Into the Mind

Just a quick note and update on memorization.

I have noticed that my mind has begun to work more efficiently while I practice. Not only do I seem to organize passages in a manner more conducive to remembering them but I do so without actually thinking too much about it. This result was apparent after I practiced Popper's Gavotte No. 2 in D major for two days. I broke the ABA into subsequent themes and practiced them in turn of appearance. That's is now a given for any work I do for memorizing. What's more is that I now seem to be recognizing other building blocks of the music as an aide in remembering the music.

The Gavotte, granted, was a piece I worked on as a 14 or 15 year old, and then taught to one other student about three years ago, but that is really insignificant since I don't play anything from memory just by hearing it or practicing it without the intention of memorizing it. Or at least, I hadn't played anything from memory as a consequence of merely playing it many times. Now, with some focused thought I retain ever larger and larger pieces of music for later recollection.

Now that I have been practicing with the organized thoughts of a memorizer the process is becoming more automatic and less a frantic battle to keep a few short phrases in my fingers. It is interesting how honing this skill literally gets easier with a more organized approach and continues on organizing the organized, an so on and so forth. It's building on itself. I can live with that.

The History of Violin Playing: Bowing and Signs

Recently I have been perusing the monument on the history of the violin by David Boyden titled The History of Violin Playing from Its Origins until 1761. Since the history of violoncello is inextricably bound to that of the violin it provides excellent material for learning more about the way in which the cello developed as well. The examples given for treatment of ornaments and bow strokes are also valuable and give well thought out insights into their usages in those days, albeit, for the most part, necessarily succinct.

As I was skimming the pages on bowing I ran into the origins of the signs used to denote a down-bow and an up-bow. Here is an extract quoted from page 262.

"Terms and abbreviations fro down-bow and up-bow are as follows:

                         Down-bow              Up-bow
Italy                  T (tirare)                  P (pontare)
Germany          N (Niederzug)          A (Aufzug)
England            d (down)                  u (up)
France (usual)   T (tiré)                     P (poussé)
France (Muffat) |                               v
                          n (nobilis)                v (vilis)

Muffat's first usage is his normal one. The 'n' and 'v' are not really bowing signs; they stand for 'good' (stressed) and 'bad' (unstressed) notes, normally played with down-bow and up-bow, respectively. His (|), a vertical stroke, is very confusing for down-bow, because he gives the same sign for detachment (staccato). Any connexion between 'n' and 'v' and the modern signs...for down-bow and up-bow, is apparently fortuitous."

New students look at me suspiciously when I reveal to them that the sign for down bow looks like a square 'n' with a really thick top and a 'v' for up bow. Many invariably say that they should be just the reverse. Therefore, this excerpt caught my attention and is certainly a plausible explanation as to why the down and up bow signs have become what they are today.

Copyright and Herbert

I read more about Victor Herbert after that previous post and found some intriguing information about him. This time not about music that he wrote but something far more important for the protecting the composer's hard work. If one can sell the music that one writes it would be a shame not to get paid for all the copies being sold.

Yes, Mr. Herbert was not only a gifted cellist sought after by the Metropolitan Opera as principal cellist and a prolific composer--2 operas, 43 operettas, numerous orchestral works, 9 pieces for cello and compositions for other instruments including violin and piano-but also a very good public speaker.

He founded the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and led the way for copyright protection of musical compositions. Apparently his Irish charm--Yes, he retained that lilting Irish accent that no mere mortal can resist--was as useful in his lobbying efforts as his superb oral skills were.

Herbert and Dvorak

Yet another recording of the Dvorak cello concerto in B minor, Op. 104 has been added to my listening library. This time it's the young French guy by the name of Gautier Capuçon. The difference with this recording from the playlist standpoint is the pairing of the Victor Herbert (1859-1924) concerto No. 2 in E minor, Op. 30 with Dvorak. Rather than the usual Rococo by Tchaikovsky or the Schumann concerto he decided on the practically unknown Herbert. I had seen the Yo-Yo Ma recording on my Dad's shelf but I had opted to listen only to Bloch's Schelomo, totally neglecting this guy named Victor Herbert. Assuming that since I hadn't heard about him all through college I wouldn't bother with it.

Thankfully, I did choose the Capucon recording of the Dvorak concerto. Just today I listened to his CD. No, not Dvorak, Herbert was the reason I turned to the recording today. Why, the interest in Herbert so suddenly? I was thumbing through The Great Cellists by M. Campbell and happened to read the section on Herbert. Unbeknownst to me, he was not only a fairly popular composer of operettas in his day but he was a sought after cellist until an arm injury forced him from the cello chair to the podium and more emphasis on composition. However, before the performance career ended he premiered his own cello concerto no. 2 in E minor in 1894 in New York.

It was after this premiere that Dvorak comes into picture and hence the tying in of the title of the post. I mean the real reason to have mentioned him in the first place. Dvorak heard the concerto, although it is not clear if it was the actual performance with Herbert playing the solo cello part. It was after listening to it that Dvorak decided that he, too, should write a cello concerto and he would compose it in similar fashion.

Well, there it is. Thank you Herbert for writing your second cello concerto and performing it while Dvorak was in the U.S. Without it, we may have gotten a very different cello concerto from the Czech genius or quite possibly none at all.

Goltermann: amended thoughts

After re-reading the brief paragraph on Georg Goltermann by Margaret Campbell in her very worthy book "The Great Cellists" I decided a post addressing the comments she made about him as composer warranted another post.

It's not that I wholly disagree with her and the fairly harsh pronouncement on Goltermann's decided course of change in career, but rather that I find it more an annoyance. It sounds as if she searches for some witty comment at the expense of a lesser known cellist/composer simply to fill what little space she had intended to commit to him in her book.

While Herr Goltermann's works are not particularly inspired or inspiring to listen to, they do serve a significant purpose. That purpose is one needed in the field of teaching and learning. For those students who are not so technically advanced much of his opus created a way for those students to show off in the level they had acquired. To me this is a very courageous act on the part of the virtuoso cellist since he probably knew that writing such music would not push him into fame in the realm of compositional greatness.

However, to justify Campbell's comment at least in part, I offer the following observation. After reading several of his concertos and some character pieces that are certainly intended to be played by the advanced performaer there is much left to be desired. Yes, he provides decent melody and some exciting passage work and then some more passage work that repeats itself or is a slight variation on the first rendering of the passage--if that makes any sense.

In short, there are a few pieces worthy of the concert stage or at least in a soiree. However, most other compositions are mainly useful as teaching material. He makes one work fairly hard for the virtuosic licks, meaning that technique must be well developed to execute those passages well. This refers mostly to his concertos 1,2, 5, and 6, which I have read a few times just to be sure I was not having a knee jerk sort of reaction to the writing.

In the end though, I think we would be prudent to give this music some chance and at least the benefit of the doubt for study purposes.