- I think Edward Elgar's music is difficult to pull off, oddly similar to Bartok in a way. The pieces that have traditionally gone over well in North America are pieces that speak for themselves. You can hear a horrible high school orchestra play Beethoven's Seventh, and you will still know it is great music. The Elgar Violin Concerto is great music that demands a great performance, and it requires a very special skill set from the soloist.
- People who are successful are always passionate about something: they've found something that makes them think a little bit harder or feel something a little bit more intensely. I think that's probably the best argument in favour of a well-rounded education - to have a broad understanding of the world.
- You know, Elgar was himself a violinist, although he was not a great violinist. He was a violinist who always wanted to be better than he was. I can imagine him writing some things in the 'Violin Concerto in B Minor' and thinking, 'Well, this is very difficult for me to do, but surely someone better than I can do it. So there are a lot of technical hurdles, but it doesn't come across as a virtuoso concerto per se. It's not like a figure-skating program!
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