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June 18, 2005 at 10:21 PM

Well, I've kinda finished the first mvmt of Lalo. I mean, I have it down, and can play it well, but I need to keep it under my fingers for masterclasses and auditions in the future. This week, my teacher has me working on the first mvmt of Bruch's Concerto No. 1 in g minor. Hopefully, she will be satisfied with my practice this week, and let me move on to the second mvmt next week. Bruch is not technically challenging. The hardest part is getting the type of sound you want. So many times have I had to stop myself and say, this is not the way this note should sound.

My etude for this week is Kreutzer 9, which was a pain to play. My left hand kept cramping up half-way through, but now, after a few days, I can actually go through the entire thing, from start to finish (but I still have some things to fix).

I have been spending a lot of time this week trying to relax my bow arm. I went through a few past Kreutzer exercizes that focus on the left hand, and that has really helped.

I bought a CD of Bruch, played by Joshua Bell. I had never heard him play, but I felt like giving him a chance. However, I WAS hoping to find a CD at Border's of the Heifetz playing the Bruch Concerto, but Bell and Menuhin were the only two I found, and I chose Bell because I don't really like Menuhin.

Anyways, the CD has Bruch 1, Mendelssohn in e, Mozart 3, Mozart 5, and Adagio in E and Rondo in C by Mozart.

I don't like Josh Bell's interpretation of Mozart. I prefer Perlman. But, Bell does a great job on Mendelssohn and a pretty good job on Bruch.

A lot of my friends are gone to youth orchestra camps this summer. Patrick went to one at UGA, and so did Megan and Lauren, a few weeks back, and now Patrick is going to Pennsylvania for two weeks for some camp there. Brian is with Buckhead Youth Symphony orchestra in Mexico! I have no idea want there are playing down there, but I'm sure it involves some heavy, under-age drinking.

And I still need to figure out which youth orchestra I am going to audition for this coming year. I have three to choose from: ASYO, MYSO, and BYO...

I would get a higher chair in MYSO or Buckhead than I would in the ASYO. But, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra has the "snob appeal" (haha) as my teacher calls it.

I have friends in all three youth orchestras. I think my teacher wants me to audition for MYSO, because they are going to so ewhere in the far East as their summer trip. I know that the ASYO, this year, went to Berlin, and played with the youth orchestra affiliated with the Berlin Philharmonic.

and Buckhead Youth Orchestra is going to Mexico.

ASYO, BYO, and MYSO all have professional string players from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that are in charge. But, from the violinists that I have talked to that have auditioned and noy made it into the ASYO, say that all the kids play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Haha, an exaggeration, but I realize that they are saying the violinists are really good. I'm sure they don't ALL play Tchaikovsky. Some play Brahms, and Beethoven, and Mozart.

I talked to Patrick (who is a violist in the ASYO), and he said that the last chair violinist in the ASYO was learning Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, and he said I could play it a lot better than she could, but I'm sure by audition time she will have it down.

My teacher wants me to play Mozart 4 in D, because I learned it a long time ago, and it's very hard to pull off.

The only problem I have, is that it might be hard to recall an entire movement of Mozart 4 under the presure that I will have put myself through during the audition. I do get nerves, and very badly, but I know how to relax myself.

And if I do audition for the ASYO, I get to play all alone on the stage at the Woodruff Arts Center, while people sit in the audience and judge me. Lumi said it a really good experience.

This thing is getting quite lengthy. I'll end it here.

Good luck!
If you like Joshua Bell's Mendelssohn on his Decca CD, consider getting his Sony recording of the Mendelssohn and Beethoven concertos. The Mendelssohn is very similar to his original recording except he's written his own cadenza (which I think is really neat, though some hate it) and the Beethoven is nice too.

I'd actually expected not to like Bell's Mozart interpretations, but I was pleasantly surprised. Perlman plays them too romantically in my opinion. I think my favorite interpreter of Mozart is still Isaac Stern.

Good luck with your auditions!

Wow nice I heard Bruch's No. 1 is really boring. It's like a tennis game between the orchestra and the soloist, claims my teacher. I played Bruch for my level 10 RCM exam, and the examiner said I needed to fix my sound quality in particular areas, such as the starting note, the G. But good luck on ur audition, and good luck getting 2nd mvmt of Bruch done, it's really darn hard...
IMO, best Bruch first is Igor 0istrakh's with papa David conducting. Extraordinary.
bruch lalo and mendelssohn

congradulations how exciting it must be to have those intervals under your fingers

I love the way Bell plays Mozart.

Good luck with your auditions. Please tell us what you'll play when you've decided.