Bach E maj concerto

November 30, 2023, 10:18 AM · Bach was notably unclear on that, as in most articulations.

Your teacher's instructions make a lot of sense, in that you need to articulate the opening motif, make clear that you're in E, and announce that you are the soloist.

Exactly how much you sing vs shout vs dance will depend on a lot of things.

November 30, 2023, 10:51 AM · I always thought of them as kind of round, bell-like sounds. They definitely need more ring than a staccato, but they also should be separated.

Edited: November 30, 2023, 10:58 AM · Another vote for bells!
Or a baroque trumpet?

November 30, 2023, 11:32 AM · Bach rearranged the concerto for harpsichord which gives the player no choice of articulation at all, so I guess he wasn't fussed.

November 30, 2023, 12:26 PM · Steve and Stephen: That beginning is played by the orchestra (by custom the soloist plays along, I admit). It does not establish the soloist nor does it change when the solo is played on harpsichord.

The first (short) solo passage are the repeated sixteenths and arpeggio a few measures in.

For such questions it is often good to listen to several recordings and see how they play the passage and decide which version you want to adopt.

November 30, 2023, 3:08 PM · Well Albrecht, but then Jake's question is still relevant, if only for the conductor of the ensemble, or to agree with the accompanying pianist in case you play this concerto with piano accompaniment? Anyway, Jake, I agree with your teacher.

Edited: November 30, 2023, 3:31 PM · I have played them separate and somewhat on the shorter side with more emphasis given to the first note. A manuscript copy on IMSLP has vertical strokes under the notes; Bach's harpsicord version has eight notes and rests.

Edited: November 30, 2023, 4:00 PM · Stacatto. Martelé is too aggressive.

I particularly like how Hilary Hahn plays:

I also much prefer this version to the ones she recorded many years later.

November 30, 2023, 4:15 PM · Greetings,
I think this concerto is one of the classic examples of how schizoprhenic and tolerant of difference violinsts need to be! There is a clear cut old school, heavy and dramtic (menuhin etc) the ultra-barocky and the 'nice compromise' Hahnish style. (I also really like Hahn on this one).Julia Fischer plays tehm really short and a little choppywith no sense of being a bell. But as her interpretation unfolds one begins to see why shemkes such choices. the solo entry notes are much longer and Bell like. What it really boils down to is you finding -all- the ways these notes might be played. It is not a question of just saing 'staccato' oh that's short. Martel. That's hammered. You have to ask 'How much? To what extent? Why?' What am I trying to do here that is spart of the overall picture of the whole concerto. How can I do it differently everytime? Do I need to do it everytime? (Honestly speaking, this concerto has the -potential- to be utterly boring so it is a real interpretive challnge).
Some people are vehemntly against listenign too and imitatng recordingsbut I think you can do it ina positive way. TRy to figure out exactly what Hahn, Fischer et al. are doing and work on these types of bowing in your scale routine and Kreutzer no8.
Debelop your pallete of bowing techniques and then decide how you want to do it.
Cheers,
Buri

November 30, 2023, 4:37 PM · @Buri - Amen! Bach did not specify exactly what he wanted, so the soloist can see what s/he thinks works best. I suspect that if you ask any five soloists, you will get seven opinions. Try some options and see how they work. I suspect that even the A-415 crowd does not have some definitive answer to the question. Enjoy! It's a great piece.

December 1, 2023, 7:32 AM · Those dots do not mean shortening the notes, but may indicate playing them with equal intensity, rather than applying an implied hierarchy of notes within a measure. I learned this from Harnoncourt's work.

December 1, 2023, 8:31 AM · I don't know Harnoncourt's work on this, but "staccato" usually just means "non legato". You don't have to play those notes amazingly short to make that happen.

December 1, 2023, 10:50 AM · My opinion is that dots over a note means "shortened", not necessarily accented or very short. And the break in the sound is after the note, not before, a notational mistake mistake often made by composers and arrangers.
Those first three notes can be what I call the "small martele' ", upper half of the bow, with a bow-speed accent, not a finger/pinch accent or sforzando/arm-weight accent, tapering, diminuendo, with a short rest between the notes.

December 1, 2023, 6:19 PM · Greetings,
Joel highlights the very important point thatwe should have a clear concept of 'attack' and 'length.' They are not the same...
Personally I tihnk his suggestion is very good. For example, one might be proposing that the opening is a statement such as 'Well, here we are, having a good time together. this is the material you are going to hear us play with...'Then the soloiststuff starts she plays a more marked version as if to say 'So, I'm going show you my stuff using these nice ideas of Bach...' Then at a latter stage they might want to suggest 'Well, perhaps I overdid it a bit so now I am going to do it in a more gentle way so we can all kick back together...'
Just don't play the same stuff over and over again the same way. Music is about variety and imagination, not proving that you have watched a Zuckerman video and know how to do a (non-sexist) finger pinch at the start of every note.
Cheers,
Buri
PS the Huberman version is not the world's greatest sound (!) but has some interesting ideas in it.

Edited: December 2, 2023, 6:07 PM · Unfold your wings and learn to fly!

Far too late in my life I was exposed to the violin playing of IVRY GITLIS for the first time. When I first experienced his playing on a TV broadcast of one of his annual performances at the Swiss VERBIER FESTIVAL I wondered what the H--L was he doing. He was into his 80s by then. Gitlis was one of the narrators on the DVD "The Art of Violin" (definitely worth watching).

The last time I saw Gitlis perform (again on TV) he was 94 and it was kind of sad, but still very original and brought a standing ovation from the appreciative crowd. He died at the age of 98, I think in 2020.

If you will watch and listen to Gitlis with an open mind and not as a "well informed" critic, I think it might open your mind to many performance options for music you think you know - even Bach.

December 2, 2023, 1:37 PM · To the extent that Bach gave us any indication, in his ms. on IMSLP, the markings under the notes are fairly long, straight, vertical lines, not dots. What that means is unclear, at least to me. Martele? Something longer than staccato? I am not familiar with the conventions of that period as they bear on these markings. So, I am left concluding that there is little, if any, guidance.

Edited: December 2, 2023, 8:44 PM · The way Hilary Hahn plays it to me sounds very good - separation between the notes but still with ring. You never want to play solo repertoire with martele clicks.

December 3, 2023, 12:22 AM · As Albrecht says, the first solo passages are the short intercalations in the tutti presentation of the theme. When the soloist takes over the theme I think I hear most (on YouTube) play the three notes about which Jake asked with a different emphasis, putting more weight on the B (bar 12), which draws attention to the dominant and moves the aural spotlight (excuse the mixed metaphor) from the orchestra to the solo. As Buri says, doing the same thing over and over again kills the spirit of the music. On the original question of phrasing, firm but separate seems to be the guiding principle.

Edited: December 3, 2023, 10:46 PM · @Tom. H.-- Dots - Lines - Wedges ? I have not seen this possible explanation from real experts yet, but what I know from doing pre-computer music copying and calligraphy is that it depends in part on what tool the composer, copyist, or engraver is using. The goose-quill pen does not make a dot. Instead, if you just touch it to the paper, it makes a thin line the length of the final trimming cut at the tip. The modern italic tip fountain pen does the same thing; the same tool makes both thin or thick lines, and beautiful flags on eighth-notes. So for me, for early music scores, short line = dot. The most common tool in the 19th century was the steel flexible tip dip pen. That does make a dot, and broad lines are made by increasing the pressure, which in unskilled hands makes a mess, (Beethoven?). That was the tool that made the beautiful copper-plate style of handwriting.
The wedge notation is different . That can be a way of indicating both staccato [ . ] and accented [ > ], in one symbol instead of two.
That is not the only notation ambiguity: the dash [ - ], does that mean slightly separated notes or notes held full value? My favorite is both a dash and a dot on the same note, did Bartok invent that? How long is that?