Musical Virtuosity
 

Since Paganini has been blanketing the board of late, I've been thinking (again) about virtuosity in performance. A few years ago I had the pleasure to substitute in a orchestra on a performance of one of the Paganini concertos. Pretty amazing technical stuff, but not so hot otherwise.

Apparently Wagner said, "The real dignity of the virtuoso rests solely on the dignity he is able to preserve for creative art; if he trifles and toys with this, he casts his honour away. He is the intermediary of the artistic idea." That's from Grove--somebody quoted it on Wikipedia too.

Who are some of your favorite virtuosos? What role should the virtuoso play?

I suspect Wagner said that because he didn't want those damned musicians getting any ideas above their station - i.e. the composer creates, and the musician serves the composer. Not a bad thing, in a way - I mean, how much rotten music has been made by "democratic" groups?

My idea of a virtuoso would be someone like J Hendrix, Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Page, David S Ware and so forth - musicians with fantastic facility, but who at the end of the day are possessed to communicate something that is emotive and visceral.

For some, this man is the exemplar of virtusoty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSkP3uym5k

I'm not so impressed. Ok, I just think it's funny. I don't really know anyone who thinks Jake or whatever is a virtuoso.

I'm afraid I can't watch You Tube at work, so I may be repeating something that noumenal has linked to. The stuff I can't stand is the guitar-shredding histronical pointlessness of Yngwie, Satriani and Vai. Give me the inspired clumsiness of The Shaggs anyway over these clowns.

I totally agree with the Satriani and Vai comments. What I posted was that ukulele dude, who I find endlessly entertaining.

In classical music, almost all the concertos are written with such technical insanity that only the virtuosos can really bring out the beauty in them.

Do any of you guys know of Hilary Hahn?

http://www.hilaryhahn.com/

She is out of control awesome.

What is it about violinists?

The hardest cello concertos=

Haydn in D

and

Schumann

How about it?

Hardest thing EVER for cello I say is Nomos Alpha by Xenakis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomos_Alpha

I think Xenakis may well have been one of those people who was far too clever for his own good. He is very good, but some of his scores (or scordurata, or whatever) are utterly perverse. More so than a lot of 'visual' scores, I'd like some large copies of Xenakis' scores for my walls.

Virtuosity isn't terribly important to me. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. Bit of a damp-squib response, but there you. I will say I think the notion is often beneficial to 'classical' music but detrimental to other forms, especially rock music. Within the context of rock music, I either love virtuosity for perverse reasons (Vai, Malmsteen) or when they elide the technical skill (Bailey, Haino).

YOU haven't seen Billy Sheehan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veLGBk1mE5U


unlike the folks in the audience, I think it's very funny.

hmmmmmmmm, I'll take Edgar Meyer any day.

Victor Villareal

LIGHTNING BOLT andor HELLA.

virtuosity doesn't interest me nearly as much as creativity.

nothing like virtuosity and creativity hand in hand.
that's the only virtuosity i care about.

I agree. Carry on.