Kin-iro no Corda by Yuki Kure is a Japanese Manga about a student at a music conservatory who gets a magic violin from a fairy and plays her way to success and popularity. Like its predecessor のだめカンタ-ビレ, it is cringe-worthy cute and teenyboppy, with a large following in Japan and Taiwan. This one is also based on a video game, apparently (I confess I'd like to play it--just once).
It must be doing wonders for music education when storylines introduce so much repertoire. At a school music competition, the students gasp when the top violinist busts out Beethoven's Romance No. 2 instead of Paganini, his more usual fare. These comics are silly but they are doing important work in terms of developing classical music appreciation among young people. From what I hear, CD sales of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue soared after it was featured on the のだめカンタ-ビレ TV-series.
This kind of thing would never work in the USA. Can you picture anyone from Glee singing Verdi or Wagner? The day Sue Silvester compliments Mr. Shuster on his hair would come sooner.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition 1967
The top 3 prizewinners at the 1967 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition were:
1) Philippe Hirschhorn (Paganini 1)
2) Stoïka Milanova (Ravel Tzigane)
3) Gidon Kremer (Elgar Concerto)
When I listen to the recordings I can't help but wonder what has happened to violin playing in the past 40+ years. People often speak nostalgically of the "Golden Age" of violinists (1930s and 40s)--how you could instantly tell apart, say, Kreisler from Heifetz--but even in recordings from the 1960s individuality is way more discernible than nowadays.
Hirschhorn's Paganini is brilliant--no safety nets, and absolutely assured, while still managing somehow to stay light. He deserved to win. He also deserved more recognition during his lifetime, tragically cut short by a brain tumor at age 50.
I'd never heard Milanova before--judging by her strong, gutsy playing, she should not have subsequently fallen into obscurity.
But the stand-out recording for me is Kremer's. He was only 20. He plays the first movement like his life depends on it. There are moments of raw eccentricity in II and III (he has since become a mature eccentric).
Here's a brief excerpt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfLi7-QHZ0&feature=related
1) Philippe Hirschhorn (Paganini 1)
2) Stoïka Milanova (Ravel Tzigane)
3) Gidon Kremer (Elgar Concerto)
When I listen to the recordings I can't help but wonder what has happened to violin playing in the past 40+ years. People often speak nostalgically of the "Golden Age" of violinists (1930s and 40s)--how you could instantly tell apart, say, Kreisler from Heifetz--but even in recordings from the 1960s individuality is way more discernible than nowadays.
Hirschhorn's Paganini is brilliant--no safety nets, and absolutely assured, while still managing somehow to stay light. He deserved to win. He also deserved more recognition during his lifetime, tragically cut short by a brain tumor at age 50.
I'd never heard Milanova before--judging by her strong, gutsy playing, she should not have subsequently fallen into obscurity.
But the stand-out recording for me is Kremer's. He was only 20. He plays the first movement like his life depends on it. There are moments of raw eccentricity in II and III (he has since become a mature eccentric).
Here's a brief excerpt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfLi7-QHZ0&feature=related
Saturday, January 22, 2011
The Physiology of Violin Playing
In the course of my research, I've come across a book about the physiology of violin playing from 1971 by a Hungarian team of musicologists, psychologists, and physiologists. It is WACKY.
They did experiments to see what happened to musculature, breathing, and heart-rate when violinists were playing. The test subjects are not named, but they played Bach and Paganini under experimental conditions and consented to have x-rays taken of the left hand in fifth position. One guy is pictured standing in his underwear with electrodes strapped to his body as he plays.
Hundreds of pages of 'electro-myography’, phasic-this and motor-that later, I’m not really sure what was the point of all this. The authors even issue a disclaimer that none of their results are conclusive.
One point that jumped out at me was an experiment showing the correlation between breathing and bowing. They put face masks on violinists while they played Bach’s Minuet from the E-major Partita and found that upbeats, upbows, and inhalations all lined up. Were the violinists aware of this? Was this something ‘natural’ or learned? If it was learned, was it specific to a particular style of playing or style of music?
Violinists talk about stuff like this all the time and it's often the unconscious habits and their being contrary to what we think we're doing that I find intriguing.
The physiology of violin playing is a fascinating topic in itself but, it seems to me, the really interesting questions arise where it ends.
Szende, Ottó and Mihály Nemessuri. The Physiology of Violin Playing. With a Foreword by Yehudi Menuhin; Preface by Paul Rolland; translated from the Hungarian by I. Szmodis. (London: Collet’s, 1971).
They did experiments to see what happened to musculature, breathing, and heart-rate when violinists were playing. The test subjects are not named, but they played Bach and Paganini under experimental conditions and consented to have x-rays taken of the left hand in fifth position. One guy is pictured standing in his underwear with electrodes strapped to his body as he plays.
Hundreds of pages of 'electro-myography’, phasic-this and motor-that later, I’m not really sure what was the point of all this. The authors even issue a disclaimer that none of their results are conclusive.
One point that jumped out at me was an experiment showing the correlation between breathing and bowing. They put face masks on violinists while they played Bach’s Minuet from the E-major Partita and found that upbeats, upbows, and inhalations all lined up. Were the violinists aware of this? Was this something ‘natural’ or learned? If it was learned, was it specific to a particular style of playing or style of music?
Violinists talk about stuff like this all the time and it's often the unconscious habits and their being contrary to what we think we're doing that I find intriguing.
The physiology of violin playing is a fascinating topic in itself but, it seems to me, the really interesting questions arise where it ends.
Szende, Ottó and Mihály Nemessuri. The Physiology of Violin Playing. With a Foreword by Yehudi Menuhin; Preface by Paul Rolland; translated from the Hungarian by I. Szmodis. (London: Collet’s, 1971).
Friday, January 21, 2011
Johann Sebastian Marteau
French violinist Henri Marteau (1874–1934) is well known as a legendary soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. But did you know he named his son Johann Sebastian? Bach-philia = understandable, but.... poor baby!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Grumiaux, Szigeti, Menuhin, Oistrakh
Today I saw a photo of a rehearsal for a memorial concert for Queen Elisabeth of Belgium in Brussels, 1967, for the Vivaldi Four Violin Concerto with Grumiaux, Szigeti, Menuhin, and Oistrakh. What I would give to have heard that performance! I would've watched for hints of musical cameraderie, at the opposite end of the spectrum from the obvious competition/rivalry that can result from situations like these.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Fritz Kreisler
Louis Lochner’s biography of Fritz Kreisler is an absolute gem: it not only documents the violinist’s spectacular career in meticulous detail, it brings scenes to life. As a boy in Vienna, Kreisler studied with the eminent pedagogue Joseph “Peppi” Hellmesberger, Jr. who had “a weakness for ballet dancers.” Kreisler also studied with Bruckner, who had "a chubby, fat pug dog named Mops" – which, along with his classmates, Kreisler trained to run away when they played a Wagner motif and to wag its tail when they played Bruckner's Te Deum. His father, who played chess with Freud, discovered hashish in a box of Turkish cigarettes the young Kreisler was given in Constantinople.
Kreisler was an impractical person. He could never find his socks, he was shy around people and about going in the New York City subway. His wife Harriet has been accused of being a domineering presence in his life. But she was practical.
An Austrian citizen who became French and finally American, Kreisler resided in Berlin and NYC. He ate at Del Pezzo’s on W44th St. with Caruso and was a frequent visitor to Rembert Wurlitzer's violin shop on W42nd.
Kreisler studied with Massart, the teacher of Wieniawski, whose style of vibrato he came to share (along with Vieuxtemps and Ysaye). He knew Brahms and championed the Violin Concerto (the manuscript of which he owned at one time), but was not a follower of Joseph Joachim, its dedicatee. He knew Schoenberg, who took interest in his Beethoven cadenzas. He hardly ever practised. He did not take students. He had countless imitators, including the young Jascha Heifetz. He praised Milstein, Menuhin, Francescatti, and Stern. He was generous to a fault. He believed that the violin was a true mirror of a person’s moral compass:
To me, the man who loves justice will “sound” different from the man who is secretly capable of a mean act; the man who is cruel will “sound” different from the man who is humane.
…
Thus one way of perfecting musicianship is to conquer oneself, to rid oneself of meanness, to live the sort of life one can admire.
Kreisler was an impractical person. He could never find his socks, he was shy around people and about going in the New York City subway. His wife Harriet has been accused of being a domineering presence in his life. But she was practical.
An Austrian citizen who became French and finally American, Kreisler resided in Berlin and NYC. He ate at Del Pezzo’s on W44th St. with Caruso and was a frequent visitor to Rembert Wurlitzer's violin shop on W42nd.
Kreisler studied with Massart, the teacher of Wieniawski, whose style of vibrato he came to share (along with Vieuxtemps and Ysaye). He knew Brahms and championed the Violin Concerto (the manuscript of which he owned at one time), but was not a follower of Joseph Joachim, its dedicatee. He knew Schoenberg, who took interest in his Beethoven cadenzas. He hardly ever practised. He did not take students. He had countless imitators, including the young Jascha Heifetz. He praised Milstein, Menuhin, Francescatti, and Stern. He was generous to a fault. He believed that the violin was a true mirror of a person’s moral compass:
To me, the man who loves justice will “sound” different from the man who is secretly capable of a mean act; the man who is cruel will “sound” different from the man who is humane.
…
Thus one way of perfecting musicianship is to conquer oneself, to rid oneself of meanness, to live the sort of life one can admire.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Required reading for any serious music student...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/arts/music/09composers.html?scp=1&sq=greatest&st=cse
Zefiro torna
My first-year performers--who play an eclectic assortment of instruments-- put this together in about half an hour after I showed them the bassline (the shoddy camerwork is mine):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2E54O_TwJ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2E54O_TwJ0
Another branch of the violin tree...
This quote captures perfectly the central themes of the violinist-genealogy project I am working on: purity of lineage, self-legitimation, and the quasi-mystical valuation of pedigree:
"As a seventeen-year-old about to graduate from high school, I felt that my own violin lineage was already quite impressive. Couched in Old Testament terms, Joseph Joachim, the distinguished German violinist, begat Leopold Auer, who begat Toscha Seidel, who begat me. Without doubt, I belonged to an illustrious family--one in which Auer's pupils Heifetz, Elman, and Zimbalist were in effect my uncles. If only some of that DNA would rub off!" (Arnold Steinhardt, Violin Dreams. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 88-89).
"As a seventeen-year-old about to graduate from high school, I felt that my own violin lineage was already quite impressive. Couched in Old Testament terms, Joseph Joachim, the distinguished German violinist, begat Leopold Auer, who begat Toscha Seidel, who begat me. Without doubt, I belonged to an illustrious family--one in which Auer's pupils Heifetz, Elman, and Zimbalist were in effect my uncles. If only some of that DNA would rub off!" (Arnold Steinhardt, Violin Dreams. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 88-89).
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Composer biographies?
When a friend asked me for a riveting read about a composer's life, I was stumped. What can you recommend to someone who has been reading Bill Clinton's autobiography? The finest composer vignettes I've read in a long time came under separate chapter headings in Alex Ross's latest book: Mozart, Verdi, Brahms... they all came to life. I steer students to Grove of course but encyclopedia entries don't really serve my friend's needs. Anyone got recommendations?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Gloria Cheng & Calder Quartet @ LPR
I offered to turn pages for the Adès PIano Quintet. What was I thinking? All the stress of being on stage without the pleasure of performing! Gloria was amazing in her set of Boulez, Saariaho, Messiaen. The Calders played Stravinsky's 3 pieces to perfection. I couldn't tell you what the Adès PIano Quintet was like--I was too focussed on not fucking up the page turns to listen, let alone enjoy it. The composer seemed to be pleased.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Best music book of 2010
Hands down, Alex Ross's Listen to This. The last chapter, on Brahms, made me weep.
NYSO @ Carnegie Dec 24 and 28
I couldn't help thinking of the New York String Orchestra as the SAT Orchestra -- perfect scores, no room for error. These young players can play their instruments without breaking a sweat, but I wish they would've taken some risks. Jennifer Koh and Benjamin Hochman were spotless soloists in the thankless Violin-Piano Concerto by Mendelssohn. Daniel Hope and Paul Watkins were not spotless in the Brahms Double -- but there were moments of risk-taking.
Vadim Gluzman's Barber Violin Concerto
Vadim Gluzman's Barber Violin Concerto recording was featured on BBC Radio 3's best recordings of 2010. The reviewer said the second movement holds its own, while he preferred James Ehnes or Gil Shaham in the outer movements. I can see why: Gluzman's tone is red-hot -- which works in the second movement -- but the outer movements need to burn white-hot, luminous and transcendent. I heard Ehnes live with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2009. He gets my vote.
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