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Fantastic fiddling

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It’s been quite a week of violin music for me. In short, I want to hear more – please post clips.

On Saturday I took my older daughter to the last concert of the annual Beethoven Festival in Bonn to hear Ludwig’s 7th symphony. The 2nd movement was as sonorous and rhythmic as peak Joy Division, elevated by 4 double basses perched vertiginously at the back, overlooking all the other players, and providing a steady rhythmic backing to the polyphonic melodies spilling out from the other strings and woodwind. But it was the 4th movement which was a wow. If you don’t know it, it’s the audible equivalent of the Return of the King – pretty much a rolling sequence of climactic endings, one after the other, building and building through multi-orgasmic bliss until the whole orchestra explodes. The different violin sections threw the main melody back and forth between them, faster and faster, like Neil and the Horse, or Quicksilver, or Television – fantastic!

Tomorrow evening, our family is golng to hear (and watch) the Philharmonie der Soloisten, a quartet/quintet/sextet of orchestral soloists playing the 4 Seasons and other Baroque favourites. So familiiar, so cheesy – right? Middle brow Classic FM fare? But it ain’t. We ‘ve seen them once before – they paly with dash, with brio, with elan, with deft speediness and perfect harmony – it is exhilarating. The music of the Gods!

And thirdly, I have started listening to a podcast series (from Goalhanger) – Sherlock and co. It has been going for about a year, and seems to draw a lot of inspiration from the Cumberbatch/Freeman BBC production – both in the modern setting, and in the characters and voice styles of Holmes and Watson. It’s pretty decent to my ears, and I have been binge listening over the last week, it being good enough to replace History of Rock in 500 songs from my regular playlist. Why I place it here is because of the theme music, which makes great play of the violin being Holmes’ weapon of choice in times of mental torpor. I will place it in the first comment. It is frenetic and threatens to break the fretboard in the style of Monty Python’s Emile Gilbert.

Any great violin music in your music collections? Fast and frentic or soaring and sweeping? Swarbrick? Kennedy (gulp)?

2

Comments

  2. This is my GOAT violin piece:

    The third movement in particular absolutely rocks, but the whole thing is blissfully gorgeous. My dad had this on vinyl, and any long wet Sunday afternoon was immensely improved by a headphone immersion in this, played much louder than I would have been allowed through the Mordaunt Shorts. It fairly rollicks along with tunes a-plenty and a recurring theme that fair lifts and fills one’s sails.

  3. I could go on and on with this.
    I’ll cut to the chase though. David Oistrakh is for me THE greatest violinist of the last century so this clip is really more about him than the Tchaikovsky, which is splendid of course but I could have chosen countless other examples of Oistrakh’s wonderful violin playing. I would urge anyone who has a passing interest to explore his work as they will find it a hugely rewarding experience.
    Having wrote this I may be back to post more a little later, this music is catnip for me and I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone else posts.

    • That cuts off cruelly just before the orchestra return to soothe the scratches of the solo with the balm of their harmonies. Luckily when I played it on YouTube, it went straight into part two, and so I got it. Tchaikovsky, Mendlessohn and Bruch – three towering romantic violin concertos our family used to play on the car cassette player on trips across Europe. I could never decide which one I liked more.

  4. Roxy Music, featuring the impassioned playing of Lucy Wilkins…

    I just took the single clip rather than the whole song, but she nails the Eddie Jobson part, and then some. She’s someone who you normally find in string sections on the likes of Tindersticks.

  10. Ginette Neveu, playing the first movement of the Sibelius. It’s a vintage recording, but her tone is just sublime. I take Mr Pencilsqueezer’s point about Oistrakh – but this is something really special. The slow movement will have you weeping openly into your armagnac…

  11. …and Nicola Benedetti, another favourite of mine, playing the Korngold. It’s gaining a bit of ground these days – but still seems relatively unknown compared to the old “warhorses” of the repertoire. Can’t understand why – and Benedetti’s burnished tone suits it to a “T”…

    (I’d better stop now…)

  13. Well after all the high brow stuff so far and Sal mentioning middle brow Classic FM fare in his OP, its left to me to drag this way down to the low brow section with this……

    (There is a fiddle player in there and they have it in their name….._)

    • Arf! It’s spot the soon to be Oysterband members in the band time: fiddle player, Ian Telfer, the replendently coiffed Alan Prosser on guitar. I always thought John Jones came later, to strip away any sentimental commerciality, but there he is, on the right end of the 3 male backing vocalists, with specs and university lecturer style smart-but-long hair and sideboards. (Which is what he actually was at the time.)
      It really is a fucking awful song.

  14. Jascha Heifetz now, there was a fiddler (or Slasher Heifetz I used to call him in my less guarded moments). I had an LP of him doing the Sibelius and Prokofiev concertos which I still go back to often (digitally, natch). There will be more high-powered modern versions, but I still think this is just exquisite.

  16. This is Leonard Cohen performing “The Gypsy’s Wife” from the Bonn date on his 1990 tour.
    The fiddle is played by the great Armenian violinist Raffi Hakopian. His solo starts at about 2:45. Really beautiful.

  18. One of my favourite violinists today is the brilliant Isabelle Faust. Her range is incredible –
    From Bach through Mozart, Beethoven, 20th century greats like Britten, Berg and Stravinsky up to the present day. Any record she releases is worth checking out – just this month she’s released a solo Bach record and the concertos of Telemann. Here’s a little 17th century piece by Nicola Matteis

  19. And by contrast, I really enjoyed seeing The Haar this summer and particularly enjoyed Adam Summerhayes’ fiddle playing which spanned traditional folk, jazz, Middle Eastern and classical influences and more. There’s a lovely solo with him accompanied by bodhran player Cormac Byrne about 3.15 into this video. Looking forward to their new album which is due soon

  21. That was a very enjoyable and inspiring OP, @salwarpe. A real family of music-lovers.

    And what a response. It’s going take a whole evening to listen to all the comments. i feel pitifully ignorant about violin music. Here’s my chance to put that right.

    I’m going to jazz things up a little with the wonderful Stephane Grappelli.

  22. Sub-thread on violins in Eurovision start here with this absolute banger/horrendous earworm:

    And this somewhat more tasteful one. What is with Norwegians and violins (sample size of two).

    • Fiddle centric girl band you mean? Kinnaris Quintet. (Now down to only two fiddles as Laura Wilkie has moved on. Wil be seeing them play over the w/e in Hartlepool.
      All much in demand session players individually.

  35. Frank Zappa had a pretty amazíng band when he played at Skansen here in Stockholm on August 21 1973. Not least violinist Jean-Luc Ponty who was in very fine form

    What an amazing career he has had. Born in 1942 and he is still alive-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Ponty

    Here he is with John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain on table

    With Al di Meola and Stanley Clarke. in 1994 at Montreux

    And there are a lot more fab clips on the TUBE. I knew him from his albums with Zappa. This evening I’ve realised what a lot he has done.

  36. No mention of the Chaccone from J. S. Bach’s Second Solo Violin Partita? About 15 minutes of shear bliss, featuring a lot of double-stopping.

    Original vinyl copies of this 1955 recording from Johanna Martzy fetch a small fortune.

  37. Sugarcane Harris. Blues electric violin, with a Zappa studio ensemble (not the MOI, despite what it says on the tin) interpreting a Little Richard tune. Possibly an out-take from the Hot Rats sessions, originally.

  39. A jill of all genres is Seonaid Aitken, who straddles classical and jazz, playing in various Scottish national orchestras, playing in and with a number of wide-reaching jazz combos, as well as being a much in demand string arranger for any and many folk and trad acts needing a (her) string quartet.
    Here’s some gypsy fiddle

  40. So many fine fiddlers…

    I’m always rather partial to some cajun fiddling.

    Here’s Dewey Balfa….

    More wonderful, blissful , cajun fiddling from Steve Riley and The Mamou Playboys

  42. We’ve had a some superb soloists, but can we go off-piste for a moment and enjoy the sound of a gaggle of fiddlers paying together?

    I’m a sucker for a Nordic spelmanslag.

    FROM FINLAND

    Norway

    SWEDEN

    All the posh people sung along.

    –

    We’ve been very Euro- and Americo-centric.

    Those Egyptian orchestras that played with Oum Kalthoum were remarkable.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGHpBOt5sE&list=RDXPGHpBOt5sE&start_radio=1

    And they are still still going strong.

      • What a treat @Twang. Now there’s a band I would like to see live.

        They are clearly enjoying themselves enormously-

        In fact, there many artists on this thread who i intend to keep an eye out for to see them in concert..

        Another artists I’ve not seen live is Näcken. Not surprising really, as I’m not really in his target audience.

        He is a figure from Scandinavian folklore, a stunningly beautiful young man who sits,
        bollock-naked by the riverside, fiddling away quite exquisitely, and luring beautiful young maidens to a watery death.

        He has inspired many stories and many pieces of music.

        • I’m glad you like them. I’ve seen them a few times in art centre type venues – they always seem to be having fun with the form which comes across.

          • Good festival band too. Hugh Crabtree, the leader and melodeon player is a bit headmasterly in his ambience and chatter, which can annoy, but he keeps a good roster of fiddle players in his address book, guaranteeing a good selection, as age withers the vine. Worth seeing for the boy Swarbrick alone, the nephew of Dave, who is also in Merry Hell (and has upped their game no end.) His solo section is blistering.
            The band also includes Dave Mattacks on drums, a draw in itself.

  43. Here’s a small gaggle of fiddlers from Poland, Volosi. I attended their gig in August at the Catstrand community theatre in New Galloway which is about 30 kilometres from everywhere. They were excellent.

    • They really are excellent. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for them @the-californian

      Staying In Poland, here are a trio from Kracow, Kroke, where the fiddler plays an important role.

      I’ve seen them several times, most recently at a public library out in the suburbs at HANINGE KULTURHUS, It was a free lunchtime concert and every Polish pensioner in Stockholm was there. And to my delight, I just discovered that someone filmed it.

      I cannot recommend them warmly enough. Not only are they superb musicians, they are also really friendly, charming guys.

  45. I’d not thought about it until today, but a quick look at wiki reveals the violin has played a major role in the classical music of India.

    Wikipedia names many famous virtuosos.

    A new door opens for us fiddle fans…

      • Thanks a lot @salwarpe. I will definitely be giving that a listen.

        Hats off to you. You’ve opened the door to all kinds of different fiddle music. And unleashed a great joy in and curiosity about the violin.

        This evening I stumbled across this. Indian violinist, Rupam Ghosh playing with Stella Rodrigues. It’s a very agreeable listen.

  48. I suddenly remembered Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho which used only strings rather than the whole orchestra. Hitchcock didn’t want any music at all but mercifully Hermann managed to change his mind.

    From the seedy Bates Motel to the glories of the Proms at the RAH.

  49. Surprisingly, we’ve had little mention of string quartets.

    To start putting that right, here are the magnificent Kronos Quartet.

    And now four delightful Danes who have several fans here on the blog-

  50. What a pleasant surprise. This clip turned up on my YOUTUBE feed this morning.

    I think they are are in Egypt but I’m not sure. Wonderful string playing anyway.

    The algorithm has really got me sussed.

    Some smashing comments. For example…

    The small, simple room in which this masterpiece was performed will not appear in its beauty on international stages in our time. It is the creativity of fathers and grandfathers who lived in the beautiful time and came to convey it to us in a time of discordant sounds and low-quality art, despite the blackout. But everyone who heard your masterpiece had his heart touched. This is the first time I got angry at YouTube, which only allows one like, but my admiration for you has exceeded the stage of madness. My greetings to you, uncles.

  52. Oz saddlepop funsters The Happening Thang – their light shone briefly but mighty brightly – two LPs in the late 1980s and they were gone (though the very wonderful Andy Travers and Miss Cathy continue to this day occasionally as The Western Distributors).

    Came across this Youtubed gig purely by chance a few months ago; wasn’t aware they had a fiddler in their regular lineup, but she’s topsa this time around. Their version of Buffy Saint-Marie’s “Gonna Be A Country Girl Again” (first song in) is a thing o’beauty indeed.

    • I enjoyed that @Sniffity. and looked around for some.

      Clearly a band that had a very loyal following.

      I found this conversation on the first part of this gig. What a surprise to find a 40 year old recording of your band,

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZrBWm3Bo04

      @CathWearne
      2 years ago
      Hi Warpedsmac, thanks for putting this up. What memories for us. God we played so fast!!I know Rob Evans was doing our sound but can I ask, who are you?

      @Warpedsmac
      2 years ago
      Hi Cathy! Nice to know you’ve watched these videos. Looking at the gig now I agree about tempos. I gave a copy to you and Andrew at the time I recorded the show, 1989. Of course Warpedsmac is a “nom de guerre”…. It is a sonic reversal of my name reversed…..maC worrapS. I liked to think I was the Thang’s number one Sydney fan…I was at every show. Loved the Milky Bars too! It’s 40 years ago!!!! Can’t believe it.

  54. I was just listening to my favourite Swedish radio programme, RENDEZVOUS WITH KRISTJAN SAAG, and he played this remarkable track, BEAR CREEK.

    Lankum really are very special

    • This post is off the front page now, so I can assume there won’t be any more additions to it. A good time, then, to thank you all for the musical contributions you’ve made. A lot to listen to, and I will enjoy doing so.

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