David Garrett is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest virtuoso violinist. Playing 13 notes per second, he performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee in 66.5 seconds, and later improved his record by playing this piece in 65 seconds.
David Garrett was called the prodigy from Aachen. At the age of 10, he gave his first concert on the stage of the Hamburg Philharmonic, and at 12 he already performed with Yehudi Menuhin. From that time on, he began playing the 1703 Stradivarius violin. When he was 13, he was signed by a record company. After graduating from the world’s best educators, Garrett works with renowned conductors and plays with legendary orchestras.
German-American violinist David Garrett is called the Paganini of our time. He masterfully combines a variety of genres. It is interesting that at one time the skilful violinist was expelled from the Royal College of Music. This is probably why rock, born as a musical rebellion, is so close to its bow. His collection of incredible arrangements includes artful rock covers of modern and classical compositions.
Competition of virtuosos
Young, but already well-known in Buryatia and beyond, singer and composer Ludub Ochirov posted two videos on social networks at once, where he plays “Flight of the Bumblebee”. This orchestral interlude was written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899-1900. The interlude ends the third act, in which the Swan-Bird turns Prince Guidon into a bumblebee so that he can fly to his father.
“Flight of the Bumblebee” is known for its incredibly fast tempo – the keys change almost continuously. Therefore, the main difficulty for the performer is not the pitch or range of the sound, but the purely physical ability (depending on what instrument he uses) to move the bow back and forth with tremendous speed or very quickly move his fingers over the keys.
Today “Flight of the Bumblebee” has become something of a competition of solo virtuosos and thanks to this it is the most famous work of Rimsky-Korsakov in the world. So, in 2007, the German violinist David Garrett entered the Guinness Book of Records, performing an interlude in 1 minute 6.56 seconds.
However, Briton Ben Lee soon broke this record with 58.05 seconds.
And in 2015, he was four seconds ahead of the Belarusian violinist Maimuna, who, together with the singer Yuzari, represented Belarus at Eurovision. She played “Bumblebee” not at the competition itself, but at a press conference dedicated to him in Austria.
The talented Buryat also decided to try his hand. The first video, which the 17-year-old Ludub posted on his Instagram, is 59 seconds long. Ochirov had practically finished the interlude when the recording was cut off – that is, it took him a little over a minute.
But in the second video, the blind musician did exactly 50 seconds. “The record has been broken!” He wrote. Subscribers were delighted with Ludub’s performance. “Class!”, “Well done”, “Gorgeous”, – they note in the comments. In less than a day, the video received almost 900 views.
“Flight of the Bumblebee” by virtuoso David Garrett
In the world of music, there is really a huge competition between musicians, which not every person can withstand.
And do not forget that even hard work, constant work on oneself and continuous studies can not always solve everything. Talent, natural gift – that’s what else can be the key to the complete success of any artist.
And 39-year-old violinist David Garrett is the best proof that this is actually the case. When the boy was only 4 years old, his father bought a violin for his older brother. But David himself woke up interest in music, so he learned to own the instrument quickly enough.
Already at a young age, Garrett received many awards and prestigious awards. When the guy was only 11 years old, he received the first Stradivarius violin. Such a gift to the future star was made by the President of Germany, Richard von Weizsäcker. And so David’s career went up, and the guy himself reached new heights.
He is one of the few musicians to have the honor of playing a violin made by Stradivari himself, called “San Lorenzo”. And this is already an indicator that David was born in order to become the most real musical genius of our time, if not century.
In 2008, David Garrett was honored to be included in the Guinness Book of Records. The musician was able to play the legendary “Flight of the Bumblebee” in just 65 seconds. The entire performance took place at the Guinness World Records: Die Größten Weltrekorde in Germany, where the violinist performed.
Few of the outstanding musicians manage to master the very “Flight of the Bumblebee”, but Garrett did it incredibly beautifully, professionally, clearly and quickly. And so we advise you to watch the musician’s playing. After all, what he did is really worthy of respect. Enjoy his music with us.
