It's still the small things: Peristence and Rambling

Published: Aug. 13, 2007 at 9:17 AM
Last modified: Aug. 13, 2007 at 9:37 AM

For about eighteen months, I've had a song on my strings that I heard years ago. I asked my friend--even tried to sing it over the telephone (I sing like a bull moose in heat), and never have been able to find where it comes from. Until today.

I had heard this music back in the early eighties and apparently it stuck. And on violin it is haunting and beautiful, if a little sad and mournful. But I've always been into those grab'm by the heart even if you have to make'm cry songs.

Leisurely picking up a classical tape in this mess I've made after traveling for thirty years, I threw it in the tape deck. Whalah! Well I'll be. Barely able to read the label with my tired eyes, I'm driving around the mountain trying to squeeze the letters out.

Anyway, even if I have to do it by ear, this will be a piece I'll always tinker with. It was actually part of my legato-fest last night, before I found it--now how cool is that. So I was refreshing my spelling of the composer, and there she lives on Youtube.

It's "Adagio in Gm" by Albinoni. Some may remember I was asking about Adagio and Cantabile music awhile back. This is definitely one of the reasons I think. And she's worth the waiting, or persisting.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mz4dpbk8YBs

And finally as related to persisting, how pleasant to find that I can even bring it into a slower presentation than I'm already doing. Oh my. You would have had to been a fly on the wall at my earlier legato fest to understand. Persistence.

I s'pose I should start moving it from Em to Gm sooner rather than later, though I'll miss that open e-study it brought me through sorely. I would be interested to know other's thoughts about, if just making a piece one's own for solo purposes, whether to just leave it, or go ahead and do the transposing.

Musically, I love it more than the Sarabande I trudge along with, and it's been with me so long I know it's not because it's new. I think though that one will effect the other ultimately.

Earlier, I was rocking out Lully and jamming into the song with a sixteenth or so rest (my rests are for hopefully good drama found in white space more than perfect timing--I extend them, shorten them, have made them dramatically long). And I was working on my forte near the bridge, in that first e with focus still on legato--if that makes sense. At least for me, it was powerful.

Anyway, the combination as I get both settled down will be pretty cool. This is sort of E. European to me Mara. And now I've both persisted, and rambled.

And while I'm rambling, the tone improvement thread rocks.
http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=11903