each small problem with the aim of overcoming bigger ones. For 2012 I decided to take baby steps on the violin to achieve if not virtuosity then a kind of fluency. For the first six days of January, I would take one Bach Solo Partita or Sonata and play it through at the end of my practice session.

Well, it's January 6, folks, and I did it! I'm humbled by the fact that I still don't know the C-major fugue from memory (nor have I achieved the perfect fingering for those killer parallel fifths, F/B-flat... is there one?) but I'm in awe of Bach's genius and the meditative perfection of these works.

Now I'm wondering if I can manage all 6 Ysaye Sonatas in the first six days of 2013... something to work towards? (Not to mention the first 24 days of 2014... hahaha).

Wishing all devoted violinists out there a happy year of productive practising and following to unimaginable lengths our craft, our art, our four-stringed hearts.

Coming Soon: Heavy Metal Violin

I am going to be sharing a new article soon about the current popular-culture incarnation of violin heroism invoking and recycling the tropes of heavy metal. KEYWORDS:
*stunt violin, acrobatic violin
*reality show violinists
*gender & sexuality tropes in "performance heroism" (violin: guitar)
*nationalism, Americana, appropriation of an ancient Italian instrument to a recent American musical genre
*heavy metal and Baroque music, stylistic affinities between ~, Walser Redux

Shmuel Ashkenasi's Paganini

The first blog post of the new year comes in response to the total inspiration that is Israeli violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi (b. 1941). Having recently met a former pupil of his who raved about him, I listened to his recording of Paganini's Concertos 1 & 2 (with the Vienna Symphony under Heribert Esser, 1969). Wow. WOW! How can this recording have slipped under the radar of someone authoring a Paganini book for so many years? During that time I have been listening to Salvatore Accardo, Alexander Markov, and Shlomo Mintz (whose recording of the 24 Caprices I grew up with). I would rate Ashkenasi as up there with those ultra-Paganinians - in fact he studied with Ilona Feher, the teacher of Mintz - because he has a quality to his playing that makes you go, "well, that is just ridiculous." I could practise for a million years and still not play those double harmonics like he does. Or downbow staccato. Or ricochet. He also manages to deliver Paganini's music *as music*, somehow -- and not just as a technical exercise. I'm wondering how I can get to hear him live... and wish for violinists everywhere a fantastic year of feeling as blown away as I do right now. Happy 2012, everyone!