In two years' time we'll play that. Well, that's the goal. We'll... We'll pledge to try and learn that piece in two years. "Let us remind Brett and Eddy that they're going to play the Paganini Nel cor sum putanto." Is that what it's called? One of the hardest violin pieces ever written, played by one of the most genius violinists we've ever had the chance to meet. - We were...
- We just offhandedly said like, "Oh, we should like, - learn this in like, two years' time."
- "Let's just do it. Hahahaha..." And of course, two years just go like this. 'Cause we're busy practicing and making videos. Today is the 28th of September. We have... Two months. - We procrastinated a bit.
- Just about. But you know what? It's fine. Nothing... Practicing can't do. It's probably... - ...not that hard.
- So let's just, let's just try it. Yeah, this should be alright. Is that pizz harmonic?! How do you pizz harmonic? Oh, BRO! There's two lines! Since when do violins have two lines? Bro! Frickin' hell! Oh, f... That was three lines. His vibrato! He's vibrating the left hand pizz! Why did we leave it 'til now? We should've started in Salzburg that day. He was 16 then! Bro! Yeah, 'cause you can't— Bro, I can't do— It's a fourth...! It's a What? How do you play that?! R.I.P. It's a trill! Your trill is going, It's supposed to be, You're going, We're so sc— Oh my g— Dude, it's ELEVEN pages! I need like, a month a page, to be honest. Holy moly, the phrasing. Ho...ly... What's that? Double stops with pizzicatos? Bruh. This is not fun. I know. It's not fun, it's actually not fun! This piece of music is not fun to play. - What was that?
- Dude, I'm getting cramps. That was one bar! Dude, this is a ticket to RSI. Yeah! - What is that?!
- Bro, what is this? Who does it? How do you do that? Dude. - Oh yeah we got this, yeah yeah.
- Two scores again. I think that tenths trill really messed me up. This is how you injure violinists! - Oh, do you remember this one?
- Ohh, yeah! He did an upbow! You remember what his advice was? - "Just smile and relax!"
- "Relax," yeah! - Do you know what I just realized?
- What? I was tensing my buttcheek. Well, we'll see you guys in two months. We won't. I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to figure out two lines of harmonics. This one took me forever to figure out. Ooh! Tsk. Ah, that's just evil. Having practiced the piece, I realized just how many difficult techniques there are inside this piece that, for those of you that don't play the violin, maybe you guys aren't able to appreciate. So I want to kind of highlight just some of the ridiculous devilish things that, uh... Paganini put into this piece. And hopefully this will give you guys all a greater appreciation of how much of an insane genius Ziyu is for playing that piece. Eddy: So right off here in the beginning you'll notice I'm playing a four-note chord. And that's actually not what's written in the original. The original was a three-note chord, but um... I'm doing four notes because that's what Ziyu did in the competition. Because, obviously, Paganini is too easy for him. And here, you'll notice these very tricky... changes between ricochet and trills. In fact, the ricochets will come in a lot more throughout the rest of the piece. So here is the first really tricky diminished octave, which... Ziyu does at like, an insane speed. And here is a insane progression of chords, which is actually really hard to get in tune, but also make a... Make a nice kind of, sound and a phrase that goes throughout. And it's easy to get hand cramps here, and it's only the first page. So this next section is the main theme. Now, instead of just introducing the main theme, Paganini decided to add left hand pizzicato with this. So in the music, you'll actually see that there's two lines in the music. The violinist is required to both play the melody while doing the accompaniment in the left hand at the same time, which is very tricky to do, especially in a way that... is still musical, and makes the melody flow. Here you have a bunch of left hand pizzicato. It's always tricky to keep the bow smooth on the open D and not get affected by it. And as if that wasn't enough, Paganini throws in a few upbow staccatos and upbow fly staccatos here, with the left hand pizz and the melody. And that was the first variation, which is a very bright and, uh... virtuosic... variation, featuring lots of double stops and thirds. Which, as you all know, is very hard to play in tune on the violin. And now, just to make it more interesting, he also throws in a few ricochet passages. And here's an example of where I did a four-octave arpeggio instead of three octaves. Again, I was just inspired by Ziyu's rendition, and actually throughout the piece, Ziyu continually finds little places to just add a bit flair to make it even harder, because the original was actually just three octaves. Variation is probably, uh... very easy to generate hand cramps and RSI, because it's basically trills, with double stops the entire time. So, not only am I doing different double stops that require different, kind of me maneuvering my left hand into different positions, often being challenging or uncomfortable positions, but then I'm also doing very very fast trills. I think the key to this section, to make it sound good, is, again, that the melody sounds uninterrupted, as if it was just someone playing the melody, and meanwhile still also having that accompaniment of the trills. Kind of like a similar concept to the left hand pizzicato, except this time with trills. So this next variation is ... one of the most difficult sections, because it features something called double harmonics. And double harmonics are very hard to get them in tune, and get them to speak. To make it even harder, it's alternating with a bunch of left hand pizzicato. So, you're constantly having to switch gears, which is challenging. Speaking of switching gears, here he throws in a bunch of arpeggios and ricochets, amongst the double harmonics. Practicing this passage was especially tricky because I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out how to even sound these harmonics, because it's a technique that's very rarely used in common repertoire. And we kind of just come across it in, basically, just Paganini and a few other crazy violin composers. Now this next section is basically left hand pizz. Which, as we all know, I wish Brett was the one doing this, because he's the perfect pizz boy. Now finally, a slow section. A slow variation. Except it's all on the G string, which makes it kind of challenging to make a very nice tone while also being in tune. Now this final variation is freaking annoying. Yeah basically, it requires you to do ricochet across four strings. And to have it bounce evenly while your left hand is constantly switching between very awkward and uncomfortable chord positions, many of which requires you to stretch over 10ths, 11ths, or even 12ths. Yeah, Paganini had big hands, what can I say. This is it! The promised day. Kind of regretting that we only started learning this piece— Well, I only started learning this piece less than 2 months before the date. But enough with the excuses! So, here it is: the Paganini, in full. I'm gonna do it all in one take. Everything is one go, from beginning to end. #nofilter.
This is easily the best video they've made since...probably the ones with Hilary Hahn. And it does go a long way towards dispelling the mythical status of some of these left-hand wrist breakers (although left hand pizz and chromatic left hand slide is going to have different levels of difficulty for different players), as well as putting into perspective the distance between a serious advanced player, conservatory players like twoset, and the top tier of concert violinists.
Shame the underlying piece itself isn't the most well put together, otherwise I think people would play stuff like this more.
I've always felt the musicality of most Paganini caprices to be suspect, including this piece. It's like he's just showing off what he can do
Excuse me, what’s the name of that piece?
Paganini's Nel cor più non mi sento
when u cant post twoset vids on r/lingling40hrs and you find an alternative subreddit
'Violinists fingers were harmed in the making of this video'
Damn, I didn't even know it was a thing to do LH pizzicato while still bowing the top strings. Can't even imagine how much practice it takes to play this piece at a reasonable level