A useful French expression for violinists
mainIn the course of polishing up our colloquial French we came across this:
Le groupe du matin est très bien, mais alors l’après-midi, c’est comme pisser dans un violon (the morning group was fine, but in the afternoon it was…)
The phrase has various meanings:
It’s like…
– trying to get blood from a stone
– handing out my own farts
– talking to an empty cupboard
– banging my head against the wall
– discussing Brexit.
…and what if it were “contrebasse” instead of “violon” ? apparently more urine in the instrument 😉 – enough for the full all-male orchestra . Sorry Anthea for that manifestation of men’s chauvinism of me 😉
trying to recall any great French violinists….
Renaud Capuçon
Pierre Amoyal
Patrice Fontanarosa
Christian Ferras (+).
And if you like French expressions, you can also use “Peigner la girafe” (= doing something long and useless).
QED
Dead or alive?
CJ has offered a few. I would add Ginette Neveu, Zino Francescatti, Jacques Thibaud — here be giants. If you haven’t heard of those three, I must wonder if you know of any French violinists at all. Or violinists of any nationality. Or pianists or….Or are you by chance just having a bash at the French?
I’ll give you Francescatti. After that, you are petty.
I’m what?? Well, something to chuckle over there, whatever you were trying to say. And your dismissal of Thibaud is pretty silly, Mick, your dismissal of Neveu a bit weird. I don’t think you have any idea of the latter’s recordings of the Sibelius and Brahms concerti, e.g., and I think you are playing a trolling game. Please note also that not liking a great artist does not entail denying their greatness.
And don’t forget the wonderful Stephane Grappelli.
I also heard of Gautier Capuçon, if cellists count 😉
Yes, Renaud’s brother! And if cellist count, then also Jean-Guihen Queyras, and maybe soon the young Edgar Moreau.
Augustin Dumay
Might be an idea to put a hold on the colloquialisms and revise verb tenses, ‘est’ not meaning ‘was’.
The most appropriate translation would be « Helfn vi a toytn bankes »
Nothing against Norwegian, but not many foreigners speak it. (I was told by one who did learn that there are two dialects/versions?)
French is more widely known, especially by English speakers.
Yes, there are two versions of Norwegian, but this phrase is in Yiddish…
Devy Erlih, Pierre Amoyal, Christian Ferras, Gérard Jarry, Michèle Auclair to name a few. Not sure what constitutes great, but all these are very fine players indeed, and Ferras is something of a legend. There are plenty more, some of whom have already been mentioned.