When Only Words Can Describe

Cora — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:31:59 +0000

This Sunday at the Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green, the Young Hearts Run Free collective is staging a literary event at which Kate Ellis and I will be providing some music. I just found out today that Claire Kilroy will be reading! She is the author of Tenderwire, one of my favourite books, and certainly one of the best music-related novels out there (I should know, the Independent rashly let me review it). It should be a lovely afternoon – feel free to spread the word, as it’s for a good cause!

Eyjafjallajokull meets Beethoven

Cora — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:59:45 +0000

When Eyjafjallajokull expectorated her fine dust into the clear skies of Europe, I found myself stranded in Amsterdam with no violin, having been whisked off for a break by my beloved. For the first time in my life, I had gone away fully intending not to practice. It was only for a couple of days! It should have been fine! Murphy’s law, eh? So I found a wonderful music shop where they were amazingly kind, and sorted me out with a violin and bow to practice on until I could get home. I must admit it wasn’t so bad, being stuck in Amsterdam in great company. It really could have been a lot worse.

I was very lucky to get hold of a violin, because next Tuesday I’m playing the Beethoven concerto in Bulgaria!

The Beethoven is my absolute favourite violin concerto of all time. As part of my daily practice routine, I played this concerto every day for years and years, and it is still my favourite thing to play as a warm-up before a concert, when I have that luxury. To me, it has a sort of mystical quality – the harmonic changes are just so perfect, the orchestration so balanced, and yet it is so much more than a beautiful, well-constructed concerto! It has a very functional quality, which I love. It is elegant and beautiful, without frippery.

To my ear, it is completely perfect, and stands a touch taller than any concerto written before or after. I “see” strong architectural lines in its composition, and there is not a single superfluous phrase, gesture or note in the entire work. Although it is unquestionably part of the core violin repertoire, it’s not everyone’s favourite, and many violinists loathe the technical difficulties – even though the solo lines sound clear and simple, the work is absolutely full of octaves and other technical challenges which expose even the slightest left-hand instability. While not the least forgiving of all the violin concertos (I would place the Mozarts firmly in that camp), it certainly sorts the men from the boys.

By a very conservative estimate, I have spent at least 4000 hours, maybe a good bit more, with this piece of music since the age of sixteen, when I began to incorporate it into my practice routine. It was the first complete concerto I was invited to play as soloist with an orchestra at fourteen, so I’ve been playing it for half of my life now. Even then, I would listen to it with the full score, and pretend to conduct, so I would know all the cues. And still, every time I study it, perform it or use it to warm up or gauge my left-hand condition, it warms my heart, surprises me, cheers me up, and pretty much reminds me why I play the violin in the first place.

My friend and colleague Malcolm Yuen, whom I worked with on last year’s DPO tour of the US, will be wielding the baton. Although he was associate conductor on that tour, this will be our first performance together, so that should be interesting! Since we are currently in different countries, we had a preliminary rehearsal via Skype, which seemed to work surprisingly well. When we discussed doing this concert and started talking about musical things, we agreed that it would be nice if I played along with the first violins in the opening tutti ¹. This is something that not everyone does nowadays, but it was common practice back in the day². After memorising the opening tutti part, I decided to “rehearse” it by playing along with a recording, since that bit is new to my hand, if not my ear³. Too lazy to go to the shelf and open a CD box, I turned to YouTube, which we all know is a mistake. Not only did I read some comments which made me think very hard, which is not easy after doing a lot of practice, but I ended up having a total YouTube binge, the fruits of which I post below.

Jordgubbsmix Sorry…I’m trying but I don’t relly get classical music xD It’s beautiful though I can hear that.
TheSecondhour @Jordgubbsmix why dont you like it? is it to complicated for you to understand?? i know a lot of people that dont like it for that reason
Jordgubbsmix @TheSecondhour I don’t know…it’s…boring? Haha maybe you’re right though
TheSecondhour @Jordgubbsmix hahahahaha boring?? yeah i can see how some people would find it boring, classical isn’t for everyone.vor 4 Wochen

I have something to say about this, but it’ll have to wait ’til the next blog!

In the meantime, how about some boring YouTube videos of boring classical music that are all the same and all really boring? I’ve just been listening from the beginning to the opening passage in every video and it’s fascinating how all these different, I mean, boring, musical personalities come across.

Here’s Nigel Kennedy directing from the violin, whose performance of the Beethoven with the ICO a few years ago completely blew me away – it was sublime (and completely different from his previous interpretation, by the way, in case you weren’t a fan of that one). He only starts around 1:20 and it’s incomplete, enjoy : )

Joshua Bell (this is where I found the comments I quoted above), who is also directing from the violin. Notice that Josh doesn’t play in the opening tutti, while Nigel does.

A young Anne Sophie Mutter. Notice how she uses a very exaggerated vibrato:

Jascha Heifetz, a titan, one of the most respected violinists of the 20th century, the man who raised the bar for everyone – he was also notorious for playing everything faster than everyone else. His tempo is slightly slower than Nige’s! just audio:

Itzhak Perlman with Barenboim and the Berlin Phil – the musical equivalent of a Fendi bag, if you like that sort of thing. The opening winds use a lot of vibrato. Notice how when Perlman comes in with the solo line around 3:10, he has a completely different tempo to the orchestra!

David Oistrakh, my hero. He made better recordings of the piece, still, though, very much worth a listen, and the LSO are sublimely smooth under Sir Adrian Boult’s ABSOLUTELY GIGANTIC BATON.

I’d better stop before I carry on with this all night, and post every. single. video. of this piece. Buona Notte!

¹ “tutti” is Italian for “everyone”, and in a concerto it refers to the bits where the orchestra plays without the soloist.
² http://www.jstor.org/pss/3137973
³ normally I wouldn’t do that with classical music. I avoid listening to recordings of pieces I’m currently playing like the plague, because I have a horror of being influenced by someone else’s interpretation and unwittingly copying things.

Ergodos Festival MMX

Cora — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:11:45 +0000

A job opportunity, and an update

Cora — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:21:46 +0000

Hello, world!

Before I update, I’d like to mention that I am seeking a personal manager to replace the last one, who was terrible. I’m not one to badmouth former colleagues, but since I’m still working with her on a daily basis I think it’s ok. She knows she’s about to get fired and what does she do? Goes on the internet and blogs, and practices her viola. Yes, time for my confession – I’m a terrible, terrible self manager! If you are interested, please email me at lunnymusic at gmail dot com, or leave me a comment here. There is more information on this page.

My last blog post sent me into an odyssey of contemplation, hence the lack of updates here. It’s quite understandable, given the intense depth I reached with my writing. I’m pretty proud of having made myself speechless!

Um, well, actually, the truth is, I fell in love and had better things to do than write navelgazing rants about music and stuff. My good friend Stewart said there’s a six-month grace period for not having your shit together when that happens, and he knows what he’s talking about.

The last 8 months have been bursting with inspiration and education. Yurodny have improved like mad, and our gig at the ‘09 Cork Jazz Festival is, will be, or has been broadcast all over the USA! One of my favourite things that happened last year was playing the Mendelssohn concerto with John Finucane and the Hibernian Chamber Orchestra – joyful, uplifting performances of a joyful work. One of my other favourite things was touring with the genius composer and santour player Javid Afsari Rad and his absolutely stellar group of musicians – an experience that really shook me up and educated me, made me very frustrated with the limitations of western musical notation, and caused me to fall quite firmly in love with Iranian percussion. And then there was Mamoru Fujieda and his magical Patterns of Plants – and the incredible discovery (for me, personally) of his beautiful works for solo violin. I wish I could do verbal justice to all of these projects, which moved me, shook me up, and improved me as a musician. Perhaps I’ll still write about them. But I’d rather play about them.

And on that note – among all the other concerts you can read about to your left, I’ll be performing some of Fujieda’s solo violin music at the CFCP on February 26th. The concert’s main remit is ICC composers (I’m playing new, specially commissioned works for solo viola by Francis Heery, Dylan Rynhart and Amanda Feery), which is truly awesome, but in the meantime I’m really looking forward to revisiting Mr. Fujieda’s incredible additions to the solo violin repertoire.

Must dash! Lunch appointment awaits me!

Music: Our Medium

Cora — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:20:13 +0000

What is “music”?

According to good old Wikipedia, “Music is an art form whose medium is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture.”

I don’t think it’s so simple. Or rather, I think it’s much, much simpler. I disagree that sound is the medium – I think sound is one of many tools we use, and that the true medium is time.

Since a huge part of musical experience lies in the perception of the listener, there is a limit to how much effect we can have as performers. Two people could be sitting next to each other at the same concert: while one is lost in a reverie, in a total state of bliss, unaware of time passing, the other is fidgeting, wishing it were over, and irritated by the experience. The various barriers to acceptance which exist in the mind of the listener can be manifold, and it’s easy enough to quite unwittingly do things to distract a listener from focusing and being drawn in completely. Also, to really allow yourself to be moved by live music is a very personal and private experience – it doesn’t necessarily happen so easily for everyone in a public concert environment. Still, though, it is the listener’s experience of time which is affected.

When we get it “right”, as performers, and draw in the audience thoroughly, we make time spin unbelievably fast for the listener. I remember being 9 years old and seeing Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi at the NCH. The concert was over almost before I realised it had started! I remember the whole concert as an intense rush of focused excitement. I’m sure that was not everybody’s experience of that concert. Some of the audience might have been distracted by Nigel’s outfit, maybe it took them longer to be drawn in. But for me, it was incredibly inspiring, and probably my first experience of the strangeness that can occur in seemingly everyday experience.

And when we get it wrong, we can make time seem endless. How is it that when time is such a valuable thing, it seems to stretch on stickily, back-achingly and sock-itchingly when we are not enjoying ourselves? It’s fairly hard to ignore music you don’t like when you’re stuck in a seat, in public.

It works the other way, too. Sometimes you sit on the stage and genuinely wonder whether you, and everyone else, have had a memory lapse and gone back to the beginning of a piece, because it seems at least twice as long as it should be. Or, as happened last week in the Beckett Theatre, everyone agrees that a certain piece seemed incredibly short – although it was no faster than in rehearsal, everything was repeated the same amount of times, etc. I always think that’s a good sign. And when Judith remarked on a specific piece and said I had played particularly well, I could not remember anything about it – I knew we had played it, I remembered the piece before and after, but it was like a miniature blackout. Musical oblivion and pure bliss!

It’s a funny old business we’re in, and continually full of pleasant surprises.

1944

Cora — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:26:54 +0000

Unbeknownst to the beleaguered citizens of Europe, WWII is roaring to an end. Lebanon and Syria achieve independence, the 2-year Siege of Leningrad is finally lifted. Between New York City and Asheville, NC, Bela Bartók, ravaged by still-undiagnosed leukaemia, completes his Sonata for Solo Violin (Sz. 117, BB 124).

(I imagine him stuffing it into a manila envelope addressed to Mr. Yehudi Menuhin, gluing it shut, and strolling down to the mailbox on the street corner. This is what greets him at the newsstand where he stops for a stamp.)

New Yorker cover, March 1944 (c) the artist or publisher

Soon after, his native land, Hungary, is occupied by Germany.

oh, look

Cora — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:02:32 +0000

Yurodny, Button Factory, May 29th '09

do come along.