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The British Pathé YouTube archive is proving to be a charming source of films about the violin, in all its forms. Here is a soundless video from 1926, 'Trained Fingers', starring the dashing Albert Sammons. You might start to feel a little queasy around 1:24, when the special Ostrovsky training device comes out and Sammons puts his fingers in. The invention for double-stops looks a little less torturous, but does it really beat good old scales? Or is it tendinitis waiting to happen? Here's a beautifully filmed short following the progress of Nice violin maker Gaggini as he creates a new instrument, with Gabrielle Devries playing Bach on one of his instruments in the background. A simple but effective way of presenting the luthier's craft, and made in 1960, well before Vimeo or Vine. And we all know how hard it is to do comedy with a violin. I think this Stanelli clip from 1941 just about proves it ('If you don't mind, I'll take my applause in advance...') #violin #playing #teaching #sammons #blog

I just came across this delightful footage on the British Pathé YouTube channel. It shows a class of 'budding Kreislers' from 1940 learning on a special instrument designed by John Brown, with mandolin like tuning pegs to make it easier for them to tune: rather like the systems that have recently come on to the market. The bows too are designed to make it easier for children to learn the correct position. 'They are becoming masters at what is known as technique,' says the announcer. Does anyone remember learning on one of these instruments, or having seen one? I suppose it proves that there's nothing new about innovation! #violin #lutherie #pedagogy #teaching #playing #blog

Amid the commemorations of the start of the First World War, you might like a bit of respectful levity, so here is Charlie Chaplin's Shoulder Arms. It's one of my favourite films, made at a point where Chaplin was peaking, with a perfect balance of sheer inventiveness and just the right amount of sentiment. Before he was a little too nasty and liable to kick people in the ass and leer at ladies; after he increasingly tended to the cloying. But in 1918, when he made Shoulder Arms, he was at the height of his genius and popularity. Chaplin faced criticism for not enlisting (he was too small anyway), but he raised war bonds for the troops and his films helped the morale both of soldiers and those at home. Shoulder Arms is brilliant for movingly and hilariously portraying the emotional reality and detail of life in the trenches. But even in this setting, Chaplin manages to maintain his anti-authoritarian nose-thumbing and his deep understanding of human weakness and aspiration. And the scene with the cheese is just brilliant. Watch, laugh and cry... For more about Charlie Chaplin and his obsession with the violin, read my article here. #chaplin #firstworldwar #blog #playing

The great screen comedian was an accomplished amateur violinist who composed many of the scores to his films At the height of his success, Charlie Chaplin harboured a fantasy about his violin. In 1920, shortly before the release of The Kid, he told a journalist: ‘I once had a day vision. I saw at my feet in a huddled heap all the trappings and paraphernalia of my screen clothes – that dreadful suit of clothes! – my moustache, the battered derby, the little cane, the broken shoes, the dirty collar and shirt. That day I had resolved never to get into those clothes again – to retire to some Italian lake with my beloved violin, my Shelley and Keats, and live under an assumed name a life purely imaginative and intellectual.’ It’s not surprising that someone who had risen from abject poverty to being the most famous man in the world in less than ten years might long for retreat, but I find the idea that Chaplin dreamt of taking his violin with him very touching. I’ve only recently come under Chaplin’s spell. I’d always disdained him, under the fashionable misconception that he was too sentimental. But then I discovered the whimsy, the childlike imagination, the anarchy, the grace, the humanism and the moral courage. Having consumed as many books, DVDs and live screenings as I could, I’ve become a Chaplin geek. And as I read, I discovered that Chaplin was a committed amateur violinist for much of his life, and that even when that passion abated, he poured the experience into writing string-laden film scores. We have evidence of Chaplin playing on screen twice, in films that bookend his career. In The Vagabond of 1916, he plays a busker who is not above collecting other performers’ tips and who uses his violin to seduce a gypsy girl. There are a couple of lovely playing gags, involving a fourth finger that can’t stop trilling, and an itchy nose, and Chaplin ably demonstrates that any gag he can do (such as a chase and several falls into a bucket of water), he can also do clutching violin and bow. His playing looks fluid and confident, although his vibrato seems a bit tense, and his air of prim professional superiority, especially when bowing to his audience of one, is delightful. Chaplin’s other violin performance comes in one of his last and most autobiographical films, Limelight (1952), in which he plays a faded music-hall star. His final performance is as a double act with Buster Keaton (who very nearly upstages him) on the piano, with Keaton trying to keep his music on the stand while Chaplin tries to adjust his own legs to the same length. When he plays, Chaplin’s look of needy ingratiation encapsulates the film’s main theme – the changing relationship between performer and audience over time. The sight of Keaton walking around with a smashed violin underfoot is possibly too painful to be funny (although it’s not as bad as watching Chaplin running around with his head stuck in a double bass in The Pawnshop). Chaplin is miming, but it’s a funny routine, and it’s poignant to see the two twilit masters together. It’s also interesting that (spoiler alert) Chaplin chose his fictional death to happen playing the violin. ’I had great ambitions to be a concert artist, or, failing that, to use it in a vaudeville act‘ Violin and cello are mentioned several times in Chaplin’s 1964 autobiography, a compelling account of the poverty and parental madness in which he was brought up in Victorian London. By the age of 16, he was already a rising talent in the English music halls and would practise his violin from four to six hours a day: ‘Each week I took lessons from the theatre conductor or from someone he recommended. As I played left-handed, my violin was strung left-handed with the bass-bar and sounding post reversed. I had great ambitions to be a concert artist, or, failing that, to use it in a vaudeville act.’ Stan Laurel, of double-act fame, shared lodgings and toured the US with Chaplin as part of Fred Karno’s music hall company in 1910. He backs up Chaplin’s claims, although he makes him sound somewhat pretentious: ‘He carried his violin wherever he could. Had the strings reversed so he could play left-handed, and he would practise for hours. He bought a cello once and used to carry it around with him. At these times he would always dress like a musician, a long fawn-coloured overcoat with green velvet cuffs and collar and a slouch hat.’ There is also a story that as Laurel cooked, which was forbidden in their digs, Chaplin would play the violin to cover the noise. On his next tour of the US with Karno, in 1913, Chaplin was discovered by Mack Sennett of the Keystone Film Company, and from that point his rise was meteoric. In 1915 he was earning $1,250 a week at Essanay Studios and by 1917 he had signed with First National for $1,200,000, enabling him to build his own studio and allowing him unprecedented artistic freedom. In his autobiography he describes the moment his brother Sydney, who negotiated this deal, broke the news: ‘I had just taken a bath and was wandering about the room with a towel around my loins, playing The Tales of Hoffmann on my violin. “Hum-um, I suppose that’s wonderful.’’’ ’Chaplin admits that as a violinist he is no Kubelik or Elman but he hopes, nevertheless, to play in concerts some day before very long’ Through this most active of phases and arguably at the peak of his comedic powers, Chaplin still seems to have been practising regularly. A Mutual press release of 1917 emphasises the star’s commitment to the violin: ‘Every spare moment away from the studio is devoted to this instrument. He does not play from notes excepting in a very few instances. He can run through selections of popular operas by ear and if in the humor, can rattle off the famous Irish jig or some negro selection with the ease of a vaudeville entertainer. Chaplin admits that as a violinist he is no Kubelik or Elman but he hopes, nevertheless, to play in concerts some day before very long.’ Journalist Grace Kingsley was treated to Chaplin’s playing in 1918, writing: ‘He will permit you to sit in his dressing room, and let you do the talking while he affixes the horsehair to make up his moustache. You will notice a violin near at hand, also a cello. And it will be unusual if Charlie does not pick up the fiddle and the bow, and accompany your remarks with an obbligato from the classics, what time he will fix you with a far-away stare and keep you going with monosyllabic responses.’ Chaplin’s passion for playing seems to have gone cold by the time of a 1921 interview with the New York Herald, whom he told: ‘I used to play my violin a great deal up to a couple of years ago, but since then I’ve hardly touched it. I seem to have lost interest in such things.’ It seems that by this point his musical energies had transferred to writing film music. His interests in composing go back to 1916, when he started a music publishing company, releasing songs such as ‘Oh, that cello’ and ‘There’s always one you can’t forget’. It wasn’t successful, though, and soon closed. From City Lights (1931) onwards, he composed all his scores and went back in later years to write music for the older ones. Chaplin couldn’t read music and described the process of composing as ‘la-laing’ to musical associates, but he was involved in all the creative decisions about timing and scoring. Violinist Louis Kaufman played for several Chaplin soundtracks and in his biography describes Chaplin supervising every detail of the recordings and ‘creating little tunes and perfect themes’. Many of these themes became famous beyond the films, including ‘Smile’ from Modern Times and ‘Eternally’ from Limelight. As in his films, Chaplin brings an instinctive sense of timing, structure and emotional persuasion to bear in his scores, and some of his most powerful scenes are accompanied by violin themes that fully wring the emotions. The heartbreaking ending of City Lights, for example, and the tumultuous high point of The Kid, when the young Jackie Coogan is taken by the orphanage director, are both accompanied by dramatic string music. It sounds a little like pastiche, perhaps of Elgar or Tchaikovsky, but it never fails to heighten the on-screen passions, with some sophisticated effects. In City Lights, for example, Chaplin sets up a musical motif for his relationship with the blind flower girl throughout the film, a violin tune known as ‘La violetera’ (apparently played by Xavier Cugat) which is given full rein in the final scene. ‘The majority of the extended violin solos are written in such a beautifully odd, yet specific, manner’ According to Timothy Brock, a conductor and composer who has reconstructed Chaplin’s scores, Chaplin composed using his violin well into the 1960s, and this can be felt in the writing. Brock explains: ‘The majority of the extended violin solos are written in such a beautifully odd, yet specific, manner. His string writing contains such a unique set of principles that it is obvious he was a composer bent on sound and not technical affability. On paper his writing can be technically unconventional, but to the ear it’s as naturally fluid and as lyrical as any composer. Once the player embraces the sound and meaning of the musical intent, the technical flaws in the writing become less than secondary.’ This unconventionality includes tuning the G string down to F sharp for Modern Times, as Chaplin never used violas. Brock says: ‘Instead of changing the figure, the instrument, or raising the overall key, he tuned his G string a step lower. As restorer I was forced to give this passage to the violas, something Chaplin would never have done.’ ‘Yehudi and Persinger thought it absurd to think of giving up a minute of Charlie Chaplin to wait in a railway station’ Chaplin was literally the most famous man in the world in the period through to the 1930s, with access to any company he chose, and he often chose his own string players. According to Humphrey Burton’s biography of Menuhin, in 1928 Chaplin heard the young prodigy perform and invited him to the studio, declaring the day a holiday for his workers and giving Menuhin, his father and his teacher Louis Persinger a private tour. He evidently didn’t want Menuhin to leave. Menuhin’s father remembered: ‘I began to get anxious that we might miss our train. Yehudi and Persinger thought it absurd to think of giving up a minute of Charlie Chaplin to wait in a railway station. Chaplin himself would not let us leave until the very last moment. Then his chauffeur whisked us and our baggage to the station at top speed. Twice we were stopped by the police.’ ‘Heifetz picked up Chaplin’s violin and was unable to play it. Chaplin took it, played some Bach, and said, “You see, I am made inside out and upside-down”’ Chaplin was also friends with Jascha Heifetz and told a story about how at a party Heifetz picked up Chaplin’s violin and was unable to play it. Chaplin took it, played some Bach, and said, ‘You see, I am made inside out and upside-down. When I turn my back on you in the screen you are looking at something as expressive as a face.’ Chaplin revelled in such associations and his autobiography is packed with anecdotes about musicians such as Debussy (who told Chaplin, ‘You are instinctively a musician and a dancer’), Stravinsky (with whom Chaplin planned a film setting a passion play in a nightclub), Rachmaninoff (whom Chaplin offended with his liberal thinking) and Hanns Eisler (who remembered how he was told by his bald harmony professor, Schoenberg, ‘Young man, don’t whistle. Your icy breath is very cold on my head’). Such stories give a wonderful snapshot of Chaplin’s times, as do the films, especially in illustrating the role of the violin historically. It wasn’t reserved for salons and concert halls but was a regular feature in bars and restaurants, as shown in The Immigrant, The Vagabond, The Rink and A Dog’s Life for example. In The Gold Rush, the violinist functions as a jukebox, being thrown money to play for the dancers. Live music also played a part in inspiring Chaplin’s own performances: studio records show that, when filming one of his most iconic scenes, the dance of the bread rolls in The Gold Rush, Chaplin hired the Hollywood Quartet at $50 a day (although after a week they were replaced by a cheaper group). But was Chaplin any good? I was inordinately excited to be sent a recording of him in 1925 playing a short solo on his own composition ‘Sing a Song’, with Abe Lyman’s orchestra. Chaplin carries the jaunty tune and his own decorations well. His solo is fairly well in tune; the sound is a little dull, the vibrato a bit wide and slow, and notes connected with unsubtle slides, but it’s enough to convince that Chaplin knew what he was doing. The sound also stands testament to a private side to Chaplin that afforded him some escape from the burdens of his genius and fame, and reflected his creative aspirations. Above all, it reassures us that when Chaplin decided not to follow his dream of escaping to Italy the world did not lose one of its greatest violinists, as it would certainly have lost its greatest comedian if he had. This was first published in The Strad, December 2008 What can violinists learn from Charlie Chaplin? Read my article here. Chaplin photo with Menuhin from Foyle Menuhin Archive at Royal Academy of Music. Purchased by the Foyle Foundation, Sir John Ritblat HonFRAM and an anonymous donor, February 2004 #article #chaplin #playing

You probably didn’t know that my mother was also a journalist – the apple never falls far from the tree, as they say. She was the Newsweek correspondent at the United Nations in the 60s, as you can read in her compelling 2012 autobiography, Don’t Ask Me Where I Come From. But I only recently discovered that in 1981, she wrote an article about my first violin teacher, Sheila Nelson. Sheila, now 78 and retired, is one of the most respected pedagogues of her generation. Starting off as a follower of Suzuki, and then Paul Rolland, she eventually created her own system for teaching kids ‘Right from the Start’, as her books are called, and my mother’s article goes into a little of her philosophy. I was lucky to begin with Sheila when I was five – my brother Rafael already learnt with her and I was envious of the lollipops he got at lessons and the ice cream and jelly at concerts, so my mother undertook two extra weekly trips to Cromwell Avenue, Highgate, for me to learn too. Much more importantly than sweets, Sheila gave me an unending love of music and of playing, in both senses of that word. Because at the beginning, learning was about playing – there were games and fun, as my mother’s article captures. There were individual lessons and group lessons, and Saturdays were spent running up and down her house playing chamber music. I still play with the friends I made there when I was five. Not all of us turned out as maestros, but Sheila created generations of players who love music and still play chamber music, and for that we all owe her a gigantic debt of thanks – indeed the whole classical music world does. The article is not about Sheila’s private teaching, though – it’s about a project she undertook in the 1980s to teach underprivileged kids in Tower Hamlets. The idea might sound familiar – only a few weeks ago I was at the graduation party at the Wigmore Hall for the Bridge Project, which is an ambitious and important scheme taking violins into the classes of Lambeth and Westminster schools. So there’s a certain heartbreaking frustration in knowing that the enormous value that Sheila created back then came to nothing when cuts were made to its funding, and that the wheel has had to be painstakingly reinvented. I don’t know much of the details of how the project ended, so I’d be interested to know if any of you have more information. I’m publishing my mother’s article here, pretty much unedited, as a tribute to probably the two most influential women in my life. #blog #sheilanelson #violin #teaching #playing #view

One of my aims with this website is to be a non-denominational space where all forms of string music are equally respected and appreciated. I believe that’s the way the world is going – barriers between music styles around the world are falling, (just as political tribalism is taking hold – but that’s for someone else’s website). As Chris Thile says here: ‘You’ll see so much genre-hopping in the near future that it’ll cease to be genre-hopping. The walls will be so worn that you don’t need to hop, you’ll just casually step over them.’ And as Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music, good and bad. Or rather, in the context of this website, music I really like, and music I don’t like as much as the music I really like (it’s relative, after all). So I was excited to discover Classical Kicks last night, upstairs at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. The concept was devised by violinist Lizzie Ball in 2012, her idea to put together a whole range of music styles in one programme. Yesterday’s presentation began with a solo piano set from Christina McMaster balancing relatively new pieces by Stephen Montague and Alasdair Nicolson with works by Samuel Barber and Bill Evans. We moved through some well-known tango hits by Piazzolla, and took in a truly modern piece by the group’s cellist Daniel Keane (finished at 4pm the day before), winding up with rap star Tor Cesay’s tales, including a clever allegory about getting lost in Australia. To round the evening off in style everyone came together for Piazzolla’s Libertango. And it worked, brilliantly. For a start, having it at Ronnie Scott’s is a coup. I’ve often felt that classical music is more sinned against than sinning when it comes to being exclusive. I wrote here about how hip cultural festivals and venues rarely include classical music, and regard it as uncool – so who's being exclusive? To have one of the most famous jazz venues in the world supporting this project gives it an instant kudos that certainly helps the cause. Of course, there are always issues with having relatively quiet acoustic music in such venues – extraneous noise is one, with the clack of glasses and tumbling of ice cubes coming from behind the bar, the thump of the bass lines emanating from the gig downstairs, and the occasional loud talk of over-enthusiastic (drunk) people invading the music. At one point Lizzie Ball had to ask for quiet. But for me, all these noises were part of the atmosphere and failed to distract from the music. And the advantages of the venue were clear, in creating an intimate and special environment that fostered open minds. The flow of the different pieces worked so well that one wouldn’t even want to categorise it. Was the piano music jazz or classical? Was the Piazzolla folk, world, classical? Who cares, or needs these categories, anyway? It all just worked as part of a whole, with the rap music fitting right in and receiving a rapturous response. Here's to the future of music! You have to be there to appreciate the atmosphere, but here's a video from 2012: #ronniescott #playing #review #blog #view

Julian Lloyd-Webber has come out in The Times against competitions, and accused them of being corrupt. That’s quite a broad brush with which to tar them all. Having been to a fair few string ones during my twelve years at The Strad magazine, and commissioned reports from even more, I’d beg to differ. Admittedly, I tried only to visit competitions myself if I knew they were well-respected, but I don’t remember seeing someone win who didn’t deserve to, from some perspective. There were possibly a couple of instances where the first and second places could have been switched around as a matter of taste. Or where there wasn’t anyone truly outstanding and someone good enough got it. Or where someone hugely talented didn’t win because they messed something up (although I once watched someone win who had a major slip in the finals). I did once see a player win who was studying with a member of the jury, but he was so obviously in a different league from his rivals that no one would have thought it unfair, and I don't think the teacher even voted. But I don’t think I ever saw an out and out misruling due to teacher complicity, so I’m not sure what evidence Lloyd Webber has that ‘You have a situation where a juror is friendly with another juror and there’s a kind of trade-off.’ Having said that, a correspondent did once hear about shenanigans in the jury room of a competition – a Russian one, but not the Tchaikovsky. And there have always been rumours of various great violinists – Menuhin, Szigeti, Stern, and some living ones, stepping in to influence the final decision. So I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, and it doesn’t still happen, but from my experience it is mainly historic, and competitions that still run like that are doomed, even if they don’t realise it – especially if they don’t realise it. As more and more competitions live stream their rounds (the Menuhin and Indianapolis, for example), the process becomes completely transparent, and the judges can be held to account by the lively music community around the world. It's also important that members of the press and blogosphere are there to highlight discrepancies, adding to the discourse, and the pressure on judges to act fairly. Some competitions also include audience prizes, another way to highlight potential differences of opinion (and don’t believe anyone who says audiences are too easily bowled over by a pretty face – in my experience they’ve usually been right on the money). Of course we never know what really happens in the jury room, but the proof is in the pudding, and the more light that is shone on specific decisions, the less likely they are to be dishonest. As for Lloyd Webber’s singling out the Tchaikovsky Competition – I didn’t follow the last one in 2011, but I heard two first prize winners – pianist Daniil Trifonov and cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan – perform in a gala concert in the Barbican and was impressed. The stellar trajectory of their careers since 2011 seems to counter Lloyd Webber’s charge that the competition is ‘either highly political or it’s a fix for somebody’s pupil to win it.’ That’s not to say there aren’t issues that competitions need to tackle. I was present at a panel discussion last year where directors of several European competitions discussed what they see as the problems, which you can read here. They all realised that the question of who to have on the jury is fundamental to their survival. Should it be teachers, who arguably know best how to judge someone’s technique and musical direction; players, who know more about performing to an audience; business people who understand what’s needed to make a good career; non-string players, who have a healthy distance from the technical aspects? All of these are options and progressive competitions embrace a varied balance of them, corralled by a chairman who makes the boundaries clear and using a voting system that is logical and fair (easier said than done). I’d only partially agree with Norman Lebrecht when he describes competitions as 'dull'. Maybe, but in a Zen sort of way. There’s nothing like sitting through three Bartók violin concertos or eight fresh-composed set pieces of an evening to build up one’s attention span. More than that, as a violinist, I learnt a huge amount from the many full days of semi-finals and finals I sat through. I was able to observe the mechanics of playing; compare interpretations to understand what people were doing, or not doing; work out what sort of playing I like and find special. And as a writer, it was a brilliant exercise in trying to describe eight separate performances of the same piece in eight distinct ways. You don’t get much more challenging than that as a music writer, and I’m very grateful for the experience. So there’s a danger in throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. There are lots of good possibilities with competitions. They can provide useful exposure for players who succeed (and also for those who don’t – some of the biggest names in the business came second or third in major competitions, rather than first). They can provide fantastic motivation for students to practise, as well as performance experience and an insight into the hard work required in sustaining a career. They can be useful networking events for youngsters to forge important relationships with colleagues around the world. They can also be a chance for young players to interact with communities within which the competitions are held, to act as young ambassadors for classical music. Again, the enlightened competitions recognise all these aspects and build them into the tight schedules. The best ones are constantly evolving, in tune with the music business, technology, and the needs of their young talents, and these are the ones to watch. There’s a criticism often levelled against contests (although Lloyd Webber doesn’t mention this) that they breed performing monkeys – players who are technically brilliant but subsequently fall apart when they are faced with making a career. (As editor of The Strad, I commissioned this article, in which various players highlighted some of the issues of entering competitions and the aftermath.) There’s an element of truth about the accusation. Technical standards these days are dizzily high – there’s nothing unusual about a twelve-year-old whizzing off three different programmes and a perfect Tchaikovsky Concerto in the space of a week. Perfection and consistency are prerequisite for entering major competitions, but that's how the professional musical landscape is these days, like it or not. The good thing is that it also means that in order to distinguish themselves, players have to have more than that, and one does usually see the players with personalities rise to the top, just as they should. After all, they’re not going to make a career without it. So, there may be rotten eggs in the barrel, but there are some good competitions doing a useful service for the classical music world, developing players and audiences, being responsible, transparent and ethical, and evolving with the modern world. We should focus on these, and let the other ones die out, as they undoubtedly will. #competitions #playing #teachingblog #view

I’m just back from Womad: three days of camping in a field and listening to music from all over the world. I’m sunburnt and have sore feet, and never have I been so pleased to see my bed and toilet. But it was worth it for the sheer quantity and variety of music I had a chance to listen to, even if, with seven stages to choose from, I was sometimes quite overwhelmed and had to go and lie under a bush to cool down. There weren’t many string acts to report back on, but the few were good, and all new to me. The young Swedish cellist Linnea Olsson arrived without her instrument – SAS Airlines having lost it somewhere in the change between planes at Copenhagen. Fortunately it arrived in time for her main set. Olsson is a classically trained cellist who accompanies herself in droll love songs, looping in and out of various textures and commanding the stage impressively on her own. Olsson uses her cello imaginatively, ranging between sparse bass pizzicatos in one song, to Bach-like string-crossings in another, or Reichian repeating units and carefully crafted textures. All supporting her beautifully pure voice and sardonic lyrics. I spoke to Olsson after her set and she explained why she had moved away from classical music while she was at music college, saying, ‘I’m afraid of doing something wrong when I play classical music. I always feel a bit scared, so I don’t enjoy it as much.’ She certainly still has the classical chops, though, and makes a lovely sound. Here she is playing Ah! from her latest album: Another great string player was Tunisian violinist Zied Zouari, who performed as part of Imed Alibi’s band, and whose soaring solos and quick-fire repartee with the keyboard player brought the gig to life. Here's a clip I found of him performing in Paris earlier this year: The Magnolia Sisters brought some old-time Cajun fiddling to the festival: And Orkney band The Chair helped renew my flagging energy level on Sunday with their spinning fiddles. Here they are in 2010: Apart from that, my highlights were non-stringy. Richard Thompson’s guitar playing had me wondering if there were two other guitarists on stage in the corner I couldn’t see. Youssou N’Dour still has one of the most beautiful burnished voices and coolest stage presences, even though he’s now a minister in Senegal. The combination of the Welsh harp of Catrin Finch and the kora of Senegalese Seckou Keita seemed the most natural idea in the world – the delicate blend resonant and full. It emphasised the fact that distances in geography and culture mean little when it comes to the laws of physics: there are only so many ways to skin a cat, or string an instrument, and completely different cultures can find exactly the same sounds in their quest to make music. I’ve always been a big Carolina Chocolate Drops fan and was sad when Dom Flemons left, so it was great to see the old-time banjo player again. In another cross-cultural collaboration that brought up more similarities than differences, he performed with English folk guitarist Martin Simpson. They played songs from both the US and English traditions, based on research they’ve recently done together at Cecil Sharp House, and using their own encyclopedic knowledge of their respective songbooks. Flemons spoke passionately about the need for us all to understand our cultures through our musical traditions, urging us to go and discover one thing about it, which made me promise myself to go to Cecil Sharp House. Above all, the songs were brilliant stories from way back and the two artists seemed to be having a ball discovering their shared traditions. Perhaps one of the most powerful performances was given by Ukrainian band Dakha Brakha, who aptly describe their music as ‘ethno-chaos’. It was certainly heavy stuff, with a cellist providing a deep weight to the sound at the other end of the sonic spectrum from the ethereal vocals. Along with insistent rhythms and occasional forays into musical madness, and of course the underlying political subtext, this was intense stuff and was received with gigantic applause. It was a heady three days of discovery, verging on over-stimulation, but I’m looking forward to exploring all these new favourite bands. Once I’ve had a lie down. Were you there? Who were your favourites? #cello #arabicviolin #folk #playing #review #blog #view

The First World War began 100 years ago, on 28 July 2014, with Austria–Hungary declaring war on Serbia, a month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. I have always been fascinated by the era and at school studied the gut-wrenching poetry that came out of the trenches. I was also a little bit obsessed by the mathematics of time and by working out whether it was possible for the old soldiers to be alive still, as if that would somehow provide a direct connection to our lives today. Of course they are all gone now – the last man to have fought in the trenches, Harry Patch, died in 2009, at the remarkable age of 111. What I only realised relatively recently is that one of my favourite violinists, Fritz Kreisler, served briefly as an officer in the Third Army Corps of the Austrian Army, before being invalided out, and that he wrote about it in a book, ‘Four Weeks in the Trenches’. I’ve just read it and can highly recommend it. During my time interviewing players and editing their writing for The Strad, I came up with a theory that how people talk and write gives you an indication of how they play, and this idea is certainly borne out by Kreisler’s writing. Like his playing, it’s sincere, warm and imaginative but never hysterical or self-indulgent. It’s a sober account of the human side of warfare. It doesn’t go into all the gruesome detail, but offers enough insight fully to understand the range of emotions felt by those fighting for their country under awful circumstances. The style is elegant and well-crafted, as one would expect, although not without cliché. Of course a string nerd like me looks for any insight that relates to his violin playing, but Kreisler is clear that the only thing his musical training offers him is the ability to judge the approach of shells. ‘My ear, accustomed to differentiate sounds of all kinds, had some time ago, while we still advanced, noted a remarkable discrepancy in the peculiar whine produced by the different shells in their rapid flight through the air as they passed over our heads, some sounding shrill, with a rising tendency, and the others rather dull, with a falling cadence.’ With his keen sense of hearing he could tell the change in tone at the top of a shell’s curve, and this insight led to him being sent out as a scout: ‘I was sent on a reconnoitering tour, with the object of marking on the map the exact spot where I thought the hostile shells were reaching their acme, and it was later on reported to me that I had succeeded in giving to our batteries the almost exact range of the Russian guns. I have gone into this matter at some length, because it is the only instance where my musical ear was of value during my service.’ So maybe playing the violin is indirectly an evolutionary advantage after all. One episode Kreisler describes with intense compassion is the death of a lieutenant whose father is a brigadier serving in the same area, and the dignity and strength with which the father discovers his son is injured and subsequently when he finds out he has died: ‘I was overwhelmed by the power this man showed at that minute, and admit I had not the courage to break the news to him, but it was unnecessary, for he understood. The faithful orderly stepped forward, as I had bidden him, presenting to the old man the pocketbook and small articles that belonged to his son. While he did so he broke forth into sobs, lamenting aloud the loss of his beloved lieutenant, yet not a muscle moved in the face of the father. He took my report, nodded curtly, dismissed me without a word, and turned back to his ordnance officers, resuming the conversation.’ Later he discovers the brigadier in his tent shaking convulsively and silently wraps an overcoat round him. Kreisler captures the fear, but also the thrill of war in both he and his soldiers on the eve of battle: ‘They were plainly nervous, these brave men that fought like lions in the open when led to an attack, heedless of danger and destruction. They felt under a cloud in the security of the trenches, and they were conscious of it and ashamed. Sometimes my faithful orderly would turn his eye on me, mute, as if in quest of an explanation of his own feeling. Poor dear unsophisticated boy! I was as nervous as they all were, although trying my best to look unconcerned; but I knew that the hush that hovered around us like a dark cloud would give way like magic to wild enthusiasm as soon as the first shot broke the spell and the exultation of the battle took hold of us all.’ After one particularly brutal battle, Kreisler loses his composure completely, though. He describes the aftermath: ‘Life that only a few hours before had glowed with enthusiasm and exultation, suddenly paled and sickened. The silence of the night was interrupted only by the low moaning of the wounded that came regularly to us. It was hideous in its terrible monotony… These grotesque piles of human bodies seemed like a monstrous sacrificial offering immolated on the altar of some fiendishly cruel, antique deity. I felt faint and sick at heart and near swooning away. I lay on the floor for some time unconscious of what was going on around me, in a sort of stupor, utterly crushed over the horrors about me.’ Kreisler also blames his musical background for this sensitivity, by comparison with a brigadier – a ‘real man’ – who takes charge of the moment. ‘Within five minutes he had restored confidence, giving definite orders for the welfare of every one, man and beast alike, showing his solicitude for the wounded, for the sick and weak ones, and mingling praise and admonition in just measure. As by magic I felt fortified. Here was a real man undaunted by nervous qualms or by over-sensitiveness. The horrors of the war were distasteful to him, but he bore them with equanimity. It was, perhaps, the first time in my life that I regretted that my artistic education had over-sharpened and overstrung my nervous system, when I saw how manfully and bravely that man bore what seemed to me almost unbearable.’ I could go on, but it’s best for you just to read it here. It’s quite short, and thanks to the Gutenberg Project, I’m allowed to post it on my website. Pictures come from here. #kreisler #violin #greatwar #playing #blog #view

At first I thought this New Yorker article about the Carpenter family by Rebecca Mead was going to be a puff piece, but it turns out to be a pretty thorough exposition of the high-end stringed instrument market, quoting many of the big names in that world. The article alludes to some of the underlying issues in the business, without necessarily focusing on them. You get a sense of the fierce ambition and sales skills required to try to sell instruments at this level – usuallly to investors rather than players. Hearing the 'Macdonald' Strad described by Sean Carpenter as 'the ultimate trophy piece' offers some insight into the psychology required. To balance all the talk of hyper-inflated prices for Stradivarius instruments, Mead does at least mention the Stradivarius blind tests, which indicate many players can't tell the difference between Strads and modern instruments, although this evidence is dismissed pretty quickly. Most fascinating is to hear Charles Beare emphasise the importance of experience and of a lutherie background when dealing with classic instruments. Beare trained as a restorer and went on to become one of the world's most esteemed experts – as the article points out, one of the last of a generation. He describes how since the 60s more and more musicians have entered the field: 'Seeing what a profitable business it could be, all kinds of people decided that instead of sitting in a seat for a long evening, playing, it would be more fun to be dealing.' He suggests that these people might be acting without the necessary years of experience that defines them as experts and says, 'There is nothing I could possibly have against it – except that it’s not the real thing.' What do you think? Do you have to be a luthier to be a good violin expert? #violin #viola #stradivarius #strad #beare #lutherie #blog #view

I heard this band on in the background playlist at the Green Note in Camden last week and had to stop my conversation, I was so captivated. They are Genticorum and they're from Canada. Their arrangements are just lovely, rich but delicate, and the fiddle player, Pascal Gemme, has a beautiful tone and a precision technique. Here's something to tap your foot to: #violin #fiddle #folk #playing #blog #view

If you've been trying to notch up 10,000 hours of practice in the hope of being deemed talented, spurred on by Malcolm Gladwell's rule formluated in his book Outliers, then wait up a moment. According to new research reported on today in the New York Times, 'practice time explains about 20 percent to 25 percent of the difference in performance in music, sports and games like chess'. This doesn't surprise me. As ever, there's so much more context required in understanding talent and musical success. How do you explain prodigies such as Menuhin who virtually come out of the womb playing like an angel? Or players like Kreisler, who hardly practised and spent years not even playing the violin? Having recently come back from two weeks at Burton Kaplan's Magic Mountain Music Farm Practice Retreat, where I learnt some profoundly effective practice techniques, I can also attest that it's quality of practice time that counts, rather than quantity - it's better to really focus and know what you want to achieve than just foozling around for hours. Kaplan also emphasised that other activities such as listening to music, reading relevant books, watching conductors, planning and imaging all counts towards improving as a player, so the idea of any sort of metric becomes complicated. Of course there's something to be said for consistency and the discipline of shutting yourself in a room for regular periods of time, but there's so much more to being a musician than having a big round number to aspire to. #practice #violin #gladwell #research #playing #blog #view