All Focus articles – Page 3
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FocusVirtuoso violinist, composer, champion fencer, officer: the Chevalier de Saint-Georges
The son of a wealthy French plantation owner and his enslaved African mistress, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges led an extraordinary life - though his compositions remain unfairly neglected, writes Kevin MacDonald
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How did Giovanni Battista Viotti influence the evolution of the Tourte bow?
The meeting between violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti and bowmaker François Xavier Tourte was one of the most important collaborations in the history of string instrument making, as violinist Sophie Rosa explains
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An appreciation of the Endellion Quartet – by violinist Sara Trickey
The violinist and friend of the Endellion pays tribute to the quartet
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Nancy Green: Life Lessons
The US cello soloist and recording artist on following her instinct on a path to true musical fulfilment
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‘If you had told me a year ago…I would have dismissed it as impossible’ – Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider
Autumn 2020 was scheduled to be a big one for violinist and conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, with the start of his first music directorship in France and his conducting debut at the Royal Danish Opera. Here he tells Andrew Mellow about the experience of conducting in the face of social distancing ...
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‘Now I am completely mad’ - Patricia Kopatchinskaja on playing Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire
For violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja a bout of tendonitis was the perfect opportunity to widen her musical perspective by taking on the title role in Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, as she tells Toby Deller
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Gstaad Menuhin Festival slated to go ahead this summer
The festival is scheduled to run from 16 July to 4 September 2021
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Jascha Heifetz’s US debut in 1917
The Carnegie Hall recital sealed the 16-year-old’s reputation as an astonishing and unruffled performer, set a new bar for violin playing and led to a season full of engagements and a recording contract, as Dario Sarlo reveals in this piece from The Strad’s archive
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‘We see playing with others as an important means of nourishment’ - Modigliani Quartet
For the Modigliani Quartet, working with other artists has always been a priority – one that continues this year as the group turns its attention to Schubert, writes Charlotte Gardner
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Jascha Heifetz the 16-year-old prankster
Jascha Heifetz’s US debut at Carnegie Hall in October 1917 sealed the 16-year-old’s reputation as an astonishing and unruffled performer - but for all his musical maturity, Heifetz was still just a teenager, as Dario Sarlo reveals
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How I went about relearning to play the violin with two fingers
Despite losing the function of the third and fourth fingers of his left hand through focal dystonia and a shoulder injury, violinist Clayton Haslop was determined to continue playing. Here he shares his story
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Which cello strings? Steven Isserlis, Alisa Weilerstein and others tell us what their choices are and why
Finding the ideal combination of strings is a process that can take a lifetime. Here, some of the world’s leading cellists – and two up-and-coming chamber musicians on the competition circuit – discuss their choices
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What can we learn from CT-scanning the ‘Messiah’?
In 2016 the ‘Messiah’ Stradivari was the subject of an extensive CT scanning project. Francesco Piasentini and Gregg Alf examine the resulting data, discovering repair work in the neck, and attempt to determine how it had originally been set
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Why we should all be violists
Violist and teacher Hsin-Yun Huang makes the case for her instrument of choice
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What to do if your violin pegs keep slipping or sticking
Korinthia Klein presents a simple player’s guide to violin maintenance, without encroaching on luthiers’ territory
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’I don’t feel at all guilty about tinkering with the "classical canon" – David LePage
Violinist David Le Page explains how he found the connections between Rameau and Radiohead, Schubert and The Smiths through arrangements for Orchestra of the Swan’s new album Timelapse
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The Pandemic Paganini Project: how I decided to fill in the blanks of 2020
When the arts were extinguished by the pandemic, orchestral violinist Sarah Atwood was galvanized into creating a new musical pathway for herself – and she learnt a lot from doing it, as she explains here
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‘He inspired us to believe we could master anything we wanted’ – remembering cello pedagogue George Neikrug
Cellist George Neikrug, who died in 2019 at the age of 100, was a celebrated performer and orchestral principal. However, his skills as a pedagogue were second to none, writes University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor Benjamin Whitcomb, who has gathered personal recollections
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What to do if your violin bow won’t tighten or loosen
Korinthia Klein presents a simple player’s guide to violin maintenance, without encroaching on luthiers’ territory
