Today I Listened To (Day 3):

Polichinelle By Fritz Kreisler

A Little boy is hopping through the street. It is a busy day, and the boy wonders all arround the city getting into mischief. A stolen apple here, a mud puddle there. He hasn’t a care in the world, and he is eager to explore it.

All of the sudden, he stops. He is hungry, very hungry. Worst of all, he is lost. He doesn’t know where he came from, or where he should go. He quickly runs down ally after ally, becoming frantic. What if he should never find his way back home? He imagines himself wondering forever. He is so frantic he begins to cry as he runs faster and faster until he slips as he dashes out of an alleyway. Plop! He falls into a big puddle.

As he looks up, he sees the street leading back to his home! He is not lost! He sits up in the mud, wipes his tears, and starts to skip his way back to his home. He burst into the home without even noticing the filthy footprints he is leaving on the freshly cleaned kitchen floor.

About the Piece: Polichinelle is a name used to refer to children or young clowns. The most famous song by this name comes from the nut cracker, during the dance of Mother ginger and all of her children (her “Polichinelle”). Kreisler was known for writing very short, but descriptive pieces for piano and violin. These pieces were often called “show pieces” and are some of the most charming and fun pieces to perform as a violinist. An accomplished violinist and pianist himself, interestingly enough, he hated practice. So great was his dislike of practice, his wife often had to lock him in his practice room and he would try to escape through the window. She finally would take his pants to keep him from escaping again, forcing him to practice. I think in some ways, his pieces reflect this. Short, cute, Very fun to play and listen to, but not extremely difficult to learn. They obviously show the signs of a great master, but they are not at all the technical giants that most composers usually produce for the violin. As a great teacher of mine said, they are just musical “bon-bons”.

Rating: 3/5- Very fun to listen to, but short. In total, the piece takes less than 2 minutes to perform; not exactly a piece you would want to hear on repeat for an hour. It is however, just like any good desert, something to be sample again and again.

For More Performances, See my YouTube Page: Maucotel Music