Hora Staccato phrases

June 20, 2009 at 10:32 PM ·

Greetings,

I am not sure you are approaching this piece correctly ot be honest.  Before everythign else it is basiclaly the abilty to do a marvellous up and down bow staccato and =control it at varying speeds.=  This last criteria is the hallmark of a really good staccato.  Heifetz students used to play it in his masterclasses and he would change the tempo to show those players that a staccato that only has one speed is not a real technique.

Thre are dozens of threads on this side for developing the up and down bow staccato that you shopuld read.  However,  I`m afraid that for many people this is not somethign that works well. In such cases the player eitehr uses a different stroke such as the flying spicatto (Frabncescatti) or plays the passage spiccato (Milstein) which one of my teachers at college remarked rather wryly ,  actually sounds better a lor of the time.  Staccato is actually in part a -vizual = effect.

If you cannot get a good stacctao very easily then I would not play this piece yet.  It also may tighten up your bow arm if you start over practicing the stiff arm staccato favored by Wieniawskli which is actually ideal for this piece.

If you wnat to see the peice done to perfection then youtube Heifetz.   That is tthe ultimate mastery of a tehcnique that at the end of the day is not that importnat....

Cheers,

Buri

June 21, 2009 at 01:15 AM ·

This is a very challenging piece and there are good reasons we do not hear it very often.

If you can find and watch some really good films of Heifetz playing it you will see a very distinctive change in his bow hand for the downbow staccato (different fingers on and off the bow and different angles). The secret to that stroke is in the kinematic potential offered by that hold vs. the hold he uses for the upbow staccato.

Years ago I played quartets with a wonderful violinist/violist/cellist/pianist who had a marvelous downbow staccato (with his Maline bow - but he coud do it with a Glasser Composit too). I asked him how he had developed that stroke and he told me it came to him one night in a dream (after years of conscious thought) and when he woke he tried it --- and it worked. Maybe he analyzed that Heifetz film too.

We should all have such dreams.

Andy

June 21, 2009 at 02:31 AM ·

I have read in an organ method book that phrases that are slurred should have a crescendo in the first three beats, has steady dynamics [and more intense vibrato] in the middle part, and have a diminuendo in the last three beats.

This is better seen as a specific example of a general principle.  A weak version of the principle that applies concretely here would be, "A string of notes which are all the same in some way should "go somewhere", i.e. some other key attribute(s) should be shaped interestingly."  The full expression of this principle would be, "Every phrase must go somewhere."

Once you are aware of the principle, and have heard many great interpreters apply it, and thought about what you hear each time you hear a striking example, you will naturally be able to choose expressive examples at will such as the one you quote.