More on Bach

[armtuk]

Tonight I managed to limp my way through the whole first movement along with Itzhak and his Orchestra. I am dead pleased. I dropped in a couple of places, but picked it back up again within a bar or two. Still much work to do, but I can at least hit most of the notes in a row. My hand started aching after that so I stopped, though I would really like to play along with the second and third movement. I've been practising the wild string crossing bit in the third movement which I just find awesome, although on all the recordings I've listened to (three so far) all you really hear is the soloist hitting the E string and some indistinguishable notes in between, which is sad really because the notes are so pretty. Maybe it's attributable to newer steel strings where an open string now sounds so bright it drowns the other strings where you are in around 5th position and so it sounds a bit muted, even on Itzhak's Strad. I wonder if there was a recording of a person on a baroque violin with gut strings it would be different. I'll have to see if I can find John Holloway doing it, he usually plays a baroque violin.