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peter’s got our back

peter's got our back by nobleviola
peter’s got our back, a photo by nobleviola on Flickr.

As reported in last September’s issue of Portland Monthly magazine, there is indeed a bust of Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky guarding our front door. I think that a bust of Bruckner might repulse more string players, however.

2 replies on “peter’s got our back”

you’re telling me!  There is quite a lively and impassioned discussion re: Bruckner on violinist.com at the moment.  It’s like a modern “Rite of Spring” via the WWW.  

I saw the Munich Phil years ago, and they had in place a fascinating solution for the issue of all that tremolo in Bruckner. Throughout the string sections, for any prolonged tremolo passage the sections divided into thirds with some players playing quite a fast tremolo, some medium, and some slow. Who played at what speed changed many times during the passage according to some algorithm which wasn’t obvious to the observer, although I started looking for it to see whether I could figure it out. It was altogether seamless, created a wonderful shimmering sound, and nobody had to play fast for too long. I thought it was most ingenious, but I haven’t had to play a Bruckner symphony since then so haven’t had the opportunity to really try it out.

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