Interesting week - my first experience with the Martinu Viola Concerto
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| Posted on June 18, 2016 at 17:41:34 | ||
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Posts: 26483
Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012 |
I got a call this past Monday asking me if I could make a recording on Friday (yesterday) of the Martinu Rhapsody Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (piano reduction). I'd spent about 10 minutes of time reading through the first movement of this work with another violist about a year ago, and that was my total experience with it. I explained this to the caller, who was undeterred by the fact that I didn't know the piece. It turned out that the caller was a violist whom I had previously accompanied, starting when she was only 9 years old, but I hadn't heard from her for a few years. Time flies and she's now in her third year at Julliard - I had very good memories of our musical experiences together (we once performed at a Marin County Board of Supervisors meeting, where they temporarily halted the proceedings for our performance), and, against my better judgment, I accepted her request to learn the Martinu, and got down to work learning/practicing the piece. She came over the next night for a rehearsal, even though I had warned her that I was bound to be, as they say, under-practiced. But a funny thing happened: about an hour before she came over, much of the concerto kind of snapped into place for me, and I sensed that she was not displeased with the rehearsal. The problem with this piece (as with so many of Martinu's works) is that it has all these places with irregular syncopation which defeat the performer's application of a mental pattern to the music, so (at least speaking for myself) one has to be alert to the rhythm in a way that doesn't apply to a lot of other classical repertoire. Martinu's harmony is pretty straightforward, but he adds a lot of "color" notes to it, and he has one cadence (I'd describe it as a subdominant seventh with an added sixth resolving to a tonic triad) which he throws in to a large number of his compositions. It's almost a cliche, and my wife laughs when this cadence makes an appearance (or several!) in many of Martinu's works - it's a tell-tale sign that he was the composer! There are a lot of these cadences in this concerto too, although we cut out most of them, since they occur mostly in the long orchestral introduction and interludes. (The purely orchestral portions are normally cut for competitions, unless it's the finals of the really big-name competitions.) Anyway, we made the recording (it was a video too) yesterday (five takes on the first movement and three takes on the second movement - no editing allowed within each movement), and I must say that, although it was far from perfect, it did not turn out badly at all. I asked the violist the purpose of the recording and she mentioned that it was an entry to get into a viola competition in Thailand. (Hey, man - this is the viola world and they have to take what they can get!) She said she would let me know if there's a webcast of the competition, and I'll post a note here if I get this information. She has some videos on uTube (her name is Hiyaka Komatsu), but they're performances from when she was in high school, participating as part of various high-school chamber ensembles, and they're not recorded well in any case. I hope she gets in to the competition - I consider her an excellent player and very deserving.
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| RE: Interesting week - my first experience with the Martinu Viola Concerto, posted on June 18, 2016 at 18:31:24 | |
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Posts: 10583
Joined: April 12, 2002 |
OT- Something you might like!
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| That's a great picture of Martinu [nt], posted on June 18, 2016 at 18:56:04 | |
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Posts: 795
Joined: January 16, 2009 |
nt
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| 4th degree of scale - i.e. F is the subdominant of a C major scale. nt, posted on June 18, 2016 at 20:17:08 | |
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nt
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| Any luck?, posted on June 19, 2016 at 09:10:30 | |
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Posts: 10583
Joined: April 12, 2002 |
Sorry, I thought the Link went directly to the example. It's Very clever and informative!
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| Shouldn't you-know-who-ey have the final say?, posted on June 19, 2016 at 14:11:06 | |
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| jdaniel - you're very naughty sometimes! [nt] ;-), posted on June 19, 2016 at 19:45:17 | |
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Posts: 26483
Location: SF Bay Area Joined: February 17, 2004 Contributor Since: February 6, 2012 |
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| Well, try these..., posted on June 20, 2016 at 09:23:35 | |
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Posts: 10583
Joined: April 12, 2002 |
https://www.facebook.com/ComposerIgorTkachenko/videos/vb.384161965117500/517968268403535/?type=2&theater
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| and switch to Full Screen. nt, posted on June 20, 2016 at 09:24:57 | |
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Posts: 10583
Joined: April 12, 2002 |
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