I've been wanting to write a consistent blog for a while now, but that desire hasn't been realized until now! So, you may ask, what is the motivation, the impetus, the prompt for this blog's creation? Well, maybe you weren't going to ask that. That's alright! I'll tell you quickly anyway.
I love music. I especially love orchestral music and anything relating to string instruments. I love how I feel when I listen to music, the theory behind compositions, the way harmonies fit together, the ability some performers have to so clearly convey emotion, the technique, the complexities of intonation, the way a bow looks on a violin string, I love everything about it.
When I was younger, maybe starting when I was 14, my brother Mattias and I (both home schooled at the time) would sit at our clunky old desktop computer in the dining room and spend hours on YouTube watching video after video of classical music performances. We'd memorize the timestamps of our favorite parts, and then go through a dozen violinists and see how they all played that part. We'd re-watch the same five or ten seconds, over, and over, and OVER. Maybe it sounds geeky and dumb, but I don't really care, because for me there are some music moments that just make my jaw drop, eyes go wide, and mind explode as I fall over in my chair and all I can say or think is "THAT'S INSANE".
So... This is going to be a collection of "that's insane" moments. Not my favorite pieces, not my favorite performers, not my favorite composers, zip, zilch, none of that. This will be narrowed down to those few seconds in a piece that, at some point, have elicited a "that's insane" reaction from me.
So... a quick one today because I've already taken up lots of your time!
Fritz Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro - played by violist Lionel Tertis
Lionel Tertis is an absolute LEGEND. I mean, look at him. He and William Primrose revolutionized the viola as a solo instrument (which can be seen as a bad or good thing... I learn towards the latter).
The start of this piece, the "praeludium", if you will, is just straight quarter notes. The whole time. OK so now that that's established, just listen to the first 40 seconds of Tertis' recording.
The amount of phrasing is ABSURD. I mean, nothing about his performance would line up with a metronome. It's so good. He makes this sound like the most expressive passage on earth... even though it's, uh, really not notated that way at all.
My fave part of this is the ascent, starting at 0:23, up to a high C before coming down to a deceptive F-major cadence at 0:30. The harmony is absurd, the phrasing is INSAAAAANE, and the shifting and vibrato are just absolutely unbelievable. Again, the fact that he can make this so expressive, given just quarter notes, is just mind blowing.
TL;DR - Tertis' phrasing, vibrato, and shifting are mind bogglingly good and lead to an insanely beautiful moment in the opening of this piece.
Well... that's all for today folks. If you've read any of this, thank you for your time. If you have any "that's insane" moments, please send them my way, it would make my day. I hope your week is as insanely good as Tertis' phrasing!
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