Famous Composers and Their Habits
Sometimes listeners have trouble identifying music they hear, and they try to at least guess the composer. Sometimes it’s easy (like Haydn vs. Bartok), but sometimes it’s very difficult (Mozart vs. Haydn). We all have our favorite composers that we can always identify, but no matter who you are, there’s bound to be a work…
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violinguy
Chamber Music – The Best Way to Play
There are three basic categories of classical music that performers can choose from – orchestral music, solo music, and chamber music. Obviously within those categories are infinite sub-categories and genres, but when we perform, we do so in one of those three ways. I have loved chamber music since the tender young age of 13…
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violinguy
Final Four – Tournament of Classical Music
Well, here we are. I’ve been out of town performing and that’s made me a little negligent when it comes to writing for my blog. I’m going to fix that with a bunch of posts this week before I go out of town again. Today, we’re going to get our tournament down to the final…
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violinguy
Tournament Update – Beethoven and Stravinsky Brackets
The games are afoot, so to speak, in the Tournament of Classical Music! Here is the first update and results post. Now, this year I’m determining the results on my own. In future years, with more readers, I will probably put it to a vote. As far as this year is concerned, I am going…
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violinguy
Tournament of Classical Music – The Brackets
March is here, and with it comes the madness. March Madness to be exact. My version of March Madness is The Tournament of Classical Music. This post announces the brackets and the play-in game winners. For an overview and explanation of the rules, you can read this post. Finally, don’t forget that this list includes…
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violinguy
The Tournament of Classical Music – Overview
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for many years. The Tournament of Classical Music. The NCAA basketball tournament is one of my favorite 3 weeks in sports and it’s coming soon. Sixty-four teams (not including the play-in games) compete for the national championship. There is a bracket which works its way down to…
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violinguy
The 5 Most Terrifying Violin Passages in Orchestral Music
Next month I am performing a terrific but horrifically difficult symphony, Shostakovitch’s 10th. This symphony has arguably the most terrifying four minutes in all of the standard repertoire. Often, these scary passages appear on audition lists, but sometimes they take you by surprise. You won’t know them until you come across them in your music. …
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violinguy
The Mount Rushmore of Classical Music
We often hear about the “Mt. Rushmore of……” when it comes to many things. Usually it’s sports-related (the Mr. Rushmore of baseball hitters, etc.), or even music (the Mt. Rushmore of bands). Here is my Mt. Rushmore of classical music composers (rewritten from a lost blog post of a few years ago). I’ve thought about…
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