Coffee and Sweets

Having wrapped things up with the Bach A minor violin concerto, I am working on the Haydn G major violin concerto. So far, I am finding it much easier than the Bach. Here is my grand metaphor: the Bach is coffee, and the Haydn is something sweet.

Coffee can be incredibly delicious, but you have to start with first-rate raw materials and really know what you’re doing in order to make it that way. Drinking it in the right atmosphere, with the right company (if only yourself when you want to be by yourself), adds a lot too. (I had the best coffee of my life at the coffeehouse described and pictured here, and will forever aim to recapture that experience.) Yet coffee can easily go wrong. I felt as though the Bach was like that. If I knew anything about music theory, I might be able to explain why I felt like the Bach is uncomplicated on some level, but still has all kinds of expressive potential. On the other hand—in hands like mine—it can sound a bit etude-like on occasion. Luckily, the raw material of good coffee can stand up to a certain amount of workaday sloppiness in its preparation. I could at least perceive great things in the Bach even if I couldn’t bring them out.*

Sweets are harder to mess up. Sweet is sweet. How can you go wrong? At best, sweets have the potential to be gimme-a-cigarette good. At worst, they can taste more chemical than anything—fake sweet. But basically, with a naturally sweet melody and gingerbread rhythms like the first movement of the Haydn, you have a turnkey, plug-and-play operation. Just play it and ride it. That won’t accomplish all that a real musician could accomplish with the Haydn. But it’s harder to mess up than the Bach. It’s less likely to be boring in the hands of an amateur.

Bach and Haydn complement each other like coffee and sweets. You’ve got to have both.  

* And Bach clearly appreciated coffee, too.

Best of both worlds? Video via YouTube and witchcraftlord