Back to Baroque

As an admirer of Baroque music, I enjoy the tone of violins. Maybe its just due to importance of violins on Baroque music. Violin stands out above all other instruments, providing a melody line on a polyphony of the music, and in Baroque, it would be a fugue. Check Bach's Brandenburg Concerto .3 (BWV 1048) While all the violas and cellos play their respective same notes, there are three separate/different notes for violins.
At one point, I thought on learning how to play violin, this was my wish, and I even had my mother's consent after declining all her requests to learn piano instead. Though it was really hard to find a teacher back then in Brazil, or if there were, the time schedule with school wouldn't just match. So in the end I ended up taking trumpet at school band, sigh.

I believe it's too late for me to pick up a violin, but I'm comtemplating on it. I can probably pick up a cheap violin for learning first. It's not like I want a Stradivarius violin. But would be nice eh? hehe.

There are other things to take in consideration, for example; some believe that Bach's had used a curved German violin bow(the "Bach bow") while others insists that it was for the standard Italian straight violin bow. With the straight bow, you are only able to touch 3 strings, while with the curved bow, you can touch all the 4 strings. There is a debate on this because some of the Bach's works sound different depending on what type of bow the performer use. Straight bow will only allow appegio effect, which allows the peformer to intone the notes on successively, while the curved bow allows to touch all 4 strings simultaniously. I'm no expert so I'm not going to side with any of them. heh

Changing subject sligthly, I heard the Jacqueline Du Pre recording for Bach Suite for Solo Cello No.1 And it sound very close to Yo Yo Ma's recording of the same piece. Never really thought about it too much, but then I was tracking Yo Yo Ma's "Davidov Strad" cello (Stradivarius built by Antonio Stradivari in 1712), and surprise surprise. The Davidov Strad cello belonged to Jacquline Du Pre, and upon her death in 1987, she left it to Yo Yo Ma.

Stradvarius are arguably the best string instrument a performer can acquire. One Stradvarius violin sold for $2,000,000 in May 2005. The buyer loaned to the Stradvari Society, which loans the instrument to peformer they believe will benefit from the Stradvarius. Supposedly there are only 700 Stradvarius left in the world. (First picture is of Antonio Stradivari)

As you can see I could not sleep again. Although the evening was a pleasant one, and was relaxed, my mind is still racing, thinking...

Behave kids.