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The Scherzo of Schumann's 2nd Symphony: Playing it in youth orchestra -- suggestions on how to learn this well, especially the Scherzo?From James Keene I have been feeling particularly pressured to learn it well, not only by the impending arrival of our concert date, but also by something that happened today... Our violin section had a masterclass at Curtis from one of the orchestral violin teachers there and he said that the Scherzo is required basically in all pro orchestral auditions. Therefore, knowing that most of you are pro players, I hope that you will help me! (There are several other 1sts from my same orchestra on this board, so they will benefit as well.) Please feel free to be as detailed as you want in fingerings and everything becuase it will all be used and appreciated. Thank you.
From Gabriel Wong
William Preucil has a CD called "Orchestral Excerpts for Violin" in which he gives pointers for some of the most common excerpts for orchestral auditions, including the Schumann Scherzo. I found it quite useful and it gave me some other ideas on how to play the excerpts.Posted on April 5, 2004 at 08:06 AM He gives some fingerings and other useful suggestions. My impression about the Scherzo is that people generally try to play it way too fast. It's marked 144 to the quarter, but often it gets messy because people can't play it comfortably at that speed. My very first time auditioning for an orchestra, I played the Scherzo at 138, and although it doesn't sound much slower, it certainly felt slower (and hence I played better).
From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on April 6, 2004 at 04:06 AM have to confess I not only nveer played this for an audition , but never played it period. Hah! However, I think there are a few things we can do in a) our actual playing and b) pracitce to make this kind of stuff more maneagable. First of all, learn to move the fingers faster within a slow tempo and then building up to speed creates the feeling of more space to work in. Then make sure you know the even positons better than the odd ones! this makew orchestral playing a lot easier. If you are pracitcing slowly use the finger presure associated with the actuall speed not one that you would use in a slower passage. Finally, the ability to handle this kind of passage is based on condensing as many notes as possible into a single mental action. In this way, although the music is shooting all over the place the brain is firing leisurely coooamnd swhile mentally reviewing last nights edition of Friends. So, instea d of laborious slow practice that in itself is actually meaningless (unless you are a manic Swede ) practice achunk getting it fatser and faster with the metronome.b In a while it will appear to be the product of a single mentla command. Now do the same with a few more chunks. Then repeat the procedure combining the small chunks until the progresisvely bigger chunks appear to be single units of thought, Cheers, buri From David Lee
You know James, I know exactly what you mean. Except I know the answer. Hold the bow strong, lift the bow half an inch above the string, look like you know what you're doing, and then just flap your arm back and forth. haha actually I'm sweating this piece too. As for the audition, say that you had bad experiences with this piece and when they tell you to shut up and play, pass out. Well seeing how fast I'm learning this piece, that seems like the best solutions I can come up with. Man the scherzo is a killer lol.
Posted on April 6, 2004 at 04:45 AM From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on April 7, 2004 at 12:02 AM just pumping up with coffee at 4.30 this morning and i remembered I actually have a copy of this in a book of orchestral excerpts (Schott Orchestral Prpobespiel) so I sweated a little blood for about ten secnds before getting rather rbored. For what it`s worth I think there are two basic areas to think about in the piece. First, are you going to choose the bowing probelm or left hand dififculty. That is, a rapid change of position may make bowing easier , or a rapid string crossing may make the left hand easier. This point is important because if you are stuck on one passage it might help to switch your preference one way or another. My edition favors difficult left hand but I suspect I would be more inclined to stay as low a s possible and go with diificult bowing. At the speed everything is so light who cares if the bow doesn`t actually touch the stirng... Second, the real problem is simply coordination. Sometims it helps to state the obvious. The reason I say this is that the most fundamnetal coordination exercise I know begins with the premise that -the left hand is always slow.- That is crucial. So you play the first note andthe second in a slur. Then the second and third in a slur, then the 3rd and 4th in a slur and so on. By doing this you are forcing yourself to make the left hand change before hte bowing chnage. You just keep repeating this procedure with the metronome until you are off the end of the scale. It is that simple. As far as the fingerings are concerned, ther e are not too many options but, if my edition is anything to go by you really do need to play around and even upgrade to the 21st century. Thus, in my edition, the last three 16ths of bar 6 are aleap into third posiiton.Then we go back into first on the second half of bar seven then back into third on the last 16th of bar 7. Why bother? If you are in third then do a nifty little backward extension with the first finger on the 7th 16th (bflat) of bar seven and you save yourself a position change. You might be a little off but nobody is going to notice and it saves you a couple of major jumps. Incidentally, the same technique appears in the first movement of the Schubert G minor Sonatina in the second nasty semi quaver passage (half way dowb page 2....) Finally I would keep in mind how you want to look and feel when you play this. The absolute avoidence of unnecessary energy expenditure is crucial. Basically you want to take out all body movements, desparate strivings etc and just waggle your fingers a bit, Cheers, Buri From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on April 7, 2004 at 03:31 AM corse, the other way to practice it now I have had enouhg coffee is to play evry two notes involved in a string crossing as a doube stop the length of an 8th note. In this way left and right hand are trained to work corectly at thes ekey moments, You might also pracitce in groups of three instea dof four... Whatever. Cheers. Buri From Dumitru Lazarescu
Well, there are many ways to skin a cat... So to speak. This Scherzo is considered by many as one (if not the) hardest pieces written for orchestral repertoire. I strongly believe that you must master all the difficult shifts in this piece. I have played it both ways, with many string crossings (so I avoid jumping shifts) or with big shifts in place. I favor the shifts over the string crossings simply because having major string crossings make for uneven sounding passages, unwanted accents and so on. One also needs good fingerings and many, many days, months of practicing slow, with rhythmical deformations, even starting with the reverse bowing. Another thing to do is to practice slow and with the same amount of bow you would play at higher speeds. Practice with the bow on the strings and not off. When you'll learn well the excerpt your right hand will relax and will allow the bow to start playing off string without you forcing it to do so. Relaxing your right hand wrist is a must.
Posted on April 7, 2004 at 05:36 AM From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on April 7, 2004 at 11:47 AM thanks for contributing Dumitru. My intention with this list is to just keep skinning cats until othe r people respond a we end up with a taxidermist's paradise. I think the Schumann is actually one of those pieces where every practice technique ever invented is valid . Not gonna agree with you that is one of the hardest in the repertoire yet though. I have made a pratt of myself in Mozart too often ;) Cheers, Buri From Christian Afonso
I don't know this piece, but out of curiosity, how much harder than the first mvt. of his 4th Symphony is it? That one's a nasty piece already.
Posted on April 7, 2004 at 01:52 PM From Stephen Brivati
Greetings,Posted on April 7, 2004 at 11:50 PM it lead sone to suspect that had Schumann not been born there would be a lot more smiley faced violnists around, Cheers, Buri From James Keene
Thank you so much everybody for your responses! All the fingerings, tips and ideas help tremendously. I'm getting there with the Scherzo...
Posted on April 8, 2004 at 12:57 PM From Stephen Brivati
Greeitngs,Posted on April 9, 2004 at 03:31 AM my last suggestion is that you tune the violin down a semi tone and then simply omit all the accidentals, Cheers, Buri (I found this procedure written on the bottom of Mattias` old socks) From Dumitru Lazarescu
Greetings, Buri...Posted on April 9, 2004 at 03:26 PM I agree totally with you when it comes to Mozart! I know that his concerti as well as symphonies are hard to play in a flawless manner. Everything is heard one hundred percent and the smallest inconsistency becomes a major event. But I still consider Schumann 2nd. hard to accomplish and one of the toughest excerpts out there, outside some Wagner, Bartok and some Strauss. You're right when it comes to developing your own style of practicing the Schumann. That's what worked for me and helped with playing it well even when asked to play it 'cold' (withouth any prior knowledge, in my most recent audition). But that's yet another cat on the way to the taxidermist. By the way, does anyone know why the word 'taxi' is used here? Any relation to 'stuffing' something? :) Dimitri |
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