This is how 2020 has felt.
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- Oh, so bright, like Ling Ling's future. - Yeah.
Ling Ling's future and past and present is equally bright.
Put your face in it, it gets really bright.
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Anyway.
Today's topic is about interpretation.
So we're going to be picking two pieces.
One is Bach, and one is...
...Meditation,
Thais.
- Very famous, uh, composer, - Yeah.
very famous piece.
And the idea is we're going to be comparing
different recordings to show how...
...different interpretations can be.
Interpretation is the way the musician...
...interprets the music, to a certain style.
- There you go, that's your university degree. - Wikipedia!
Guys, we're kidding.
Our 4-year degree was definitely
worth way more than that.
- First one: Bach, Violin Sonata No. 1, - Violin!
and the first movement, Adagio, so G minor.
Uh, we are going to be watching...
- ...3 different recordings, artists. - Artists.
- We have a historically informed one, - Yeah.
- And then... - And a modern one, and an old school one.
I was gonna say, save the best for last.
Which one's the best?
Hmm...you guys will never know now.
- Uhh!!! - Let's just start with um...
Old school?
- Yeah, old school, old school. - I think so.
- I think so. - The OG.
What does old school mean?
- It means roughly 1950s, to 19... - Yeah.
- ...80s? Around that area? - Yes.
And there's no more older school than that,
'cause recording wasn't even invented.
But Nathan Milstein was one of those um...
...old school violinists that was very well respected.
I will say...
...Milstein,
and Grumiaux, and Henry Szeryng.
- Yeah. - Those 3 were...
what the old school thought of violin playing seen as the best...
- Yes, yeah. - Bach recordings, right?
- Yeah. - And here is him playing Bach Sonata no. 1.
You would never hear that...this today.
He went for it!
He went for it.
I grew up...
...listening to this Bach.
- Me too! - You too, right?
But I forgot it sounded like that!
- Wow, it's changed in the last 10 years already! - Even just in the last 10 years,
- the...the style that people... - Play...
...play Bach in has changed a lot.
If you're a classical musician you'll know
what we...mean,
just by listening to that chord,
and we're gonna demonstrate now,
for those non-classical musicians.
He was like...
- It was like a romantic chord. - It was just like a non-apologetic,
this is the chord that starts the whole six sonatas.
- Yeah, it is the first... - Bring...bring it on!
- It is the first chord of the whole...yeah... - It is, it's more grandioso, it's like...
"Bring it on guys. Here we go."
I'm used to the...
- You guys will hear it soon. - Yeah, we don't wanna spoil it.
- Alright, let's keep listening to it a little bit. - Yeah.
Ooh, that wide vibrato.
- He even did a little bit of a gliss, right? - Yeah.
Dude...
That is very thick.
There's been a rise of the
historically informed performance movement,
where musicologists and historians, whatever,
have done research, and found...
...a lot of ancient—
Not ancient, but like old text,
- Yeah. - Written by musicians around that time
that indicated how they thought about music,
- Yeah. - and they'll write things like, you know,
the way they thought about vibrato
- only to be used as an ornament. - Yes.
Uh, how they don't actually hold notes for necessarily
- for the full intended period, - Mm-hmm.
which is a notation thing.
For now, I guess you can just remember
this is quite...thick.
I know people like really look down on it today,
but there's a certain...
- Yeah... - ...like epicness, and just uh,
- it's very, just straightforward. - Yeah.
It's like he's not trying to...
- Pretend, to be... - ...pretend.
- ...like Bach. - Historically, or Bach, or like "I'm gonna...I'm Bach..."
- Yeah...it's just like...yeah. - "I'm...I'm just gonna play it the way I see it."
What?!
Yeah, he glissed upwards...
Whoa!
- Dude I forgot. - I would get murdered!
You would get murdered for playing like that!
But to be fair though, back in Milstein's time,
- They hadn't done the research yet. - Yes.
So it's just a way as a great artist would interpret it, so...
Yeah.
*inaudible*
Ahh, that's nice.
That's a nice ending.
To be fair, even though it's romantic compared to
what people would play today,
compared to how he would play Tchaikovsky
it's still quite...
- Oh, yeah. - ...toned down.
- Yes, it's still... - There's still a difference.
Yeah.
If it was end of Tchaikovsky it'll be like...
Yeah.
- He'd go all out. - Yeah.
So there is still a difference.
And the next one is someone called Rachel Podger,
she's one of the more well-known...
- ...baroque specialist violinists. - Yes.
So the first thing you'll notice, two things:
- she is playing with a baroque bow, - Mm-hmm.
the shape is very different.
- You can see from the tip. - Yeah.
It's shorter as well.
It's that...the curvature of the wood is different.
- The wood is like more this way. - Yeah.
You'll notice too,
- by immediately with the...tuning. - Yeah.
It's a semitone lower,
because back then they tuned to 415 roughly.
I don't think she's using chin rest.
Oh wow, she went all out.
- Yeah, she's all out, man. - Dude, no chin—
- That—this didn't—this wasn't invented. - Invented back then.
- Yeah. - Back then.
She's playing with music, because back then, it wasn't...
...usual to perform recitals by memory.
Liszt started that tradition.
Oh damn, Liszt.
You setting the standards so high. *tsk*
For piano and strings.
Woodwind players today still use their music.
Have you noticed?
Oh yeah!
Wind players...just can't memorise—
- Argh! Just kidding! Ohhh!!!! - Ohhhhhhh!!!!!
(both) Ohhhhhh!!!!!
(both) Just kidding, guys!
- Music brings people together. - Yeah.
She's rolled it.
Yeah.
It's a lot more...warm.
You'll also hear from the warmth of the sound.
- She's probably using gut strings. - Yes.
Gut strings...yeah.
- You don't want to know, but it's made out of gut. - Yeah.
- Go figure. - Yeah.
- Go to Wikipedia. - Yeah.
Yeah, it's a lot more...
...improvisational.
The...
She's still playing the notes.
Even some people argue that, 'cause you know,
- some people argue you can add ornamentation. - Yeah.
But, she's seeing it as there's the chords,
and the alliance in between are almost...
...improvisation.
- Yes. - It's like these pillars between you freely kind of move.
Yes.
The argument is that the rhythm
for this style of movement...
Not all, if it was a...
- Oh, you can't—yeah you can't. - ...fugue, you wouldn't be...
- You can't do it in fugue. - ...messing around.
But for like an Adagio like this,
- it is meant to be played with an improvising style. - Yeah.
I wanna listen to the end, see how she ends it.
I just want to say,
if you're really going all out and playing with no vibrato,
it's so hard to not get shaky bow on Bach.
Without the vibrato as well,
sometimes it's hard for me to make it sound nice.
Yeah.
The tone...
...sometimes would sound very like "Ehhh".
But to be fair, she's using gut strings.
We got steel strings,
- they're naturally a bit more brighter in sound. - Yeah.
I think the best way I would describe it is,
when you don't have vibrato at all,
to help your tone sing,
your bow control has to be so immaculate
- that every note is resonant. - Yeah.
- Otherwise...you can hear... - The crunch.
And your bow has to draw the sound out,
you can't have this guy backing you up.
- Yeah! - And your intonation!
- You can't hide. - Yeah, yeah.
- Oh man. - Here's a perfect example, right.
I'm crushing a bit...
But if I add vibrato...
I mean, a good ear could still hear,
- it's a little bit overpressed, but it's not as offensive. - Yeah.
Bro...
Bro, she went all out.
Alright, last one!
Janine Jansen!
Mmm.
I mean, not being biased,
I didn't say the last one's like...
...like the best one.
They're all pretty good in their own right, so...
Just...getting it out there!
Can I just say,
I've personally watched this recording so many times.
- Oh, yeah. - I love it, I think she does such a good job.
Can we just like look at the guy,
the Asian guy in the back,
with his hands like this?
- Oh, he's ready to judge! - He's like...
- "One does not simply play Bach." - Yeah.
So you can see a mix,
there's some vibrato to keep it spinning,
but it's not...
It's almost like,
they found a little balance.
That's beautiful.
That's nice.
It's...it's in-between.
- And I personally think it's perfect for me. - It is, yeah, you get a bit of both worlds.
For us, anyway.
It's subjective.
Subjective! Who cares, who cares, just enjoy it.
Also, keep in mind,
this is an encore,
- Yeah. - she's busting this out after like a concerto,
live.
Live...
- ...performance. - Yes.
If you mess up a Bach after a whole concerto,
- It ruins your whole thing. Yeah. - that's the...anti-climax.
It ruins your whole thing.
And out of all the Bach, she picked this one.
- Yeah...! - She could have done like a...
So much safer!
- It's safer... - Or...
She goes...
*Eddy groans*
- Shaky bow galore! - Yeah.
Ohh.
Oh that's nice.
Dude, her tone is so nice.
I know that...
She has those moments of release,
but yet, she still gives you a bit during those
- juicy dissonant chords. - Yeah. Janine, stop playing with our emotions.
The colour changes...
And she's not overusing vibrato.
It's just...
Dude, you just have more access to different colours,
- when you have vibrato. - You do.
- From what I heard; I'm not an expert. - Yeah, we don't know, guys.
- Baroque people did use vibrato as embellishments. - Yeah.
It's not like they completely didn't use vibrato.
Whoa, dude, that is some hardcore s***!
- I've got goosebumps, and I felt that like 10 times. - I know. It's just like...
That was a ballsy approach.
And like she didn't go for it, she went...
...backed away.
- She backed away to wrap it up. - Yeah.
It's the...frog!
It's the frog!
Do you know how heavy it is here? It's like...
- No sound. - And you're like choking, you're like...
Right, next one's Meditation.
Let's do Vengerov first.
Okay, Vengerov is closer to you know,
- What we do today. - what we do today.
Before we do,
accent that like button!
Ow, that kind of hurts.
Oh, that's nice.
Ohh.
The colour changes...
Ohh, that's a smooth bow change.
That's tricky guys! Are you guys...
Are you guys hearing this?
Yeah, it's frickin' like...
Oh f***, I f***ed it.
I choked...!
- And also, the colour change between the E and the F. - Mm-hmm.
Deep.
This is kind of what we would...
- Probably play like. - ...play like today,
or what we would want to play like.
Yeah like,
- what we wish we could play like, yeah we tried. - What we wish we could play like.
- Okay, now we have–oh god. - Now, Elman.
1962!
None of you were born—
Okay, some of you guys are,
but majority of you...
I'm sorry...
Dude, this is like shot on a potato,
it's like 1 pixel.
1 pixel...
- It's all we have with the old school recordings. - Guys, yeah...
Dude, it was a slap in the face.
It's like "Wake up, guys!"
This is our pop—their pop music.
Bro, he just went...
There's even more...!
Yeah...! He's like...
They do that a lot more back then,
this kind of...
Oh, yeah, yeah.
The...
- The portamento, and like the...hitting the string. - Yeah.
Ohh, that gliss.
- And then...and then it's also so matter-of-fact. - Yeah!
- Yeah! - You know.
"The music says this, we just do this."
It's like Milstein's Bach!
- They weren't...playing around. - Yeah.
Ohhh!!!
- Dude, it's like a high rev engine! - Dude! Just...
- Did he take a few more bows than necessary? - Yeah!
Also back in the days, they did play a lot more at the tip.
Yeah...!
- Now we're using a bit more of the frog. - Yeah.
This is so interesting.
- Times have changed so much. - I've forgotten how much has changed.
Guys, this is like 10 years,
I was like 15 years ago,
when Eddy and myself were always listening to these people.
- Yeah. - Milstein, Grumiaux...
...Heifetz, you know, all those artists.
The great artists you see today
all listened to these people.
- Mmm. - And it still changed so much.
It's so interesting.
We definitely encourage you to
check out a range of different recordings.
Listen to how...
...different uh, times have changed,
and also just the types of interpretations
- you can have in the same piece of music. - It's so creative.
I think it's also if you learn an instrument,
it's one of the best ways to inspire your mind,
- to think outside the box. - True!
This...
- This definitely did, it just hit me, I'm like, "Whoa!" - Yeah.
- Anyway. - Yeah.
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