Is the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 difficult?

February 6, 2012 at 01:53 AM · It is technically accessible at a relatively modest level and musically accessible at a very high level.

Performances aptly demonstrate both levels.

February 6, 2012 at 02:28 AM · I've been playing violin for almost five years now. Three and a half with my first teacher, who though I was about ready to start Mozart 3 last June. Then in August, I got a new teacher. My new teacher thought it was way above my level. She said that even though I was playing all the right notes, and close to the right style, I needed to build up my technique more before learning it.

February 6, 2012 at 06:05 PM · The variation on that theme, Frieda, is, "Ah, Mozart. Too simple for children, too difficult for adults."

February 6, 2012 at 10:58 PM · It is the type of piece that after a perfect performance with just one note partially incorrect makes you look back and consider it a failure. But absolutely beautiful to listen to and a great adventure to play. I especially recommend the 2nd movement

February 7, 2012 at 04:17 AM · It's great to hear that it's not one the more amateur Mozart concerti in one manner. If you guys have read my profile then by now you would know that I have been playing the violin for a year and a quarter, but for the most who haven't... I am a very mature being just as a person, so it wasn't shocking my teacher assigned such a piece. Really all I wanted to know is that she didn't assign it cause it was "easy".

February 8, 2012 at 11:28 AM · Mozart #3 might be "easy" on notes, but extremely hard on "musicality". You can play the notes like a robot, but to play #3 like Menuhin did.....that is another thing.

February 9, 2012 at 03:26 PM · According to Jascha Heifetz, the Mozart concerti are the most difficult of all. "And I do mean technically", he said.

Have fun.

February 9, 2012 at 05:39 PM · The Mozart 3rd is a mythological mountain its really not very high at all. So you climb and its still not very high. So you climb some more and its still not very high, so you climb....

I think you get the picture. Easiest piece to attempt, impossible piece to finish...

February 9, 2012 at 06:50 PM · If *I* can play Mozart 3, anyone can.

Oh, you meant "and have it sound good."

Never mind.

February 9, 2012 at 11:36 PM · In my mind the best most sublime recording of any concerto is Fritz Kreisler playing the Mozart No. 4.

February 13, 2012 at 03:39 AM · well,

some of his other recordings also belong in that categroty....

Cheers,

Buri

PS I left the typo in because it amuised me.....

February 27, 2012 at 08:43 PM · Mozart's music diplays an easy charm hiding great intensity and much suffering. Every one of his beautifully placed notes is significant, and must be played not just perfectly but with ineffable beauty.

Children often touch the heart of this music; a few adults can convey this strange meeting of innocence and experience. Precocious adolescents more rarely..

Parth, your various threads show the authentic and so far undamaged passions of your age; if you are as talented as your posts suggest, by all means learn the notes. If you are then satisfied, you have missed the point. Put the concerto away for a a while.

I suggest two very different recordings which have inspired me to better things:

- Menuhin (1930s or 1960s) for the infinite tenderness of his phrasing;

- Grumiaux for a crystalline and olympian beauty and elegance and tone.

Without these quailties, Mozart's music is just a pretty face with no soul.

No doubt your talent will impress others: keep your heart whole and you will move them too!

Adrian

February 28, 2012 at 04:07 AM · One approach to the Mozart 3 is to start with the Franko cadenza. Learn that first. If it does not go well, you're still okay because you haven't damaged anything actually written by Mozart, but if it does go well, then you've licked one of the trickier bits.

And by the way while we're on the subject of cadenzas, I love Joshua Bell's cadenza on the Mozart 3. There is a broken suspended arpeggio in there that is especially brilliant.

February 29, 2012 at 04:00 AM · adrian - unfortunately the first movement is not on youtube by Yehudi though the adagio and third are. I wouldlove to hear how he plays it. Grumeau's was liked to earlier and is gorgeous in its simplicity and ease, as you say. Though I thought a bit was missing in the first movement - have to go back and check...

February 29, 2012 at 04:55 AM · probably just his lunch...

February 29, 2012 at 04:26 PM · Much as I love Grumiaux's rendition, and thanks, Adrian, for your wonderful characterization of "crystalline and olympian beauty and elegance and tone," it is still trumped IMO by the old Oistrakh version I grew up with, for its superb taste, timing, dynamic subtlety, and architecture.

Years ago, I persisted in performing this concerto in public, against my poor teacher's strenuous objections. I was reproducing (in my mind) Oistrakh's interpretation, despite Teach's insistence that I didn't have sufficient "musical maturity." That really pissed me off, but, in retrospect, of course he was right. (R.I.P. Walter Sundsten.)

March 21, 2012 at 08:17 PM · Scott, thanks for the tip! I have sometimes found Oistrakh a little heavy-handed for Mozart, but in this case I am bowled over. The slow movement is deeply nostalgic, and the outermovements strong but singing..