August 2009

Natural Musicians

August 4, 2009 03:59

Greetings,

one of the things that made Heifetz so extraordinary was his ability to feel and play in ratios. This uncanny sense of relative pulse gave him the ability to alter tempos , use rubato and make rits and accels in a most musically satisfying way. There is no better example of this uncanny gift to my mind than the ritenuto before the final third of Bazzini`s Ronde de Lutins. Many players play this work more or less as brilliantly as Heifetz but nobody comes near the magic of that one little group of notes.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was biking up a mountain in the early morning. I can actually listen to the birds now since the gasping for oxygen ad throwing up noises have disappeared from my repertoire. I was suddenly blown away by the most amazing chirping. Some lovely varied motifs and then suddenly the most perfect ritenuto one could wish for. A bird who had heard Heifetz or the other way around? Either way it was astonishing. When I got to the top all sounds of nature were utterly obliviated by three old men, hiking independently , who had radios turned on full blast. These echoed around the mountaintops destroying the last efforts of nature to be sane away from the arrant stupidity of mankind. A shame to have grown so old and missed the world completely.

Cheers,

Buri

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