The Red Violin

I have never seen the music to this theme. It absolutely haunted me when I saw this movie with my wife when it first came out in 1998, almost a quarter century ago. I've wanted to play it ever since. But in order to try to make it work, I had to change so much. The goal is always for the listener to not know that anything is different.

The Red Violin: Transcribed, arranged and played by Gary Lloyd

The difficulty is that the track I worked from starts with only voice, then the violin comes in, and the sound plus playing of Joshua Bell is absolutely magic. Bell was only 31 when he recorded it, and you can find the main theme on YouTube.

There is, of course, the whole orchestra and some really eerie sections with sliding scales based on complex chords, none of which work on piano. Also, often there is only one extended note in the orchestra with the violin solo playing only the simple melody.

I was up all night listening and listening, and agonizing over how to transfer the textures, the magic and the intense, atmospheric ambience, and somehow communicate the incredibly overwhelming feeling I get from this music.

In teaching I stress reading. You have become a reader to play the music of other people, if you don't have to work out every notes by ear. Yet the ear work is the other half, the part I don't talk about so much. To write this I simply wrote out the lead line just by listening, then carefully started working out the harmony. The great difficulty was trying to get it all in, and yet make it work on the piano.

It really does not matter if the music is traditional, or something more popular. What is on the page is only a start, and all the really important things come from listening and trying to create sound-magic. I needed every trick, every bit of knowledge I've acquired over 65 years of playing to make this work for those listening.