Here is the next track in the Virtual Master Class Project. This is a recording of the second movement of the Eccles Sonata. Leave criticism, advice, practice tips, and the like by clicking on the ‘comments’ link below the player.
Sometimes these players take 10-20 seconds to load, so give it a little time to play if it doesn’t start right away. Read more about this project here, or click here to listen to all the tracks. There aren’t many now, but you can help with that by submitting tracks or telling students & friends about this opportunity.
E-mail me submissions here (jsh177@yahoo.com)
Eccles Sonata mvt 2
Candidate 4
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Nice light, dancing style. Good intonation in the upper register. Be careful when shifting back down to 1st position – don’t go too far and sound flat. Note the rhythm in the 4th complete measure and the 8th complete measure – be sure to play the note full value. Your measures sounded like they only had 2 beats in them. Work on cleaning up the bow string crossings – you sometimes hit neighboring strings. Keep up the good work on this excellent piece!
Good job on working on this very interesting violin sonata…what, violin sonata? It is obvious you are playing from the Zimmerman edition for International Music Company. Just to warm you there are some editorial idiosyncracies that you should eliminate from your performance (which in the end are not your fault). In the 3rd measure (as well as later in measure 7), Zimmerman added syncopated slurs, which according to research on Baroque performance practice where never utilized by Baroque composers. Beware the same issue 7 and 5 measures before the end of the movement. Also, remember that the rhythmic stress occurs on beat 1 and the rest of the measure is either leading away from beat 1 or to beat one. A good example of this can be seen in measures 9 through 13. All notes are NOT created equal. You will find this obvious if you get your hands on a Baroque bow that does not give us the evenness of sound modern bows do. Again, a visit to Grove dictionary of Music and Musicians about the development of the Baroque sonata and dance suite (which although this is a sonata, it does contain dance elements), will inform on how contemporaries composed and often performed these dance works. Understanding how the original sonata works will help inform your performance. It’s like writing a research paper, always examine your sources and what causes editors to make certain editorial decisions such as slurring and dynamics. Many Baroque composers never wrote dynamic markings in there music. Often that was left up to the performer except in instances where a composer wants a dynamic specifically. Slurs often do not often appear in manuscript sources, and just as a side note, please perform this with proper Baroque continuo (bass instrument with harpsichord, organ and/or theorbo), you’ll find the timbres interesting over the bland continuo realization in the International edition.
Good job on the technical aspects of your performance, now it’s time to take it to the next level. Question the authority of your sources, sometimes they let us down!