Links for my students: contemporary virtuosity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qYqi-EMErU

metallica orion solo ca. 3:00

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MP1cO948Ek

rodrigo & gabriela solo ca. 2:35

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHW1HCrMFpI&playnext=1&list=PL394706BE865CC2DC&feature=results_main

patkop intro 5:00 crin 9:00

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbBw03Q_3zw

leila josefowicz salonen

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvAh91_5jjc

hilary hahn & hauschka

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuw0uThploM

janine jansen Dubugnon

A new column: Sorry, I can't review my friends, but here's what I really thought (Part I)

In German, the word "prima" is used to mean: fan-fucking-tastic. I first listened to this CD in Berlin recently, and I gotta say, Prima are "prima": from the first look at their cover photo - what chamber music could result from any other country than the U.S.A., with that diversity of ethnic faces and hipness in the styling department? (Nice balance of white and black outfits, by the way).

And what chamber music DOES result from this young American trio based in New York, the capital of interesting music definitely of the U.S., maybe the world (sorry, Berlin, but you just don't mach up in contemporary music - although you've got classical music nailed).

Since I've decided to try and write like an ex-critic, which I am, I'm going to try and feel my way through how I really thought and felt about this CD.

 

First of all, Schickele. Schickele? I mean it's fun music and all, but risky to put in position 1 on your debut CD, guys.

Khachaturian: this caught my ear. Beautiful, full-blooded playing. Gulia's shifts are not always perfect, but then, neither are mine. Lately I've come to understand and accept more and more that the kind of technical security that would guarantee shifts entails an investment of one's humanity away from one's musical feeling, i.e. a sacrifice I personally have never been able of willing to make. (This, by the way, was a law passed by the Violin Gods. Surpassed only by Heifetz.) You come across so much as a person in your playing, Gulia. I heard and felt your warmth, your gift. 

I enjoyed the Milhaud - part of this exists in a Violin Duo version, right? 

You see? I could never write such things in a "review"! But really, this is what I would want to say to her: complimenti. 

I think that anyone worldwide looking for a recording of any of these pieces would feel it was a good introduction to the pieces as musical works and really come to love them. 

I understand and totally support the culture on which the primacy of works is predicated - we musicians are interpreters who bring past masterpieces to life.

I live this culture - my income as a classical violinist depends on society valuing Shostakovich quartets, or Beethoven symphonies, or Dvorak's Rusalka, in live performance.

My worry is that this culture is becoming obsolete. And it really bothers me, for 2 reasons: 1) there is a lot of really great contemporary classical music out there, but there's also a whole lotta great other kinds of music out there (and we gotta compete with that? We gotta be at our "coolest" when we are being quoted by Bjork?) and 2) my deep down feeling is that the Golden Age of Western Music has passed by now, along with the Golden Age of Western Civilization. But more about that another time...

I wonder if you started with Schickele because you knew to end with Piazzolla and then... where else to put Schickele? (Position 3 might have been an option.)

I loved the Piazzolla: sassy. It also boldly disregarded the relevance of categorizations like "classical" and "non-classical" maybe. Gulia, here your solo, one that I became familiar with listening to Gidon Kremer, was truly brought alive. Wow, Sasha's a lucky man!! And R. is a lucky little girl!

I can't really comment on the piano or clarinet playing since I'm no expert but from a violinist's point of view I'd say that if my ears don't lie I would love to play chamber music with you both too. 

Lately I have had the pleasure of working in a new string quartet configuration. The process of discovering each other musically and in relation to Shostakovich (# 3 and #13, wow, amazing pieces) has reminded me of the great joys and personal reality checks of being a chamber musician.

This quality of being a chamber musician really comes across in Prima's playing on this CD. I just hope I can play as much to my own potential as a chamber musician this Sunday at the Kollwitz Museum with 3 amazing musicians who... well, I so wish we could all get together for an evening of chamber music sometime. 

 

[... written last week, as Part I of a multi-part series, I hope?]

Favorite violinists

Over the years I've come to treasure certain violinists for their interpretations of particular repertoire, either live or on recordings. For me they somehow "fit" - as if they owned the work. Here's my Top 10:

1. Janine Jansen's Britten Concerto (with Daniel Harding and the Berlin Phil).
2. Christian Tetzlaff's Berg Concerto with the Berlin Phil, where he played Bach as an encore.
3. Gidon Kremer's Erlkonig.
4. Thomas Zehetmair's Mendelssohn Concerto.
5. Thomas Zehetmair's Ysaye Ballade.
6. PatKop's Crin.
7. Heifetz's Korngold Concerto.
8. Alexander Markov's Paganini.
9. Philippe Quint's Red Violin Caprices.
10. James Ehnes's Barber Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

2 of the above violinists have my favorite quartet recordings: Tetzlaff Quartet (Schoenberg 1) and Zehetmair Quartet (Schumann).

I've yet to find my ideal Sibelius Concerto. Rotten Tomatoes award goes to Tetzlaff for his Tchaikovsky Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony. Special mention: Aleksey Igudesman for outstanding comic genius.

Who are your favorites?

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!

Revisiting concerto dynamics

A recent conversation with a Berlin freelancer friend got me thinking once again about concerto dynamics. Without naming names, this friend of mine was describing a certain attitude he observed in a top orchestra - whereby the musicians attained the highest level of playing by, well, terrorizing each other. These musicians are like sharks, he said, just waiting to pounce if you made a mistake. It was basically a communal scare tactic, driving up the standard of playing by provocation, by instilling fear, by maintaining constant and intense pressure.

This disheartens me. Excellence in an orchestra can come out of mutual support and cameraderie, rather than out of such negative dynamics.

When a soloist is playing with an excellent orchestra, the ideal performance is one in which they *lift* each other - in which a healthy rivalry or a competitive edge can play a productive role.

But if the orchestra produces its virtuosity by means of mutual psychological torture, how can their "challenge" to the soloist rise above, well, bullying?

It's ten years since I finished my Ph.D. dissertation on solo-tutti dynamics in violin concertos and I'm still finding unanswered questions on the topic....