Overload

I have a complicated relationship with musical stress. Putting myself into situations where it's inevitable provides motivation to practice with greater care and attention than I might otherwise but also can tip me over into being an emotional mess. This past week is a case in point.

This was what my week looked like:

Sunday: 5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.: orchestra rehearsal
Monday: 10 a.m. - 11 a.m.: trio rehearsal
Tuesday: 10 a.m. - 12 noon: teaching (moved students here because of recording session and because they had the day off of school because of the election); 5 p.m. - 10 p.m.: recording session
Wednesday: 1:45 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.: piano lesson (moved because of trio rehearsal); 4 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.: teaching (only a half hour, but requires driving to and from; this week, I went directly there after my piano lesson, having rescheduled both because of the trio rehearsal on Thursday)
Thursday: 11 a.m. - 12 noon: trio rehearsal at the church; evening was dinner and a movie with my husband.
Friday: full day off to freak out.
Saturday: 10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.: orchestra rehearsal; ~ 2 hours to chill, then 3 p.m. - 5 p.m., trio concert and reception.
Sunday: 2:15 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.: sound check + concert (at another church); 5 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.: orchestra rehearsal; post rehearsal, I went out to dinner with a friend from the orchestra, got home around 9:30.


The recording session came about this way: A friend of the couple I've been playing quartets with is an amateur composer, and he wrote what amounts to a cantata in memory of his wife. He decided to go all out and have a professional recording done, and he asked the couple to put together a string quartet, so they asked me to be the cellist. The music wasn't difficult, but the recording session was grueling -- five hours for about a half hour of music (which, I might add, is not unusual). The recording engineer called out every tiny slip of intonation, bow, or ensemble. If any of us tapped a foot or counted under our breath, it showed up on the recording and we had to redo that measure. Plus, we were being video-recorded, and you all know how much I love that! Even though it was interesting to get immediate objective feedback on what sounded good and what didn't (and to verify that yes, those little oopsies that you think no one notices are indeed audible), after five hours of this under hot lights, with no dinner, I was wrung out.

The trio concert on Saturday was the culmination of all our work on this music. This could have been the fun part, after practicing together for half a year and performing the program a couple of times. But the place where we played was a church sanctuary, and though the acoustics were pretty good, the setup with the piano was dreadful. The piano was an indifferent Kawai baby grand that was in a box -- it looks like they might even have built this wall around the piano while the piano was sitting there. So there was no way to move it for the best sight lines. The flutist and I had to sit up on the altar as close to the piano as possible. I could only see either of them if I completely turned my head, and all I could see of the pianist was her face. At this point, we knew the music well enough to stay together sort of by instinct, but it was frustrating. Also, we didn't get much of an audience, so that was disappointing. We did get some nice feedback from the people who did attend, but oh well.

The concert on Sunday was when I played the Bach G major suite. I was stressing out about everything -- my bowing and fingering choices, my tempos, the fact that I didn't feel secure enough to play from memory, and how I was going to look. I reacted by sinking into a scarily black depression. My theory about why this happens is it's the body's way of coping with the stress, letting one retreat into a much more calming (though not fun) "I don't care" state. As it turned out, because I was in this state of calm, the recital went swimmingly. I used the music and played well. I got lots of nice compliments afterward. There is a recording but I haven't listened to it yet.

One interesting aspect is that at none of these events did I experience cold or shaking hands. The worst point of tension while I was playing the Bach was in my right leg, with a bit of shaky foot, but since I wasn't playing the piano it didn't really have an effect.

In between all of this, orchestra rehearsals started for next weekend's concert. We are playing warhorses: Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave" overture, the Haydn trumpet concerto, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. You know, that Beethoven is pretty hard, which you quickly realize when you hear an amateur orchestra try to play it. But I'm sure the audience will enjoy it way more than the usual odd pieces we play. Dress rehearsal is Friday, concert Sunday, and then I am done with prescheduled stress for a while -- at least until the next time I do this to myself.

What happened to June?

I woke up yesterday and realized that it's now July and that I didn't write a single blog post in the month of June. But things have been going on -- in fact, this past weekend ended the month in a veritable whirl of musical activity.

On Friday, I drove out to the far reaches of Virginia for not one but two rehearsals. The first was with a pianist I've been working with on chamber music. For her benefit, we are doing some cello-piano duos, and for mine, some piano-four-hand duos. On this particular day, we were preparing three movements of the "Dolly Suite" by Fauré for a recital on Sunday. It's not terribly difficult, but playing four-hand piano is new to me and gives me a new perspective on the piano.

After an hour or so of that, I had to rush over to a rehearsal for a concert of Piazzolla tangos with a small string ensemble. This was the same group I played the absurd concert with in May. For this gig, we were playing about 20 different pieces with a bandoneon player, which was logistically challenging, and they were not all that easy, either. We rehearsed for 5 hours and didn't exactly polish everything, although I was again impressed by the level of playing.

Saturday, after teaching a cello lesson in between some frantic practicing, I put on some dressy black clothes and set out for the tango concert. This time we were in a beautiful performance space (a converted movie theater that now features semi-pop groups) with a great sound system. The gig itself was at 8:30 p.m., but we were supposed to be there at 5:00 for a sound check -- which meant a couple hours of cooling our heels until performance time. The one-hour sound check ended with some warm words (well, actually, yelling) between the conductor and the soloist. I never found out what it was all about, but by the time of the concert, everything was fine again. There were a few wobbly moments here and there, but overall it didn't sound too bad.

Sunday I participated in the final AMSF public recital of the season. My adult cello student played a Vivaldi sonata, and I accompanied her on the cello. Vivaldi wrote nine sonatas for cello and continuo, with the latter part being simply a bass line. The player of the chordal instrument (e.g., harpsichord, lute) was expected to improvise an accompaniment. So we were in fact playing the piece exactly as written, though maybe not as intended!

My piano duo partner and I played our three movements of Fauré also. In this genre of music, the "primo" is the person who sits at the high end of the piano, and the "secondo" sits at the low end and works the pedal, so the latter part is usually more difficult though perhaps less obviously so. I was playing the primo part.

My piano teacher attended the recital and made the interesting observation that I did great things with my very easy primo part, which consists mainly of the melody in octaves, so he was wondering how to get me to do the same thing with all of my music! We spent a good chunk of my lesson a few days later working on this with the Brahms Intermezzo I'm learning (Op. 119 No. 1) -- not just bringing out the melody line, but also shaping and adjusting it in context, and learning how to treat it as the vital element that it is. For some reason, this gave me a lot of insight into things we've been talking about for the past 2+ years. It's one thing to say "bring out the melody," but you have to experience what that means to be able to do it.

Speaking of doing, it's now been exactly a year since I gave notice at my job. It has gone by awfully quickly. I keep worrying that I'm wasting this beautiful time that I have now; I never feel like I'm accomplishing enough. But I have no regrets.

Oh, the absurdity

The latest orchestra gig was oddly stressful. Going into it:

I didn't know the conductor.
I didn't know how big the group was or who else was in it.
The rehearsals were all in the far reaches of northern Virginia and required driving in rush hour traffic.
We were only going to have three of them.
The third rehearsal was going to be a recording session.
The music was really hard.
I was playing principal, so I had to put in bowings and generally be more prepared than usual.

In my old life, I certainly would not have taken this job at all. But now, I think I need the stimulation of interacting with other people, especially musicians. Plus, there was something appealing about it; maybe it was because in the initial email I got from the conductor, he said, "I know that you are great musician." Who could resist that?

There were two monster pieces on the program: The serenades for strings of Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. Parts of these I simply could not play when I first tried them. I had to get out my metronome and slog through some tortured work, and it took a couple of weeks to get them more or less under my fingers. I didn't know if this would be a big group with a bunch of cellos, or just me, or something in between, or the group was going to be dreadful or good, but I had to prepare. I didn't want to look (or sound) like an idiot, just in case it mattered (though I thought it unlikely that it would be some astonishing but unknown local version of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra). As I was practicing the music for this, I reflected that I could consider this penance for all the many times I was unprepared and coasted on the preparation of others but still got paid.

Plus, the driving. I have structured my life so that I don't have to drive much. I kept my last car for 18 years and it only had about 75,000 miles on it when I traded it in on a new car (I would have kept it, except the exhaust system was a mess even after a new muffler, and the whole car was disintegrating a bit every day). But for this gig, I had to drive about 60 miles round trip for each date involved.

So before the first rehearsal, I was quite a bundle of nerves. I left the house around 5:45 for a 7:00 start time; I didn't get there until probably 7:15 because of just horrendous traffic (i.e., the kind where you sit there inching along for an hour to get about 5 miles down the road).

The orchestra turned out to be a group of 13 string players: seven violins, two violas, two cellos, two basses. They were all quite excellent players, but only a few had played together before or knew the conductor, who was a personable but rather intense guy who doesn't talk much -- perhaps because his English is a bit spotty.

This conductor had an interesting way of doing things. For example, he started with the slow movements of both the Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. Also, he tried out different tempos for everything. I could tell he was really listening to what was happening and was trying to figure out how to make it sound better. It was sort of refreshing, in contrast with most conductors I've worked with who put on the pretense that they are infallible. On the other hand, when people asked him questions, he kind of ignored us, I guess with an eye on the clock.

Anyway, what with the driving, the nerves, and the demanding music, I found the first rehearsal exhausting. But I felt like I fit in. In fact, I am still marveling at how this guy found so many good players and got them to do this job.

For the second rehearsal, he asked us all to stay an extra hour (until 11:30 p.m. -- that's four and a half hours, folks!) because we were going to start recording. The evening started out with all area drivers in a panic because of pending rainstorms, resulting in more bad traffic jams -- but I actually got there on time because I left even earlier and took some back roads. Somewhere around 11:00, my arms and wrists burning, I said, "I can't play anymore!" I felt like such a whiner because I was the only one who protested, but geez, I wasn't about to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome over someone else's emergency, you know? But with everyone staring down at their shoes, I was persuaded to do one one more short piece and then he let us all go. I drove home through a raging downpour and didn't get there until after midnight.

The third rehearsal was supposed to be shorter to compensate for the extra hour, but it was not. It was another four hours (at least this time in the afternoon). By this time, I had given up practicing between rehearsals to save my poor arms and hands as much as possible. I lost count of how many times we recorded the Tchaikovsky and Dvorak. As I was leaving that day, I asked the recording guy, who was sitting outside the practice room, how it sounded. He kind of made a face and said, "Oh, okay, I guess." I said, "Not ready for Deutsche Grammophon?" He said, "Not exactly."

The big finale of all this, the concert, took place on Saturday afternoon, outdoors at a park in Frederick as part of an Italian festival. It was a gorgeous day after all that rain. We got in the car (husband came with me) and headed out -- only to run into another huge traffic jam, so we took a detour and got there about a half hour later than planned. But the first hour was only supposed to be dinner (a little perk for the musicians), so that was not a problem. What was a problem was that the small stage we were to play on was set directly in front of the truck with the generator for the lights and sound system. This was probably why the band playing before us was playing so loud. When we finally got up there to play, we could hardly hear ourselves, let alone manage any nuances.

It was also rather chilly (though I suppose preferable to being hot) and breezy. I'd brought a handful of clothespins, which came in handy for holding the music on the stand. By the time we started, most of the crowd had left. Those remaining seemed to enjoy the music, though no one announced what we were playing so they probably had no idea what they were listening to -- except maybe for the waltz theme from "The Godfather." We went through the entire Tchaikovsky (four movements), then some of the shorter pieces, then the Dvorak (but skipped the slow movement), then a few more shorter pieces, then done. By the time we were finished, the crowd had thinned out even more. We all stood around waiting to get paid (the conductor handing each of us his checkbook and asking us to write our names for him to save time), then drifted off.

And so, after all that work, finis.

By way of celebration/consolation, my husband and I stopped at an excellent Turkish/Middle Eastern restaurant in downtown Frederick and had some food (and I had a beer) before getting back on the freeway and wending our way home.

Reflections on a gig

There were some good and not so good things about playing with an orchestra at the Kennedy Center.

The best part was playing on a beautiful real stage, with plenty of room; good chairs, lighting, and sight lines (yes! I could see the conductor!); and no religious emblems on display (sorry if that offends anyone, but that stuff always makes me uncomfortable).

The level of playing was really good; it made me play better.

I liked the piece quite a bit -- though fairly simple, it is cleverly composed.

The not so good:

Despite my telling myself it did not matter in the least, I felt left out because I wasn't in a starring role. The level of playing here made me realize what I've gotten used to in my usual orchestra gig. So I've felt a bit down about it.

But there was a review in the Washington Post, with a picture! That's me, inside second stand:

Schumann concerto video

Here it is (split in two to fit YouTube's length requirements):

First movement:

The rest:

People have generally been very kind about this performance. I am probably too close to it right now to be objective, but what I miss is clear expressiveness. What was in my mind didn't come through very well. But it's respectable, I think, and certainly technically clean, which is worth a lot with this piece. 

It's done

I performed the Schumann concerto yesterday, finally! It went well. I made one stupid slip near the beginning, in the second theme -- my mind wandered and my fingers zigged when they should have zagged -- but I think I recovered decently and kept going. My friends said they didn't notice. But overall, I felt amazingly in control and free to be expressive. So from that standpoint, a success.

The orchestra and conductor did a great job. They really sounded good.

There's a video (nothing fancy -- just a straight shot of me playing), but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it yet. If it isn't too embarrassing, I'll post it. Still recovering from my cold, breathing and sleep all messed up, decompressing from the excitement of performing, I couldn't sleep at all last night, so I'm in a fog today.

I hope to get myself reoriented soon and figure out what's next musically.

More rehearsals, thoughts

This weekend was the second round of rehearsals for the Schumann concerto. Yesterday's was in the morning. I slept too late, so only had time to get dressed and have breakfast before rushing over there, and I didn't have time to warm up at all. The conductor had invited a couple of friends to watch him and give critiques, one a conductor, the other a cellist, which he announced just before we started. So I was all shaky, and the whole thing felt horrible. Plus, the orchestra was still sounding pretty bad. My recording told the tale.

At my last piano lesson, my teacher showed me a way to practice a technically difficult passage wherein you set the metronome at some determinedly slow tempo and then play the shortest note value at that speed. The section we were working on, 10 measures of Beethoven sonata Op. 90, involves rapid 16th notes in an Alberti bass encompassing leaps of a 10th. He had me set the metronome at 60 = 16th note and play the left-hand part of the passage with one finger (first thumb, then fifth, then fourth). At this slow speed, it sounded like random notes. We then moved the metronome up to 80, then 100, then 120.

This helped so much with this passage (which had been turning my hand into a claw) that I decided to try it in the last movement of the Schumann on the sections with continuous 16th notes (though skipping the "one finger" part of it, obviously). Although the problems are different on the two instruments, the principle is somewhat the same: this gets you to feel the distance between each note and perform whatever motion you need to get there in a relaxed fashion. So I spent a few hours yesterday and today working those passages in the concerto.

I also, after wrestling with my pride a bit, emailed the conductor and asked if could take the last movement slower. Schumann marked it 114 = quarter note (which actually doesn't exist on any metronome), and we've been doing it probably faster than that, what with the rushing on everyone's part. In any case, it's not held together very well, and I felt very pressed and insecure.

I am listening right now to today's rehearsal -- basically just a run through because of time limitations -- and wow, the conductor really kept it at 108 = quarter note. It felt like we were crawling along, even though we were just a notch or so slower than what we've been playing. But it felt great to be able to play all the notes without panicking.

As for the rest of today's session, my other preparations involved bringing my own chair (the chairs at the place we rehearse are very low metal folding chairs; my own chair is at least a couple of inches higher, which makes a big difference in how secure my seating position feels, with my longish legs) and getting there 10 minutes early so I could warm up with a few scales. I also tried, while playing, to concentrate on the emotional scenario of the piece that I had come up with. So whenever my thoughts started drifting along the lines of "how'm I doing?" I steered them back to what was happening in the music.

In total, it all went much, much better. If I can play it somewhat in the area of how I played it today, I will feel relatively happy.

Perceptions are odd

At the second rehearsal of the Schumann today, I felt tired, my finger was hurting, I didn't get a chance to warm up before we started so my hands were ice cold. From my point of view, I sounded awful.

Yet, when I loaded up the recording I made of it and listened to it this evening, it was quite a bit better than I was dreading. The tempos were good. By the time we got to the last movement, I was even more tired than I was at the beginning and was losing concentration, so I fluffed a couple of places, but overall, it sounded clean and confident. The orchestra was kind of pathetic today -- we were missing the entire bass section, most of the first violins, one cello, one viola, and some of the winds -- but I soldiered along pretty well.

Even the opening, after which I wanted to run and hide in a closet, didn't sound all THAT bad. Here, check it out:

Schumann concerto, somewhat fluffy opening

So the lesson here: don't panic. Keep going. Make the best of what I've got, what I've done with it, and where I am in the moment. Probably a good idea in any situation.

Ugh

I had my first rehearsal today of the Schumann with the orchestra. That's not what I'm ughing about, though -- it went pretty well. I was happy that although things weren't perfect on my part, I never felt that utter panic of not knowing what comes next or whether I could play it. Even the development section of the last movement, with all the tricky back and forth between cello and orchestra, just rippled off my fingers without a second thought.

I recorded the rehearsal and listened to it carefully when I got home. I took notes and made a list of all the places that particularly bothered me. The orchestra had its usual first-rehearsal sound (less said about that, the better), but I expect they will improve as they get more familiar with their parts. So I was raring to go and work on my list, but the "ugh" is that I have ripped up my left index finger from playing. My fingerings apparently use that finger a lot for hard shifts, with the result that the skin has been peeling off. Very frustrating.

I did practice for an hour or so this evening, but decided it would be prudent to give it a rest for the rest of the night. My finger even hurt too much to play the piano -- I knew when I was wondering if any of my pieces avoided that finger that it was time to give up. So I soaked my left hand in hot water for a while, then put on some lotion. It may be time to get out the New-Skin again. I still have a bottle of the stuff that I bought about 20 years ago (no kidding).

Schumann concerto -- things to think about

I'm mostly writing this post as a note to myself, but I thought any cellists out there might be interested in this essay by the cellist Anssi Karttunen (no, I never heard of him before I found this, but he seems like an intelligent person!) on traditions versus what is actually in the score. The gist of it is that Schumann marked tempi that are very different from what most cellists use when they perform the piece, and it also mentions the difference between Schumann's chamber-sized orchestra and the usual full symphony orchestra.

I have seen similar discussions elsewhere, so it's not just this person's observations.

As I begin to delve into this piece, it seems less difficult than I remember it. This worries me! I must be kidding myself! But we will see ...

Thoughts about the unusual history of Schumann's Cello Concerto

And now a longer term goal

Is a year out considered long term or just medium? Let's call it "longer term."

In any case, I am penciled in to play the Schumann cello concerto with the TCO on the first concert of 2013-2014 next fall. This came about because I approached the music director at our first rehearsal this past weekend with the thought that if he was considering having me play a solo piece next season, it might be a good idea to decide on it now rather than waiting until next spring, giving me a year or more to prepare it rather than a few months. He liked this suggestion, conferred with the orchestra librarian, and came back the next day to give me the okay.

We've been batting around the idea of playing the Dvorak concerto. Now, it's a great piece and all, but it's written for a large orchestra, which the TCO is not. It's played a lot -- and I've played it a fair amount (in bits and pieces, for auditions) as well as on a recital with piano, so though I hesitate to say I'm tired of it, I'm kind of tired of it. It's also a long piece, about 45 minutes, longer than almost anything else we've played, so it would need to be programmed as if it were a symphony.

The Schumann concerto, on the other hand, is written for a smaller, lighter orchestra, and it's a compact 25 minutes or so. I've worked on it but never brought it to a performance level -- and I never really understood it. I think I will be able to approach it much better now than I could have done in the past. Learning it will add so much to my technique and playing ability as well.

So although it's sad to give up the opportunity to play the Dvorak with an orchestra, the Schumann is an all-around better choice, so Schumann it is.

I'm going to be brave (video from concert)

When I pulled out my recorder to review the audio of my performance the other day, I realized my friend who was recording for me had chosen to do video as well. It's very clear and gives a good idea of what the performance was like, so I have decided to share the whole thing. Here it is:



This was recorded on a Zoom Q3 and is completely unedited, unretouched (as if you couldn't tell!), and uncut. I'm pleasantly surprised that the video came out as well as it did with the low light in the venue. It is 8+ minutes because entrances, exits, and applause are included.

Mission accomplished

So I'm done with Pezzo Capriccioso! I held it together very well (if I do say so myself) until the very end when I missed a few notes, but even there kept it going. I got lots of nice compliments from people afterward, and I actually enjoyed playing, even though I certainly don't look like it in this picture:

A friend of mine culled this from a smart phone movie she took. I would post the whole movie, but (a) the beginning was cut off and (b) I look like a grumpy old man the entire time. I swear, I wasn't upset at all, just concentrating really hard, though I was pretty relaxed.

I've got some audio, but I need to decompress a bit before I deal with it.

Sausage making redux

Sometimes rehearsals are like sausage: if you knew what went into it, you wouldn't want to eat it. (Not that I eat sausage anyway, but I needed a cheap simile here.)

So you are forewarned.

But here is today's rehearsal with the orchestra of Pezzo Capriccioso.

I cut out the talking and dead time, so it's about 14 minutes. You will hear things repeated. I do think it got better as it went along on the part of the orchestra. I felt actually very good about how I was playing, although it was cold and clammy in the room and by the end of the rehearsal, my hands started to feel like they were coated with rosin.

The only other adjustments I made to the raw file were boosting the sound a bit because my recorder was situated behind me.

Pezzo Capriccioso working rehearsal

From "The Genius of the Cello" to the Portsmouth Sinfonia

I had my first rehearsal of the Tchaikovsky with the orchestra today. Um, I think my post title says most of it.

(Hey -- if anyone from the orchestra is reading this, JUST KIDDING!)

However, I at least did not fall apart -- not at all. So that's encouraging.

Maybe this helped

While I was at work yesterday, I plugged into YouTube with my headphones and pulled up a bunch of versions of Pezzo Capriccioso, ranging from sublime (Steve Isserlis playing a sprightly rendition; an entrant to the 2011 Tchaikovsky competition playing a conservative reading; etc.) to horrible (wobbly virtuoso wannabes, etc.). I don't know how many I heard, but given that the piece is 7 minutes long and I was listening for over an hour, at least ten. I heard things I wanted to do (beautiful tone, nice phrasing, steady rhythms) and things I didn't (bad intonation, scratching and scraping), but I have to say, all of them pulled it off to some extent. The piece isn't a "master" piece, and in fact, I felt a little like I'd had too much candy after hearing it that many times, but I did get to know it much better and to hear all the ways it could be played.

I also found a "Capriccioso" Tchaikovsky wrote for piano solo, as part of a suite of six pieces  (Op. 19) that is almost identical in structure to the cello piece, though it's about half the length and does not have the emotional punch. It's somewhat inverted moodwise because the lyrical sections are in happy B flat major and the virtuosic middle section (in this piece, marked Allegro vivacissimo -- instead of keeping the same pulse but with faster note values as in the cello piece, Tchaikovsky marks a tempo that ends up being about double, so it's the same idea),  is in D minor. Here's a version by Richter:



Then when I got home, I found the cello parts for all of the next concert's music in my mailbox, including the part for Pezzo. Somehow, seeing the accompaniment and imagining being in the orchestra playing it with a soloist put it in more perspective for me, on top of the listening I had done, so when I was practicing last night it felt much better. When I checked my speed with the metronome, I found I was playing it easily at 69 = quarter note (my original goal was 60).

So if I can build on this, and keep polishing and getting a good sound, I will be happy with it.

Pezzo Capriccioso background

I just did a quick burst of 'net research and found this on Wikipedia:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Pezzo capriccioso, Op. 62, for cello and orchestra in a single week in August 1887. Belying its title, this work is written in the somber key of B minor, the same key as the Symphony No. 6 Pathétique. The Pezzo is not capricious in a lighthearted sense. The capriccioso aspect comes from Tchaikovsky's fanciful treatment of various aspects of the work's simple theme. Despite some rapid passages and a turn to the major key, Tchaikovsky preserves the basic pulse and sober mood throughout the piece.

Tchaikovsky (right) with Anatoliy Brandukov, to whom he dedicated the Pezzo capriccioso.

The sobriety was a result of Tchaikovsky's sufferings with his friend Nikolay Kondratyev. Kondratyev was in the final throes of syphilis. After a brief remission, he had been taken to Aachen, Germany, where his family hoped the mineral waters there would prolong his life at least a few months. Instead, Kondratyev had taken a turn for the worse. Moreover, he proved a highly unpredictable, volatile and demanding patient, which unnerved the already death-shy Tchaikovsky. A visit to see friends in Paris—among them cellist Anatoliy Brandukov—proved only a brief respite.
All this suffering poured through the music Tchaikovsky was writing, as well.

From here: Pezzo Capriccioso

Still thinking (and what I'm working on)

So, one decision made: no lessons this summer. I haven't come up with a plan yet for the fall and beyond. I briefly considered attending the Golandsky Institute summer program (it's a week long, in July), but it interfered with some vacation plans, and for the money, I think I would get more out of another semester of lessons. I'm still not sure if I will continue with this teacher. Some good things, some bad things, so not clear to me the best course of action.

For now, I am working on a new Bach prelude and fugue set. I'm not sure why I chose this one (WTC I/18 in g sharp minor), actually, except that it's short, and the key is challenging. I've been trying to alternate between major and minor and to vary the technical challenges.

I also want to try to record the Chopin nocturne and waltz I learned at the behest of my teacher. I believe she chose these so she could work with me on tone, producing a singing line, and voicing, and we did spend some time on them, but I'm not feeling like they are sounding all that great. I find myself thinking, "Just add some vibrato!" Um, no, not on this instrument!

Speaking of the cello, our orchestra played its last concert of the season on Sunday. It was kind of a meh program, but, oh well. However, I was talking with the conductor afterward, and he said next season I can play another concerto if I want, and I can choose whatever I would like. Such an opportunity! Dare I program the Dvorak? It is actually not so technically difficult as some others; there's a lot more room for error than in Haydn or Boccherini, for example. But it's long. Also, even though it is undoubtedly a wonderful piece, it is so, so, so overplayed that I can hardly stand to listen to it, let along practice it for a year. Whichever piece I choose (if I decide to do this), I will have to spend a lot of practice time on it for many months which is daunting. OTOH, I do think I'd like to take advantage of this and play something.

So next stop is the music store to order some cello concertos to peruse.

Thanks for the memos

I am on an e-mail list for a local amateur orchestra. It's one of those groups that's not a good fit for me -- alas, it's just a little too basic. The people involved do seem to have fun playing, however. They rehearse once a week and do a few concerts every year.

One of the cellists, Tom Zebovitz, has been sending some messages to the cello section that reveal a certain gift for language as well as an understanding of some cello essentials, and with his permission, I will be sharing a few of them.

Here's a recent note about an upcoming cello sectional:

Hello Intrepid Cellists!!! And, Maybe Bassist(s)!!!

 

For those of you not fortunate enough to have chosen the cello as your life's inspiration, please disregard this e-mail. It is for the enlightened eyes of our cello (and bass) section alone. Any confidential information revealed in this e-mail must be held closely to the vest and not divulged under any circumstances unless you are asked in desperately phrased, assertively asked, pointed questions. Civilians may now return to practicing.

 

I see we are doing sectionals tonight. I'm bringing a metronome, take out your notes about counting, if memory serves, we may have to count as high as six.....

 

As much as I would like to focus on the Beethoven, I think the Serenade requires our attention. I plan to devote two-thirds of the time to the Serenade. The challenges in the Serenade are rhythmic, so we will be working on the rhythmically challenging sections. There is no point in going over some of the ridiculously high sections of the piece. If you want to work on discovering where the G, two octaves above middle C, is in the nosebleed section of your fingerboard: May the Force Be with You! But, that's between you and your A-string.

 

In the Beethoven, we will be working on high-profile solo sections, such as the 2nd movement. I also want to work on the third movement, the home of the "stealth rocket theme" that quietly shoots up our four strings. It needs to be quiet, smooth, tense, and together. The rest of the symphony, which is a cornucopia of great cello themes and solos is pretty bombastic and more forgiving of the occasional clinker.

 

If anybody has thoughts about sections deserving of our attention in either of the pieces, please let me know. We can cover them tonight as well.

 

If you are still reading this and haven't fallen into a catatonic coma requiring large volumes of Mountain Dew to help you snap out of it, I'd like to share with you my philosophy about making music.

 

With the exception of some of the more modern music and the occasional instruction from a dead decomposer, I feel cellists strive for purity of sound. Everybody is different, everybody's instrument is different also, however, I believe there is a way of playing that will produce a minimum of scratching, creaking, croaking, frictiony, squeaking, scraping noises that many of us have learned to live with and even filter out so we don't hear them anymore.

 

Producing that purity of sound begins with the placement of the bow before you even make the first scrape. Getting your string to vibrate resonantly from the start is a technique about which, I'm sure, somebody has written a long book. There are little tricks to getting your strings to vibrate beautifully.  The most effective is to gently pluck the string with an available left-hand finger just as you begin to move the bow with the right hand. I also understand that open strings, especially the A-string, sound pretty darn pure, but, need to be avoided in favor of a fingered note, simply because those notes are so darned pure and twangy. Finding the optimum bow-contact position on the string, the angle the hair contacts the string, the pressure on the bow, the speed of the bow, the pressure used in the fingers of the left hand are all critical in producing pure sounds. When you practice, I suggest experimenting with these variables.

 

OK, I'm done, see you tonight. Come with bells on your toes....
 

Tom

Another Sunday, another concert

We had our third orchestra concert of the season today. I had to get the cello out of mothballs for this. I spent some time over the past month playing scales and simple etudes just to get my fingers working again. However, it seems that as long as I am practicing some instrument at a fairly intense level -- these days, obviously the piano -- it's not so hard to get my cello playing back up to a decent (if not super high) level within a day or two. The same synapses in the brain must be firing no matter what instrument one plays.

The main piece on the program was a world premiere of Joseph Santo's "Vísperas de la Santa Cruz," which he describes as a "concert Vespers." That is, it's meant to evoke the feeling of a service but not actually to be used for one. I know little to nothing about Catholic liturgical music, but simply as music I found the piece interesting. Though probably not groundbreaking, it has some nice effects, and the writing is graceful. My husband says he enjoyed listening to it.

There was some griping among the orchestra members about having to play this, not because of this piece, especially, but because there's a tendency for amateur musicians to grumble about playing anything they have never heard before that is in an nonclassical idiom. And then, they don't want to spend a lot of time practicing something they will never play again. (I should add that this does not apply only to amateurs!) However, this particular piece seemed to have been written with the amateur playing level in mind; though it has a few tricky places for some of the instruments (not the cellos, though), overall it is not technically difficult. All the difficulties are in getting the ensemble to play together. I think we did okay, though it would have helped if more first violins had been at every rehearsal.

Anyway, I found it refreshing to play something different. Believe me, I've played lots worse . . .

The concert opened with Verdi's overture to I Vespri Siciliani, an opera that actually has little to do with Vespers, but it was a nice contrast to the somber Santo piece. The cellos have a pretty section solo, too.