John Ma played a solo concert featuring his baroque violin and it was a revelation. I'd heard of the importance of the bow and I know it, of course, but the way he made it speak spoke wonders. Not to say his left hand wasn't doing a good job. It was. The intonation seemed so comfortable and lines were smooth and correct as expected. Interestingly he spoke of music as speech and observed how it has changed over time so pop and baroque and more has song sounding like normal speech while classical and opera has developed to a different stage voice. In that bow was such expression, delicacy, rhythm and note groupings, volume and dynamics. It expressed the essence of what the music was saying, so the left hand and its pitch was just a support. I'd heard the essence of this argument before but never witnessed it like this. Perhaps because John was playing solo, that helped, or that the baroque compositions demanded such fluency and subtlety and also because he's such a good player with a history of major international performance groups, but regardless, this was that very observation spelled in front of our eyes. Stunning and educative, if not the theme of the concert which was John and his English baroque violin made by Richard Duke of London, dated ~1770. That was also interesting, as was the chatter about composers and history, but what I heard from that bow was the revelation of the day. Now I understand.
John Ma (violin) performed on his Richard Duke violin at Wesley
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