RNCM Masterclass 3 videos: Walton Viola Concerto

April 18, 2020By SusieViola masterclass RNCM, Chamber music coaching, Music Appreciation, viola

3 short films RNCM Viola Masterclass

In these three short films, RNCM viola and violin professor, Susie Mészáros covers Walton's Viola concerto, performed by student 'Susie' Xin He at Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.  The performance is approx. 8 minutes long, and is a public RNCM viola masterclass. Parts 2 & 3 explore performance, ideas and dynamics. The videos show ways that string playing can be improved in subtle but decisive ways.

For further insight into Susie's chamber music coaching ideas, see:

Short film: Coaching Royal College of Music string quartet players

Royal Northern College of Music Masterclass given by Susie Mészáros January 2020 featuring Xin He Part 1 of 3

Royal Northern College of Music Masterclass given by Susie Mészáros January 2020 Part 2 of 3

Royal Northern College of Music Masterclass given by Susie Mészáros January 2020 Part 3 of 3

Sandor Vegh – His Musical Ideas

April 9, 2020By SusieSándor Végh, Chamber music coaching 1 Comment
Sandor Végh walking with his grandson

Sándor Végh – My Teacher at Camerata Salzburg

In this short video, Susie Mészáros, professor of music at RCM, RNCM and viola player with the Chilingirian Quartet talks about music, ‘Hollywood vibrato’ and her teacher, Sándor Végh’s influence.

Susie first met Sándor Végh at Prussia Cove, aged sixteen, going to study with him in Salzburg for two years, playing as principal violist in the Camerata Academica Salzburg, which he conducted, and studying with this fascinating and demanding teacher.  Featured is an interview with Susie in June 2021, where she talks about the transformative influence Végh brought to her understanding of music, musical voice and a very grounded philosophy of playing, which gave her absolute confidence in her musical ideas. The video features footage of Royal College of Music student quartets, which illustrates some of the ideas she learnt from Sándor Végh. She debunks the cliché of the furrowed brow string player, all intensity and emotion. As her decisive musical influential teacher would say sometimes, “it’s too beautiful to be true!”   Life is richer, subtler, has fragility.

Interview transcript: My Studies with Sándor Végh 

[June 2021] first met Sándor Végh when I was 16 years old, at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove in Cornwall. I went there to take part in master classes and continued to playing chamber music with Végh himself. He was teaching and playing and I found him absolutely fantastic. A revelation of ideas for me, and a huge personality. His playing and teaching were so rich and just so direct. He spoke in terms that really resonated with me. He talked about the physics of music and the imagery he used was very natural and comprehensible. He explained about things like tension, relaxation and breathing in a really clear way.  He seemed to like my playing very much, took a great interest, and I would play alongside him frequently too. But at that stage I didn’t consider going to a violinist for my college studies.

Telegram from Végh – ‘Come Now!’

Later, when I needed to look for a teacher seriously, I wrote to him asking for advice. He immediately said, ‘Come now!’ He actually wrote that in a telegram! I had been unhappy where I was so when I received that telegram I just packed my bags and went to Salzburg! I was lucky enough to be appointed principal Viola of the Camerata Academica straight away, performing and touring a lot. That was my first professional job, aged 19.  So I immediately was working all the time with him, as a chamber musician, as an orchestral principal with him as conductor. And, of course, as the only violist in his wonderful violin class.

The Teacher’s Gift to Students – Independence!

I stayed with him in Salzburg for about two years. But those two years were packed. I felt that he gave me the tools to completely understand what I needed in my own playing and how to keep developing. A great teacher gives the gift of independence to a student, in the sense of opening their eyes and ears and mind to the tools to be able to tackle everything in their own playing themselves. I found I was beginning to lose any doubts about my musical and instrumental ideas. I realised I could very quickly tackle technical problems that for a long time I’d gotten away with; you know, bad habits or failings in certain technical areas. And suddenly, I felt that I was given a clear insight into the philosophy and practical approach of what a technique is; that it’s not just certain exercises, or this or that book of studies, or repetitive things, but actually understanding the why, rather than just the what. Question: So Sándor kind of really transformed your idea of music? What were the limitations of the kind of the teaching you were getting previously?  Well, I felt that because I’m quite a natural player, and I’d had a very good training in an intensely musical context in a specialist music school. I had taken many things for granted. I started playing when I was eight, which actually isn’t all that early, but at age 10 I went to the Menuhin School and absorbed a lot from a great range of musicians. It was a really rounded education. It taught me to be very disciplined. But I think that the one thing I didn’t have, as a musician and as an instrumentalist, was a backbone to my playing, of really understanding what was going on.

‘To Give only what you feel is there. And not to lash on emotion. To pump emotion into playing is almost fraudulent. Sándor Végh, he was my teacher.  Végh used to emphasis not to be afraid to do less. Life is also fragile, vulnerable, not always beautiful.  Végh was scathing about lashing on the emotion. He called it, “Hollywood Vibrato”

I knew what I should do to practice, but I didn’t quite understand the central column of what makes one listen and join one thing to another. I think it was Végh’s idea of uniting the technical, the musical, the intellectual and the human. So all of a sudden I felt that I was able to connect those many dimensions that had up til then been rather separate elements.

Practice, left & right hands, finger flexibility, dexterity

For example, practising the left and the right hands – yes they are very different, they have very different roles of course, and they must be independently exercised, you know, and the elements must be really broken down very clearly. Like finger flexibility and dexterity, shifting, bow control in a horizontal sense, bow pressure.. things like that. But then bringing the two hands together so that what one hand does, the other is reflecting because, really, you may have two hands, you may have a bow and a violin, but you have one sound. We are best when we play a violin or a viola as one voice. Just as a singer has vocal chords, they have lungs to propel the air, they have lips, teeth and tongue etc.. so you should also think about these elements within the bow. Enunciating text, for example, is pretty much the same as right hand articulation. Within the human voice these are innate. We walk around with all of those things in the one body all the time, whereas we have to manufacture stringed instruments – they’re machines, tools, and we have to then bring all those mechanisms back together for the creating of that one voice.

Like being out of focus -Suddenly two blurred images come together

The violin and viola are our lyrical instruments. That’s what I felt had suddenly became so coherent with Sándor. What I was doing in the left hand was perfectly reflecting what was in the right and vice versa. It’s like having been seeing out of focus and suddenly the two blurred images come together in one. And that’s the central point of my own teaching; it is always to see, to show, how especially the right hand can really influence the left in terms of tonal variety and things like vibrato, intensity, shifting..all of these things.

The Voice – What I learnt as leader of Kent Opera Orchestra

In 1984 I became Leader, concert master, of the Kent Opera orchestra. Suddenly I was exposed to opera in all its glorious forms. The colour, the costumes, the direction, the theatre, the music, the voices, the personalities, the wonderful chaos. It was just a fantastic immersion. I fell in love with singing and decided that I wanted to learn singing myself. I had a nice enough voice, it wasn’t a great voice but what I enjoyed was just to understand it for myself, how to use it properly, all the many elements. And that also fed into a unique

Swallow your violin or viola – Singing with your instrument

experiencing of the most intimate relationship with sound – you have your instrument inside you as a singer and when you start understanding that, in a way I found I was able to ‘swallow’ my violin in the same way as I contained my voice inside my lungs, my throat, my mouth – you start doing that with your instrument too when you have a sense of singing.  Because it is exactly those things. Who doesn’t want to sing on their instrument? Who doesn’t aim, if they’ve played a string instrument, not to sing? But to speak as well – of course. Végh was always taking about ‘speaking’ on the instrument, it was not enough just to sing. He always went on about that. Because why on earth would we have sophisticated bow articulations if it wasn’t to reflect in some way spoken text? Consonant, vowel, articulation.. So I was Leader of Kent Opera orchestra with another very inspiring Hungarian, the conductor, Iván Fischer. So exciting and excitable..an innovative conductor. He’s a world class musician and I very much loved working alongside him. From an interview with Susie Mészaros 4 June 2021

Ask about Zoom Lessons with Susie

Lockdown restrictions have popularised Zoom lessons. In the past year, I have been teaching many student and amateur players over Zoom. It’s enabled me to teach people remotely. It’s shown that geography can be overcome for constructive violin and viola coaching. I’ve been teaching Chinese students based in China and amateurs based across the UK during 2020-21. 

Are you interested in a consultation?

Have you played in the past and would love to return to playing as an amateur or work on aspects of your playing? There’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution. Every amateur player has their particular strengths and weaknesses. Read more on my amateur violin or viola teaching Contact me using this link

Bartók’s 2nd Quartet – Levon Chilingirian

April 9, 2020By SusieChilingirian: Bartók's 2nd Quartet

Bartók's 2nd Quartet -Podcast with Levon Chilingirian

In 2016 the Chilingirian Quartet performed all of Bartók's quartets at Kings Place, London.
This is a short podcast from that time.

As part of a continuing series of podcasts by the Chilingirian Quartet, Levon talks on Bartók's 2nd Quartet ahead of their Kings Place, London concert, February 7th 2016. This historic series of six concerts to be given by the Chilingirian Quartet, commemorates the 70th anniversary of Bartók's death by reconstructing the first complete cycle of Bartók quartets in the UK – given in the 1949/50 season by the London Chamber Music Society's precursor organisation, the South Place Sunday Concerts.

Bartók's 2nd Quartet -Podcast with Levon Chilingirian OBE

Levon Chilingirian OBE on Bartók's 2nd Quartet 

Talk transcript

"I think that's when people see the name Bartók in programs, even now feel they like running away sometimes.

I think it's something that's still, even now, unjustified. It's something that we're trying to put right with a series that, you know, we're giving over the next two years at Kings Place. We're repeating the exactly the same programs that were given in 1949/50 at the Conway Hall -the first time that all the Bartok quartets were played in London.

This is the second concert. And so we've done already number one, Bartok number One. The second one we play number two, which really is the most approachable of the quartets. And actually I say to student groups, and to amateur groups, that it's the most playable. They can play this. Maybe for the amateurs that they might play, not as fast as Bartok marks sometimes, but it's eminently playable. It's a real String Quartet with amazing new things in it. This is a, I think, the best introduction to Bartok's music, and particularly to string quartets.

Arabic themes

He incorporates some Arabic themes. I don't think people are aware of so much that Bartok who was trolling around East of Europe. Of course, collecting Hungarian music, Hungarian melodies and because the neighbouring countries are Romania and Ruthenia and Moldova, you know, all those - The style of music, and the ethnic music he was familiar with. But before writing his second quartet he made a trip to North Africa, and he picked up one or two things from there in the middle movement because this is in three movements. In the middle, boom! And there's some real good Arabic music, and of course it's incorporated with Hungarian rhythms, but the actual melodies are wonderfully different.

So, you have a very unusual piece of music that the middle movement is the fast, lively, fun, sinister, dry humoured, but basically fast movement. You have the first movement which is very lyrical and very gentle wistful. He wrote this, don't forget, between 1915 and 1917, so it falls into that very sad period when the Europe was at war. So he, it's very wistful, and very sweet and very expressive, and then having played this crazy Hungarian Arabic second movement which sort of goes mad sometimes, he follows it with the, with a third or last moment which is bleak. Absolutely, dark, dark clouds, hopeless. Everything that you, you might want to describe you know, the hopelessness of the situation in Europe in at that point, the First World War. It's very static. It's very expressive. And then it's very non expressive, very black. And yet, everything in this work is, I think, totally understandable.

It's not overly dissonant, it's not overly brutal, that comes a little later, with particularly three, four, five. It was written for the Hungarian quartet. This is the original one, and they premiered it before the First World War was over in Budapest, so that must have been an interesting first premiere.

It is compact, relatively speaking, and it's in a sandwich in this concert, where we've retained the original programs from 1949/50, the sandwich consists of a Mozart quartet, some might say, his very greatest quartet, a very unsung great quartet, his quartet in A major and I would only say one small thing about it. This is the piece that Beethoven, loved. He went as far as to copy the last movement of this Mozart quartet in his sketchbook. And when somebody said to him, "what is this?" He said, "now, there is a piece!"

For Beethoven to compliment, Mozart, which of course he acknowledged him as a great composer, but to actually pick up this particular piece as the one that he thought was Mozart's most interesting is, I think, is enough for me to place it right at the very very top.

It's interesting his longest quartet. Oh, it's a wonderful start if you like with this great Beethoven, like Mozart quartet, and then in the second half to end, we play the like champagne quartet of Beethoven his G major quartet. Unbelievable fun and games, three out of the four movements, and then a beautiful, serene miracle slow movement, but with a surprise in the middle, where, he writes some incredibly fast music. So this is a very joyful piece. And there you have a fantastically contrasting program, this central work, which I suppose was the focus of the very first cycle in London, and of course it's the focus of our present cycle.

The technical challenges

Technically, his music is challenging away from it.
Now having lived with this music for 40 years now, it feels simply like a wonderful string quartet, like a Haydn quartet. And the technical challenges have to be met by each individual member of the quartet, whichever quartet it is, ours, another group, and yet, as with other music, You have to bring out the phrasing, and moods, the articulation.

So, if a group plays Bartok in a, either in a panic-stricken way, because they can't play it individually or in a, what I would call a sort of, contemporary frame of mind, rather than putting it as a son of list, something that is fundamentally based on music that they, the listener, will know and understand the love. And Bartok Of course it is own character his dry, strong shy character, and uncompromising technical compositional style within all of that, there is real music.

So, what I would challenge, is whether enough performances of Bartók, particularly these earlier pieces, number One, Number Two, which have enough musicality and lyricism, and the technical problems, should not surface for the listener.

Bring out the Music, technical problems shouldn't surface

So the players have to be good enough just to bring up the music. I think it's very simple, like that.
So it sits in particularly this program, I think it's very interesting it sits so comfortably for me within these great two pieces by Mozart and Beethoven,. You would, I hope, recognize it as a, as just another quartet written by another great quartet composer. We'd have a lot of fun. We are having a lot of fun rehearsing right now. Interestingly enough, you know, two of us, Ronnie and I, have played this many, many, many, many, many, times. And in this case, it's new for Susie and Steve, they are so familiar with the style of Bartók, and we've done many Bartok quartets before, so it's also the exciting.

I think around to explore this wonderful piece with with two of us having done it a lot and two of us doing it for the first time. I think that element of it, is making it to like a fresh interpretation, working out how to go around the corners.

If I had to tell the difference between Bartok and Mozart or Bartók and Beethoven, it's the change of speed, what we call tempo, it's these changes which are much much more frequent most speeding up most learning more different tempos; just much more if you like romantic, like some of your play Chopin you know, pull it about.
Well, there's that very strong element in Bartok and in the slow movements he's always subtly changing the tempo, officially changing it. Mozart and Beethoven might have signaled to us in a slightly different feeling. Without marking it, we as the interpreters have to know that, but Bartok clearly marks slower faster, much faster 10 times faster 10 times slower. So, I guess for the performance and for the listeners., that is a challenge. But again, I think it's up to the performers to for to do it, not to make it sound like a mathematical problem or equation. Again,  sometimes people think that you need to be mathematical to play Bartok. I think, Of course you need to be able to count. But I think you need good rhythm. I go back to one of the most brilliant mathematicians in history, Albert Einstein, by what we know about stories about him, because he played the violin. It seems that he had shockingly bad rhythm.

So, good rhythm is not the same as being good at mathematics, some of the best mathematicians, are the most rigidly unmusical players. They might play all the notes and they might think they're doing it brilliantly but they have no feel for rhythm. And so, in Bartók, you have to play very complex stuff, but with basically good rhythm. And that comes with birth, from birth. ha!

And so you know Bartok was basing his music on living alongside and amongst great folk Fiddler's and singers who would never went to music school or anything like that, they just were natural musicians.

If you would like to come to the concert at Kings place. I would strongly recommend to come to the pre concert talk just to, you know, hear about it and maybe get familiar with it, and then come with absolute open ears and almost like, just listen, you know there'll be a piece at the beginning and there'll be a second piece and it just happens, and the second one is the Bartok II. You don't need any special preparation. I think it's so beautiful and so clear if we do it. Well, then you have no problems as an audience, and this could be the your entry point into what he does later.

And we'll be doing the third quarter of course in March, wonderful piece much shorter. So again, very easy to handle more wild more sort of real wild stuff in that, but I think again, very straightforward, when it comes to it. And then next year four, five and six so I think number two is, is the big one for just understanding, getting into the style.

 

String Quartet Coaching – by Susie Mészáros

April 8, 2020By SusieChamber music coaching

Chamber music Coaching for Students, Professionals & Amateurs

I'm Susie Mészáros, chamber music professor at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music and violist with the Chilingirian Quartet.

I'm based in Manchester where I teach string quartets and give chamber music coaching at the RNCM. I work with young players, teach private students and amateurs. I offer Zoom online teaching.

String Quartet Coaching in time of Covid

We've all become familiar with Zoom teaching over the past year. Zoom has opened up teaching students and amateurs from across the country. I have students in China, Turkey and across the north West of England. If you're curious about how this works, contact me here for more details.

Describing My Teaching Approach

My website features many videos, interviews with students, masterclasses which can give you some idea of how I teach. I'll be adding new resources frequently. You can see 3 short masterclass videos on Walton's Viola Concerto at Royal Northern College of Music with, 'Susie Xin, in January 2020.  Or find out about my decisive musical influence and teacher, Sándor Végh.

I’m looking forward to exploring aspects of string quartet performance and teaching, aimed at young professionals, amateurs. I will be looking at issues in performance, areas that feature with conservatoire students, essentially getting to grips with aspects that challenge players.

Hopefully it should be interesting, illuminating and of value to student quartets and amateur players.

As part of this, I'll be featuring short videos, interviews and podcasts with myself, young players and professional colleagues. The best learning and insights come from dialogue. I look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes at this time of Coronavirus

Susie Mészáros

Get Deeper into Schubert’s ‘Death & the Maiden’ – Join us

April 6, 2015By SusieMusic Appreciation, Chamber music coaching

Join the Chilingirian Quartet and deepen your appreciation of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden D810. This is an ideal chance to get to know one of the greatest works ever written. The Chilingirian Quartet will illustrate details of all four movements in the intimate setting of the West Dean Library. There will be audience discussion, you’ll join us for lunch and the day will be rounded off with a performance of the whole work to complete a memorable day

7th June 2015

Music Lecture, 10.30am – 5pm

Includes coffee, lunch + tea

Book your place now

£71.00

www.westdean.org.uk

bookingsoffice@westdean.org.uk

Tel. 01243 818300

The Mendelssohn on Mull Festival, July 1-7th, Mull

September 25, 2012By SusieChamber music coaching

The video below is a short teaser for the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival which takes place on the beautiful island of Mull. The festival performs in some of the smallest and most intimate churches and venues around the island.

A highlight is the performance which takes place inside Iona Abbey..