#classical Violinist

[adriannamateo]

The day after performing at Lincoln Center I’m in rehearsal again 🥰🎻✨ Feeling grateful & happy to be doing what I love. Happy Palm Sunday, my friends ❤️🙏🏼

(Sidebar: I haven’t gotten all the photos yet from yesterday. They’re coming!) _______ 📸 (cover): Karsten Moran

[opera-ghosts]

OTD in Music History: Delusional and suffering from advanced tertiary syphilis, master “lied” (German art song) composer Hugo Wolf (1860 – 1903) is taken to an insane asylum in 1897. Although he spent most of his life in Vienna, Wolf was actually born in what is now Slovenia (conductor Herbert von Karajan [1908 - 1989] was distantly related to him on his maternal side). A musical prodigy, Wolf became good friends Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911) when they both attended the Vienna Conservatory together -- but Wolf was dismissed before graduation after he blew up one day and informed the Director that he was "forgetting more than he was learning." (Later in life, Wolf tried to save face by claiming that he actually quit before they could expel him...) Wolf spent the next decade suffering in grinding poverty, eking out an itinerant bohemian lifestyle. He taught sporadically; wrote vitriolic music criticism that made him many powerful enemies in the conservative Viennese musical establishment; and, occasionally, actually got around to composing. Over the course of his career, Wolf wrote nearly 300 German art songs. But of his first 100 -- i.e., those dating from his early period -- he ultimately considered only a handful to be truly "worthwhile." It would not be until he blossomed into artistic maturity in 1888 that he began to produce a torrent of widely-acclaimed masterpieces. The mature Wolf excelled at creating vocal melodic lines that express every emotional nuance of a given poetic text. The atmosphere of his lieder ranges from tender love lyrics, to biting satirical humor, to deeply felt spiritual suffering. The vocal-melodic line is often combined with strikingly original harmonies in the piano accompaniment, resulting in a remarkable fusion of music and speech. Indeed, many lieder aficionados consider Wolf to be the single greatest practitioner of this rather rarified art form. PICTURED: A lovely original decorative bookplate that was personally designed by Wolf to be inserted into volumes in his library.

In his published criticism, Wolf had some particularly nasty things to say about Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897):

"Through [the D-Minor Piano Concerto] blows an air so icy, so dank, so misty, that one's heart freezes and one's breath is taken away. One could catch a cold from it. Unhealthy stuff!"

"Brahms has, to be sure, never been able to raise himself above the level of mediocrity... but such nullity, emptiness, and hypocrisy as prevail in [his Fourth Symphony] have come to light in none of his previous works. The art of composing entirely without ideas has decidedly found its most worthy representative in Johannes Brahms!"

Etc, etc.

Suffice to say, statements like these not go over very well in Vienna, where Brahms (who also lived and worked there) was generally hailed as the world’s greatest living composer. The backlash was swift and severe; one of the most infamous examples arose when Wolf approached Arnold Rose (1863 – 1946), the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, and asked if he would arrange for the orchestra to play through Wolf's symphonic poem "Penthesilea" (one of the relatively few orchestral works that Wolf ever penned). Rose no doubt took great pleasure in letting him dangle for several weeks before sending him the following devastating letter:

"Mr. Wolf: We have attentively looked through your work, and we have unanimously resolved to leave the score for you with the doorman of the Opera House. Will you please have the kindness to retrieve it as soon as possible? I fear that he may easily mislay it… With kindest greetings, Arnold Rose."

("Penthesilea" did eventually receive a playthrough under legendary conductor Hans Richter [1843 – 1916]. Allegedly, however, before he even picked up his baton, Richter loudly announced for all present to hear that he was only doing it because he wanted to hear for himself “the work of the man who dares to write in such a way about *Meister* Brahms.")

But the final word should go to Wolf, explaining (in a private letter written to a close friend) his own thoughts on that particular art that he excelled at above all else -- songwriting: "There's something gruesome about the intimate fusion of poetry and music -- actually, the gruesome role belongs only to the latter. Music has decidedly something of the vampire about it. It claws at its victim relentlessly, and sucks the last drop of blood from it. One could also compare it with a greedy suckling, who relentlessly demands fresh nourishment from its mother and thereby becomes plump and fat while its mother's beauty withers away. But this comparison is valid only with regard to the effect that music, in league with poetry, has upon the public... Indeed, nothing has shocked me, personally, more than the groundless injustice of the preference of one of these arts over the other..."

[frostedmagnolias]

Mary Davenport-Enberg (1881-1951)

Madame Davenport-Enberg was an American violinist, composer and conductor. Making history in the year 1914, she had found the mixed-gender Bellingham Symphony, making her the first woman to lead a professional orchestra in the United States.

[gasparodasalo]

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) - Sonata for Violin and Basso continuo in e-minor, RV 17a, IV. Allemanda. Performed by Fabio Biondi, violin & direction, and Europa Galante on period instruments.

[livelaughlovelams]

Look man, I KNOW classical composer Tumblr exists because those classical composer memes have to be coming from somewhere. But how on earth do I hop on it!? Is it like one of those moving elevators, where you have to step on quickly and hope you come out!? To me it's like the backrooms or something. Do you have to type in some sorta key, is it going to ask me to match these concertos by key signature to delve inside the secret catacombs of classical composer-blr? Will there be a 7 dwarves mining cart roller coaster waiting there except instead of the dwarves its the ducking CLASSICAL COMPOSERS!? What, do I gotta send pictures of my violin-ridden hands as proof, do I gotta submit cat boy Mozart fanart/fics,

CLASSICAL COMPOSER BLR WHERE ARE YOU HIDING!?

(I'm currently on amrev/frevblr seriously send help)

[leviosally]

LOOOOOK!!! OMG!!! @wingsofopal made an art of Violinist Crowley from my fic, Play for me the Music of your Heart and it's absolutely gorgeous!!! I love the whimsical, watercolor wash style! Thank you so much!

[kiki-has-a-cat]

tender june 🎀

[here-am-i-sitting-in-a-tin-can]

I’m going through an existential crisis bc I just found out that apparently not everybody names their instruments????

like what?

my violin’s name is Michelle btw

[frangonzalezorigami]

Origami Dwarf. Designed by Eric Joisel, folded by me using the wetfolding technique with a square of waterproof craft paper. The violin was folded with a square of standard craft paper.

[i-put-the-ass-into-sass]

One thing I will NEVER understand is perfect pitch. How can you listen to a note and tell me that's an A. Impossible. Just no way. And I say this as someone who has played the violin for 17 years (though not very well as you might imagine)

[light-everything-in-pink]

If the RCTs have a theme (not like, the theme songs from the Safety Series), what would be its general vibes, genre, and instruments used.

I can imagine Amber having violins in her soundtrack, while Jin could use some turmoil of pressure in there. Helly's will have some feel of childhood things, while at the same time overshadowed by having to have responsibility and a purpose.

For the rest? Idk tbh 🤷🏽

[gasparodasalo]

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) - Trio Sonata for 2 Violins and Continuo in b-minor, Op. 2 No. 1, HWV 386b, II. Allegro ma non troppo. Performed by London Baroque on period instruments.

[opera-ghosts]

Alexander Glazunov, Leopold Auer, St. Petersburg 1912

[olde-with-an-e]

Marc Chagall

Green Violinist

1923-1924

Oil on canvas

[leviosally]

Okay, here’s my catch-up sketch from Day 10 of Just Draw June: Concerts, Musicals or Plays because I couldn’t not draw ‘Play for me’ Crowley 🥰

[kiki-has-a-cat]

sweet, loving, whispered words type of august ✨️💞