During a master class I gave at the Gilmore Festival, I noticed something in Bartok's Barcarolla. The piece's notation mixes measures of 6/8, and 7/8, and 5/8. But in almost every bar there are two big beats. As in lots of folk music, and unscripted music, and perhaps in the actual performance of every kind of music -- these beats are not equal in length. In Bartok's text, some of the large beats are equal to 3 eighth-notes, others equal 4 … [Read more...]
One day
When I was a kid I read a lot of books about musical performers, books filled with fantastic tales, of adventures on tour, of transcendental virtuosity -- in the pre-recording era. This stuff can fire a teenager's imagination. After reading about Arthur Rubinstein learning Franck's Symphonic Variations on a long train ride (he went from the station to the first rehearsal), and Josef Hofmann performing a short piece after only hearing another … [Read more...]