Rachel Podger, Violinist

Kind of a thread derail here, but she mentioned a Viola D'Amore, which made me realize that I don't think I've ever heard music using this instrument. A yourube search pulled up this surprisingly fun Vivaldi piece:



Look at the mandolin here, and the fact that the violinists are all using picks to play pizzicatos (was this common in the baroque era?)

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She is good, but I am not a fran. Pieter Wispelwey also on Channel Classics strikes me as a more interesting musician. Actually except for a few of the crazy ones, I'm not a big fan of HIP violinists. I like the modern ones better: less scratchy and more power.

--Andre

I like her recordings, including that Polish ensemble one of the Vivaldi concertos (Stravaganza?), but not her technique so much, in the tonal / articulation sense. she is a chin-on player, with a raised bow arm and less movement from the wrist/ fingers. I prefer the Dutch school of baroque violin. Some like Monica Hugget play both ways, but the chin-on players usually have a thinner sound. you'll notice that chin-on players use heavier / tighter bows as well, since they need the weight to catch the gut strings and avoid skimming because they also use a very fast bow speed, which is more of a modern approach. there was an interesting feature on her in The Strad a couple of years ago when she was recording the Mozart sonatas. I would happily get more of her recordings because she is a first rate musician and superb player by any standards. musicianship overrules "authenticity" of course, but as a one time baroque-violin player I do enjoy the authentic technical players.

Indeed - The whole original-instruments thing is rather thorny. First priority is a good performance regardless of whether its on modern or baroque instruments. Some of my favourite recordings are on modern instruments, or from "less" authentic olrder German groups like Harnoncourt or Collegium Aureum. A bad original instruments recording is just bad, and originality does not redeem it. And there are plenty of bad original instruments recordings and performances...

The gripe I have with chin-on playing is that there is basically no authority for it up until the late baroque period at the earliest. Indeed, we know for a fact that it was chin-off up until this time. Leopold Mozart allows it as a technique for less confident players, and I believe there is some argument that Geminiani may have supported it. Seeing a chin off player navigate the higher registers is really a remarkable thing (recently saw Brandenberg 4 done this way!!!).

Let's be honest about it: chin-on is an easy short-cut to playing baroque violin, which often results in technical, interpretational and tonal compromises. Locking the chin / neck fundamentally affects left hand technique (including vibrato) and bowing articulation and tone production - with consequences for musical realisations.

The English chin-on baroque orchestras (ie, all of them i think) always had a very thin scratchy tone to my ear, which justifies comments from the likes of Ann-Sophie Mutter about baroque violinists knowing nothing about tone production, and feeling pleased with themselves for whining away on the instrument. The CD was partly to blame for this, since those whiney original instruments recordings in the 80s demonstrated the "transparency" of digital sound and allowed re-recording of all the baraque repertiore (very quickly). Chin-on underscores the "failed modern" violinist syndrome a bit - ie, you switched to baroque cos you didn't cut it on modern, and yet you haven't mastered baroque technique properly either. Clearly not the case with Rachel Podger, but you get the point.

Don't get me started on the frankenstein instruments which pass for "baroque" trumpets. Edward Tarr and Don Smithers (as far as I am aware) were among the few who tried playing on actual or correct replica baroque trumpets. Almost everyone else plays on smooth bore extruded instruments with fingerholes and hybrid mouthpieces.

PS: You have just reminded me that in a Strad article on article on baroque violin (vibrato?), they showed a picture from L Mozart's book justifying the chin-on position. Except that the picture they showed is L Mozart's example of how a clumsy "wood-chopper" player holds the instrument and what a good player should avoid. I think the mistake might have been contributed to by the fact that the English language reprint of Mozart (1980s?) actually omitted the original frontispiece from the book which was Mozart's example of good techique (I remember having to paste in my copy of the book a photocopy of the frontispiece from the facsmile version). Rachel's playing technique shown in the Strad article on her, along with other chin-on players, looks like the bad picture, especially the very raised bow arm and pronated wrist. Take it up with Leopold!

I meant to add that I am sure Rachel Podger can play chin-off. I think the professional demands of the concert and recording circuits propel some players towards the security of chin-on technique. I wonder how the Polish players on her recording were playing?

Like the Podge.

Nice Bach Concertos.

Yes, although haven't listened for a while. She has a very focussed tone which I like, and good controlled bow contact. I know she has been criticised for being a bit formula in her interpretations, but that is another matter. Her technique and intonation is wonderful from what I have heard.

Julia Fischer is pretty fantastic (and has some recordings in SACD from Pentatone for teh Fran), but for me, the queen of intonation and focused sound is Hilary Hahn. I still have fond memories of some live concerts for the purity of color of her sound. Her technique in general is just astounding --- check out the last movement of her Barber violin concerto recording, where the sheer speed of playing (and more amazingly, cleanliness) makes that movement into something entirely unique, giving an impression of a pointillistic painting

--Andre