I looked it over, and told him that it looked good (it was from eBay). We went back into thinking about the violin.
But I just couldn’t stop thinking about how the piccolo might sound. I couldn’t resist it any longer, and asked my student if I could try the piccolo.
The night before I played viola in a rehearsal of Beethoven Ninth Symphony where I fondly reflected on the pinnacle of my piccolo career: playing piccolo in Beethoven’s Ninth at Carnegie Hall in the early 1980s. I haven’t held a piccolo in my hands since the very early 1990s, when my piccolo went to play in the Detroit Symphony, and I used the money from the sale to buy a violin bow.
So I naturally played the piccolo part of the Beethoven (the march in the last movement). It was thrilling to play. I found my student’s eBay piccolo without a brand name to be just as good as my former Powell.
Then we went back to our lesson. My left ear hurt a bit after indulging in the joys of the very highest and loudest areas of the musical spectrum. I know that my path to violin, viola, and composition is not only the right path for me, but the more healthy path.
I hope my student gets a lot of joy from playing this sweet instrument.
7 comments:
This was fun to read. It also reminded me of my own recent high-tessitura experience. This came about after asking, in a moment of insanity, my string Quartet buddies if I could play the first violin part of Haydn’s opus 76. #1 instead of the viola part that I had been entertaining them with for the past couple of decades. Unfortunately they granted permission and I spent the next month getting it more or less under my fingers. I pulled it off (so I was politely told)…but it was an adventure I don’t want to repeat. Getting it up to snuff took an ungodly amount of practice; but that wasn’t my main complaint. My objection was tessitura-based: it was too damned high for my sensitive mid-range ears. Thank G-d I had a mute for my practice sessions.
P.S. The whole experience reminded me of why I took up the viola in the first place…it’s civilized range.
I just had my first experience playing the first violin part of Opus 76#3, and, thankfully it was with my new fiddle (a 1791 Doerffel), which seemed to be born to play the piece. The stratospheric passages on this fiddle are (surprisingly) a joy to play because I can actually hear the pitches. With my other fiddle, which resonates more like a viola and doesn't have real strength in the upper register, those passages would alternate between squeeky thinness, and iffyness of pitch (oftentimes both). On this little Doerffel they sound like a dream (and not like a piccolo), and the pitch elevation, in this case, doesn't hurt my ears.
I found it great fun to play the violin duet variation, which I never knew from the inside before. What FANTASTIC writing.
And what a hoot to be able to hear the viola part from the scroll side of the instrument! We violist/violinists are so fortunate to be able to participate in the wonderful activity of playing Haydn quartets from three vantage points. (And I feel incredibly fortunate to have found a violin that has all the fun of being able to play in the high register but without any of the pain.)
My experience with this Haydn project (playing first violin on all the quartets, in order of publication) is that you have to have the right tool for the job. Never before have I understood so much about the difference between the violin and the viola (and how happy I am to be able to play the viola with an authentic and natural voice instead of trying to get it to sound like a "big violin").
Thank you for your insight regarding violin quality. I did not have the right tool for the part...it was my fiddle (with a pick-up ) that I use in my country band. Having a nicer instrument would have made the project more tolerable. I spent all my big money on a viola years ago as at the time that fit in with what I thought was going to be my permanent quartet-ing future.
Despite the hight notes, I did come away from the experience with my appreciation for Haydn even more elevated than before . That took some doing as I had already canonised, if not deified, him. Your FANTASTIC in regards to his violin writing is apt. Though challenging for me, I can';t say it was difficult because it lay so beautifully on the fingerboard. He knew the territory and geography to a tee; that's for sure. What a sublime mind...if for no other reason because of his musical generosity. He was a genius not only of musical concepts and structure , but of an advantage rare and welcome: practicality.
As it turns out, I've been playing more second violin parts recently because holding a viola after recent major spinal-back surgery has made viola playing a bit too strenuous. I just played second violin part to the the big Schubert A minor quartet and the first Brahms Sextet and came away thinking that even without the back surgery, the second violin parts were a tad easier to play than the viola part in the Schubert and the either viola parts in the Brahms.
I might be headed for more violin playing for the duration. Something I never saw coming. Time to shop for a better violin!
Another P.S...Some many instruments...so little time!
❤️
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