Here it is, the entry about the Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major I mentioned two weeks ago. Of all the violin literature out there, this piece is the most inspiring to me in its attainability for the musician, its accessibility for the audience, and the pure joy of its themes. Beethoven's music in general is usually quite uplifting, and I look forward to beginning work on his Choral Fantasy in a week at the rehearsals of the community chorus with which I sing.
Once upon a time I actually used the first movement of the violin concerto as the basis of my master's thesis, which was a dissection of the technical aspects of the music in order to create exercises to learn the solo part more easily. In other words, I took the hard parts and broke them down and made up ways to practice them. Too many years later, I find that I can still more or less play the whole first movement (up until the cadenza, at least), with some skill even in these currently mostly unused fingers. I think that, for my 40th birthday, which looms ever nearer on the horizon, I will promise myself that I will continue working on this piece (maybe even the more difficult 3rd movement) with the eventual goal of performing it in some respect. Ack. Those words look scary in writing!
Here's the dreamy Joshua Bell playing the first part of the first movement (visit here, here, here, and here for the rest of the concerto--listen to the last one if you only have time for one more). Take a listen, and see if you can understand why it moves me so!
1 comment:
That was awesome! And I could hear all the potential "exercises" in there. You must play those for me some day!
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