Learn how to listen
‘Sei solo’… you’re on your own?
In the days before ‘AutoCorrect’, spelling was mainly a
question of feeling, especially in another language.
But what if Bach deliberately did not write ‘Sei soli’ above his
six violin solos? What if he wanted to warn his soloist
before sending them out on stage armed only with a bow, four
strings and a few of his most difficult pieces in his head?
“The Chaconne is, in my opinion, one of the most wonderful and
most incomprehensible pieces of music. Using the technique
adapted to a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of
the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I could picture
myself writing, or even conceiving, such a piece, I am certain
that the extreme excitement and emotional tension would have
driven me mad. If one has no supremely great violinist at hand,
the most exquisite of joys is probably simply to let the Chaconne
ring in one’s mind. But the piece certainly inspires one to occupy
oneself with it somehow…. There is only one way in which I can
secure undiluted joy from the piece, though on a small and only
approximate scale, and that is when I play it with the left hand
alone…. The same difficulty, the nature of the technique, the
rendering of the arpeggios, everything conspires to make me
feel like a violinist!” J.Brahms