lwl
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Posts posted by lwl
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I heard her three-Brahms-sonatas recital last year. Reading her online journal later, I discovered that evening was her first time playing those works in public with Garrick Olssohn, and apparently she thought there were still some kinks to work out -- not like anyone could tell!
I, too, would cheerfully have snagged the recording on the way out! I've heard other excellent recitals (one of them in the last year, Vengerov), but I don't think I could say the same for them. (Fortunately, I've heard that Hahn's studio recording of the Brahms sonatas will indeed be released.)
Truly an extraordinary player. Would love to hear this next set of recital works, but she's not coming to this area this year, as far as I know.
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I would argue that while an instrumental transcription (or even straight-out instrumental composition) can express a story, it's quite different from the true narrative nature of a song. Also, there is a directness to text that is undeniable.
I don't think that anyone would argue that, say, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique (probably the classic example of a programmatic work) doesn't effectively tell its story. However, with this and other programmatic music, a totally uninformed listener could no doubt derive any number of beliefs about what exactly the story is.
Contrast, though, Berlioz's "Romeo and Juliet" (labeled a "dramatic symphony"), which uses several vocal soloists, a chorus, and orchestra. Consider the effectiveness of its purely-orchestral Queen Mab Scherzo, vs. its scherzetto for tenor, chorus, and orchestra (representing Mercutio's Queen Mab speech). Both are good, vividly colorful pieces of music -- but the text of the scherzetto conveys much more in a direct fashion. You could transcribe the scherzetto for pure orchestra alone and still capture much of the effect, but there is definitely a loss of meaning. And that's just description you're losing, not really a story.
Going back to Erlkonig specifically, just reading this thread, it's pretty clear that those who have only heard the transcription (or have heard the song without knowing what the lyrics meant) actually *didn't* get the meaning of the text. They applied their own interpretations to the meaning of the music -- they came up with their own stories, fundamentally.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? No -- but it does clearly illustrate that the listener of the Erlkonig transcription does not necessarily get what the original Schubert/Goethe song was intended to convey. Now, perhaps you don't care about that -- arguably the music should stand on its own, right? -- but I do think it's something that's worth thinking about.
Does that mean that the transcription shouldn't be played? Of course not. But I think a sensitivity to the meaning is necessary. If you're going to interpret it in your own way, fine, but, I think it should be deliberate, as opposed to out of ignorance of the original.
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quote:Originally posted by K545:1. There is nothing intrinsically evil about show-off music like Ernst's.2. There is nothing sacred about Schubert's song.3. There is no point in comparing Ernst's standalone transcription with Schubert's standalone song.
I am thoroughly puzzled what the heck in any of K545's statements above (or that post in general, which I have quoted only part of) could in any way be construed as offensive.
This sounds like a reasonable, balanced view to me. He doesn't like the transcription for various reasons. He doesn't believe that it's evil, though. And he believes that the transcription is different enough that it cannot be readily compared to the original. One need not be a musician, let alone a violinist, to make these perfectly reasonable, voice-of-moderation statements.
I find it entirely bizarre that someone would assert that another person doesn't like Piece X because he can't play it. People express opinions all the time about liking or not liking one piece of music or another. Just because you're fond of broccoli doesn't mean I need to like it -- or vice versa. The same goes for a musical composition.
I find it even more bizarre that this has suddenly turned into an argument of who-likes-whom, much less, even more strangely, what seems to be an assertion of jealousy ("you don't like me because I can do X and you can't" types of statements).
Dose of perspective here, folks: We're talking about whether or not we like a transcription. People have made points on both sides. Nobody's likely to change their mind, but the discussion has interest and value and, at least for some folks, apparently some educational value. This shouldn't be a big emotional issue for anybody.
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Fingering is a matter of two things: technical expediency, and musical color. Fingering decisions are based on a combination of these two things.
The balance between sounds good vs. feels good is one that you'll constantly be figuring out. There's no one right way. I would come down in favor of musical color whenever possible, but not at the expense of technical security (a fingering is no good if it breaks down in performance, though I wouldn't make decisions based on safety alone, certainly).
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Well, I wouldn't call Mutter a *bad* violinist. But otherwise, I more or less agree with iupviolin -- though it does depend on the size of your hands. Mutter's hands are relatively small, I believe, and she probably does that thumb position to facilitate reaching for the notes. (I have my thumb very far under as well, though the tip is still usually marginally above the fingerboard level in the lower positions -- small hands.)
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I've only really heard one work by Ernst that I'd personally like to play -- the Papageno Fantasy, sadly out of print as far as I've been able to determine.
I like some parts of the Last Rose, as well -- particularly in the hands of a player who can make them sound effortless, letting the tune sing sweetly even through all those pyrotechnics.
I have yet to hear any recording of Erlkonig (including Josefowicz's, which was my sole reason for buying that particular CD of hers) where I think "wow, what great music" as opposed to "d*mn, it's impressive that s/he got the notes out".
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This actually brings up some interesting questions about transcriptions in general and when they produce something better or at least equally as good (or close to it) as the original.
Paganini (and lots of other virtuoso composers) will write fantasies and theme-and-variations on tunes. These vary in quality and in real musical value, but none of these are, strictly speaking, transcriptions.
I would argue that it is indeed possible to transcribe a work for voice, for some other instrument, and not strip it of all that much of its meaning despite the loss of the text. (I don't think Ernst's Erlkonig manages this, though.)
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I take it you want to do it yourself, and not pay someone else to do it.
There are inexpensive software programs out there that allow you to design CD covers and CD labels. I would suggest that would be a good place to start.
One decision you'll need to make is whether the front cover of the CD is just a single sheet, or if it's a booklet; modern word processors can handle formatting a booklet of that sort fine.
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Ah no, you misunderstand what I said.
It's not the father singing, except in one of the verses. It's Death himself. The text of the poem is definitely worth reading; he's telling the boy of the attractiveness of succumbing.
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Someone misled you on the story, paganiniboy (though you could probably derive a variety of interpretations of the existing text).
Erlkonig is "the Erl-King", or the Elf-King -- more specifically, it is the figure of Death. The poem (by Goethe) is rather dark. A father is upon his horse, with his dying son in his arms, riding desperately somewhere (home? to a doctor?). As he's doing this, the Erl-King is whispering of the attractiveness of death to the boy. At first the father denies that Death is near. Eventually the boy cries out in terror to his father, telling him what the Erl-King has said; his father rides wildly, but when he reaches his destination, the boy has died.
Death is essentially seducing an innocent; this concept, in my opinion, calls for a certain dark lyricism. In the original, the urgency of the rhythm in the piano, the percussiveness, the dissonance all provide the dark backdrop; the voice provides the emotion, including what I think should be the velvet hand over the skeletal hand of Death, here.
What gets lost in the transcription, in my opinion, is the smoothness of line that is a key feature in some parts of the accompaniment, as well as in the melody itself. Split this up as a work for string quartet, or even two violins, and you can keep the integrity of the lines, but as written, the swoop of the line is disrupted by the need to interrupt it to handle the polyphony. Similarly, I think the articulation of the poetry, the color of the words themselves (even separated from their meaning) is part of the beauty of the work, and this too gets lost by the way Ernst accomplished the polyphonic writing.
Compare, say, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, also on the death of children.
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The Berg concerto is a twelve-tone composition of great beauty and reasonable accessibility (partially due, no doubt, to the fact that it's based on a set of overlapping triads, thus giving the ear something vaguely tonal to grab onto) -- so it is possible to accomplish something that's not of purely intellectual interest.
I think atonal music throws the violinist because we are so accustomed to thinking in scale-based patterns; the atonality throws away our ability to anticipate and the automatic mechanisms that toss down fingers in tune without us having to think about it.
I would advise "think the pitch that sounds, not the pitch that is notated" and finger accordingly; half the problem is that we play, say, D# on the A string with the 3rd finger, but Eb with the 4th finger, typically.
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Erlkonig is one of my favorite works for voice and piano, but I can't really say that I care for the violin transcription.
The transcription is an impressive feat, but the pathos is really lost to the pyrotechnics needed to get out that melody plus complex accompaniment. The sound seems inevitably to be brutal. (Whereas the Last Rose can be played with lyrical beauty, as it's not relying on quick fast chords, something which the violin is really not very good at.)
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Arcus itself, as far as I know, does 30-day approvals, mail order.
That's how I got mine.
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I also agree on the caution on the 3/4-size.
A lot of teachers do push kids to a 3/4 as soon as possible, though, because they often sound much better than half-size instruments, and if your teacher is one of those, then you'll probably get a lot more time out of that size.
I had a teacher who did that to me; my next teacher switched me back to the half-size, and I was on that forever. I then only had the three-quarter for a relatively brief time before getting the full-size. But if I'd stayed with the three-quarter when I first switched to it, I'd have played it for years.
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I've never found it to make a particular difference, to be honest.
If the audition day is particularly long, it might be better not to be last, just because the judge is more likely to be cranky.
Personally, I'd prefer to play in the middle of the pack. By then, they've worked out any logistical kinks in the audition process, but hopefully they haven't yet exhausted their patience with a parade of players.
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I, on the other hand, am thinking of selling my Arcus Sonata and my current spare pernambucco bow and buying a Berg Deluxe for a spare instead.
(If anyone is in the market for a Sonata, let me know; it's basically brand-new, and this one draws a particularly powerful tone.)
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Apparently some luthiers say the same about synthetics, strangely enough -- is there really that much of a tension difference?
I've persuaded a friend of mine here in the Bay Area to replace her Eudoxas with Obligatos, as apparently her home is poorly climate-controlled and consequently the Eudoxas have problems holding pitch, plus they break frequently. But her luthier (don't know which of the shops it was) told her that the high tension of synthetics compared to gut would damage her violin. (Turn-of-the-century, probably French, moderate price, i.e., not a student instrument.)
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An interesting approach might be to ask each Maestronet player (or interested luthier who didn't work on it) who wants to try it to pay for the shipping and handling, as well as making a donation (say, $20 or $50) towards the charity fund.
Someone should be designated to handle the funds, in that event.
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I got my free set of Violinos some time ago, but I hadn't tried them 'til tonight.
I've been using Larsens recently; I love their punch and projection, but the G and D strings seem to have a lifespan of at most four weeks, and the A not much better than that. More problematically, the decline in sound quality on the lower two strings is rapid once it begins, and when they go, they *really* go. This time the G went badly false, and after a couple of minutes of trying to play tonight, I got fed up and went hunting for something else to use.
Because the Larsens wear so quickly, I hadn't gotten around to buying spares. So I pulled out the Violinos, and strung up the G for starters.
It's got a fairly nice ring to it, but almost no depth or complexity -- it's worse than the Infeld Red G on my violin (my teacher disliked the Reds so much when I tried them out some time ago that her reaction was "Take them off!"). Under-the-finger feel is similar to Obligatos and Evah Pirazzis -- quite soft. The tension seems to be rather low.
The string is very forgiving; I can well imagine how a student with a crunchy, pressed, sound production technique might find this makes the instrument sound much more pleasant. It's a smooth, round sound, but definitely not what I'm looking for, and the power is mediocre at best.
I dislike the G sufficiently to not want to try the D or A, though I feel obligated to because of the Pirastro free sample and thus feedback form; I think I'd rather cope with the dying Larsen silver D for the moment.
Time to throw in the towel on the string experiments -- I ordered myself some Obligatos (my original switch off Dominants) from Shar's string sale.
(On the other hand, I still have a pack of Infeld Blues to try out. I'm half-tempted to put them on while waiting for the spares to show up. Got things to play this weekend, and the false D string and the weak sound of the Violino G is going to drive me nuts, I know.)
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You folks aren't actually incorporated, as far as I know?
I suspect you will get much better results by going directly through your musical and shop contacts than by trying to work through, of all things, a politician's office.
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I'm looking to expand my listening a bit.
I'm looking for specific CD recommendations as well as some general information about styles and bands, for lyrical fiddle music. Not necessarily slow (though it can be) -- but good tuneful stuff, played by fiddlers who don't have a harsh "edge" to their sound.
Any suggestions?
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You could ship it around the country to various Maestronet players and let them record sound clips.
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Yes, they can. Finding the right balance between playability and sound on your particular violin is a key problem in buying a bow.
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In the first passage, I would use:
131024 313102
For the second sequence, I would use (this is the third measure, right?):
131431 and then shift up to 4th position on 1 for the remainder of the measure.
I would hold down 1st finger on the B, but fairly lightly -- I wouldn't particularly worry about doing so, it's just convenient to more or less keep it in place. I wouldn't hold down the G#, though. My fingers are, however, short; I tend to avoid holding down fingers unless there are no string crossings required.
Gymnastics of the fingerboard
in The Fingerboard
Posted
The thread on Erlkonig makes me wonder the following:
How many of you derive a substantial amount of your violinistic pleasure from execution of technical pyrotechnics? (It doesn't have to be on the Paganini level, or even classical -- plenty of fast and furious stuff for even beginners, plus no shortage of fiddle music, certainly.)
Milstein wrote that when he was young, his principal pleasure was to play as fast as possible.
My teacher tells me that she's noticed that I seem to have a certain attraction to works she deems Olympics of the Fingerboard. While I like to think I vary my musical content across a variety of styles, I have to admit that certain types of virtuosic pyrotechnics are pure unadulterated fun.