Elgar Cello Concerto

My younger son has been taking Cello lessons since September. After trying the violin, he was frustrated that he couldn't "out-do" his big brother:) So, he took a looong break from it and kept asking me if he could start Cello lesson. I put it off for the longest to see if he was just saying it to try and quit in a very short time. After all, cellos are not the most economical instrument. But, when he said "Mommy, you don't have to have a Birthday party for me this year, but can I please take a cello lesson?" When a 8 year-old-to-be said that, I couldn't turn him down. So I contacted a local teacher to set the lesson up. Meanwhile, I searched Youtube to listen to some of the cello concerto. Then,,,,,, I heard Yo Yo Ma performing Elgar Cello Concerto. What an intense beginning! I love it!!!! I did a little more research on the concerto and found that young Jacqueline du Pré championed this. Now, I play her Elgar Cello Concerto in my car whenever I drive (which is most of the time transporting three kids from one place to the other!).
Now, my Cellist son wants to play this so badly, he even tries to find a melody and gets frustrated. I had to tell him this is for someone who's been playing Cello for a long long time. His answer? "I'm going to play in three years!" Go for it, man!

Zoom H2 Recording Device

I purchased Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder a couple of months ago to record my son's required pieces for the competition he's entering. After searching the web for quite some time, I decided on this based on the customer reviews. When it comes to computer and electronic gadgets, I am an average novice person. When it arrived, my first impression was "very compact and light!" It could operate on two AA batteries or AC adopter that came with it. It has options of 4 channels or 2 channels which you can easily change with the push of a button. Recording quality was surprisingly clear for a small device like this. When I finished recording, all I had to do was connect it to the computer with USB cable and listen on Windows Media Player. I could hear every little noise he made even the sound of the pedal the pianist made. It uses SD card and the device shows how much it is left to record. Only down side I had is that the display window is small, so for a person with reading glasses like me would have a hard time reading the letters. But all in all, I am very satisfied with this recorder. I need to explore more since it has a function like changing the recording to MP3 and when you use 4 channels it splits the recording into two (front and rear mic.). I want to learn how to combine those two files on my computer. I'm sure I'll figure it out after I finish reading the owner's manual:)

Scottish Fantasia

I know people say this is Heifetz' piece. Yes, I understand. But, the first movement of this, I found Oistrakh's version very emotionally appealing. I have Oistrakh's recording from Decca and Heifetz' recording with Sir Malcom Sergent. Some says Oistrakh's tempo is way too slow, but I like it. I like Heifetz' last movement. It is energetic. However, in terms of the first movement, I like Oistrakh better. It is overwhelmingly sad and beautiful which I don't feel with Heifetz. The first phrase, when I first heard, drew me into it. Regarding the tempo, I don't know if it was his intention or the conductor, Jascha Horenstein's. Nonetheless, I think it is worth listening to.

Art of Violin DVD

I bought Art of Violin DVD about 4 years ago. I just love this one and keep coming back to it. It is of course, directed by Bruno Monsaingeon. It has loads of clips of the violinists from the 19th -20th centuries, including Ysaye, Kreisler, Elman, Milstein, Oistrakh, Enescu, Menuhin, Heifetz and Kogan, Francescatti, Grumiaux, Neeu, Stern, Szeryng, Szigeti, Thibaud, and etc. For each violinist, one of the present violinists comments. Among those are Perlman, Hahn, Gitlis and Haendel. It has two parts. First one is titled "The Devil's Instrument". This covers Paganini, Szigeti, Elman, Heifetz, Milstein, Francescatti and child prodigies including Ruggiero Ricci, Boris Goldstein, Michael Rabin and Joseph Hassid which three out of four had unfortunate fate. Rabin and Hassid died young and Goldstein's career didn't take off because of political climate. As a mom, let me tell you, Ricci was a very cute boy!
Part 2 is called "Transcending the Violin". This segment covers earlier violinists such as Ysaye, Enescu, Kreisler, Thibaut and the later generation of Stern, Szeryng, Oistrakh and Menuhin comparing playing styles. Here, Menuhin is commenting on Enescu, Oistrakh and Kreisler. They also briefly talked about the instruments those violinists had.
All in all, this DVD should be one of the top three you must have on your shelf. I'm sure you'll enjoy it for a long long time.

Maxim Vengerov Masterclass DVD Review

Maxim Vengerov Masterclass DVD arrived from England the other day. I purchased Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Op. 64 DVD from the Masterclass Media Foundation, a non-profit organization which offers several masterclass DVDs for purchase. The DVD is approximately 50 minutes long and taped at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The student who plays in the video is Aya Sanada from Japan. She plays from the beginning to just the end of G major section. (it is a bit disappointing he didn't get to instruct till the end of the piece.) As Vengerov pointed out in the video, her posture seemed to be tensed (at least to my eyes). Her bow arm, especially shoulder went up time to time. He emphasized relaxation number of times, but seems very hard to change instantaneously for her. He also talked about the phrasing. First E minor part and the second G major part have to have different color which he pointed out that she played in the same color pallet, so he encouraged to come up with the different approach to each section. He demonstrated himself here and there. It is obvious why he is where he is! It is just simply beautiful even just the 30 seconds of playing although there were times he was not perfectly in tune. (He explained that he hadn't practiced for 10 days since it was during his vacation at the time of filiming this.) I hope they will produce the Part 2 of Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in the future to make it complete. They also have his masterclass of Beethoven Sonata, Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3, Bach Adagio and Fugue from Sonata No. 1. I am planning to order one of them in the future.

Valeriy Sokolov

I've never heard of him until now and I was stunned to watch him on Youtube performing Ysaye "Ballade". He had a DVD just released called Valeriy Sokolov, Natural Born Fiddler directed by Bruno Monsaingeon. (You could watch his clip below from youtube.) When he met Valeriy for the first time, he was only 16 years old at Yehudi Menuhin School and offered to play Ysaye Sonata. He was very impressed that he had to capture him in his youth. I am also in awe by the way he plays. It is not matter of age, but the pure music he produces. His hands and fingers are so relaxed. Everything seems so smooth and easy that I don't even think about how his techniques are, but just to listen to him play. In my humble opinion, he is one of the rare talents and musicians to be watched for a long long time. He was born in 1986. He is just turning 21 this year. I can't imagine what will come of him in the future. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch him performing live here in the U.S. very soon.

Maxim Vengerov Masterclass DVD

When I was browsing through the web, I came across this website called The Masterclass Media Foundation. It is a charity that is creating unique archive. They released recently seriese of masterclass DVDs by Maxim Vengerov including Mendelsson Violin Concerto 1st movement, Bach Adagio and Fugue from Sonata No. 1, and Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K216. You can preview his Mendelssohn masterclass when you click RELEASES-Maxim Vengerov on Masterclass. I ordered a copy today, so when I receive it I'll make sure I'll write a review on it. Can't wait!

Simply Sarah by Sarah Chang

My husband had a chance to go to NY for his business trip the other day. As soon as he got there, he called me from his cell asking me what I wanted from NY. I asked him if he had a time to go to Carnegie Hall, I wanted him to buy me something from their gift shop. Off he went right after he hang up in the snow. He called me back when he got there. I definitely wanted to get a mug cup from there. (I collect coffee mugs;)) I asked him if there was any DVD of any violinists, but no luck. So he picked a couple of CDs for me and one of them was Simply Sarah by Sarah Chang. According to the discography, this was recorded when she was only 15 years old. The CD is a collection of short pieces such as Bazzini's The Dance of the Goblins, Paganini's Cantabile, Sarasate's Zapateado just to name a few. My impression of her playing was very clean and energetic, her high notes just soar to the sky! It is amazing she played like that at such a young age although I didn't find enough depth in more slow and romantic pieces in this CD. I may be just me. Nonetheless, she is amazingly talented and I enjoyed her "Hora staccato", "Zapateado" and "The Dance of the Goblins"
What did my son get? The infamous "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" T-shirt!

Hilary Hahn - A Portrait

As an early Christmas gift for myself, I purchased Hilary Hahn: A Portrait DVD. It was filmed between 2003-2004. The camera follows Hilary's busy concertizing life. She is so cute. She doesn't look like a 25 years old. She could get away with saying she's a teenager! There is a segment she gives a tour of her Alma ma tar; Curtis Institute where she spent 7 years of her life. The entrance lounge looks like a hotel lobby! It was very beautiful. The DVD shows her performance of Korngold Violin Concerto and Mozart Sonata with the pianist, Natalie Zhu whom she met at Curtis when she was still a little girl. Also she travels to Germany, London and Hong Kong with the camera following her signing autographs after the concerts, recording at Abbey Road Studio. While her life is hectic with tours and recordings, she seems very much grounded and relaxed. She loves to learn foreign language for instance during the summer when she takes a break from touring. It was very interesting to take a peek of her busy life and learn how a violinist spend everyday while on tour.

Back to Bach by Gidon Kremer

The Back to Bach by Gidon Kremer DVD I ordered arrived last night along with Arthur Grumiaux's Bach Sonata and Partita CD. So this morning, I watched the DVD. This only contains the Partita part. It was definitely Kremer's phrasing, very distinctive. I understand some may love his and some may hate it. It is different. I can't say I love it or I hate it yet, but nonetheless, it is very interesting interpretation. The DVD also has 60 minute documentary of the DVD production and some clips of his first S & P recording from the 70's. In his interview, he mentioned about the tempi of some movements in Partita and this is where everyone's opinion differs, I think. His attempt was to find the most appropriate tempi for him without losing the composer's intention. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, I need to spend some time listening to Arthur Grumiaux's CD this afternoon.

David Oistrakh

As a novice violin lover, David Oistrakh is one of my most favorite violinists. I like his phrasing and beautiful tone, color just to name a few.
I first heard about him when my husband and I took my son to a Suzuki Camp in Atlanta. While my son was practicing in the lounge of the building between his classes, a gentleman approached my husband and asked if the boy was his son. That was Reginald Williams from Williams Gengakki. I wasn't there because I had to watch our other children at the hotel, but he told my husband my son's playing reminded him of Oistrakh. I believe he was just trying to be nice. My son, at that point, has only been playing for a little over one year. He couldn't have sounded any way near decent to be resembling such a great violinist :) He jotted down Oistrakh's name on a piece of paper for my husband to keep. When he came back to the hotel and told me, we went to the CD store and started searching for his CD/DVD. That is when I first heard him in recording. Since then I have been building up my library of his (among others) recordings little by little, yet there are so many that I haven't got a hold of.
Here are some of my collection of Oistrakh.

Barber Violin Concerto

My current favorite is Barber Violin Concerto. When I heard that Cho-Liang Lin is coming to town and perform this piece, I immediately got a CD and started listening. The moment I listened to the beginning of the 1st movement, I just fell in love with this Concerto. It is beautifully sentimental and sweet, yet dramatic. It brought me back to my teenage years of bitter sweet first heart broken love. There must be a girl still inside me. We still want to believe in the fairly tale somewhere in our heart, you know:)
The one I am listening to now is by Gil Shaham. He is a superb violinist. He makes it look so easy whatever he's playing, doesn't make a face or move around. He simply plays and you can't help but to listen. I hope I can go see him in a concert one day.
Unfortunately, I couldn't go to Cho-Liang Lin's performance that night due to my schedule conflict, but I was able to attend the open rehearsal earlier on the day of the concert. CD is nice, but there's nothing better than listening live. Tears were falling down on my face, it is so beautiful! But the funny thing happened in the middle of the piece. Mr. Lin abruptly stopped playing. Everybody wondered what was going on. Then he said "I am sorry but the bug was trying to get into my nose." We just laughed so hard while an annoying little bug was still trying his hardest to get to Mr. Lin. Finally he chased it away and continued on. The third movement was just like a bullet train. How is it possible for him to move his fingers so fast without skipping notes? Here is a clip of young Cho-Liang Lin in a master class with Itzhak Perlman on youtube.