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| [a] Full-bodied RF |
If you spent a little time with our "bronze" medal winners on Tuesday, you know a thing or two already about Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major. As the venerable Itzhak Perlman notes in one of the links, the piece is "uncomfortable." The soloist is never completely in control. That is one of the reasons that it has been so difficult, and such a challenge, for soloists over the last thirteen decades. Even the "respites" require either a quick hanky to the upper lips and brow or a transition to Tchaikovsky's surprisingly nuanced passages. It's thirty-five minutes of focus, with nothing more than a fifteen-second "timeout" (while the "game" is still going on in the background).
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| [b] Bow-guys RF |
It's like a world-class 10K...and a 3,000-meter steeplechase on top of it (that would be the finale).
Soloists have been remarkably eloquent in discussing the concerto. No one says "kein Problem," but those who reach the top of their profession also dare not say no mas.
Instead, they struggle.
As we learned yesterday, that is the focus of these posts—how hard the Tchaikovsky violin concerto makes you work. While this can be said for any major solo in the classical repertoire (I have seen haggard-yet-exquisite outcomes of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Beethoven, Sibelius, and others...and we're just talkin' violin). Oh, and I "get" that it might be seen as mere metabolism, and that big guys like David Oistrakh will gush a little harder than a little 150 (or 105) pounder.
Yes, I get "metabolism." Has anyone seen me after a lecture? Oh, I get it.
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| [c] Abmühen RF |
It's not just the metabolism of heft. You see, Tchaikovsky makes everyone struggle, and that is the point of this series of posts.
Let's start with Janine Jansen. I'll let the cat out of the bag, and tell you right now that she is one of our two silver medalists. She doesn't even pretend to say that David Oistrakh (and others) are sweaty because they're big guys. She has practiced the concerto; she knows that there is more to it than than a few big-guy sweat glands and an overheated auditorium. Note what she says in this brief interview. Not only is it "quite a tricky piece," but "it grabs you from the first note, and takes you on a journey...a very meaningful journey..."
We start our silver medal presentations with more guy-sweat. The difference is that we have made a subtle shift in the way that we (I speak of the RSQ editorial board) are presenting the strain, the labor, the toil (the sweat) of Tchaikovsky's piece. At the very least, Monsieur Bell is several stone lighter than King David (Oistrakh)...or Gitlis or Menuhin. If you didn't pick it up from the end of yesterday's post, the real theme of this series is the incomparable German word abmühen.
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| [d] Different strings für...RF |
Abmühen. Got it?
It is just short of untranslatable...but it is the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. It is a word that (at least to my amateur gaze) combines sweat, toil, exertion, and a little pain. Oh, and struggle...as in struggling to stay in control of a violently disparate combination of adagio, allegro, and oh, so much toil (Churchill would have used the word if English had anything quite like it been available—oh, and yes, I understand the painful irony.
So let's look at toil from different silver-medal-winning perspectives. Two things had better be apparent by now. First, there are so many exquisite performances (Julia Fischer, Isaac Stern, Jascha Heifetz...I could go on and on) that you must know that this is not really about awarding "medals." It's about essaying...about the toil. Got it? Second, it's not all guys, and not by a long shot. Stay with it.
Our first silver medal goes to Joshua Bell, from his solo at the 2010 Nobel Prize concert in Stockholm. Bell begins his performance in utter control—and ends it that way, too. It is masterful. The only difference from our previous incomparable recordings is that he is utterly soaked—like walking down a Seattle street—as he plays the finale. It's a control that is stunning, and he pays the price. He is a sweaty mess, yet we reap enormous rewards as we watch. His intensity, right through to the finish, is a thing of humid beauty.
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| [e] Fervid RF |
Josh Bell is not a big guy; the concerto is, though.
How could I not love sweaty, fervid, intense Joshua Bell?
But then I found an added layer. Lest you think that we are going to look at man-sweat for three straight posts, well, think again. Our next performer not only played it, but broke a string and got her hair caught in the bow. If you watch Janine Jansen, you can see "work," "toil," and "abmühen" in a different way.
There's no sweating, but die Haare fliegen...
Just a few quick examples will have to suffice, but I am certain that they will show that abmühen isn't all about man-pores. Look at Jansen's approach at 29:10 and following. She is in contact with the conductor, but the piece is hers. This entire sequence (to the end of the brief second movement) shows a different kind of "work." Look at her pursed lips, her intensity, and her full body effort to pry Tchaikovsky's notes from the text and send them hurtling into auditory orbit.
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| [f] Three sheets to the (wood) winds RF |
Got that? Now watch the finale. No, really, just take the time and watch it. The hair (human, horse—I speak of bowstrings—and fur—I speak figuratively) will fly. Start watching at about 32:00. The intensity really picks up at 34:30, and catches (or loses) a hair at 34:49. And now keep watching that bowstring with the flying "hair" all the way through the curtain calls (she must have removed it backstage at some point). I have never seen anything (not even Josh Bell's sweatin' to the oldies) quite like it. She tore her hair out and rent her bowstrings to plumb every last sound from her tools and talents.
She wears her hair on her bow...all of the way through curtain calls and her beautiful "auch von Tchaikovsky...Die Melodie." The hair flutters in the orchestral winds. Is it a bowstring, or Jansen's hair? You can watch 34:47 to 34:51 endlessly, and I am not sure that you will know (although it is pretty clear if you are obsessive enough).
It is the mystery of the concerto.
Tchaikovsky will do that to you.
And now, on to the gold.
Click here for other posts in this Round and Square mini-series:
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Saturday, 22 February 2014
Erlangen 91052—Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major (Gold Medal)
There is one champion, and she not only explains the concerto (auf Deutsch, no less), but plays it with such exquisite passion that I recall brilliant actors playing King Lear. She's that good.
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| [g] Swirling RF |
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