But I keep thinking how short life is, and who cares what I write on the Internet? It fades into insignificance so quickly -- it's like I never wrote a thing at all.
Anyway, my seat at the concert was right behind the percussion section -- and this on an evening they were doing the 1812 Overture. You can imagine the state of my eardrums this morning.
We were thinking we were about to sing when all of a sudden the band of the Coldstream Guards appeared behind us and played an introductory piece. It was so cool.
Wish you all could have been there. We sang some of my mother's favorites like Panis Angelicus. And the very last piece was the 1812 Overture, and they let off real fireworks in the Albert Hall. I have never seen anything like it. Fireworks bursting over our heads in the concert hall. We were stunned into silence then burst into happy applause.
Also, Sarah Chang played the violin last night. She was wonderful. Here she is:
18 comments:
Well done to all for a job very nicely done tonight. Both Jonathan Schiffman and Darren Henley, the Managing Director of Classic FM, told me afterwards that they were delighted with our contribution, and of course the audience loved it. You will be able to hear the concert on Classic FM on Wednesday 30 September at 9pm. We have a rehearsal that night, but it will be available for seven days on http://www.classicfm.com/listenagain .
What was the point of having all those other people when Sarah Chang was there? Well, okay, I can see the point of having those other players as support for the strings in the 1812 Overture, but I have to believe that beyond that this was just an exercise in excess.
Sounds like a complete extravaganza, how wonderful! I'm jealous you have real musical talent, it must be fab.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for breaking my heart so early on Friday morning. Why didn't they let her play alone!
What a fiesty little flirt! Such beautiful, quick little hands, so much passion!
Ordinarily such a haughty display from a woman would make me want to spank her, but I think I'd just put Sarah in the corner with her violin. :)
Marty, you're right. It was complete overkill. It was a concert put on by the top classical radion station in England so it had to be extravagant. Military bands, fireworks, singing groups (a group called the Priests came on to sing too) -- oh well, you shoulda seen the dress Sarah Chang had on - I'll bet she couldn't even sit down. I walked past her dressing room on my way back from the first half and she was receiving all her admirers, and then people were waiting by the Stage Door for her when I left.
That this tiny Chinese girl, who looks like something grades above a princess while she's playing, would choose to play such a powerful masculine, tough old gypsy sounding violin gives me butterflies of anxiety. She plays it like she's in love with it and knows just how to bring it to completeness. At the same time she inspired me to get my fiddle out after months of not opening the case, she leaves me feeling disoriented and a little bit shattered.
I was going a little overboard about the other instruments, maybe, but those other violins sound so thin and intrusive against her, to me they didn't add anything at all and I was wishing they'd be quiet. She was in such fine form.
I wish I'd been there to see her! Oh, btw, you didn't happen to see what kind of shoes she was wearing did you? :)
GW, your voice has changed, and I must assume you are long past adolescence? You do not sound like the Marty of old, and I begin to suspect you are a masquerading presence! Are Madame Free-Thinker's loyal readers being fooled?
Marty is obviously a man of many facets.
A fiddler too! Maybe we can have a performance when we visit Natchez next year...
I remembered that Marty was a fiddler from posts from way back. I guess no one pays close attention to his comments except for me. :)
Well, Mel, if you've had a longstanding envie to hear Suzuki Violin School Violin Part 1 & 2, I just might be able to fix you up with a performance. I've been working on these two books for over ten years- I had planned to be a virtuoso by now but was unable to conquer my self-doubt and I was unable to approach the project with the kind of discipline required.
My first violin was a child's viola, but neither I nor the music store guy that sold it to me knew that (at least I hope he didn't). Though I practice mightily with that little viola I could not make it sound like the violin on the Suzuki Part 1 cd. Since this was not my first musical experience- I'd spent 4 years trying to learn to play the flute, I was finally able to identify the problem. The viola, like my first couple of flutes, was faulty.
So I found out that this company in Vermont would send me violins and let me play them for a couple of weeks if I gave them a credit card number. I played a few of these and they were so much better than my $175 viola/violin I could tell that virtuosity was only a good violin away. I also discovered, to both my delight and dismay, that violins each have a distinct personality and sound. I became a sort of violin whore, falling in love with several. Though I couldn't play any music I could get (sometimes) some clean sound out of them and was happy enough just to listen to them and dream about what might be.
I ended up not getting a violin from the people in Vermont (I have to plug Johnson Strings, they are a great company with very friendly and knowledgeable people). One of theirs I was tempted to buy, it was a dark colored instrument made by a journeyman maker and it had a thrilling dark sound. I still think about this violin sometimes. Another I rejected from them was a Skarstad-Moroz that seemed a bit dead to me.
All this violin whoring made me really lose the intitial fondness I had for the first one, because I realized how cheap and unrefined she was; I could see her stripping in Hustler's Barely Legal in New Orleans, or worse still, in one of those seedy strip joints that lined Hwy. 90 in Houma, La. and catered to oilfield workers- the kind of place I, of course, never entered in search of love.
Unrequieted, I continued my search for the perfect one, and went to a violin shop in New Orleans where I found another Skarstad-Moroz that was better than the first, very loud and strong. There was also another one there, a Moroz Master Instrument and it seemed pretty close to what I wanted- powerful and vibrant and very easy to play, requiring just the lightest touch of the fingers on the fingerboard. I wasn't ready to commit though, because such violins aren't cheap and it wasn't exactly what I wanted. The shop owner happened to know John Moroz very well, and spoke highly of him and related his history to me; I figured that since his early efforts were so good he likely had gotten better a violin making over the years so I hatched a plan; however, that day I bought a $500 dollar Chinese made violin that was actually a pretty good instrument with a nice if soft sound, and very well made. I suspect the parts for it were cut by a CNC router from a very good pattern, but I took it home and was content with it for a bit.
So now I had two violins, the second one a lot better than the first, not least because it was actually a violin and not a viola; I also had an idea.
If you were to listen to the Suzuki cds for the first book the songs are very very simple- it starts with (blush) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, progresses up to the three little minuets Bach wrote (to teach his daughters piano, I think the story goes), and ends with a tricky-but-fun-for the beginner gavotte. As simple as those songs are, they sound wonderful played the way the guy on the cd plays them.
My plan was to learn to play each of those songs perfectly, with the same expression the guy on the cd did. The new violin was so much better, but I knew it was never going to ring the way the one on the cd did, even if I did get to be able to play those songs technically perfect and put some expression into them.
It would not be dramatization to speak of this period as one of anguish and torture, of deep desire to make exquisite music while confronted with the realities of an aging body, lack of musical sense, and at that time a strong tremor in my hands and a too restless mind. I played, with all seriousness, for hours and hours, sometimes exhausting myself and developing what I think must have been chronic tendonitis in the upper right part of my back. I played and played and played to the cd; I played without it, using just the book; I got metronomes and such and learned to scorn them for the way they hampered my musical creativity. I got programs for the computer to train my ears (those things really do work, it's a pity I am too undisciplined to uss them).
Perfection was my goal, nothing less would do. The Suzuki books said students should "master" each song before going on the next one; I betrayed myself and Suzuki, I cheated, daring to rush ahead from Go Tell Aunt Rhody to the Etude on page 25 and Minuet 1 on page 26. There were moments of ecstasy when the intense effort jelled and I would come very close to part of one of these songs the way I envisioned it should be done; there were moments of total despair when nothing worked and I realized I was a clumsy ox who'd set an impossible task. My fingers were raw, my back ached around the clock, I dreamed music and would sometimes have flashes of insight in my dreams that would get me out of bed at 3 in the morning and drive me to try again and again and again. All the things I should have been doing seemed inconsequential compared to this dream of being able to make a violin sound like the guy on the cd could.
I said I left Susan's shop in New Orleans with a violin and an idea. My idea was to have John Moroz make a violin just for me. What if you could order a woman from God?
So, while all this was going on John was making a Skarstad-Moroz for me and when it finally came I was completely delighted, it was much much better than the other two I'd played. The sound had depth and power, I could make it sound (sometimes) like the one on the cd; my lust wasn't satisfied though, I had him make a Model 2. The Model 2 came and it was incredible. I'd taken to trying some Irish fiddle tunes and the Model 2 sounded to me like it was made for that sound (as I perceived it), still I was not satisfied, I wanted more of the Moroz sound, restraint meant nothing to me so I had him make a Master Instrument just for me, and to put Bois de Harmonie fittings on it.
The Master Instrument came and I have to tell you, this is one beautiful instrument. It's perfect, but the other two are as well. It's more perfect though, you just touch the strings to make the notes; the sound comes out of it in layers and it resonates long after you pluck or bow a string. It is sensitive and powerful and oddly enough my idea of perfection brought me back to my senses.
After I got this violin I realized a couple of things. Every beginner who really wants to learn to play should have the best possible instrument. It is a lot easier to tell when you are correctly playing a note on such an instrument because the notes jump out at you when you play them dead on. A violin made by a person who has become a master maker is very easy to play, it invites you to play it and rewards even mistakes with pleasing sounds.
The next important thing I realized was that I would never in this lifetime be able to play that violin the way it is meant to be played. I've come to be ashamed that I own it and the Model 2. The Skarstad-Moroz exceeds my ability and any potential I may have. I haven't touched the other two in a couple of years, but today I am going to get them out and tune them up and see what I think now.
Anyway, that's the way the years have gone for me and violins. Periods of intense activity followed by periods of inactivity. For me it wasn't a simple matter as I first thought it would be because not only did I have to learn to play, I had to learn to learn how to play.
Unfortunately for me, I now realize that playing exquisite music requires serenity. When you play a violin, no matter what it looks like when you see someone else do it, your touch has to be very delicate. To get the best sounds you have to be able to feel the vibrations of the strings through the bow, you have to meld yourself with the vibrations. The fingers of your other hand have to be able to run softly and quickly up and down the fingerboard, little light touches that form the note and give it shape. You really need to start when you are very young, before six, I think, before your mind becomes cluttered with impossibilities and experience of life. Even if you want to play sad, you have to be lighthearted and detached about your sadness. And it is the same with anger; look at Sarah's face, how serene she is even when she is being aggressive and it looks like she is beating her bow on the strings.
I've at times felt deep regret I didn't have a chance to learn to play when I was young; at the same time I realize I would never have wanted to play in an orchestra, I only want to play for the pleasure of it.
I have a violin affliction. I like to tell myself that in place of the impossible dream of virtuosity if I could just play some simple songs really well, well enough to amuse children or anyone else who wanted to hear me play it would be good enough.
When Sarah Chang plays she's telling us something. I'd like to be able to do that too. Sorry for the length of the violin saga. Maybe in my next lifetime it will happen. Until then I'm pretty sure I'll start dreaming music just often enough to make me try again and repeat the whole cycle. I still cannot play even the simplest song perfectly.
I enjoyed your violin affliction story, thanks Marty. Been out all day and am just going to read them more closely as soon as I come back on the pc. Have to get off now so my friend can see her Facebook page.
Thanks for wading through the violin saga, I needed to get that out of my system.
I've had a lovely (and frustrating) time of it since you made this post. My Skarstad-Moroz, which I call gretchen, has, even without me playing, opened up in sound nicely. Even though I haven't played in so many months I still take it with me every time I go to the boat and I think the vibrations of the boat are helping the sound.
I've been pleasantly surprised to learn that I can do some things better than I could ever do them before, and to finally be able to play pianissimo. The truth is, because of former tension in my body I sort of played ff all the time. Something inside me has changed. It doesn't take much to get sound out of these Moroz violins and of course you must be able to manipulate the full range of possible sound to make things sound good. The sound is just sort of waiting to come out; I've tried in the past to make it come out when I should have just let it come out. I am very very happy with my new discovery.
The truth is, I can trace this discovery to the last big duel I had with Lisa on here. I saw something in her that made her seem very human to me, something I never liked in myself but in the end seemed endearing in her and forgiveable in me. Since then I've felt different.
Thanks for instigating all the fun of the last three days, it has been so refreshing to me. I've been playing until I am exhausted, then sleeping and doing it again. I look forward to playing again and that makes me look forward to other things as well. This violin affliction has been a major frustration for me. Here's a secret: violin playing is more mental than physical.
If you talk to Lisa give her my regards. Don't tell her that I think we are more alike than she would be comfortable with knowing. hehe. She doesn't like my psychoanalyzing her. :)
Hi Marty, what a beautiful little essay, thanks! Lisa is one of my Facebook friends so I can try to get your message to her. I'm sure she'll secretly appreciate it even if she doesn't let on. :)
Wow! I wish I could communicate with "GW" (?) about his Moroz violin(s). I am interested in one, as well. I'm an adult beginner studying in Baton Rouge.
Wow! I wish I could communicate with "GW" (?) about his Moroz violin(s). I am interested in one, as well. I'm an adult beginner studying in Baton Rouge.
...and the reason I posted that twice is because the first comment was linked with an old Google account. I wanted to make sure my current one was linked so that I would not miss follow-ups :-)
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