This beautiful variation uses a sicilianoSiciliano rhythm - dotted 1/8 note, 1/16 note, 1/8 note rhythm in compound time rhythm and requires musical thought and planning.
Make sure that the dotted rhythm is ‘dotted enough’ to give the melody a graceful lilt. Pay attention to Sevcik’s markings for bow divisionDividing the bowstroke into fractions of the length of the bow. which take us through all parts of the bow.
Practice the hook stroke bowing on open strings. Put a practice breakA pause between groups of notes. This is inserted to monitor the group of notes just played and/or program the next group after the dotted quaver so that you can direct the bow to calmly re-engage the string before the next ‘hook’. Also practice hook stroke on scales to refine your coordination.
Ševčík marks the bare bones of dynamics giving room for refining the phrasing.
Bring out the melodic contour. In Bar 1 it rises to the first note of Bar 2 so naturally we make a small crescendo to the Eb. Then in Bar 4 the line falls so we phrase off with a small diminuendo. Similarly in the long musical line from Bars 9-16 the melodic contour keeps rising until Bar 15 with the musical momentum going all the way until the end of bar 16.
SEE
Hook stroke
Introduction to Practice for Prepare the musical map