For more classes like this one, please visit the Benjamin Zander Center - www.benjaminza... Deborah Palmer, violin Johnathon Shin, piano Interpretations of Music: Lessons for Life with Benjamin Zander Dave Jamrog Audio/Video
When I practice violin I imagine Benjamin Zander on my shoulder singing, talking to me as I play, lose your inhibitions! talk to them! communicate! give up that weight! It really helps my playing.
I am 46 years old, started playing violin as an adult (I played piano since childhood) and working on grade 7 Royal Conservatory of Music exam. So, I'm certainly not up to this calibre of musicianship, but these videos always make me feel very inspired. I feel like I can do it, even if it takes the next 10 years of my life. Thanks for the inspiration!
The weight of the world with all of its tasks and tests bears down on all of us constantly. It's refreshing to hear an instructor consciously and consistently steer these artists' focus to the contrary. Thank you.
He defines 'inspirational', the violinist defines 'adaptability' and they both define 'enthusiasm'. These sessions teach me so much about enjoying music. Thank you.
What started as dull playing at the beginning ended up with flare and life and passion as if it were played by two different violinists of different league. Wonderful!
think exactly the same.. i was like "what the hell is happening?? " she even looked like having a bad time, and the second time was like ... "woooow!" totally a different person, attitud, everything was on a different level! amazing!
@@mr.string4490 I think it wasn't the tempo either... or not only the tempo, but how he managed to shift her focus from her own imperfect technique (this is not a test) to the beauty of the music and her ability to convey it. It's Zander's leitmotif - exploiting the good in someone rather than punishing the bad, in order to bring out their greatness.
Zander is using the tempo and expression of the goat HEIFETZ. To play at that speed requires great technical prowess. This young lady has the capability to reach for the Heifetz standard.
I love Zander’s Beethoven. It’s so exciting, so I won’t fall asleep in the ones he conducts. He is a great Maestro, both in conducting and in teaching.
I love how happy you must be to be saying this. And I wonder what happens when i come across that something that I had unknowingly been waiting for too.
I think the important thing of playing this piece is not only to have the right tempo, but also *to keep the beats solid* . Another important thing is, reducing the "romantic violin-like" phrase expression to keep the Beethoven's style itself as much as possible, and at the same time not losing the emotional expression (as Beethoven called *the lyrical concerto* ). For this reason, many violinists find difficult to play this piece. I worked on this piece from the position of the conductor + composer + violinist, and especially *from the conductor's point of view* , it's immediately clear how "tight" this piece must be played. It was hard to find the tempo, in particular, setting the tempo of *the g-minor part* was really difficult...!!! 😰 I referenced several recordings including this video (very helpful!) and read a lot of material about Beethoven while studying in Vienna, and I remember reading that he attaches great importance to tempo, but *can also be flexible if necessary* . So I decided not to keep the whole piece strictly at the same tempo. (I'm not 100% sure of my thoughts, and each person will have different ways of interpretation. If you are interested, you can watch the video, and your feedback will be very helpful to me. *A new cadenza* is also included.) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HMK3MYJhGmY.html You may find recordings played at a fast tempo. However, it will be very difficult to find a recording that *moves you* by adding musical sensibility along with that tempo. Personally, I recommend listening to *the piano version (op.61a)* of this piece. The nature of the piano can help you to focus on the music itself beyond the physical style of playing the violin. And then pick up the violin again. 😉
Just beautiful! ❤️ I love how inspiring these videos are. I have noticed that every time I watch these I just smile like a crazy person. Makes me so happy to see a teacher with that energy and positivity!
What a wonderful teacher and a great human being. His tempo for the Beethoven Concerto is the same one used by Heifetz, Milstein, and Rosand. These artists were able to say something beautiful within a demanding tempo. Not easy!
First, he says to play a lot faster then, takes away the notation, then says not to look at the fingers while playing and if that wasn't enough, she has to smile and dance around! I would just die! :D Respect!
He was trying to get her to play intuitively, saying hey you're in my class now you're no longer a student you're a performer. this wasn't a violin class
25:27 "One of the reasons, people play slowly, is because they think they can get more effect in that way. It's not true. You just have to pay more attention if you are doing it faster. " To Jascha Heifetz
@@joshuaC. I love Heifetz's master classes... A lot to learn. I especially how he starts with hard scales, and gets worse scales until the player reaches their limits before moving on the to the piece. There is a video where he opens with asking for g-flat major in 10ths as the opening ask. He and the musician he was asking (one of his students I presumed) didn't act like he'd asked for anything out of the ordinary and just did it -- no blinking.
I find it very interesting how in Mr. Zander's interpretation classes on the biggest concerti in the violin repertoire (Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky), he keeps recommending the same thing: to play a faster tempo! And coincidentally, the faster tempi that he suggests can all be seen in Heifetz's recordings. And that reveals the true reason why no other violinists dare to play the big concerti at such blisteringly fast speeds: because it requires the guts and technical precision of Heifetz.
The tempo Benjamin Zander suggested for the opening matches that of the 1934 recording (posted on RU-vid) with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by George Szell, Bronislaw Huberman, Soloist.
Such wonderful one on one instruction! Brings out the fine points of the piece and how they can be improved.! Such enthusiasm, plus the contact with the audience. Not looking at the fingers, focusing on the audience instead.! Sounds to be like showmanship in the making!
Love this! Music is about expression; it's not a test. As a horn player, I focus A LOT on precision but a great director once told me "if you clam the notes, you're forgiven in advance 😁. Make the music beautiful and with feeling." Of course, what I heard was make a beautiful sound with feeling AND with all the right notes. 😉
Absolutely, the way I think of it is this, we work on precision to make sure the music sounds beautiful and that we can voice it the way it’s meant to be, then we forget to think about the technique and we just think about the music itself.
Yes, indeed it is, Isaac, and Benjamin Zander is teaching the students (and, us) lessons of life, and, in the case of the bright, young student-violinist, he merely held up a mirror infront of her...
@@juliejules7780 at the end of the day Mr. Zander is only offering suggestions as to what the music should mean, as that comes from the heart of the musician. He is so knowledgeable in music theory and the lives of the composers who write the pieces in his interpretation classes, and he’s able to guide the students through a unique interpretation but he wants them to take these ideas and know how to build their own interpretations of the music they study for the rest of their lives
@@juliejules7780That’s a valid preference, as they’re two types of classes. Ideally a performing musician should be taking separate technical and interpretation classes and getting the most out of each teacher by committing practice time to each skill.
At least he resisted temptation to go full Karajan on her. Anne Sophie Mutter tells the story of how she first played the piece for him and only playing the first two bars of the opening octaves on which Karajan said: "Come back next year." Which she did, and then they recorded the work and made one of the best versions on the market. ;) By the way the age of the first performer was 26 and not 21. However Joseph Joachim who was the performer of the breakthrough performance was 12.
I realise that Zander is a very respected musician, but I must respectfully object to this unique and most wonderful pieces of music being played at such pace. In my humble opinion, it ruins its beauty somewhat!
Only if you play it in the manner of the fast tempo but slowly. It you play it in the manner of a slow tempo ie in the character of the slow tempo then you find it difficult to play in the quick temp.
I love Zander but this is not an Allegro ma non troppo, (Fast, but not too much), but straight out Allegro. So I don't question parts of the Benjamin Zander message, but no, I don't believe this is what Beethoven intended. I think we can find throughout the concerto first movement literature, examples of varying tempo, although Mr. Zander's initial point about a sudden break in continuity of tempo seems very valid.
4 minutes into: bravo she is quite playing this oldtime dense sound usually hearedin records decades ago. I doubt even Zander can improve her much exept details. I liked her much more than most of his pupils. She has some style some 20 years above her biological age...
I have always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with Beethoven's Violin Concerto. In my opinion, Benjamin Zander has uncovered the reason for this. He convinces me throughout. Especially in the slow movement, the reproductions are actually all much, much too slow!
I'd love to hear a recording at the tempi Zander is recommending. Does anyone know of one? The recordings I am finding on Spotify are all fairly traditional and slow.
Try Christian Tetzlaff and David Zinman. Or this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xr9KmgDFwMc.html In the end no one does it exactly as fast as he first suggested. But there are interpreters out there who are going more for a more flexible approach, trying to approximate an allegro. Mr. Zander always tries to get people to play Beethoven closer to the original tempo markings. I think it's important that the new generation of students learn, that he is usually played too slow. Nontheless I think the Perlman/Giulini recording, as slow as it is, is one of the best on the market.
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_WMhhN-xT6E.html has the work played with period instruments and conducted by Frans Brueggen, who has very much the approach recommended by Zander. Compelling soloist is Thomas Zehetmair, who knows exactly where he wants to go with each phrase.
so, am i supposed to interpret a piece of music myself, or should i let somebody else tell me what my interpretation should be? Is there one "correct" interpretation that everyone should play? I vote for letting the musician interpret the piece. Music is art. There is no right, wrong, good or bad. There are just opinions.
Well I would differ in opinion. There are no rules, but there sure are tried and tested guidelines. Good instruction can be transformative and can liberate an artist. Most students know that the role of a good teacher is not a tell you what you do, but rather raise the level of art by suggesting 'have you thought about this'.
As Mr. Zander said they are learning together. He is not forcing her to interperet in his way. He is merely showing his interpretation and if she likes his way, she will take elements from his interpretation and add it to her own. There is a lot to be learned from listening to different interpretations
Not necessarily. If you play in the character of the slow tempo, playing it fast may no be easy. It should be played in the manner of the quick tempo but slowly. She did this in a technical sense when she used very little bow in the slow tempo. The adjustment to fast tempo did not require her to make major changes to her economy of bow use. If, at the start she had played it in a manner suited to her original tempo the transition to fast tempo could have been very difficult to do.
I applaud the thought and willingness to experiment, but the tempo is simply too fast, imo. I introduces a kind of brusqueness to the sound of the instrument, especially during string crossing that doesn't match the character of piece.
I prefer it slow, and pulled around a lot too. Menuhins' performance is wonderful. Allegro may be a certain reading on the metronome - but musically we are always talking of an EFFECT. There are many small notes in the violin part- this before paganinni ; they gives the allegro effect at a slower theoretical tempo. Also Beethoven was not exact about his tempi marks - sometimes got them very " wrong" - i.e. estimated the metronome marking wrong - correction - it may be we understand his metronome markings totally wrongly - cf viz questo video , here : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2yd7LWi4wus.html Cor lumey!! Besides that, much of the piece has an improvisatory character, and rhapsodic character - in the violin writing. I don't see how that isn't lost and smudged and swallowed at the speeds Benjamin Zander recommends. Plus , see :ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d_tPAV_4EyQ.html and : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--irGdmiLmWk.html I likle the passion though, though you should have responded to my friendly email Benjamin!!
Thanks for the interesting references to the "Authentic Sound" channel. On your preference for slow and pulled around a lot, there is no arguing with tastes. But then, as you go on to do precisely that, it seems fair to dispute the idea that Menuhin's way with this piece was wonderful. I did re-listen earlier to Menuhin with Furtwaengler. It really is preposterously slow and mannered, and the test of this is the business of dwelling on each tiny note, as if the unit of meaning in this piece were something smaller than a semi-quaver. The problem with this is not the time elapsed per bar, but the aimlessness, which no amount of "nobility" can disguise. This is a historical document of the bad kind.
Interestingly, her manner of playing at the beginning for too dainty and trite. However, technically it was correct for the fast tempo. This enabled her to play in the fast tempo without any problem. Technical and musical shortcomings seemed to vanish during the fast tempo playing.
he's illustrating on how people change the tempo to adjust the piano, and he tried to force him to play in the same tempo to show how weird it is and that's where all of his tempo interpretation comes from
@@RaffySonata As I interpreted it, he's claiming the orchestra (or in this case the pianist) suddenly play at a much shower tempo at the F major tutti. Left to his own devices, the pianist would have maintained the same tempo. He forced him to play in a shower tempo, not the same tempo!
It is really intriguing that Heifetz did, almost, play in tempo-Zander. But not quite. Even with Toscanini accompanying , there is a sense of something that is faster than treacle, but still rather static in its approach to the harmonic structure - a very beautiful flow from note to note, but not the sense of harmonic directional movement that Zander is offering to this student. Heifetz is more truthful to Beethoven than the very slow Menuhin-style tradition, but just as much of a marble monument. You can be a fast statue. Or you can be a little more free, but with a sense of direction.
Beethoven himself stated that his metronome markings are a guide "for the first measures". Each musical theme and section needs a different characterization, and that could include subtle tempo variations. We are musicians, not MIDIs.
I feel like if you play too slow you can get sick of it before it's even over. Plus you lose the larger phrasing. With a fast tempo you are always giving a little more energy and leave them wanting more. It keeps the audience on their feet.
