This Week's Music

There is hope for us! I just received word that this may be one of the last times we will have to suffer through one of That Random Guy’s performances! It may have been a difficult journey, but it looks like we are going to be able to make it through this unfortunate experience without too much damage. Perhaps we could even say that Random Guy has a redeeming quality about him (namely his willingness to stop playing his violin and leave us alone).

Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B Minor was the largest and most significant piece of music on the program, and, for me, it was the focal point of the recital. Before I tell you a bit about the composition itself, there is a personal story that explains why I chose to perform such an unpopular and relatively obscure concerto. As a young child, I listened to two CD’s (or were they cassettes? Yikes, that was a while ago) that my family would play for me on a regular basis. One was Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, which I know that every one of you has heard (the famous thunderstorm symphony), and the second was a recording of the great American virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin playing the Elgar violin concerto with Elgar himself conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. As the story goes (and we have pictures to prove this), whenever the Beethoven symphony was turned on, I would stand atop the nearest chair or table, grab a wooden ruler or any other nearby implement that could suffice as a baton, and conduct the entire symphony, staying right on the beat the entire time.

The Elgar, however, did not inspire me to such extremes. Looking back, I remember it being a sort of awe-inspiring mystery piece in which the violin was a haunting and dazzling instrument of intrigue. The melodies of the Elgar concerto have always seemed different to me in a way that I continue to be unable to express. The best way I can put it is to say that it is just “so very Elgar.” The late Victorian conception of harmony was just beginning to border on Modern and 20th-century music, and Elgar, despite being one of the last hallmarks of the Romantic period, couldn’t resist taking his harmonies to a new level. The result is a fantastic conception of chords and harmonic texture that is unlike any other. The longer you listen to classical music, the more clear it will become to you that some chords are just plain “Elgar chords.” My childhood fascination with Elgar’s violin concerto remains with me, in large part because of the unmistakable and unforgettable harmony that is “so very Elgar.” Very few compositions – the symphonies of Tchaikovsky and Mahler come to mind – have the jaw-dropping power that Elgar can produce with an orchestra. However, Elgar is simultaneously able to produce delightfully delicate and beautiful melodies, such as the one you will hear about 5 minutes into my performance, as well as earth-shattering cadences full of raw harmonic power.

I was never able to play the Elgar while in high school, college, and beyond. This was primarily due to the fact that it is horrendously difficult, and at the time I simply wasn’t good enough to master it. The other reason for not attempting it before this spring was the fact that it is extremely long, much too long for the 10-minute time window that I had to fit in while performing in competitions in high school and college.

Enjoy!

T

Yikes. Are we all still here? Just like last week, I advocated on your behalf to That Random Guy. This time, I utilized the law to try to get him to stop. I filed motions against him for Assault against the Ear, Battery against the Senses, Murder of the Intellect, Intent to Kill Murder of the Finer Things in Life, Homicide against the Artistic Tastes, Reckless and Dangerous Conduct against Musicians Everywhere, and more. None of them worked. What is more, I enlisted critics to review his first two performances and try to get public opinion swayed against That Random Guy. However, I discovered that public opinion is already so adverse to the musical rampages of That Random Guy that it isn’t actually possible to make them any more so. So – and I hate to say this – but we have to go through another week of this carnage.

The third and fourth pieces on the program were the Grave from the Sonata in A Minor by Bach and the Gigue from the Partita in E Major by Bach. As you might know from earlier emails, Bach is known for writing a very famous set of six sonatas and partitas for the solo violin. These works are the bedrock of the violin repertoire. You might be wondering why I chose to perform two seemingly random movements from two entirely different sonatas. The logic behind choosing these two works was based on wanting to give the audience an appropriate taste of the breadth of Bach’s violin compositions. I felt that they showcased the two broad characteristics of the sonatas as a whole – on one hand majestic and brooding, on the other hand light-hearted and expressive. I also took into consideration the fact that, in a recital, there isn’t usually time for a long fugue or chaconne and listeners are more apt to enjoy shorter samplings.

I thought it might interest you to hear a bit about how I prepare Bach’s music for a performance. While not extremely demanding on the technical side, Bach’s music is extraordinarily difficult to play at a high level. The solo violin is alone and exposed, the chords Bach writes can sometimes be gnarly, and the purity of sound that his music requires is next to impossible. The violin must imitate a harpsichord, organ, lute, choir, and trumpet at different points (all of which were instruments commonly used in Bach’s day). Above all, the sound that is created must be completely free of tension. This requires that the musician’s body be completely free of tension, which is a lifelong task that only a few of the greatest legends have every accomplished. I have found that the best way to attack Bach’s music is in stages, with each stage lasting about four to six weeks (although I’ve spent months in one stage before, particularly on some of his very long Fugues. The first stage is, of course, learning the notes and mastering the technical aspects of the piece. One of the primary focal points in this process is the transitions between notes, which should be a seamless as possible. The goal is to have a sound like a laser – never-ending and constantly full. Each transition, particularly when going from one large chord to another, is analyzed and practiced in order to connect the sound perfectly. In the end, every single note in the piece is programmed into your muscle memory so that the sound becomes as seamless as possible. This stage also requires training the left hand to fit around the chords and notes in the most efficient way possible, a process that requires slow, careful practice and a merciless ear for proper intonation. The second stage involves removing the body from the music. In short, I literally lift my head off of the instrument, removing any possibility for tension throughout the neck and shoulders, and practice every nook and cranny of the piece in this way. Then I remove the thumb on my left hand to eliminate any possibility of tension in my fingering hand and repeat the process. This is a tedious process, but purity of sound is only possible when the body is totally relaxed. The third and final step is the fascinating mental component of “pre-hearing,” as I call it. This process is the longest and most difficult (but also the most rewarding) aspect of learning any piece. It begins by taking only a single measure and hearing it in your head. I challenge myself to hear every single millisecond of the phrase – every transition from note to note, every nook and cranny that can be filled with sound, the perfect intonation of every chord and note, the movement and direction of the phrase as a whole, the interplay of mini and half phrases amidst the larger phrase, and much, much more. I usually have to hear each measure over 20 times in order to mentally walk through every possible aspect of it. Each time I hear the measure in my head, I attempt to play that measure exactly as I heard it. This usually takes multiple attempts as well. Perhaps you can now see how I could practice for ten hours a day and only make it through a few bars of a Bach sonata. This process then grows to hearing the entire phrase and trying to play that. In the end, the goal is to be hearing – ahead of time – the music that you are about to play while simultaneously playing the music that you just mentally interpreted. This is the true meaning of musical interpretation – not some ethereal emotionality that stems from a superficial sense of “beauty,” but a deep understanding of every single aspect of the piece that has tested every possibility and has the capability to do anything with the music. In this way, a musician truly can perform Bach with a completely different interpretation every single day.

The process above is one that most musicians have not grasped. I was blessed to be able to catch a glimpse of it. The great violinists of the past – Heifetz, Oistrakh, Milstein, Kreisler, etc – could do this kind of in-the-moment interpretation without even thinking. Today’s violinists are sadly less capable, and only a few can truly do this (Hilary Hahn, Augustin Hadelich, Leonidas Kavakos, and Ray Chen are definitely worth listening to). All too often, Bach is played like Brahms (a broiling pot of emotional madness) or Telemann (a tinny and disconnected washout), so avoid listening to musicians like Anne-Sophie Mutter, Shomo Mintz, Ilya Gringolts, and others like them.

Enjoy!

T

Believe me, I know how hard it was. Our last music email was downright _____________ (insert descriptive phrase that best describes your agony after listening to the random guy’s first piece). As far as I know we haven’t lost anyone, but there were a couple close calls. Since then, I’ve stuck up for all of you. I tried to convince That Random Guy to let us live in peace and not subject us to another ear-splitting performance, but he would have none of it. So we’re still here, and we’re going to have to band together and rely on our collective strength to make it through another week. In the interest of our survival, here are a few recommendations that might make your listening experience less painful:

– utilize 3 pairs of ear plugs. In each ear.

– execute whatever leg stretch is most physically painful to you to get your mind off of the painful music.

– play death metal rock and roll in the background at a decibel level sufficient to break the glass in your neighbor’s living room windows.

– purchase a pack of rabid hyenas and let them loose on each other as soon as the piece starts.

– imitate Louis Zamperini in Unbroken and hold a 200-lb log over your head in order to distract yourself from the carnage.

The piece you’ll be listening to this week is the first movement of the Concerto No. 3 in G Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was the second piece on the program I played on June 4th. I’ll keep the description brief and simply mention a few nuances for you to listen for. Mozart’s music, characterized by delicacy, tastefulness, and lightness, is at is best in his violin concerti. Listeners are treated to a lovely display of Mozart’s amazing ability to create action and serenity at the same time. Delicate turns, intricate phraseology, and lines that sing like a songbird are all regular occurrences in the violin works of Mozart. When I am playing any of Mozart’s violin concerti, I like to emphasize the interaction between the two as a sort of chamber ensemble rather than the supremacy of the violin solo line (as I might do if playing Brahms or Tchaikovsky’s concerti). There is a lively and quite entertaining conversation happening between the violin and the orchestra that is a delight to follow.

Enjoy!

T

We have a problem. Some random guy has sabotaged our weekly music emails and we are now going to be forced to listen to five consecutive weeks of his music. From what I’ve heard, we’re in for a rough ride. Critics have compared his musical endeavors (some would say “attempts”) to the honking of a shorted horn in a 1960 pink-laminate Model T, the braying of a seizure-prone yearling donkey, the croaking of an aged and irate pond toad, and the intestinal noises supposedly made by hungry Martians, among others. He has been cut from multiple low-ranking orchestral engagements, including the Bottom-Notch Symphony, the Last Resort Philharmonic, and the No-Hope-on-Earth Ensemble. His professional collaborations have been a consistent disaster, as he has only landed one performance – the one you are about to hear – and the audience members were paid (otherwise known as bribed or forced) to attend. And yet here we are, about to listen to the first piece on the program. All I can do is wish you luck. We’ve made it this far, and it has been a great journey. If some of us don’t make it to the other side, we’ll know that you made a valiant effort and were lost in the face of conditions of extraordinary suffering. I wish you well.

In all seriousness, this is the first piece on the program that I played this past weekend at a recital I gave in Columbia, Missouri. You’ll be hearing the Caprice No. 24 by Nicolo Paganini. Paganini was an Italian violin virtuoso – renowned for supposedly having sold his soul to the devil in exchange for unbelievable violin-playing ability –  who wrote 24 Caprices for solo violin. Each caprice showcases a different skill on the instrument, and the 24th caprice provides a taste of all of them in one caprice – fast runs, left-hand pizzicato, four-note chords, spicatto, arpeggios, tenths, and more. The caprice is structured in a variations format. You can hear the initial melody in the first variation, and each variation after that builds on it. This piece provides a perfect sampling of the legendary skillset of the great Nicolo Paganini.

****If you listen to other recordings of this caprice, you’ll see that I composed my own ending to the piece. Hopefully Paganini won’t mind too much 😉

Enjoy!

T

Our music for this week is the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach.

(This is Glenn Gould’s recording of the variations, which is widely regarded as one of the best performances ever to be played on the piano).

The famous variations got their iconic name when a Russian noble visited Leipzig and asked Bach to train his court pianist Goldberg how to become a more accomplished keyboard player. Bach eagerly complied and turned Goldberg into an impressive performer, and the Russian noble extended a gift to Bach in the form of a golden goblet filled to the brim with gold coins. As it turned out, the Russian noble was prone to frequent sleepless nights and long bouts of insomnia. He later wrote to Bach asked that he write some music that would help him to fall asleep. Bach managed to carve out some time over the course of that year to write the variations that we now know as the Goldberg variations, named after the pianist for whom they were intended.

The variations are the epitome of Baroque compositional style in every way. As usual with Bach, the structuring and layout of the work is amazing, even to the point of being unfathomable. All 32 variations are built on the same bass line, which happens to have exactly 32 notes. Every single opening Aria contains a different iteration of this bass line, each time with a new form of embellishment, so that the listener always thinks that (s)he is hearing a new melody when in fact Bach is just continually recycling the original theme. Every three Arias is written in a canon format, while every 9th Aria is a canon with an added fugue in the tenor line. (The number 3, representing the Holy Trinity, appears everywhere in Bach’s music). Bach appears to have also woven a different German folk tune into the harmonic texture of every 9th Aria, apparently just for the fun of rubbing his overwhelming genius in our face yet again. We see the number 3 again in the way the types of movements are structured; the pattern always starts with a fugue, continues with a toccata, and finishes with a canon. However, Bach was also able to work into the music a structure of harmonic elements based on the meter of the work, which has 4 beats for every measure. Every variation can therefore also be divided perfectly into 16-bar phrases, which also have identically harmonized 4-bar sub-phrases, and this exactitude continues throughout all 32 variations. Not only that, but the entire set of 32 is divided in half, giving us two 16-variation sections, each of which are grouped in melodic sub-groups of 4. To top it all off, the structure of the variations is so perfectly organized that Bach was able to end each melodic sub-group of 4 variations with a key that harmonically leads directly into the key of the opening Aria of the next set of 4. And remember, he did this for 32 variations in a row – all while showcasing the full virtuosic capacity of the pianist through multiple hand-crossing passages and numerous running lines and while continuing to juggle his daily duties of composer, conductor, teacher, singer, organist, and father of 18 children. This is just one example of the absolutely staggering genius of J.S. Bach.

Enjoy!

T

Hello all,

Chopin wrote a series of 24 preludes for the piano, somewhat reminiscent of Paganini’s 24 caprices for violin. Each of the preludes is in one of the 24 keys that exist in the Western tonal system of music, and each one represents a different thought or emotion (although Chopin inexplicably never attached names or titles to any of the preludes). It is thought that Chopin wrote his etudes as homage to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier or his collection of 48 preludes for piano. However, Chopin departed from Bach’s precedent in one particularly important aspect: whereas Bach’s preludes were written in every key in ascending order of semitones (A, A sharp, B, B sharp, C, C sharp, etc.), Chopin wrote his preludes in a pattern called the “circle of fifths.” In this pattern, he would write one prelude in a major key (G Major) and write the following prelude in the relative minor key of that key (E Minor). Every prelude, then, was either a new major key or the relative minor of the previous key (C Major – A Minor, F Major – D Minor, etc.). Some scholars, therefore, have hypothesized that these preludes were never actually meant to be played in order, as is the usual practice, but rather played as individual precursors to larger works in that particular tonal center.

At the time of their composition, these etudes were somewhat controversial. Most of Europe was still making the transition from the Classical era (Mozart and Beethoven) into the Romantic era (Chopin and Liszt), and the short, improvisational nature of Chopin’s etudes pushed the boundaries of the current public perception of acceptable music. However, over time they have become some of the most well-loved and popular pieces ever written for the piano.

Enjoy!

T

Our music for this week is “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba,” the overture to Handel’s oratorio “Solomon.”

“Solomon” is based on the life of the Biblical character King Solomon and is taken from the books of 1st Kings and 2nd Chronicles. The music we hear represents the bustling of Solomon’s court in preparation for the queen’s arrival. The queen actually arrives later in Act III, but the overture has become one of Handel’s most famous melodies. In fact, it was played as the opening theme of the 2012 London Olympics.

Handel spent much of his life pursuing the Italian opera format, a genre he desperately wanted to introduce to his hometown of London. However, he was forced to give up after realizing that it simply wouldn’t catch on, as evidenced by the meager paychecks his operas brought in. He therefore switched his focus onto oratorios, a much more socially acceptable genre to the stuffy aristocrats of 18th-century England. It was also convenient because it allowed Handel to portray drama without actually putting characters on stage; this was important because here was a law in London during his lifetime that prohibited the representation of biblical characters through acting.

This overture is about as Baroque as it gets. As the opening to Act III, the primary theme is stately and broad, merging from a dotted rhythm to a fugue format. (Apparently, Handel received significant criticism for this theme when it was first performed because it was so remarkably similar to one of his contemporaries’ melodies that people thought he had copied it. Given his notorious reputation as a “borrower” of music, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had indeed purloined the melody from his colleague). The woodwinds are featured in conversation with the strings, and the melody is traded back and forth between instruments on a regular basis. Simple, precise, Baroque.

Enjoy!

T

Hello all,

The piece we will hear is “The Swan of Tuonela” by Jean Sibelius. This work falls under the category of tone poems, as it is based on the mythology of the culture it stems from. In this case, it was the Finnish heritage of Sibelius, in particular the Legend of Kalevala, that inspired the music that you’ll hear. The legend, in short, is the story of Lemminkainen, the hero, who journeys through the realm of the dead to kill a sacred swan. Sibelius’ music flatly ignores the hero of the story and focuses instead on the graceful and transcendent movements of the swan as it glides through the waters of the underworld.

The orchestration of the piece is normal except for the inclusion of the English Horn, which is a relatively rare instrument in the orchestral repertoire and one that isn’t played by very many people. However, in this work, it is the English Horn that represents the swan and carries the most memorable and well-known melody. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble picking out the melody when it appears, so I’ll leave it to you to simply enjoy the music 🙂

Enjoy!

T

P.S. If you have any composers or styles of music that you would like to hear more from, let me know and I’ll send some out 🙂

Our series for the viola continues with the Potpourri for Viola by Johnann Hummel.

The best recording out there is one made by my sister, but since the formatting of that recording makes it impossible to attach to an email, this one will suffice.

There isn’t much out there on this piece of music. It is almost never programmed by professional orchestras and occurs most often in student recitals. However, despite being rarely performed, it is nonetheless a staple in most violists’ repertoire.

You’ll hear a few bits and pieces of a Mozart opera sprinkled in among the faster passages, as well as a few random Rossini Overtures. They aren’t from any of Mozart or Rossini’s famous works, such as “Don Giovanni” or “The Barber of Seville,” so I wouldn’t expect anyone to be able to pick them out (I certainly wasn’t able to!). However, you can hear very clearly the stylistic imprint of both Mozart and the early-Romantic era opera writers like Rossini. These touches lend a wonderful, carefree sense of lightness to the work. Perhaps it is this lightness, as well as its inexplicable delegation as a student-recital piece, that led to it being called “Hummel’s salon composition.” In other words, this was the piece that Hummel wrote for casual, light-hearted background music in salons and restaurants.

Enjoy!

T