Up to now I’ve been a little hesitant when it came to hints and tips concerning fingering and bowing since they are very personal and depend to a certain extent on our personal taste.
But I was asked about a particular passage in Bruch’s Violin Concerto that is much easier to handle with a different fingering than often published.
It’s the largamente passage after the chords from the previous article.
Occasionally the entire passage is played on the G string which makes things much more difficult than necessary. I suggest another fingering:
We avoid the large shift into the seventh position to the b flat without sacrificing too much sound, provided that we use enough bow.
For the subsequent measures we need the G string however. The long “a” sounds much better and somehow richer and fuller when we play it on the G string. I prefer the third finger because the vibrato is easier to play, but that’s a matter of taste.
Let’s try the shift upwards:
Still unsure? Isolate it further:
We focus on the shift solely. If that works ok we can try the previous version again.
Now we have to descend to the second position to be able to play the trill adequately:
Again we try to isolate our problems as much as possible. You see, the procedures in practicing are basically the same.
Let’s go further to the second page, shortly before poco piu lento. Directly before the trills we find this passage:
Not difficult at first sight but perhaps therefore dabbled so often. We should put the “f” onto the A string for sound reasons and descend after that for the trill.
We practice the shift:
If this is ok and we are happy with the vibrato on the “f” we have a look at the part which sounds washy very often:
Be sure to play the sixteenths very clearly and defined but whithout playing any accents.
Finally we put the passage together:
Always be sure to listen to every note in a given passage. It’s worth the effort!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
The article is usefull for me. I’ll be coming back to your blog.
Nice to hear that – stay tuned!
How soon will you update your blog? I’m interested in reading some more information on this issue.
Do you mean practicing in general or Bruch in particular? Actually I wanted to drop in a review about a tuner for iPhone upcoming weekend, but that’s not so urgent…