Hardest piece ever
What is the hardest piece ever for violin?
Replies (60)
Technically it would have to be the Last Rose of Summer (Ernst), wouldn't it? Perhaps some Bartok would battle it, but little else can compare...
Greetings,
if you want a really good laugh try performing the Ginastera cocnerto,
Cheers,
Buri
Glazunov!
I'm second with Maximillian and Molly (never heard Ginastera, will try it, when have time:) For me, 5th Capricco of Paganini is very difficult because of its original bowing, and Hora Staccato by Diniku because of down bow staccato in the very beginning.
Greetings,
Rita, you will -love- the Ginastera. It starts with two pages of a cadenza sesigned by demons as far as I can tell. Ricic use to champion it and he said it wa sone of the few concertos in his repertoire he never felt he had at his fingertips and thta he really had ot practice it for every (rare ) perfromance. I think Olivera also tried to get this work played more with litlte success,
Cheers,
Buri
In addition to Ginastera, Penderecki's second concerto, which Oleh Krysa calls the hardest concerto he's ever played, and the Bartok Solo Sonata. Augusta Read Thomas wrote something really tough recently, but I forget what it's called.
It is not "last rose of summer." Paganini's "God save the King" is more difficult, as is Erlkonig. According to Milstein, a certain piece he transcribed for violin is the most difficult piece ever. I forget the name of the piece.
Brian,
I think Milstein said the Mephisto Waltz transcription was the hardest piece he had ever played.
Carl.
The Ginastera is a hard one, Accardo did a recording to a few years ago.
Time for Preaching
The hardest piece depends entirely on your own weeknesses.
I have friends that played Last rose, Erlkönig and God Save the old one in collage, but couldn't play Pag 12 decent.
An other that played the offstring staccato in Pag 7 absolutely brilliant, but never managed the on string in Hora Staccato.
Ricci recorded most of the famous fingerbreakers with almost perfect technique, but I have heard several recordings where he runs out of bow in slow chords, and his Bach C-major sonata First movment is horrible in terms of bowing. That was probably a harder piece for him than Ernst or Paganini.
Ida Haendel, on the other hand, have som of the most beautiful chords ever recorded, but her stretchings in Brahms is on the border of what she can manage techniqually. Ricci could do those with 1-3.
Just listen to that Bach chords - Haendel 1 Ricci 0 techniqually. Just that passage in Brahms, Haendel 0 Ricci 1.
For many violinist, The Air on the G-string as an concert opener is a no-no. Many rather play Paganini or Ernst or whatever.
All your weeknessses in your bowing get so apperent in that first note.
If you where forced to open that concert with that piece you probably wold divide that first not into 2 bowings.
Rosand played that note in a Masterclass with incredible full singing tone using only about 3 inches of the bow...
End of preaching
what about the most beautiful and who playing it?
I heard many beautiful pieces and it's hard to tell which I like best, but I think it would be The Red Violin Main Theme by John Corgiliano played by Joshua Bell. It just pops my heart out of a chest - I love that piece. I have never played it, only the beginning, but it's really emotional.
M.
just ordered the DVD.. cant wait :)
I found in my daughter's CD collection the piece written by Ralph Vaughan Williams, 'The Lark Ascending', which is performed by David Juritz and London's orchestra under conducting of Robert Haydon Clarke. In the background I read that this piece was written in 1914. As I understand, the piece was written for an orchestra, or piano (no information...) but was not known until 1920, when it was arranged for violin and piano and performed by Marie Hall (unfortunately, there is no info about who played piano), whom it was dedicated. This title goes from the poem by George Meredith.
This song is so beautiful and natural, when you listen to, you forget everything...
Greetings,
Rita , I forget everything anyway. But, the defintive recording of this is soemtiems said to be that of a very great violinst who should be better known: Hugh Bean,
Cheers,
Buri
definitely twinkle twinkle little star, i've yet to overcome that obstacle
Greetings,
the problems of `Twinkle` are legion. For starters, there is a crowded recording market yet restricted range of interpretation,
Cheers,
Buri
...and it's a piece that EVERYONE knows, so you can't get away with the odd dodgy shift or scratchy bowing.
Carl.
Hard... DEFENITLY ISANG YUN'S repertoire for violin. After this competition I will feel I can do anything (question is will I do it well :) ?)
I remember when I first started violin in the school district's string program, 4th grade. On the first violin concert I ever played in, with all the string students (aww how cute..), we had a piece called "Animal Parade." Let me tell you, this was one virtuostic work...in 4/4 time, all quarter notes, and the melody was the following; G-G-D-D-A-A-E - E-E-A-A-D-D-G. (repeat, repeat, repeat a certain number of times). Open strings, all of them.
What can I say...
Cynthia,
The hardest piece I ever knew had words, as well:
"Middle C, Middle C
Here we sit on Middle C"
Schubert Fantasy remains a fantasy until attempted. Then it's just overwhelming. He wasn't considerate at all to the Violin (or the piano for that matter)!
I must add that I do think it is one of the most striking pieces in violin rep. Speaking of:
Can anyone recommend a good recording of this peice?
This is kind of subjective. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and so what will be hard for one player could be easy or much more natural for another player.
Also, it depends how you are classing something as being hard. The Barber concerto with general left hand technique is not a hard piece, but the bow control and sound part make the piece a real challenge in combination with having your left hand feel like it's going to fall off by the end of second movement from vibrato. It's also a very hard piece to interpret musically. It's one of those pieces where you really have to be 100% behind what you are doing and bear it all, otherwise you shouldn't bother.
I do agree that Twinkle is very hard. :)
Yes, I think Menuhin has an amazing recording of the Schubert Fantasy.
Have a look at the Schoenberg concerto. There was an old line about it that it was written for a violinist with six fingers.
Liszts's transcendental twinkle etudes ;-)
i think "la ciaccona" by bach is very hard
Probably not the hardest, but I've just found a copy of Rachmaninov C# minor prelude, transcribed for Violin Solo by someone called W.H.Reed, very challenging. =)
to play ysaye well...thats probably up there. paganini's i palpiti maybe?
In no order...
1) Ernst Concerto
2) Ysaye Concerto
3) Wieniawski Concerto (1)
4) Havergal Brian Concerto
5) Sauret Cadenza: Paganini No. 1
6) Il Palpiti - Paganini
7) Last rose of summer - Ernst
Just a few off the top of my head...
ooo, Kenny, where did you find that transcription?
Not only the piece but the circumstance. I played the opera Porgy and Bess a few years back. We had a small orch. and most of us worked full time day jobs. The show came complete with two conductors and two casts and they alternated. Meanwhile we played it every time. I never did get a lot of it. It was like reading a Gershwin piano score in the dark while exhausted and every other night it was different. Horrors! The Conductor was so displeased that he scheduled extra rehearsals for an hour before the show started!
That was the hardest thing I ever played.
From Boosey & Hawkes, it looks like it's out of print, but I've got a friend working in there and he made an authorized copy for me. Not sure if it's available for general purchase though.
I think this debate/discussion just goes to prove that the violin is pretty darned hard in general. It's hard at the beginning, hard at the middle, and hard at the end.
Nowadays, by the end of the traditional round of Etudes, most people can play things technically perfect. The question is not about technical perfection, but musical perfection, which even the early Suzuki books would give Nathan Milstein a hard time to play to be absolutely musically perfect. Let's take Hilary Hahn, for example. Technique-wise, her playing is immaculate. And I do appreciate much of her musical interpretation, except her Chaccone. When it comes to some of the chords, she bounces and rattles around like a Chysler 300C on an unpaved highway, trying to fit all of the notes together. She is technically accurate on this, but musically (taking into account she is not using a baroque bow), er, I'd reccomend a Toyota.
I believe Leopold Auer would favour this idea, as in one of the concluding chapters of Violin Playing As I Teach It, he remarked "Paganini never wrote through harder than Bach!".
I suppose it's not what you play, but how you play it.
Funny you should mention the Hilary Chaconne. I was telling a friend only just this very morning about the way she was turning some of the chords. I actually pricked my ears up thinking there was a defect in my newly acquired recording! I felt that particular aspect of her interpretation to be distintly odd. I actually like her Chaconne performance except for those strangely truncated chords. She also does a similar thing in the C major sonata as well. "Odd" is the word I want to keep coming back to!
ANY of the Mozart concerti are difficult. Of course, the common speed technique and fireworks-minded ignoramus would disagree, his reasoning being based on technical difficulties, while neglecting the fine sense of musicality and command required of these pieces.
o_0 Yes, Jonathan, that's exactly what I thought - odd. I actually think it is harder to turn out a chord that way than it is the musically pleasing way.
Bob, you make a very good point about Mozart being dismissed as easy because there does not exist three pages of rapidly executed sautille passages in 64th notes.
The hardest piece is the one that you havent practiced for AGES! Know what I mean?
Here's the link for the pdf file of the Rach. prelude for violin solo...
http://www.geocities.com/kennychoy_126/prelude.pdf
people are probably talking about technical difficulty, if you get into musicality basically everything's hard.
Owen, you are absolutely right, and I would like to withdraw my above comments.
the forum goes through this roughly every 4 months or so i swear.
I'm having problems with the link Kenny. Do you have to be a geocities member to access it?
I'm having a similar problem with the link.
Unable to process request at this time -- error 999
Unfortunately, we are unable to process your request at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later.
Return to Yahoo!
it dont work.
hm... that's a problem with geocities, how about if anyone wants it, email me at
kenny.choy@brittensmusic.co.uk
and I'll send it over.
Hello,
Obviously technical and musical difficulty are two completely different things. The hardest piece I've ever played (a 16-year old student mind you... my repertoir isn't endless hehe) is the Paganini Concerto No. 1 with the Sauret cadenza, which I am just polishing up for competitions at the moment. I recently went to a concert where Hilary Hahn played this concerto... technically it was nearly flawless (which is quite the feat for this piece...) but I did not agree with her at all musically. Sure I'm starting to get into the myth that Paganini isn't "real" music... but I really think she over-dramaticized a lot of the first movement, if that is possible.
Just my two cents...
Alex
Hi,
Two cents here... I think that any piece is difficult if you think about it. Even a slow piece can be hard to pull off without proper control of bow, vibrato and phrasing.
In terms of pyro-technics, the list is long... Ernst Erlkönig and the Ginastera Concerto are probably among the hardest, as is the Schönberg Concerto (which people used to joke required a violinist with six fingers to play it...).
But, there are a lot of people with fast fingers who can't make a tone. I guess the hardest piece to play is one that requires both.
Cheers!
Has anybody heard the Gruenberg Concerto which was written for Heifetz? Nobody has ever played it after him, apparently even Mr. H thought it was tough! When he told the composer about the piece's difficulties, he replied, "But you are Heifetz aren't you?" It's a wonderful piece (A lot of Americana) which grows on you on repeated listenings. The opening of the beautiful second movement evokes in me the image of a steamboat travelling slowly down a misty muggy Missisippi. So I have a nickname for it, the "Tom Sawyer" Concerto!
And Hello Chris!
hardest piece ever...ironically...twinkle. and no, i'm not kidding. I never played the paganini concerto but but i have to agree with Alex that it's very complicated. I wonder when i'll be ready to play it..
I think most would agree that it's the "Freeman Etudes" by John Cage. The whole point of Cage writing these etudes was to make them nearly impossible. They all sound the same (and to be honest, they sound like someone just messing around all over the fingerboard), but the score is extremely detailed. If you can find the music, I think you'd agree these are the hardest pieces ever composed for the violin
Gidon Kremer plays the Schubert Fantasy well.
In fact his Schubert is all pretty good, I think.
I love the Freeman Etudes! They're beautiful!
Freeman Etudes Beautiful? I'm talking about the John Cage Freeman Etudes...You really think they're beautiful?
Eeek
The Freeman Etudes are a big load of nonsense, don't even waste your time. Besides, they're pretty easy to play if you can scratch a box and act like an idiot.
What about Sarasate's Zigeunerweiser?
thats not really that hard compared to some stuff, technically at least.
yeah, if a 10 year old kid can play it without breaking a sweat...it should be that had for a pro hehe.
Unless you sweat no matter what you're playing ;)
being a non compus mentis virtuoso (ahemm) twinkle definitely owns me.as far as pieces ive heard that impress,i saw a short on pbs with sarah chang playing some insane piece,it was an excerpt from a popular opera i believe.anyway,if you have seen it you know what i mean,if not you are missing something very exciting for sure.she is just the best if you ask me,what more is there?i was just wondering if anyone else had seen that and could tell me the name of the particular piece?
This discussion has been archived and is no longer accepting responses.
Violinist.com is made possible by...
Dimitri Musafia, Master Maker of Violin and Viola Cases
Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition
Johnson String Instrument/Carriage House Violins
Subscribe
Laurie's Books
Discover the best of Violinist.com in these collections of editor Laurie Niles' exclusive interviews.
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 1, with introduction by Hilary Hahn
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 2, with introduction by Rachel Barton Pine
November 14, 2004 at 11:16 PM · I think most would agree that it is the Ernst.