 I've been using Henle editions ever since I can remember, already when I was growing up. I had editions of Beethoven and Mozart's Sonatas by Henle Foulac and I loved how the paper felt, what it looked like. I loved reading through the commentary in the back and sort of knowing about all the intricate details and differences between the different versions of the manuscript and the other sources. I've basically been a fan of Henle for a very long time, so working on these editions I really appreciate to stay attention to the smallest detail and I'm very proud to be a part of it. It's really interesting when a composer provides their own fingerings, so in the case of the Sarasate editions that I worked on for Henle, the introduction I tell as well as the Carmen fantasy, there are occasionally some fingerings by Sarasate and I think that's significant and it's important to include those and do a text, but I'm not sure that Sarasate would have expected everyone to do the same fingering or something. I think sometimes they're meant to just to be helpful. There can occasionally be situations where a fingering results in a specific sound change, like for example when it's an indication, play on the G string, there can sometimes be musical, like a real musical purpose for fingering and in those cases I think it's more important to keep the original fingering or if a specific shift or slide is actually part of the expression that's intended by the composer. Sometimes that can happen, so there were not so many fingerings by Sarasate actually. They were just occasionally there and I basically kept them when I felt like they were working for me, but in a couple of places I do slightly different. Sarasate was a great virtuoso of his time and his pieces remain very difficult. I think they'll always be difficult for violinists. It's always going to be a challenge, but it's music also that violinists, we grow up with this music. So some of these things that I think at the time were extremely difficult have become a bit more standard in technique, but there are certain moments in the Carmen fantasy I think especially the last two movements that remain extremely difficult and actually quite unforgiving for violinists and it's just not, yes it's not terribly easy and remains challenging. That is where the fingerings can come in sometimes to help because sometimes a clever fingering can make some of these very, very difficult, challenging passages more playable. The way that harmonics are written down in music usually by most composers is they're always written down as fourth harmonics, meaning that the fourth harmonics that you take a fourth and make that a harmonic by the lower note is pressed down and the upper note is not. And I think it became the standard notation because it's very easy to read and if they're always written this way, it's you right away understand what the notes are supposed to be and it's kind of, you know, and also it's not a big stretch. So everyone can play a fourth. So it's a fairly easy way to just get the message across. However, many violinists, in fact, actually play them differently because there are other harmonics, there are thirds, there are fifths and sometimes natural harmonics that just happen to lie on the instruments and sometimes taking the natural harmonics on the way if they lie conveniently or playing fifths can result in harmonics that are clearer and easier to play or louder or, you know, have certain advantages. Since I was trying to write fingerings and bowings and markings for this Carmen fantasy to basically help the playability, I thought it was interesting to sometimes include this as an Ossia as something to just offer to people because it's sometimes the hardest thing is to have the idea in the first place to even just think of trying it. That's harder than actually playing the fifth harmonics. So in one of the places, for example, instead of playing the fourth harmonics, which would then fall on the A string and are not terribly brilliant sounding, even when you practice them a lot, it's actually possible to alternate between a natural fourth harmonic and a natural fifth harmonic and then fifths. And so this is something that I, there's something that we included in this edition, for example, and there's a few other places like this. And I think the goal is to just kind of get the idea out there. Theoretically, basically all the harmonics in this in Carmen fantasy could be played as fifths and they will sound slightly louder and slightly more brilliant, but that's going to be probably not the preference of everyone because that requires a hand that's big enough to stretch those. But in the places where I included it, I tried to pick the places where it would probably work for most people's hands. And I just think it's something that many violinists do use it, but it's not totally mainstream just because you rarely see it really printed in music. And it's a trick that we should make use of when it sounds good. The question came up in the Carmen fantasy by Sarasate that there is a moment in the habanera which is usually by most violinists and in most performances played differently from Sarasate's original. After the main theme, there is a major section and Sarasate continues with this material, which is this material that in the opera the orchestra keeps playing. But in the opera Carmen starts singing it's a very beautiful place, very memorable. So not too long after the piece was written, violinists started to just playing that because the piano is also playing. So this material is already in the piano or in the orchestra, if you played with orchestra. So violinists started playing this and it has become really the most often played version of this piece. So then the question arises, it's not original and this is an Utex edition we are working on, but at the same time it's such important information because it's the version everyone plays and in a way it is original because Carmen fantasy is a transcription of melodies by Georges Bizet. So it is really part of the original material by Bizet. So it's not like it's just made up out of nowhere. It really feels right to play it this way and so ultimately we decided to include it as an Ossia. I think it's important that someone learning the piece knows about this version and can play it, but then there's also though the information this is not actually by Sarasate, so just so you know that this is not by Sarasate, so you can also decide to play the other version. And I think it's probably the best way to handle this and I think in typical Hindu fashion I think it's just gives as much information to the player as possible so that the player can make their own informed decision. I'm very excited about the new edition of the Dvorak violin concerto that recently came out at Hindu Falak with my fingerings and bowings. This is a piece that I love very much that I've performed many times over the past few years and it was already one of my favorites growing up as a child. I probably got the music when I was 10 or 11. And I remember the, well I got the Zimrok edition. What I remember is that sometimes there were discrepancies between that and the score I had and I couldn't get answers to that so it's great that there's no one who takes the decision that answers those questions. The Dvorak violin concerto is a very special piece. It's for a number of reasons. It's not kind of thought of among the very top violin concertos. I think this started very early because Joachim didn't play it and then it just sort of had a bit of a slower start. Many of the great virtuosos of the early 20th century did not have it in their repertoire. I think Natan Milstein was one of the exceptions. He played it a lot but many of the others like Heifetz for example did not play it. And one of the reasons is that the orchestration is a little bit it's a little bit tricky that it's not the easiest to have good balance with the orchestra. It has pretty big technical challenges as well that even though it lies well on the instrument, Dvorak was a string player. He knew what he was doing of course but it occasionally there are moments that are extremely difficult. I think more difficult than other 19th century concertos. And so that's maybe hopefully where fingerings can be helpful because there are just to try to get past some of those technical hurdles. In some passages I provided two fingerings for the same passage. One that is a bit more conventional and will probably work for everyone doesn't involve too much stretching and then another fingering that's a bit more unusual involves a bit more stretching but it's cleaner sounding if you can do it. And when I was trying to decide between the two fingerings I decided I really wanted to include them both because for different people one or the other might work better. So the more normal fingering would be to play octaves for example with one four. But then I provided also a fingering that is more like fingered octaves but in a slightly unusual way that's one four one three one four and then one three one four one three one three one four. The goal of this fingering is that basically it's a bit you crawl around kind of in second position with the thumb in second position and stretch up and down without constantly shifting so much. So it involves more stretching it's a little bit harder to learn this fingering however once you know it because you're not shifting around it will basically always work the same. It will always just be in tune because you're not you're not jumping from one place to another. Whereas the more conventional fingerings with with the first and fourth finger they're easier to learn they're kind of more intuitive but there are so many small shifts that you have to do every time you play the passage. So both of them have advantages and disadvantages and I just decided to include both of those fingerings and personally I do the one that involves the fingered octaves that has more of the stretching and crawling around because I find it's a lot of work to learn it in the first place but then when I perform it in concert it tends to be very reliable and I don't have to worry about this passage so much with all these like little shifts. With pieces that I've played for many years I generally return to the same fingerings that I've basically worked out and I usually keep them but they do change sometimes even after something even after playing for many years something like the Dvorak Valencon Churto I might still suddenly decide actually this fingering I'm going to change it because it's no longer working and that's a process that never quite stops. Sometimes fingerings that worked really well for a while don't feel good anymore. Sometimes even the process of changing the fingering itself can be a relief because if you've practiced the passage so many times a certain way sometimes just playing it a different way can solve the situation sometimes I prepare two versions when it comes to bowings because I think the Dvorak is not a bad example oftentimes there are slurs that are very long and I want to keep take so many notes on a slur but there is the consideration of the balance with the orchestra and what the hall is like so sometimes I do prepare several bowings and then see what does it sound like in there and if it works then I do more notes on one bow but if I find I'm having a tough time getting my sound heard above the orchestra then I might actually use more bows and separate the slurs more. The bowings that I provided in the addition are a bit of a middle ground I do sometimes separate slurs just because yeah when I think it really just won't work with orchestra otherwise but I also don't want to separate all over the place and break up the musical flow too much you know and when you separate slurs it's good that the slurs are there and we put bowings above them but you can see what the slurs wear because when you separate them you should always try to make the bow change as smooth as possible so that musically it still sounds like it's connected. I think when we first learn the violin and when we're growing up we get a lot of the bowings and fingerings from our teachers and then later though we have to learn to basically work them out ourselves. This is a difficult switch actually for many students that comes a point also when you're so advanced that nobody can really tell you a good fingering anymore that for you personally you kind of have to find personal solutions that are ideal for your hands and for your own way of playing so I encourage students pretty early on to start looking for their own fingerings. When I teach I do often provide bowings and fingerings if I think they're helpful and particularly sometimes there are hard to find some solutions so I think if I finally figured something out you know it feels good to pass that on because in some cases it took me a while to notice it. If you actually experiment with fingerings a lot it becomes not such a big deal to try another fingering or to try another bowing or just to experiment. It's something I do with some pieces when I learn a piece that I often just try the opposite bowing. It's surprising how often the opposite way actually works better or just as well and I think it's just it can be just part of the practicing process. The only thing I caution my students is to maybe not change fingerings right before a concert or that's something that's a bit dangerous and I usually don't do that myself. I've occasionally changed the fingering before a concert if I felt the new fingering was so much better that it must be changed right away because it's just such a such an improvement but that's pretty rare. Usually if I find a new fingering it's just before a concert I write it down and say okay I'll do this next time you know like before the next concert because I don't want to be on stage like sort of between it takes a little moment when you change a fingering of relearning and in that small amount of time you sort of playing you play the passage worse than you did with the old fingering so I don't want that moment to be on stage.