Short Note To Bach
They saved your manuscript
From becoming butcher paper.
So now, some three hundred years later, As notes lift off the bow and the bridge
I catch each one, and in each one wrap My bloodied and bruised state knowing
This would keep the blood in my fever-brain From spilling through my ear as I nightmare.
...
I was too late after the call in getting to the concert hall. So while I did miss Bartók, I got Bach's Violin Sonanta no. 1. It - in particular the second movement, the fugua* - cut the top off my head, I think. And I walked out into the half-moon night (which was suprisingly cold in a thin t-shirt), nearly tearing up.
Here is the Wiki entry for Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Here young whiz Hillary Han blazes through the fast fourth movement, the presto. And this is some kid playing, pretty well, the slow first movement, the adagio.
*Or fugue. To understand why Bach is a god consider what a fugue is:
It begins with a theme stated by one of the voices playing alone. A second voice then enters and plays the same theme, while the first voice continues on with a contrapuntal accompaniment. The remaining voices enter one by one, each beginning by stating the same theme. The remainder of the fugue develops the material further using all of the voices and, usually, multiple statements of the theme.
Easy enough if you have say three or four people jamming. But to do all this on one single instrument like the violin is absolutely holy mother of god! No wonder violinists sweat when they take on these six solo pieces.
My Daily Notes
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