Updates on the Bridge Making

Today after some after thoughts the other day about the bridge itself, I decided to sand down on more on one side to make it finer like my modelled bridge and appropriate height.  To get the feet all sorted I had to place sandpaper on the belly of the violin and gently sanding till i get the angles for the feet.  I sent progress to local luthier Colin Adamson and he seemed happy with efforts and that its to standard, saying to me “Not bad for a musician”.  (The inner luthier in me is like yaaaaas)

Sp here is the finished look.  (The bridge at this point needed to moved ever so slightly to the right so the bridge was up straight)

It makes such a difference in the sound and I think that will really help in the subtle contrasts I am trying to achieve and for the public showcase.  Will take a bit more slow practice I think to settle myself in with the aural change of sound and I’m thinking it will come across best having a steady tempo on the baroque instrument with it being so temperamental.

The change of bridge at first was something I really didn’t think would change the sound, but with it being such a bright sounding fiddle, the change of having a baroque set up makes total sense for the person who previously had it, with it making the sound so much mellower and sweeter in quality.  Quite excited to here what the differences will be in the ambient conditions of different halls.

Loaded with the cold so hopefully be feeling a bit better for doing brain power work the rest of the week.  Quite happy sanding away and making things, makes me feel I am achieving something by going out and researching and doing the work myself.

Grumiaux and Milstein

Todays comparison of style will be with violinist Arthur Grumiaux and Nathan Milstein who are similar in how they portray what could be regarded as a more modern approach to Bach’s music.  Yesterday I looked at two Baroque specialists and today with two other performers who prefer to capture the feeling of Bach in a more full-on-sound approach.  Due to how the baroque violin was challenged by modern advancement in violin making, recordings from the 1960’s experiment more with this new power which can still bring Bach alive – even if its not using what was used in the day.

Arthur Grumiaux

Nathan Milstein

The Belgian violinist Arthur Grumiaux is considered to be a great violin virtuosi of the twentieth century.  Bringing performances that are technically accurate and sensitive to musical structure.  I believe his style comes across much better in romantic repertoire however, I believe his style is something I could maybe take with a pinch of salt and apply.

(Similarly to Perlman)

American/Russian Violinist Nathan Milstein like Grumiaux is considered iconic in the 20th Century and was known for his recordings of Bach’s solo works (which is why I have picked him) and of his romantic works.  He had a long career until breaking his hand in the 80’s and sadly died 22 years ago, the year I was born.

So with these two figures in mind I decided to focus on the D minor Sarabande from Partita No.2 more closely and took notes on there interpretation and of the qualities I heard in each recording – which will help me further in personal practice in deciding and experimenting with the sound I would like to capture and which I can still bring across the differences and contrasts to the public.

Arthur Grumiaux Sarabande 

• Fuller chords – in comparison to the baroque recordings – they seem to be more powerful throughout and held on.
• Punchy articulation but stroked not staccato – more detached
• The tempo is very fixed in my personal view – he doesn’t play about too much or stretches rhythms – only at cadential areas.
• rit in measure three with the open A-A double stop.
• When the phrases repeat they are much the same – no change in musicality just pushes through – consistent
• There isn’t much dynamic contrast very forte (loud) and very few shaping of crescendo (louder) and diminuendo (softer)
• The rhythms however in the second half (subject) is more contrast unlike the first half of the work.
• Definitely a contrast in sections here.
• He accentuates the first beats of the bar and crescendos into important phrases
• rit on last bar.
• Throughout I feel it is very note heavy meaning you can hear every single note with the same power or pressure making it very clear.
• He doesn’t use much vibrato, only using it on longer notes and important chords – otherwise he doesn’t really use it making it very straight.  Although the vibrato is quite wide in sound quality – trying to romanticise it.
•  In my personal opinion there isn’t much shaping – in contrast to baroque recording from Podger – she shapes continuously by following the lines that Bach wrote – whereas in this example he is clearly thinking about producing a clear powerful sound.
• The sound is beautiful throughout and very powerful portrayal of his music.

Nathan Milstein’s Sarabande

• at the beginning – the opening chords are more held much more than in Grumiaux’s – there is already from the opening phrases the push and pull effect that is characteristic of Baroque music.
• He holds onto harmonic tension and clearly shapes phrases with crescendo and diminuendo – following the line like Podger and Huggett. 
• When he repeats the opening section, the second repeat is much louder and gradually becomes softer second half of the phrases by taking more time by lengthening the bass line note.
• He doesn’t hold so much in measure 3 Grumiaux does
• The second half of the Sarabande is much slower than the first half where this is suggested by the slower trills and accentuation of rhythms.  The music at this point is very rhythmically driven.
• As he has chosen to take time here I feel that the harmony comes alive more.
• Vibrato is shorter and uses it a little more on longer notes.
• He treats the music with that idea of the harpsichord making the lines feel separate
• No rit at end but a diminuendo.

Podger Reflections

A part of my project is to have an awareness of others reflections on performance so I have just been watching Rachel Podger‘s video and listening to some recordings in 415hz pitch.  The video is based on a masterclass with an extract of the Bach Ciaconne from the unaccompanied bach sonatas/partitas in which I wanted to take note of some of the subtlties that I would apply to the Bach piece I choose to perform.

Masterclass Clip

I have decided that I think the Bach Sarabande from the Partita in D – would be really nice to bring to life in the two styles. Due to it being slow – can bring alive the chords and melody line and at the same time apply it to both methods of performance.

So here is some of my notes from what I have watched.

Podger sings the bass line which shows that she is wanting to bring out the bass line but also the melody line – the bass line more prominently so.

She suggests to bring out the chromatic lines – in turn, descending or ascending lines via cadences.  There needs to be a good sense of punctuation in baroque music and a useful technique shown in here is playing it as a duet.

This is perhaps something I could do within my practice and with other participants in the practice process (top line vs the bassline) or in turn separate practice of this in order to bring it out

She suggests the unwritten rule of articulation – which Tartini suggests also in his treatise of ‘lifting’

It is such a natural thing to do in itself, but she explains how the rule is that with intervals close by or stepwise would be played with more legato and that intervals with a bigger gap means she would expect more air in between the notes ie. by lifting the bow and having a break.  This application means the music will come off the page therefore lifting up bows in this example can be applied to the Sarabande.

The bass line should direct the top line – shown by the duet exercise.

“dynamic within yourself” suggests how Rachel wants you to think about how the dynamics are produced by the feeling / expression and the ways to articulate or punctuate on a baroque bow (which can be applied to a modern bow too) is to dip into the string with the bow to articulate and out again.  She also suggests how slur is only an expression and should be strong at the beginning and weaker at the end – Quantz treatise.

She suggests to think about coming away from the resolutions of phrases.

Articulation Rule – is to be strict = lots of character.

I absolutely love Rachel Podger as she applies her baroque knowledge onto modern instruments and experiments with both pitches – despite using her original authentic instrument.  Looking at her varying recordings has been very useful in understanding pitch and the ways to articulate and express this style of music.

Tasks

Feeling a little better, and sorting some of the car-fuffle, so hopefully that’ll just get all sorted over the next few weeks and I can try my best to get some project stuff done and these deadlines completed.

Not long home from doing a mix of necessities and planning for an up and coming wedding for the Quartet, this evening, I have started on looking at the original manuscripts of Bach’s Solo Sonata & Partitas for Violin and just listening to them all the way through to get a feeling of how they each sound and character.

I still haven’t decided what movement/movements I will be doing, as a lot will entail on what I can achieve with mainly

1. Technique
2. Time Constraints

Will be organising a meeting with Gavin, sound engineer very soon (which was meant to happen Monday – but I wasn’t feeling well) and together we will have a discuss on steps and looking at venues and having a chat about what we are both looking for in each other – as we are both doing personal projects.

Hoping to organise some meetings with some professionals through my previous experience with the RSNO team so I hope to get some email responses on that soon and I will have chance to talk with their orchestral librarian later this week.

I really love the G minor Sonata and I have done areas of the D minor Partita, B minor Partita and the E major Partita.  I will look at the strengths of each and summarise my thoughts in the morning.

Next tasks will be to analysis the score in comparison to modern Urtext – which I have ordered – as my current copy of the work I use are in a French style of playing which is relevant to talk about but to capture PURE interpretation – I would prefer the original intentions laid by Bach.

I will look deep into the notation of Bach’s score and compare to the standardisation of notation – this is something I will talk about in dissertation and will influence how I will be able to pull of these pieces.

Summarising my project

Good Morning, thought I would blog today a bit more detail of my project and what I will be looking into for the next few months.  So some of my previous posts were saying how I was indecisive at choosing a topic and I wasn’t really focusing on a subject matter, but now that I have chosen to focus on authenticity, I am now able to do some more detailed posts about what I am looking at in terms of research.

I decided to call my project PlayBach.  All you budding violin players/musicians will be shaking your heads at me thinking, oh my god. However, the purpose of my project is producing recordings which I will playback to people to get a set of results so *cringe* all you like, but it works in what I am trying to do and achieve.  I will be exploring the different styles of performing in relation to Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – in this case I am most likely to use his solo violin Sonatas and Partitas – picking a movement and doing it in two different styles.  So by looking into performance styles I will be able to simulate the sound and the characteristics of Baroque music and will be able to have statistical data to support the idea that there is a preference for musicians and non-musicians in wanting to keep music alive via interpretation rather than pure authenticity.

A big part of my project is having a clear comparison of sound via instruments and access to authentic string instruments is very limited and therefore I will be using my own set up – which is facsimile of baroque set up – where there is an inserted wedge, the fingerboard is thinner, I will be using a baroque bow and manipulate as much traditional technique as possible from my research.  Therefore the end result will show the contrast of instrumentation; using the standardised models – where I will be using a modern copy of a Guaneri – which is in the standardised set up and measurements.  The project isn’t just about the instrument, but also about considering the environment – the space and presentation, suggesting it’s just as much about the building we use as the instrument to show differences of authentic performances, so baroque churches or finding a space that is suitable to bring out the sound as natural as possible.

I will be doing lots of historical/musical research and analysis, collaborating with experts and musicians and non musicians and will need to organise and get involved in creating the audio and video footage/recordings.  I will be hosting listening sessions of the selected Bach pieces and show the results in my dissertation and presentation – there is still some thinking to do and some questions to ask lecturers about this part of the course.

I will be looking into the tension between authenticity and interpretation which means both I and others will gain an understanding of the aesthetics of music and if or how our perceptions have developed since Bach’s time.

Currently trying to write and summarise all this in fancy academic style in my proposal, but I hope what I am trying to achieve will give people a more understanding of the two styles and a deeper appreciation for this kind of music.