POULENC, Francis

Sonata for violin and piano FP 119

I. Allegro con fuoco

Miriam Fried, guest professor

Eva Rabchevska, student

Alina Artemyeva, accompanying pianist

This is a very original piece in which different moods are changing all the time. The student should enjoy more the music, which does not imply more character, instead of rushing up. In the main theme, the cromatism F-F# is very important and the student should use every gesture to show the musical phrasing. If we take more time as necessary is to prepare the movement. All bow movements have to follow the outline of the phrase.
Professor Fried continues with some explanation about structure: it is very important the general shape of the piece -every passage has its function within the whole and should be related to the previous and  posterior fragment-. The work of a musician is to show what is happening in the music, so the contrast is very important to show this flow to the audience. So, the recommendation for this kind of works in which the dramatic events happen very quickly is to study every passage separately to reach the real character of everyone. After that, they are played together to feel the connection. To sum up, the main difficulty in this piece is to link all those passages.
They work on pizzicato and Fried insists on the importance to be worked as other technical problem.
Professor Fried thinks the way we play should translate our emotions into actions. Instinctive reactions sometimes limit the possibilities of playing, so we have to think about how to move to get our sound, the rest are unuselful movements.
Fried also talks about rhythmical patrons, articulation, connection with the piano, mood, motifs, character of this music, finger position, color and phrasing.

Language: English