Screw octaves. Tenths in the lower positions make me cry. Worse yet - tenths on up bow staccatos.
Riccochet Chords *cough* Mendelssohn cadenza *cough*
Big stretches.

Pag #13 is in the current rotation. 1st position, 4th finger up to C on the E string + 1st finger back to A flat on the G string isn't terribly secure. Or, at least, securely out of tune (sad smiley face here).

And don't get me started on the stretches in #12.*

I'm also working on Prokovief/Heifetz's "Masks". The octaves are challenging, as are the quiet side articulations. Good piece. The Big H, and Kogan, are my Octavespiration.

I had a nice listen to Szigeti/Beecham/LPO's Mendelssohn concerto today, a recording well worth spending time with. (Tricky octaves, those on the first page. I've heard a lot of violinists, live, bomb the quarters but nail the triplets. One of the Great Mysteries of Violin Concerto World...)

Happy 4th!

*Or #1. Or #2. Or #3. Or #4. Or...

I checked up bow staccato because I don't have a good one. But I have to say that I could have checked off fingered octaves. They make me cringe in front of my teacher and cry at home. My normal octaves are great but fingered... Yikes!
Of the pieces I've been assigned in my student days, definitely up bow staccato. Never had a good one, either due to genetics or a decent bow.
How about down bow staccato ? (Rode 7) Or the combination of the up bow staccato and double stops (Sibelius violin concerto part III).
To complete the list: down bow staccato (Rode 7), all combinations: e.g. up bow staccato on double stops (Sibelius violin concerto).
Double artificials and double fingered octave trills.
For many an orchestral hack, it's a matter of "none of the above".
Very long, quiet notes can give rise to the dreaded "pearlies", or bow-shakes. From this I have suffered. Many of my colleagues needed prescription medicines, such as beta-blockers, to keep the pesky bow on the string.
I've been struggling with fingered fifteenths lately, the ones in Ern(e)st No. 561 for example. Doing pizzicato with my toes has always been challenging as well.

How come Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, etc. never needed such parlor tricks to write great music? Okay the Bach S&P are mostly hard as nails, but those are unaccompanied. I mean concertos. When Mozart wanted a run of double stops in his Concerto No. 3, he put one line in the solo and the other in the first violin part. No wonder people say his intelligence has not been matched since.

Oh how I would love to be able to answer this question! Sadly as an adult beginner of not yet 3 years my technique is way, way, way below any of the answer choices. Simply hitting the right notes and keeping my bow straight are challenging enough for me! I think I'll take a raincheck on this one and get back to you in ten years or so :)
Why combine octaves and double stops? Double stops in general don't bother me much, but octaves?? I've come to the realization that I'll never play Kubelik's Octave Dance in tune,
ALl of the above?
I agree with Mendy. All of the above.

But the worst is octaves and fancy double stops in general, or triple stops. And I don't even bother with 10ths. If a piece has that in it, I'll just move on. My fingers don't really stretch that way. If you want that many notes played at once, get a string quartet.

I'd be inclined to point the finger of blame for the list at Paganini, with a passing nod to his idol Locatelli of a century earlier. Having said that, Paganini composed a large number of melodic pieces, mostly for his patrons and pupils, that do not require the listed techniques and are within the comfort zone of most players.

For the average orchestral player I think a facility for playing octaves in tune (up to the 5th position, say) is valuable in that it enables smooth bowing in broken octaves rather than unseemly bow flapping across non-adjacent strings.

One omission from the list is left-hand pizzicato (beloved of Paganini). This is something I use occasionally in orchestra when a composer (or more often an arranger) hasn't thought through the difficulties involved in an unusually quick changeover between pizzicato and bowing.

this vote last ran in nov 2009, then I put octaves and up bow was top, this time I put up bow and octaves are top.

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