- [Announcer] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music WHYY presents the following program.

(gentle violin music) - My name is Emma Meinrenken.

I play the violin.

This is a Stradivarius.

It is from 1689.

It's actually called the Baumgartner Stradivarius.

It was the beginning of a very interesting journey trying to get to know the instrument and trying to make it sing.

Strads don't immediately open themselves up to you.

They have such a long history and so many people have played them in the past that they really have personalities of their own.

And instead of forcing your own personality onto the instrument, which you can do with a lot of instruments, they really force you to work with it and to discover what the instrument has to offer.

So it's been kind of a push and pull with me in this instrument over the last couple of years making compromises and trying to really understand what makes this instrument special beyond really what I want from it.

Violin was my first instrument.

I started playing when I was four years old.

Came to me so naturally.

I saw a concert by Hilary Hahn, and I think I was about 12 years old.

And she had put together a really like fascinating program.

There was a violin sonata by (indistinct), a little bit of Beethoven, a lot of show pieces, but a lot of things that really made me think about the capabilities of the instrument.

And after I heard her play, I wanted to kind of emulate her career path in a way.

And so I immediately went on Wikipedia and I tried to find out where she went to school and that's the first time that Curtis came onto my map.

(audience applauds) I will be playing Ernst "The Erl-King" for solo violin.

It's one of those pieces that's absolutely terrifying to perform.

And I thought, if I can get through this piece, then I've really improved myself over the last couple of years.

And so I had a lot of fun putting that together.

So there's two sections basically to the story of this piece.

The first is the story of how the original song that the piece is based on was written.

So it's based on a poem by Goethe and he wrote this poem about the Elf King, as it's translated into English.

A boy and his father are riding on a horse.

It's a dark and storming night.

They're in the middle of the forest, all that good sick.

And he starts hearing voices in the woods and he thinks it's the voice of the Erl-King, who is trying to entice him away from his father.

And he keeps on telling his father that he can hear this voice.

But the Erl-King becomes more and more insistent and he becomes angry with the boy that he doesn't want to come with him willingly.

So he takes him by force.

And so when the father and the son and the horse finally arrive at their home, the boy is tragically dead.

It was originally written as a song by Schubert.

Beautiful song, very tough for the singers because they have to portray about four different characters with the one voice that they have.

And this challenge is brought to the violin.

We also have to do these four voices with the one voice that we have, but also we have to play the piano part, which is an unrelenting horse hooves on the ground.

I hope that you enjoy this piece.

Thank you.

(audience applauds) (tense violin music) (tense violin music continues) (tense violin music continues) (tense violin music continues) (tense violin music continues) (tense violin music continues) (tense violin music continues) (eerie violin music) (gentle somber violin music) (tense violin music) (tense violin music continues) (gentle somber violin music) (tense violin music) Part of what made violin so fun for me as a kid was the virtuosic aspect of it.

The fact that I could play notes so quickly and that I could do all sorts of little tricks that, you know, were really entertaining for an audience.

But over the last few years, it has become sort of a mode of self-expression and kind of being able to tap a little bit deeper into something that is a little bit more human and vocal, but expressing something that really can't be done through words.

So that's something I think that is very specific to the violin, that dichotomy between extreme virtuosity and the ability to tap into something deeper.

(bright violin music) (bright violin music continues) (bright violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (gentle eerie piano music) (gentle eerie violin music) (gentle eerie violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (gentle anxious violin music) (gentle anxious violin music continues) (gentle anxious violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (dark dramatic violin music) (dark dramatic violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (dark somber violin music) (dark somber violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (dark dramatic violin music) (dark dramatic violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (dark somber violin music) (dark somber violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (dark somber violin music) (dark somber violin music continues) (dark somber violin music continues) (dark dramatic piano music) (dark somber violin music) (dark somber violin music continues) (dark somber violin music continues) (dark somber piano music) The Bartok "Contrasts" is a very interesting trio between the violin, the clarinet, and the piano.

It's in three movements.

The last movement is an explosion of energy, ferocity and virtuosity.

In that last movement we are able to push each other to go faster to be a little more aggressive and to really get the most out of what Bartok gave us.

(tense violin music) (tense clarinet music) (tense piano music) (tense instrumental music) (tense instrumental music continues) (tense instrumental music continues) (tense instrumental music continues) (gentle piano music) (gentle clarinet music) (gentle violin music) (gentle instrumental music) (dramatic instrumental music) (tense piano music) (tense instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music) (uneasy instrumental music) (dramatic piano music) (dramatic instrumental music) (tense instrumental music continues) (tense violin music) (tense violin music continues) (tense instrumental music) (tense instrumental music continues) (tense instrumental music continues) (tense instrumental music continues) (tense instrumental music continues) (audience applauds)