summer_breeze Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 I just got an mp3 of this with vadim repin, it is sooo cool. Have any of you played this? I heard it was supposed to be the hardest piece for violin, but I cant really understand that.
iupviolin Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 quote: Originally posted by summer_breeze: I just got an mp3 of this with vadim repin, it is sooo cool. Have any of you played this? I heard it was supposed to be the hardest piece for violin, but I cant really understand that. Its one of the hardest pieces to play well. Have you seen the sheet music? lots of extensions and stuff....and now for HKV....
summer_breeze Posted October 16, 2001 Author Report Posted October 16, 2001 no I haven't seen the sheet music yet, I think I would be too scared to. I am still having problems with Mendelssohn, but I think that will all change once I get a teacher. Have you played it IUP?
corncan Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 my friend practiced it for fun for about 30 minutes and then he couldn't bend his pinky finger for an hour or so
iupviolin Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 quote: Originally posted by summer_breeze: no I haven't seen the sheet music yet, I think I would be too scared to. I am still having problems with Mendelssohn, but I think that will all change once I get a teacher. Have you played it IUP? Nope, I haven't, but I've played through the first few lines...I gave up when I realized how bad I suck on the violin!
Locatelli Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 quote: Originally posted by iupviolin: Nope, I haven't, but I've played through the first few lines...I gave up when I realized how bad I suck on the violin! If you are able to play ONE line of it, seems like you can play the violin pretty well.
Stephen Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 A long time ago the Strad published this as an insert-- and I've since lost it in one or another move. Anyone know a place to find/buy it?
Arpa Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 Stephen -- We have the Sikorski edition (No. 190) which includes the Ernst six polyphonic studies along with the Erlkonig. It was difficult to come by, so if you're having problems finding it, let me know and I'll be happy to help.
K545 Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 I think the Sikorski edition is the only one available. You can "warm up" for the Erlkoenig by mastering "The Last Rose of Summer"-- the last of the six polyphonic etudes.
HuangKaiVun Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 The one part that gets me is the harmonics in the middle. Once I get my computer microphone and my "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" onto this board, I'll post my rendition of this piece.
iupviolin Posted October 16, 2001 Report Posted October 16, 2001 quote: Originally posted by HuangKaiVun: Once I get my computer microphone and my "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" onto this board, I'll post my rendition of this piece. I'm looking forward to hearing it
summer_breeze Posted October 16, 2001 Author Report Posted October 16, 2001 quote: Originally posted by HuangKaiVun: Once I get my computer microphone and my "Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" onto this board, I'll post my rendition of this piece. I look forward to hearing it too. I think anyone who can just look through it and play it semi descent must be good.
vieuxtemps Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 I've tried the first phrase (up to the three G ostinatos). Sounds pretty cool, but I have to do the running "bass" notes slowly and out of tune. The original Schubert song is great. Find a translation of the text--the music goes with it very well. Schubert wrote it when he was 18. This piece is a nightmare for pianists, too. -Aman
HuangKaiVun Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 And I'm sure that those that hate me will say how TERRIBLE I play this piece. Let THEM post their superior renditions if they think I'm so bad. [This message has been edited by HuangKaiVun (edited 10-17-2001).]
lwl Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 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.)
HuangKaiVun Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 The violin IS good at fast chords - depending on the training of the violinist playing them. Similarly, Erlking need not be played with a "brutal" sound. I feel that Ernst's unaccompanied violin version captures the spirit of the story PERFECTLY. Stay tuned for audio clips.
iupviolin Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 quote: Originally posted by HuangKaiVun: The violin IS good at fast chords - depending on the training of the violinist playing them. Similarly, Erlking need not be played with a "brutal" sound. I feel that Ernst's unaccompanied violin version captures the spirit of the story PERFECTLY. Stay tuned for audio clips. Agreed!
Hank Schutz Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 I grew up in a home where German was spoken, and first heard Der Erlkoenig in my early teenage years. I only heard the violin transcription many years later, and I was dazzled by not especially moved. Perhaps my youthful experience spoiled me: after all, with words by Goethe, music by Schubert, voice by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and piano by Gerald Moore -- well -- it doesn't get much better than that, does it? There's a nice translation of the song at http://members.tripod.com/~pnkeese/_poems/erlkonig.htm I have not listened to the sound clips at that sight. HS
vieuxtemps Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 The violin transcription conveys much of the text (I couldn't stop thinking about it during a business lecture today), but the singing line is diminished since the melody notes can only be touched for a moment. I think the boy in the text "speaks" best when the melody is properly sung, either by a voice or an instrument close to it that doesn't have to play all those other notes. I'm contemplating a string quartet or string quartet and voice arrangement of the song. -Aman
K545 Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 Let me second lwl's remarks. I think the Ernst arrangement of the song is simply a piece of show-off junk, which sounds terrible even when it is well played. And what, after all, is the point of arranging a very famous song, since words are of such central importance? Particularly for so fine a song-writer as Schubert.
paganiniboy Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 I didn't know the backround story to the Violin transcription much later after hearing the actual piece. I love solo violin stuff, especially show off pieces as i'm dazzled that a piece of wood strings can handle the capacity for such sounds, 'tis the same for every other insturment. I love the beauty of the sounds; I'm not a competitive guy, therefore i'd be more inclined to say it's interesting i even like hearing virtuoso pieces. Anyway, after hearing of the baseline of what the story was (I heard a boy was being ravaged and 'abused' by his fater) I put those ideas into the parts of the piece. When the boy cries, the violin screams. The bass notes ('bass') are playing I feel as if the father is pushing the boy. This story makes me love the piece - you dont NEED words. What about The Last rose (of summer) K545? That has words, and its a virtuostic piece as well, just a bit 'toned down' from Erlkonig. It wasn't a piece to replace, re-do, or etc.. the original piece by Shubert. I personally love Shubert, and am playing a couple of piano pieces by him - but you have to understand every single piece ever written isn't to ravage the original. It isn't to make 'BETTER'. It's for the what the composer was most likely thinking. I'm gonna take this beautiful piece, its themes more or less, and make it a virtuostic solo violin piece so that the violinists after me may be able to use this as a goal, a practice piece. BUT, this is ME talking, not for all you guys, for me. I feel ashamed to think people actually call musical pieces junk, etc. It's pathetic in my opinion. I'd love to see any of you who call music (not all, mind you, just the ones you disassemble and pick at) any of those things compose music that even ten people [you dont know] can and will say "oh my god, stunning, riviting! I love it!" - or anything like that. I for one can not and i'm okay and fine with it. That's why I appreciate ANY music EVER made - even if my mind and ears disagree for a while. You have to look past all that to understand. Slipknot - that band which follows REALLY hard time hard-metal - even them I think is okay. To make, produce, think of, and work towards it makes me apprciative. P. I just think there are so many immature people out there who still dont know what MUSIC is. They're players, performers, artists, not MUSICIANS. It isn't all for NOISE, its half of that, and HALF of emotion - feeling, sub-conscious ideas.
lwl Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 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.
paganiniboy Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 Thanks LWL, it really helps me with the story line now. I guess trying to think of the piece now (My friend is barowwing the CD - Josefowicz) it gives a whole new 'sound'. I still love the piece because I'm making up my own story to it, as many other pieces which have stories to them... As for my stemements on Music[ality] they're still firm and on going! Music is a beautiful thing - something all humans share together, among many many things. However, music is like mathamatics, that is, a universal language. P
HuangKaiVun Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 Interesting - and very valid - analysis, lwl. But if that were ME carrying MY son, I'd be sweating rivers, panting for air, screaming for help, riding that horse to exhaustion, and crying all over the place. No way would I be smooth and velvety in anticipation of Death's final hand. The smoothness of line is entirely there. As I said, stay tuned. I agree 100% with paganiniboy's "junk" statement. "Junk" to some, MAGIC to ME.
lwl Posted October 17, 2001 Report Posted October 17, 2001 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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