I’m celebrating the week by book-ending the week with performances of the Cello and Violin concertos. Schumann seems in many ways to be sinned against more than almost any other major composer- what is it about his voice that again and again leads performers and listeners to take short-cuts in getting to know and to understand his music?

Schumann had one of the most sophisticated, unique and distinct voices of any composer. His music spans a huge range of expressive characters, from dreamy introspection to learned severity to naïve exuberance. Understanding his choices is not always a quick process, but I can honestly say that I can scarcely think of a choice in any of his music that doesn’t prove to be the right one on careful reflection.

Of course, one of the most frequently repeated, and completely wrong-headed, criticisms of Schumann is that he was somehow an inept or unimaginative orchestrator. I remember buying Lynn Harrell’s recording of the Schumann as a teenager and reading in the liner notes by one Lionel Salter that “Schumann wrote his concerto rapidly within a fortnight: it is true that the solo part is not very grateful to play, and that he solved the question of balance by allotting a markedly subordinate role to the orchestra (in fact, the accusation of “drabness” in the orchestral color led Shostakovich to re-score the work)”

Hmmm….

First, having just played it, I want to go on record as saying that it is tremendously challenging but absolutely wonderful to play- it has everything for the cellist, from lyrical passages that are unmatched in the repertoire to pure virtuoso writing to keep the fingers busy. You get to seduce, sing, cry, scream, bellow, scamper, sigh, roar and laugh through the instrument. What could be more grateful?

But, this question of Shostakovich’s re-orchestration has haunted me for over 20 years since I read about it. On the one hand, Shostakovich is my hero. On the other hand, I think the Schumann Cello Concerto is a perfect piece, and flawlessly orchestrated, full of the most original and subtle touches of color. I couldn’t imagine an improvement on Schumann’s own work, but everyone knows  and agrees that Shostakovich was a great orchestrator- even those who dislike his music.

Finally, 2 years ago I was conducting the Schumann and a member of the orchestra brought in a sketchy looking Russian disk of the Shostakovich orchestration of Bobby’s Cello Concerto. At last, I had the chance to hear what one genius could do to improve the work of another.

Not much, it turns out.

In fact, the expression “does more harm than good” would come to mind if, in fact, it did any good anywhere in the piece.

I’ll settle on “does more harm.”

Now, two caveats before we proceed…. First, this recording is pretty bad- the orchestra doesn’t even make a very good case for the existence or orchestras, let alone for the existence of this arrangement. Second, although the disc clearly claims to be the Shosty orchestration, I still haven’t gotten my hands on a score, so it could be Krennikhov or someone like that.

First, Salter’s comment that Schumann didn’t give the orchestra enough to do while the soloist is playing isn’t really addressed in this orchestration. Most of the big, bad and insane changes are in the tuttis and interjections between soloist and orchestra.

But the real point is that this orchestration shows again and again that the arranger didn’t understand the piece on many, many levels. Take the first orchestral tutti- it’s quite short, but feels like it covers a huge amount of ground as it carries the narrative from the agitation of the first subject to the tender introspection of the second. Shostakovich sexes up the orchestration by passing the tune around from section to section, changing every few bars, which destroys the sense of this tutti as a single passionate and long-breathed epic outpouring and instead creates a sense of a distracted and impatient child as he jumps from wind choir to strings.  The winds sound so much less passionate in the melody in DS’s version than the violins do in RS’s

First Tutti- DSCH

First Tutti- RS.

Note that while Schumann’s orchestration is less varied, with the melody staying primarily in the first violins, the whole tutti sounds like a single unit, and the countermelodies in the low strings are heard as more equally important, where in the Shostakovich, only the top melodic line is really treated with any care or interest. One sounds like film music, the other like art music, one pleases the ear (sort of) the other shakes the soul.

The next solo section emerges from delicate reverie into a moment genuine virtuoso triumph- an outpouring of confidence that is immediately shattered by the second orchestral tutti. In Schumann’s original, this tutti alternates between claustrophobic agitation with the triplets in the violas and second violins to violent explosions of anguish in the whole orchestra. It is music that applies incredible psychic and emotional pressure. Shostakovich gives the triplets to the clarinets, which sounds simply comical and grotesque. Then, he goes beyond re-orchestration into re-composition, adding ludicrous Rimsky-Korsokov-esque scale flourishes in the forte outburst. It sounds like we’re alternating between bits of The Nose and Scheherezade. But it’s not the complete lack of style that is most upsetting, it is the fact that, as in the first tutti, Shostakovich lowers the emotional intensity by several levels of magnitude because the focus is on making something that is pleasing- this is music that is supposed to be shocking, upsetting, anguished and extremely tense, not film music.

Second Tutti- DSCH

Second Tutti- RS

Schumann’s sublime 2^nd movement fairs even worse. I find this very strange, as I’ve never heard a criticism of this movement from anyone, ever (other than cellists, myself included, remarking on the difficulty of sustaining the dbl stop passage when playing with orchestra). I find it hard to believe that Shostakovich had anything to do with this travesty- he replaces the delicate and very Schumann-ian pizzicato string accompaniment with a  gaudy portato arco rendition. Then, wait for it—– he adds harp.

HARP!?!?!?!?!??!??!

Why not just add Wagner tubas while you are at it?

It really all sounds like an entr’acte from a Glazunov ballet played by a provincial Russian pit orchestra. One of the most personal, honest, intimate and moving movements in the repertoire is transformed into a saccharine, sentimental, cheap and self-indulgent sounding travesty. It also significantly dimishes the impact of the dialogue between the soloist and the principal cellist, a duet that is the concerto’s most memorable and touching feature, and one that has a powerful symbolic impact on all listeners

2^nd Mvt- DSCH

2^nd Mvt- RS

In the 3^rd Mvt Shostakovich’s concern for the welfare of his fellow man comes to the fore. In particular, his profound concern for the attention span of trumpet players. I have a number of dear friends amongst the world’s trumpet sections, and I too hate to think of them as not getting enough chances to shine and showcase their mighty chops. But I wonder if this was the piece to do it in? In the first tutti, there are brief worrying signs that we’ll be hearing more trumpet that we are used to- perhaps more than we want to-

Finale Tutti 1- DSCH

Finale Tutti1- RS

But it is at the recap that his purpose becomes apparent, when suddenly, we find ourselves not in the Schumann Cello Concerto, but the Artunian Trumpet Concerto, or something like that. In Schumann’s original, this is a very moving and powerful transition- in this arrangement, it is more comic relief.

Finale Tutti 3 DSCH

Finale Tutti 3 RS

I think this is as good a place to stop as any. I don’t want this post to be read as a rant- Shostakovich will always remain one of my favourite composers, but he himself wrote in his memoirs that “composers should orchestrate their own music.” He refused to take on the completion of Mahler 10 for that very reason, and most of his work on music not his own is on Mussorgsky, whose language he understood better, it seems.

The point I really wanted to make is that everywhere Shostakovich makes a change we can argue whether or not it is in good or bad taste (although I doubt it will be a long argument). What seems certain, however, is that each change lowers the emotional temperature of the piece as a whole. Schumann himself could have added piccolo and harp (his piccolo writing in the Konzertstucke for Horns is quite brilliant!), but he knew that to do so would make the music less intense, less moving and less original.

Of course, Schumann’s original is challenging to pull off. Shostakovich shows how easy it is to get things to leap of the page in Technicolor, if that is what you want. In fact, I’ve chosen a recording I don’t like for that very reason. In the tuttis in the first movement, the orchestra doesn’t sustain out fortes before subito pianos very well. In the Finale, the balance is not good, and the chords are rushed. However, those are not Schumann’s fault but those of the performers. Just because something is difficult, it does not follow that it is bad. If something doesn’t work in Schumann’s music, as in Shostkovich’s, the fault is always with the performer.

Tune in next time, when I play extracts from Satie’s re-orchestration of Shostakovich 7.

First, let me be clear- although this was a first for me, I’m not trying to assert that this is an original idea. In fact, a friend of mine just did the piece in Schumann’s transcription for violin and orchestra with her orchestra in Denmark last week- also without conductor. Joseph Swenson and Thomas Zehetmair are just two violinist conductors who have been performing and recording huge swaths of the concerto repertoire, up to and including Stravinsky, directing from the violin.

But on visual grounds alone, violinists have an unfair advantage- the violin can itself be used as visual tool. Just as a baton functions as an extension of the motion of the arm, a violin can serve as an extension of the bob of the head.

The Schumann Cello Concerto does have a reputation as a difficult accompaniment for conductors, mostly because of the need for flexibility and rubato in the solo part. I suppose the most urgent worry of this project was whether I would have to play the piece too straight in order to keep it together with the orchestra without the help of a beat-keeper. This turned out not to be true- having watched the footage of the concert, I can say I’m pretty happy with the balance between rhythmic poise and structure on the one hand and poetry and flexibility on the other, and in many areas, I think the orchestra was more responsive to subtle shifts of emphasis and timing than when I’ve done the piece before.

Lest readers think that I’m making myself as a conductor irrelevant, let me just make perfectly clear that not all is easy and better and perfect in the conductor-less universe. And, I was conducting- with my skull. It is a good lesson in learning how little conducting one can get away with, as less is often more.

On the one hand, the very areas in which one would think that a conductor would be most essential- navigating the ins and outs of coordinating the orchestra with a flexibly rendered solo part- turned out not to be a problem at all. On the other hand, there were areas where a conductor was probably more missed. Of course, having a confident conductor can create a layer of safety at key moments, just as a confident concertmaster can save a conductor in others. The risk factor without a conductor is certainly higher.

Also, it simply takes more time to put things together without a conductor- working this way depends on all the musicians having the piece in their ears, and on their being able to hear what they need to. That means that in rehearsals they need enough repetition to really learn the solo part- not countless hours, but more than usual. That said, I loved rehearsing the orchestra with the cello in my hand- it is so frustrating explaining a bowstroke or a kind of vibrato in words when you could show it, and for once, I could show it. It was very cathartic and liberating to get to do that.

Also, one has to allow for changes in hearing between the regular rehearsals and dress rehearsal. I sat facing the orchestra for the working rehearsal, then, in a different venue, sat facing the audience (as one does!) for the dress rehearsal and concert. That meant that in the dress the players had to get used to both the hall and to me facing away. It took time- not countless hours, but more than usual.

However, what I found the most different was the intensity of the experience. It was, to put it simply, much more tiring than just playing in every rehearsal, and completely exhausting on the day of the concert.  In a perfect world, my goal is always to get through a rehearsal, whatever happens, nailing my part all the way through. If only life were like that! However, when little things happen in a normal rehearsal, you can use the tuttis and those minutes when the conductor is working with the orchestra to relax, review what went wrong, think through a fingering or just take a few slow breaths. Doing both jobs means that for the duration of the rehearsal you are “on” for every second. It’s much harder to right yourself if something goes wrong, and much more tiring in general. I came away from this with a new respect for artists who do this all the time. I’d done Haydn without conductor a few times before, but Romantic repertoire is much more demanding in this way.

So, is this something I would do again? Absolutely! But only with the right orchestra. You need to trust your colleagues and to know they’ll learn the piece and be there for you. I also learned that one has to allow for fatigue and not overshoot when programming or planning the schedule for the week. I’m glad I didn’t program a crazy overture- we started with Telemann’s Don Quioxte Suite, which I led from the cello (on the same rostrum, but facing the orchestra). It felt much better than conducting the Coriolan Overture before doing Haydn D last time I played a concerto without conductor.

What about other repertoire? CPE Bach and Vivaldi always await. Dvorak will always need a conductor- even if the orchestra could follow every twist and turn, I think the piece needs the tension between the personality of the soloist and the personality of the conductor. I suppose Saint-Saens 1 is possible, but is it worth the trouble? Brahms Double and Beethoven Triple can both work, but the Beethoven is best led by the pianist, who has almost nothing to do anyway! The one piece that I keep thinking about is Shostakovich 1. Pieter Wispelwey has recorded it without conductor using a great chamber orchestra with a very strong leader. I’d love to take a shot at it some day, but first, I can use a few days off!

Lynn Harrell has a great piece on his blog about instruments and the insanity of letting families be bullied into trying to buy insanely expensive fine Italian instruments for student players.

What I take issue with is the implied necessity of one of these priceless masterpieces in making a career. So a young player before he/she is near full potential musically or technically or earning power is led to believe that without that Stradivari or Guarneri they will not be able to compete and their very career will be in jeopardy. Throughout the entirety of my more than 50 year playing career I have yet to encounter a string player under the age of 20 with enough knowledge, musicality, and technique to bring everything out of a master instrument…

The best new instruments are in many playing points superior to all but the most exceptional old instruments. Moreover, the cost is often laughably less expensive. The price range of $5,000- $50,000 will yield superb instruments. The renaissance of great new makers in the last 20 years proves this. It is therefore folly to assume at the onset of a career that one must have an old instrument to succeed. What succeeds is musical and technical brilliance.

There really is no snobbery like instrument snobbery (even wine snobs can’t compare)- of course the best Cremonese instruments have very special properties, but I think only the best players can really make the most of those. On the other hand, a great player can still do great things on a more modest axe, and where budget is an issue, there are ways of maximizing what a more modest instrument can do.

There is a new generation of budget instruments out there that are a far cry from the unplayable student monstrosities of the past. On one hand, dealers are happy to sell those (in volume), but they are not so happy to help you get the best out of them. I bought my second cello (Cello 2.0) when I was working in Oregon- I needed something that could live in the orchestra’s office when I was away, but that was good enough for concerts.

I bought a simple Strad copy Chinese-made instrument (I shouldn’t be telling you this!), but had it set up but a first rate luthier who made some simple modifications which improved the sound enormously- he also replaced the factory bridge and soundpost. I replaced the cheap strings with top-of-the line ones.  Most importantly, I use my good bow with it, which is worth more than the cello. I can’t tell you what a difference it makes!

This is something a dealer doesn’t want you to know- that a $2k-$6k cello with a bow of similar value might sound far better than a $28k cello with a $1k bow. More tellingly, buying a $50k or $500K instrument isn’t going to make you sound like Lynn Harrell. Young cellists and their parents should be well advised about how to get the most from their budget when shopping.

Sadly, many, but by no means all, teachers are not to be trusted in this task. For years, many top dealers offered kick-backs to teachers who persuaded their students to buy an instrument from them. They say it is a “thank you” for the time involved in helping the student choose an axe- it sounds more like a bribe, to me. If everyone in your studio is playing a Berlusconi from El Pomposo Violins, chances are, someone is getting a commission you don’t know about.  The fact that so many  people don’t know about this practice is pretty indicative about how well some of these teachers can separate out their financial interests from the needs of their students.

Anyway, I’ve used Cello 2.0 for high powered chamber concerts, several solo recitals and the Elgar, Herbert, Shostakovich and Chen Yi concertos with orchestra, and it’s held up quite well. There is a sweet comment about my sound on the website from Chen Yi- she’s talking about Cello 2.0, not the Italian one.

However, some people can’t trust their ears and others just won’t take such an instrument seriously. When I did the Elgar, I wanted some work done on it- a new bridge, in particular. I took it to the “top place” in Portland, and they mistook me for an amateur/beginner based on the instrument.  They then did a completely half-assed job, left the instrument sounding and playing like crap and told me it was un-realistic to expect any more from that instrument. When they saw a piece about me in the paper, they got a little more helpful, but the cello left their shop sounding like a student instrument. I had to find another luthier to fix what they’d screwed up.

When people used to compliment me on my sound with that instrument I’d gleefully tell them what it was, until I saw that most reacted with horror, as if I’d hoodwinked them into thinking they were listening to something they weren’t. How sad that they couldn’t trust their ears.

My teacher at IU, Fritz Magg, had a beautiful Strad which he had to give up at the end of his career. He had a fine copy made by a good but not famous luthier, and went on playing. Everywhere he went, people talked about the unmistakable glory of that legendary Strad, and Fritz just nodded and smiled. What they were hearing was the unmistakable glory of Fritz Magg, but if they knew he was playing on an in-expensive modern instrument their ears would have instantly closed. Fritz was wise enough to just nod and smile as folks talked on and on about the miracle of the Strad they handn’t just listened to.

Post script- In aiming for brevity, I don’t want to leave readers with the mistaken impression that all instruments are the same. Far from it! However

1- There  are decent instruments to be found in every price range

2- Many things affect price besides sound, such as pedigree, previous owners and the shop you are in

3- If the person selling the violin tells you it is  Berlusoni from the Ambrosian period, take the instrument for a second opinion from a dealer who has no financial interest in the transaction and who, preferably, isn’t trying to sell you something from their own stock.

4- If someone tells you that you have to up your budget by 10k to get anything decent, they would say the same thing no matter what you told them your budget was.

5- If someone tells you a good bow is wasted on a good but not great instrument, they are lying.

6- Keep looking- the best place to shop for an instrument is on your friend’s instruments. If somebody has something you like, try it and find out what it is.

For the first time, I’m doing it without conductor (yes, I realize I am a conductor, so perhaps I should say I’m doing it without anyone conducting).

Is this a musical suicide mission?

Schumann’s language thrives on flexibility, fantasy and freedom, and his unique rhythmic vocabularly can easily obscure the location of the barline, or even the beat. For this reason, this work is considered a notorious conductor killer. I know that the one time I played with orchestra before, in spite of trying to be sparing with rubato, the conductor, a good friend and a good conductor, was deeply and possibly permanently traumatized.

I guess this experiment is predicated on the idea that the solution to the difficulties of this piece might be as simple as the soloist (me) knowing where there are opportunities to be flexible and where there aren’t- without a conductor standing there to put it all together, I’m forced to make sure that what I’m doing makes sense and is natural and easy to follow. It also forces the musicians to learn the solo part, and to really, really listen.

I don’t know if it will work!

It’s been a cello intensive year to date- the Dvorak concerto took up a lot of my energies in January, and I’ve been busy with the trio in March and April, so the cello universe has been very much on my mind. I’ve been really excited to learn that one of my cello heroes, Lynn Harrell, has started a blog. One of his recent posts expresses his frustration with young cellists who don’t bother to try to understand the intentions of the composer-

One thing that has always irked me whenever I give Master classes at different conservatories and Universities while on tour. And it is starting to concern me more deeply than before. What is that you ask? It’s a seemingly deliberate disregard for how a composer has marked his music. For example, directions and hints to the would-be performer on how to play the piece, what speed to take, what balance, goodness; even what notes are correct.

What we’re talking about here is a basic level of respect for the text but what seems to be more and more common these days is just guessing at the meaning of metronome markings and foreign words. The result is an increasing number of would-be performers feeling more and more entitled to change what has been left by the original creator and to feel as though their flimsy, novel approaches are legitimate simply because they are novel.

The idea that a composer doesn’t have de facto the best and most illuminating approach to the work is fundamentally ridiculous. But that doesn’t seem to stop these musicians from thinking that it might be Brahms’ way but they have the right to disregard him and substitute their own view! This is to propose that their way is as good as ,well…Brahms.

I find this more and more distressing because without at least first trying to understand and recreate the text means that our knowledge of a composer’s use of the notational language is diluted and made fuzzy. We have a big enough problem with numerous corrupt editions and while efforts to find more accurate editions continue, the movement to disregard composer’s intentions makes these efforts more and more difficult, or worse, seemingly not important or necessary.

I agree with everything he says, except for the notion that there is anything new with this. Sadly, I don’t think that young cellists are to blame, but their teachers, our conservatory system and  (Harrell correctly points this out!) our music publishers. I’ve gotten more and more militant about learning concertos from the full orchestral scores- it makes such a huge, huge difference. I know that turning pages is a pain, but it’s worth it. A cello part should just be like a cheat sheet to be used only for run-throughs once you’ve learned the piece properly.

So, I got out my cello part to the Schumann for a run through this week- it’s the old International Edition edited by Leonard Rose (a great cellist, an immortal recording artist and hugely important teacher by any measure). I suppose 80% of American cellists have this edition and grew up with it. After looking at the score for a week, the differences were distressing. There are wrong notes and changed notes, moved slurs, different rhythms and invented articulations, and nowhere in the text does Rose tell the cellist what is his suggestion and what is actually from Schumann. Where changes have been made, the player is not told there has been a change, nor is there any record of what has been taken out.

Worse yet, Rose suggests a whole-scale recomposition of the last movement. He advises a massive and pointless cut in the development which can only have been made by a musician who doesn’t understand the structure of the piece, then gives two suggested cadenzas before the end. Schumann pointedly wrote a very short accompanied cadenza before the coda- he didn’t want a long solo improvisation. Rose does include Schumann’s original, but only as a “last option” after the two cadenzas, and nowhere does he mention that the existence of a long cadenza is his idea and not Schumann’s.

Sadly, this is nothing new- the celebrity edition has always been a great selling point for publishers (and I’ve griped about it before), but if you want to know why young cellists don’t respect the text, look no further. Times haven’t changed- Breitkopf and Hartel have come out with a new Urtext edition of the Dvorak and Schumann concerti, but sell with them a cello part edited by Heinrich Schiff. Like Rose, he’s a great player and musician, but his suggestions, additions and alterations are presented in the same print as those of the composer. At least he doesn’t change the chords in the 4th bar of the cello part of the Dvorak (an unforgivable sin in both the Rose and Starker editions- really, who changes a note written by Dvorak!?!!?). For instance- there are bowings in the concerto that come from Dvorak himself- in the new Schiff solo part, Schiff’s bowings, and his changes of original markings are marked in exactly the same way as Dovrak’s originals, without comment. Why a publisher would go to great expense to put together an Urtext edition then suggest cellists prepare the solo part from another corrupt edition is beyond me.

Perhaps most depressingly, these mangled solo parts are written evidence of the very same thought process Maestro Harrell bemoans- these great, great artists have taken to changing things that they seem not to understand. If you go through the Schumann part with a score, you can see that Rose (or the graduate student who actually edited it!) wasn’t working from a score when he edited the solo part. Dynamics that are moved no longer line up with important musical and harmonic events in the orchestra. The cut disrupts a clear, simple and coherent musical structure. Far from improving on the composer’s original ideas (the notion of improving the Schumann Cello Concerto or Dvorak is simply beyond absurd!), what these editions do is simply immortalize misreadings and mistakes.

Not only do these sloppy old editions evince a depressingly casual disregard for the composer’s intentions, they also show a  very limited knowledge of the piece itself. The single line of the cello part is not the Schumann Concerto- the Schumann Concerto is the whole score. If you’re just thinking in single-line terms and leaving it to some hapless conductor to reconcile your wayward discoveries with the rest of the music, you’re not doing the music justice.

This doesn’t mean there is no room for creativity, spontenaity or waywardness. Schumann wrote this great work in his usual fervent burst of creative energy, so there is actually a lot left to the soloist to work out in terms of dynamics and phrasing. Likewise, some of the metronome markings are very problematic. It is a piece in which you do have to struggle with the text, and may even have to go beyond the text, but surely the starting point for that process is knowing the text.

To appropriate Harrell-”The idea that a composer doesn’t have de facto the best and most illuminating approach to the work is fundamentally ridiculous.” Equally true whether the offender is a  legendary cellist and recording artist or a struggling young cello student playing in a masterclass

I don’t know how it sounded out there in the hall – but at my seat in the (acoustically very dry) hall it was quite fulfilling, and Walter Weller, the conductor, couldn’t believe when I told him afterwards that this cello had just been varnished 10 days ago, he absolutely loved the sound of this modern instrument. Not only old Italian instruments can play…

Thomas, the luthier, asked me afterwards how it was possible to adapt so quickly (I had about 90 minutes practise time on the cello before the concert) to a new instrument with completely different measurements. My answer brought me back to what “taking risks” means:

Each performance, never mind if it’s Bach or Chin, I try to go through the creation process meaning I kind of pretend of improvising or composing the piece as I go along. If you look at my parts, they are blank; no fingerings, no bowings, no phrasings, no other words of wisdom – I want to leave myself the space to explore many different options. When going on stage I have not decided on exactly what to do at any given spot – I kind of go with the flow, let the music lead me while forming the phrases as I feel them in the moment. No, I don’t play every single performance differently, I don’t try to play differently, but I try to “speak freely”, not tied to an absolute game plan. And this by itself presents a huge risk – it is easier to play perfectly (hit every single note) if there is only one option (or two), but if you speak spontaneously, you might get some words wrong.

And for playing the cello in a technical sense it is absolutely the same: There is hardly any automatism in my technical approach, but my fingers more or less follow what my ears want to hear, and that’s why they find their way on any instrument. In masterclasses I always use the instrument of the student, which used to throw me off when I came back to my own cello, but not anymore. After a minute or two my fingers understand the instrument, they find the invisible keys and press them down, being lead by the ears. Gosh, I don’t know if this makes any sense, it’s very difficult to explain the sensation of exploring a new instrument, which is so much fun.

Again, I’m not dogmatically advocating that everyone go out and erase everything in their parts. In fact, I think the best of all possible worlds would be to have one clean set of parts that you practice and perform from and one marked set that you put in everything you want to remember in five years when you come back to the piece.

One comment I’ve heard, which I am sympathetic to, is from people who feel they need those fingerings in there to avoid mishaps. The music should come first- do what you need to do in order to play well, rather than sacrificing the product to conform to some idealized idea of what you should be doing.

However, some of the best advice I ever had (from Parry Karp) was to try avoid ever feeling that there was something I “need” in order to play well. Alban’s story is a case in point- sometimes you just have to pick up another cello and play. When you need a certain chair, a special fish meal 90 minutes before hand, 50 minutes warm up time in the hall at 6 PM, your lucky cufflinks (how anyone plays with cufflinks is beyond me) or even your carefully marked part, you’re making trouble. I’ve had to borrow or print off parts for recitals and chamber concerts twice. It happens.
I know people always say of the Alban’s and the Gould’s that they’re “just that kind of player,” but I think teachers can do a huge amount to help increase their student’s creativity and resiliency under stress.

When I was in school (particularly at IU), so many teachers would either photocopy their parts for their students, or simply write in their own markings in their students music, and the students would then spend months learning those exact fingerings and bowings. A student trained in this way will be able to do a good job of mimicking their teacher, but will they do when they have to change and adapt under pressure. What do they do when a slipped peg means they can’t use an open string or any of those sneaky harmonics?

Far better to teach the student to come up with fingerings- LOTS of them, and to encourage them to continue to experiment and challenge themselves.

This is not the same thing as leaving all interpretive and technical decisions to the student.

Simply saying “if that’s the way you feel it, then that’s great, sweetie” is not teaching. The “old school” way of teaching only teaches one possibly right way of doing things, but doesn’t teach how to find a right way of doing things, nor does it teach why those right ways are right, nor why some other means might be wrong (and yes, there are “wrongs” in music). The modern day, touchy-feely, let-them-do-whatever-they-like method never subjects ideas to rigorous inspection and self-criticism, it encourages complacency and limits flexibility. A teacher shouldn’t hesitate to say, in the nicest possible way “that fingering sucked, can you show me 8 different ones?” It’s even perfectly fine to say “try this one,” but best to follow that immediately with “now try this one instead.” Then, ask the student to articulate the qualities of all the bowings and fingerings they come up with- all fingerings involve trade offs, it’s important to understand the strengths of all possible ways of executing a passage.

A student who has been challenged to re-think things in lessons and master classes as well as the practice room for 6 years is going to grow into a far more resilient and flexible professional.

I happen to be a cellist who writes almost nothing whatsoever in my music. If I do write things in, it is done to appease my chamber music colleagues, not for my own benefit. I find if a bowing works for me and fits the music, I will remember it, and if not, I’ll continue to change it. Sometimes, playing a new bowing and reading an old one will create a little brain friction and cause me to make a little flub of some kind. Given this, I’d prefer to simply play from a clean page. I don’t advocate this -it’s just what works for me.

However, I like fingerings far less than I like bowings in my music. Fingerings for me (and this is completely personal, and many of my heroes finger every note in their music) are like little mistake factories. I like to have a grab bag of fingerings that I can call upon depending on how I feel on a given day.

Now, I will tell you about the worst piece of advice I ever got about cello playing.

When I was first learning the Rococo Variations, I asked someone about the octave C#s at the end of the theme (they come back later). This leap is a nervy moment, and many cellists fall off the string here.

My colleague/teacher/friend’s advice was to pick one of the many possible fingerings on the day I started the piece, and practice it 20 times every day for a year, and whatever happened, never, ever to change it.

I can’t begin to tell you the kind of mind strain that approach creates. When I came back to the piece as a wiser person, I erased every fingering and varied the fingering for that shift so that I never had a thing about it. As soon as I missed it, I just switched and would be solid for a long time. If I started to get a thing about it, I’d change, I might start alternating, I might even do something insane. Whatever- that shift is hard for the psyche, not the hand.

I kind of despise fingerings in orchestra music- I used to be a very good sight reader, but one thing that could always throw me was trying to figure out what the heck the last cellist was thinking with that crazy fingering in the part. Fingerings are so personal- what helps one player will only mess up another.

Also, just for the record, there are few things ruder than to insist to your stand partner that they must read off your part because it has your fingerings in it.

That’s like asking them to wear your trousers in rehearsal because they also make you feel comfortable. Your stand partner won’t say no because they are polite, but really, it’s bad form.

I suppose, though, we must tolerate fingerings in music if that’s what it takes for some players to do their job. That said, I’d really appreciate if people erased their fingerings from my parts after concerts (or just didn’t write them in my parts).

However, one group of musicians who should REALLY, REALLY know better than to put fingerings in music are PUBLISHERS.

Really, what are these idiots thinking?!?!?!?!

Everyone rolls their eyes on quartet gigs when we come across ludicrously old-fashioned and un-stylistic bowings and fingerings in those old Peters parts. Bach editions from the mid-20^th c., not long ago in publishing terms, look comical today with all their Romantic slides and up-the-d-string trickery. What makes a publisher today think a fingering of our time will hold up in 50 years?

I recently got the new Breitkopk Urtext edition of the Dvorak Cello Concerto. My main interest was in comparing the score with the Sourek  Critical edition, but I was really shocked to see the cello part was full of spurious bowings and fingerings from Heinrich Schiff.

Heinrich Schiff is a great player and fine musician with an awesome sound, but I don’t want to use his fingerings any more than I want to wear his pants. Ew.

At least the dodgy Rose and even-dodgier Starker editions don’t make any claim to scholastic validity. This edition claims to be an Urtext, but has been given more fingerings than JOKE REMOVED TO SALVAGE CAREER- EMAIL KEN FOR JOKE IF YOU ARE NOT OFFENDED BY CATHOLIC JOKES.

Also, there is no differentiation between Dvorak’s suggested bowings (and Dvorak did mark some bowings)  and Schiff’s. Ugh.

I’m getting old enough and OCD enough that I am actually thinking of scanning the part and removing all the bowings and fingerings in Photoshop, then re-printing it, but I probably won’t. I’m doing 90% of my practice off the full score anyway- I’d just like to have a usable part for running large chunks without turning pages.

As a general rule, the music should just show us what the composer wrote. Leave all decisions for the performer to the actual performer, not just any performer. A cellist playing the Dvorak should be mature enough to finger and bow it themselves. (Sadly, for students at conservatories,  their teachers will also try to get them to “wear their pants” for the year that they study it, then spend 10 years out of school realizing that the piece was nowhere near as hard as they thought if they used means that fit their body. A good teacher helps a student come up with good and helpful bowings and fingerings, a bad teacher makes a student copy their bowings and fingerings).

Of course, few cellists are as loony as I am about not writing anything in their music. It’s absolutely fine to write your own bowings and fingerings in YOUR copy of the Dvorak Concerto. But when we open a part and see printed bowings and fingerings NOT from the composer, it deters the player from thinking creatively about how best to execute the composer’s wishes. It makes the player less aware of their own bodies and their own strengths. It really is like suggesting to everyone who walks into a store-

“Here, try these size 42 trousers.Try them on. Go on.  They’ll fit you…. Trust me….. They fit me perfectly….”

As it happened, there were two exhibits on, both of photography. The first was by a Russian artist I had never heard of. Within moments, though, I knew we’d stumbled onto something very special, and then, less than a minute after I entered I saw two photographs in quick succession that both gave me the exquisite, heart-in-throat feeling of experiencing art that is raw, alive, terrifying, essential- that feeling of seeing an image in the world that has been buried, unseen, in your own subconscious for all your life. The first was this one

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The artist was Alexey Titarenko.

We spent the next couple of hours very quietly looking. Looking and somehow changing as we absorbed these images of life, death, despair, menace and mystery. I was so moved and impressed that I did something I never do at museums and galleries, possibly because I feared I’d never see his stuff again. I bought the book!

We kept it safe in a corner of our little car so it wouldn’t get smashed by camping equipment until we got back to Cardiff. Even then, it was a few weeks before I finally took the shrink wrap off and read the book. I was a bit nervous that the photographs couldn’t possibly be equal to that first experience where it seemed like my heart was both racing and stopping. Fortunately, these are images that endure and haunt, and I’ve enjoyed the book immensely.

Imagine, then, my reaction when I discovered that music was a huge influence on Titarenko’s work. According to the book, his picture “The Black and White of Saint Petersburg” was inspired by the Brahms Violin concerto, and that, for him each musical piece, and its conveyance of the state of mind of the composer, affects how he sees a city or a landscape. In particular, one composer seems to have had a huge influence on Titarenkos approach and that is Dmitri Shostakovich. In particular, the Second Cello Concerto has “provided the underlying rhythm for the photographer’s inspiration.” In the artists words “I was so hooked on this concerto, that I could listen to it all day, every day. During my walks around the city, I realized that St. Petersburg offered endless living illustrations of this music. The monotonous opening cello melody was one of despair, but also of expectation. The concerto was instrumental in realizing certain images.” Fascinating. To me, this is probably the greatest cello concerto ever written. For all the glories of the Dvorak and the poignancy of the Schumann, even for Shostakovich’s own, brilliant First Concerto, to me, this work is the most essential work written for cello and orchestra, because, at least to me, its message is so important. It is music that is the singing conscience of a destroyed culture, and a very precious reminder of the frailty of humanity. It’s personal and universal messages are perfectly embodied in the juxtaposition of solo cello and orchestra. Few other works, maybe the Beethoven Violin Concerto, Berg Violin Concerto and the greatest Mozart Piano Concerti find this balance so perfectly. In any case, to what extent could my powerful reaction to Titarenko’s images be due to the fact that we shared this common love of one piece of music? How does music change us, imprint its layers of meaning on us? Perhaps I was carrying these images in my subconscious, not from birth, but from Shostakovich, or perhaps all three of us, and all of you, have always carried them inside us, but that only the true artist could bring them out into the world were we could all look or listen and say, “yes, I know this.”

More on Alexey Titarenko, including an interview in mp3 format.

c. 2006 Kenneth Woods