Archive for November, 2009
Three Ships, Harvest Time and Droplets
With the first of our Christmas String Quartet Concerts fast approaching, we wanted to devote some of yesterdays rehearsal time to playing through the first of the completed Christmas carol arrangements which we’ll be performing. The first concert will be on the 11th of December in St Giles Church, Cheddington and the second will see us [...]
Music for a birthday party
On Saturday we were engaged to play for a 70th birthday celebration which involved a service of thanksgiving followed by a banquet in Walthamstow Town Hall. For the ceremony, we were required to accompany 8 members of the BBC singers in the opening of Vivaldi’s Gloria. It was a real joy to listen to such accomplished [...]
Wedding at Waddesdon Manor
Last week we had another Friday wedding at a very local venue to us - Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. At Waddesdon the weddings take place at ‘the Old Dairy’ which is a separate building to the Manor House itself. It cleverly utilises two buildings with a conservatory type area between the two which overlooks a lake [...]
Three, Four and Five….
Yesterday was another cold and rainy day, so a perfect opportunity to stay indoors exploring more lesser known pieces of chamber music for strings. Tony and Hannah (both cellists) were due to arrive at 4pm, so before lunch we got going with some pieces written for two violins and viola. As the range of instruments [...]
Learning a Violin Concerto by Heart
It is now a couple of weeks since I performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto for the first time with an orchestra. Many people have said it’s not a work violinists should attempt before the age of 40 and as I am rapidly approaching that age (big birthday next year!) and have loved that piece for the last 32 years of [...]
Coming Out of the Silence
I have recently been learning the Beethoven violin concerto from memory for a performance last Saturday with a local orchestra, and the whole process has been full of insights and rewards at every step. Like few other works of this kind for the violin, the Beethoven is a true journey which organically develops from the opening, magical [...]
The Rhythmic Flow of Music
The rhythmic pulse or beat is in many ways the foundation of all music. Listening to indigenous music forms as well as those dating back several centuries, we can hear that there are many expressive forms where the melody is not particularly well developed, but the sense of a vibrant pulse or beat is very much [...]
