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Why Historical Perspective in Performance Matters

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Understanding the past informs the present

Music is not composed in an historical and cultural vacuum,  and therefore should not be performed in an historical and cultural vacuum  –  that is to say, with no understanding of the musical language of the composer and the time and place in which he lived.

Performers are “time travelers”

It is interesting to note that composers  –  or artists of any kind  –  reflect the spirit of the time and place in which they live (or lived), as well as their social, cultural and artistic environment.  Performers, on the other hand,  while subject to the spirit and time in which they live are nevertheless not restricted to that specific time and space, but are free to travel through time and space as they perform music written over a span of 400+ years in a great variety of countries and cultures.

But what does this “time travel” imply for us as performers?  Can we take our cultural environment  –  and the performance practices it has engendered  –  with us and still hope to comprehend and savor the great variety of musical expression that has come down to us over the centuries?  I am reminded of a line in Somerset Maugham’s play, “The Perfect Wife”:  the wife says of her husband, “Edward is perfectly happy to travel anywhere in the world as long as there is absolutely nothing that will remind him that he is not in England.”

Do we not sometimes perform the music of Bach or Schubert or Brahms or Debussy with the mind-set of our own period?  While we all wish to play inspired performances, it is an informed inspiration that we should aspire to.

How do we do this?  To begin with, we have to shed the idea of what C.S. Lewis calls “the arrogance of progress”.  How often have you heard someone say, “if only Bach knew what we know today, he would have wanted his music to sound this way.”   What arrogance.   It is true that in certain areas of science and technology progress is an upward curve, but this cannot hold true for artistic creation.  Picasso’s paintings are not better than Rembrandt’s or Michaelangelo’s  –  they are just different.  They reflect a mind and artistic personality which is very much the product of the time and place in which he lived.  The same is true for Rembrandt and Michaelangelo in their own ways.  Now no one, I hope, would propose that we take the paintings of these two great masters of the 16th and 17th centuries and re-work them to make them in the style of Picasso  –  and then call it “progress”.  But don’t we do the same thing when we perform the great masterpieces of the past with a technique which is rooted in, and limited to, the technique of the 20th and 21st centuries?

Think about our colleagues in the world of acting.  Great actors are able to depict a  variety of characters in plays and films ranging over a wide span of time and place.  To do this successfully, they have to immerse themselves in the world of their character  –  the time, the place, the culture, the mentality.  This requires research and study on their part, but in doing so they are able to take on the character of the person they are to depict so convincingly that we can’t imagine him as anyone else (though we may have seen him in quite different roles in the past).  Should we not, as musical performers, do the same?

Now since this series of master classes is devoted primarily – though not exclusively  –  to performance practices in the Baroque and Classical eras (that is to say, the 17th and 18th centuries),  I would like to turn our focus to that period and see what it has to tell us about musical performance.

Assumptions:

We all live with assumptions.  If I were to tell you the best route to take from Santa Barbara to, say, Pasadena, I would likely say, “take the 101 to the 126 to the 5 to the 210”, and if you lived in this area you would understand what I meant.  But to someone from another part of the world, or even to someone living here 100 years ago, it would be a meaningless jumble of numbers.  Or take our modern computer talk: to someone 50 years ago and it would be a foreign language  –  much of it is even to people of my generation (!).   Assumptions “assume” that the person you are communicating with is so conversant with a body of knowledge, and the language that expresses it,  that elaboration is unnecessary.

So what assumptions did 17th and 18th composers make about the performance of their music?   And what did they find unnecessary to elaborate on or be explicit about?

To begin with, we need to understand that music composed in these centuries was not written with performers of the 21st century in mind.  It was written, in the case of Bach, for next Sunday’s church service (I speak here of the cantatas), or, in the case of  Haydn, for Count Esterhazy’s next social gathering  –  in both cases the composers were writing for performers they worked with daily.  Very little of Bach’s music was published in his lifetime, so it is doubtful that he had future performers in mind  –  it was written for the performers he worked with on a day-to-day basis.  The same is true of Haydn until the last decades of his life.*  If they were not writing for some future generation, but for their day-to-day colleagues, what does this tell us about how we should approach the performance of their music   –  and the music of the other composers of the Baroque and Classical eras?  What clues does this give us about the assumptions 17th and 18th century composers made?

Secondly, it is important to bear in mind that in this period most composers were also performers  –   two sides of the same coin  –  so they thought it not only unnecessary, but improper to intrude on the artistic insights of the performer. Again, we are talking about a period when music was written not for future generations, but most often for immediate consumption by performers who were only too well aware of  –  in fact, steeped in  –  the assumptions of the time, i.e., performers who spoke the musical language of the composer and shared the same assumptions.  (Leaving aside, for the purpose of brevity, the clash between the French Style and the Italian Style in the 18th century  –  an important topic for performers, but one best left for another day.)

So what did 17th and 18th century composers take for granted in their communication with their performing colleagues?

1.   Dynamics and Expression

Dynamics provide contrast, shading and, in general, contribute to the overall expressiveness of the music.  But, if not specifically indicated, they are left as a matter of choice on the part of the performer.  He or she may choose to drop the dynamic level of a repeated phrase to give an echo effect  –  or play it even louder to make it more forceful.  He or she may decide the final statement of a section or movement (perhaps a post-cadential extension) should be played louder to make a statement or drive the point home, or played softer to create the effect of a gentle “farewell”.

In the 17th and 18th centuries these choices, for the most part, were left up to the performer   –  possibly out of respect for the performer’s own artistic role  –  but also based on the assumption that the performer understood the spirit of the music in the same way the composer did.  The composer’s role was to provide the notes and, increasingly as the 17th century moved into the 18th century, to give limited instructions as to tempo or character  –  this was especially true in the case of dance movements, each dance having its own well-understood step and nature, familiar to anyone living in that culture.  But, beyond this, it was left up to the creative judgment of the performer to inject the expressive nuances in the music.

At this point I would like to quote from the Harvard Dictionary of Music (1944 Edition) on the term “expression” in music:

Expression may be said to represent that part of music which cannot be indicated by notes or, in its higher manifestation, by any symbol or sign whatsoever. It includes all the nuances of  tempo, dynamics, accent, touch, phrasing, bowing, etc., by which the mere combination and succession of pitch-time values is transformed into a living organism.  Although as far as written notes are concerned, the performer is strictly bound to the composer’s work, he enjoys a considerable amount of freedom in the field of expression, which may be said to represent the creative contribution of the performer.

Nowhere was this more true than in the 17th and early 18th centuries.  Although some may insist that the absence of dynamics and other markings proves that Baroque music was to be played “square” and without expression  –  more like a mathematical equation  (ignoring’ of course, that the art and architecture of the same period is “romantic”, often to the point of voluptuousness)  –  thankfully, the vast majority of performing artists see these works as great masterpieces, rich with opportunities for expression.

Quoting again from the same article in the Harvard Dictionary:  as the 18th century progressed, “composers more and more felt the necessity of providing at least some basic indications, in order to clarify their intentions and to prevent mistakes or arbitrariness  on the part of the performer.” (op. Cit.)

We see this reaching an early culmination in the compositions of Beethoven, who left tradition behind  –  and with it the assumptions it held  –  as his music became more and more a personal statement and increasingly full of dynamic and other indications.

2.   Ornaments

Baroque and Classical composers assumed that performers would “grace” their music with a variety of ornaments: trills, mordents, appogiaturas, turns, slides and, interestingly, vibrato (more on this later).  The trick was to do this in good taste (Geminiani wrote a book entitled, “The Art of Playing in a True Taste”)  –  and this is something which we, traveling backwards in time from this century, have to give a great deal of time and thought to.

Corelli, a contemporary of J.S.Bach and one of the greatest violinists of his time, was so famous for his embellishments of his music that he finally relented and published an edition of his Op. 5 sonatas which contained his ornamentation.  As you will see, they are quite elaborate when you compare them with the original publication.

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Improvisation and cadenzas were also considered a form of ornamentation (Tartini includes them in his Treatise on Ornamentation).  Improvisation is an art that fell into general disuse in the 19th century.  When it returned in the 20th century, it was mainly in jazz music.  In the Baroque and Classical eras it was assumed that when the performer came to a fermata at the close of a section or movement he would view it as an open invitation to extemporize.  However, this extemporizing was not arbitrary  –  there were certain basic rules which were laid out for the performer to follow  –  another assumption.  Tartini devotes several pages in his treatise to cadenzas and provides skeletal harmonic outlines for playing them, varying from the simple to the very elaborate. He then illustrates various ways in which these skeletons can be fleshed out by the performer (again, we see that the line of demarcation between composer and performer is much more blurred than it is today).

What do all these assumptions imply for us as performers?  The obvious conclusion is that composers at this time assumed that performers, steeped in the same tradition, would know what was expected of them  –  in essence, performers would speak the same language as the composer and understand his intent and know what they should bring to the music.  We cannot hope to travel to their time and place if we insist on bringing with us the baggage of our time and place (as useful and proper as it might be for the music of our time)  –   to be willing to time travel as long as we will not be required to do anything that will remind us that we are not in the 21st century, to paraphrase Somerset Maugham.

Sound production

And here we come to the most important assumption of all: sound production. This is really something which goes so far beyond the word “assumption” that I prefer to call it sound concept.  “Concept” implies that which is conceived  –  or, I would add, conceivable.

Who of us can tell what music will sound like 300 years from now?  200 years?  Even 100 years?  Can we conceive that?  We can only travel backwards in time.

Now we come again to that phrase, “If only Bach had known what we know…” .  Well, he didn’t.  And he couldn’t  –  any more than we can know what music – and the   instruments  that produce it will sound like 300 years from now.  He wrote for the instrumental sounds he knew  –  his music was conceived with those instruments in mind and molded to suit their nature and capacity.

So what was their nature and capacity?   If you play a Baroque violin or cello  –  or have heard one, you will know that the sound of the Baroque instrument is gentler, warmer  –  more like candle light  –  and with perhaps a greater capacity for subtle nuance.   The “modern” violin or cello (at times an early 18th century instrument modified to have a higher bridge and thus more tension on the instrument) has a bigger sound – it is bolder and more projecting.  One could say it is more like an electric light  –  or a laser beam.

Now what led to this change, this transformation? The usual reasons given are that concert halls became bigger in the 19th & 20th centuries, or that orchestras are much larger today than they were in the 18th century.  But these reasons don’t really stand up if you stop to think about them.  I have sat at the back of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and listened to Segovia play his guitar  –  unmiked  –  and heard every note clearly.  More recently, the Academy of Ancient Music performed here in Santa Barbara at the Grenada Theater and the sound of their Baroque instruments – the same instruments Bach would have composed for   –  carried beautifully to the back of the theater.  So the size of the hall doesn’t seem to be the reason.  What about the size of the orchestra?  Well, if you have an 18th century orchestra of say eight 1st and 2nd violins, six violas and four cellos and then expand that to twenty 1st and 2nd violins, ten violas and eight cellos the sound will be louder, of course, because there are more instruments, but the balance will  be the same.

So what was the reason for converting 18th century instruments (a process, incidentally, which happened only gradually over several decades) to the more powerful “modern” instruments?  The answer, in my opinion, lies in our old friend, the piano  –  or, to give it its original name, the pianoforte  –   or  fortepiano.

Prior to the introduction of the piano on the musical scene, the predominant keyboard instruments were the harpsichord and the organ.  Both instruments, however, had one characteristic  –  some would say limitation  –  and that was their inability to move gradually from one dynamic level to another.  In other words, to crescendo and diminuendo became an important aspect of expression.  Now the string and wind instruments  – and, of course, the human voice  –  had no problem with this.  Indeed, it was their nature.  But the harpsichord and organ could only change dynamic levels by changing the stop, with no graduation of dynamic level in between possible.  It was left to an unassuming cousin of the harpsichord  –  the clavichord  –  to provide the solution.

The clavichord, that little church mouse of the keyboard instruments, had an extremely limited dynamic range  –  but it had the capacity to move gradually from one dynamic level to another depending on how hard one struck the keys.  Out of this quiet, unassuming instrument the concept of the pianoforte was born in the mid-18th century.  Bach saw one and played it shortly before he died and was impressed by it.

But it is the subsequent development of the pianoforte that interests us here, because it’s development (once the dimensions of the length of the keyboard had been established) can be summed up in one word:  louder.  Nearly every change made to the piano in the ensuing 150 years was to increase its sound.  Now I know that’s an over-simplification, but the fact is that the piano grew in size and volume until it became the instrument we know today.

The reason that this is important, especially for string players, is that in the course of the 19th century the piano became our principal playing partner  –  in sonatas, piano trios, piano quartets, quintets.  As the piano grew in volume, string players began to look for ways to increase the volume of their instruments.  The solution lay in raising the height of the bridge to create greater tension on the instrument.  In order to accommodate this greater height, the neck was canted back so that the angle of the fingerboard could parallel the angle of the strings.  So that, in a nutshell  –  at least in my opinion  –  is how we came to have the “modern” violin.  Whether this new sound as it gradually evolved influences the music composed for it – or the other way around  –  I will leave for you to decide.  For now, let us go back to the sound of the instruments Bach and his contemporaries were writing for.

Sound is our medium  –  it is to us what oils or water colors or acrillics are to painters, or wood or marble or clay are to sculptors.  We “paint” in sound.  Sound is the only medium through which we communicate our thoughts  –  our musical thoughts  –  to others.  As we have seen, sound production and the sound ideal have changed throughout the centuries.  There isn’t a better or a worse in this.  There is no “progress” from a more primitive sound to a more sophisticated sound.  There is just a difference.

This difference is what is critical to us as performers  –  as “time travelers”.  If we wish to play the great masterpieces of, say, Bach or Mozart in the way these composers envisioned it, we are going to need some understanding of the sound ideal they were composing for  –  and the sound of the instruments Bach and his contemporaries composed for was a warmer, richer sound.  It was more capable of subtle nuance than the modern instruments and, in the Classical period much cleaner and more pure.  So when we play the music of these earlier masters, we should want to recreate as best we can  –  even with our modern instruments  –  the sound the composer had in mind.

How do we do this?  The easiest way, of course, is to avail ourselves of a period instrument and let it teach us.  We will soon learn what it can and can’t do.  It can’t, for instance, produce the volume and boldness of its modern equivalent.  You will soon learn its limitations in that direction  –  it won’t let you force it.  But it will show you subtleties of color and nuance you hadn’t even imagined.  Because of the lessened tension on the strings you will find that you can often take fast movements much faster than on the later instruments.  Conversely, slow movements can work  even better at slower tempi than we can play them on the modern instruments.

Most importantly, you may find, as I did, that playing on period instruments broadens your technique and enlarges your musical perspective and tone color palette.  The so-called limitations (by modern standards) of these instruments opens doors to new sound concepts and interpretation  –  sound concepts and interpretations which we can use to inform our performance of early music even on our modern instruments.

Here I have been speaking primarily to string players, and I realize that most do not have access to period instruments.  But even playing with a bow from the period has worlds to teach you  –  and access to Baroque bows is much easier to come by. It is certainly a good first step, and an easy way to get started and to get a glimpse into another world of playing.

To close, I would like to draw your attention to the enormous influence the 17th and 18th centuries have had on subsequent centuries – including our own.  These are the centuries that gave us the opera, the symphony, the string quartet (as well as string duos and trios), piano duos, trios, quartets and quintets, fantasias, the fugue, dance movements like the minuet, the sonata form,  the ABA song form, and all the instrumental groupings we take for granted today.   It is small wonder that Leonard Bernstein called the 18th century the “golden century”.

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* Of course there was an increasing amount of published music as the 18th century wore on, which implies a broader performing public, but it was, I believe, not so much with an eye to posterity as an eye to a broader dissemination of the composer’s music  –  and, no doubt, with the composer’s eye to a bit of additional income (music publications in the later decades of the 18th century frequently carry on the cover “Printed for the Author and sold at…”.)

18th Century Tutors for the 20th Century Pupil

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By Nona Pyron

        The 18th century, that veritable cauldron of musical styles and innovation, is becoming more and more alive for us today as we come face to face with the vast scope of its musical literature. As we sift through the 8,000 Baroque and Classical works in the Grancino Collection, we are continuously astonished by the wealth of string music suitable and/or intended for pedagogical use. And the more we delve into this 18th century string literature, the more impressed we have become by this seemingly endless treasure trove of teaching material.

As a cellist, my involvement has been principally with the repertoire for cello, and here there are rich pasture indeed. Cello sonatas and duos in the Baroque and Classical eras, intended principally for home and concert performance, run the gamut from the simplest of basso continuo lines to virtuoso compositions demanding skills on a level of, say, the Roccoco Variations. Through this literature a series of easily managed stepping stones is provided to bring beginners right through to the virtuoso level, and cellists of all levels of ability are well served.

Much the same can be said for the literature of the violin and viola. It is important also to remember that in the 17th and 18th centuries the delineation between the various instruments within a family was not as sharp as today: in the 18th century a tutor for violin – or a set of variations to develop bowing – would have been legitimate fodder for cellists as well, and violinists were not above playing the continuo line.

The Sonata as Teaching Material

        One of the most common forms of instrumental chamber music in the 18th century was the sonata, or “solo”, for two lines of music – the bottom line usually serving as the basso continuo line, though not infrequently performed purely as a duo line. Intended for concert and home use, this essentially “duo” literature provided a wide variety of music for players at all levels of development. 18th century pedagogues were aware of the potential dual purpose of the music, and we find in various sources (Geminiani, The Art of Playing in a True Taste, among others) instructions to cellists in the early stages of learning to look to the continuo lines as the most fertile of learning fields, both for technical advancement as well as the development of musical sensitivity (and, needless to say, for the sheer pleasure of playing chamber music at a very early stage) – and then to the upper (solo) line to stretch their techniques.

Music Specifically Intended for Teaching Purposes

        Some performer/teachers in the 18th century undertook to organize a step-by-step presentation of musical material for the benefit of beginning players, and in so doing provided us with some of the most useful teaching material of any period.

The starting point was often the most basic rudiments of music: meter, rhythm, clefs, and, of course, how to hold the instrument and the bow. Then scales were introduced in conjunction with duets of increasing difficulty and length (to be played, presumably, with the teacher and/or friends) until the beginner was led through a series of painless and musically satisfying steps to a mastery of the instrument.

Cello Tutors

        Over the years I have been involved with this 18th century music, four cello tutors have caught my attention. I have used them extensively in my own teaching (it is no accident that they were the first to be published by Grancino) and would like to discuss them in some detail here.

1. Joseph Reinagle: Thirty Progressive Lessons for the Violoncello (1800)

In the opening pages Reinagle touches briefly on the following subject:

Of the Names and length of the different Notes…
Of the Rests, and Dots…
Of Sharps, Flats and Natural…
Of Repeats and Slurs…
Of Expressing notes tied different ways…
Of Shakes…
Of Appogiaturas…
Of Common, Triple and Compound time…
On all the Cliffs [clefs] used on the Violoncello…
On Tuning the Instrument…
On Holding the Violoncello…
On Bowing…

Of interest in this section is a drawing of the fingerboard indicating the location of the notes on it.

He then proceeds to “The first lesson on Playing…” and prefaces it with the following comment: I recommend the following lessons to begin with, instead of playing over the scale so frequently, as it usually done, by beginners, by which means, the learner will arrive at a knowledge of the notes with more pleasure to himself, and also, in a shorter time. I have affixed the scale at the beginning of each page, in order to enable the learner to find the notes readily.

Lessons I to VI (each four to six lines of music in length) afford the beginner an opportunity to become familiar with the notes of the first two octaves of the C major scale in various rhythmic and melodic arrangements.

Beginning with Lesson VII, All lessons are in the form of duos, frequently imitative in nature. Thus the beginner develops both technically and musically by playing with the teacher and assimilating from the teacher, almost unconsciously, the correct rhythm, intonation, bowing articulations and musical phrasing. Both lines being of equal difficulty, each lesson affords a double opportunity for learning within a given melodic and rhythmic context. Most important, the drudgery of the early stages of learning is bypassed and the pupil is introduced very early on to the joys of real music making… after all, they took up the cello in order to enjoy making music, so why not let them get at it right from the start? I used this book myself for teaching years prior to its publication and can personally attest to its usefulness in bringing pupils of all ages rapidly and happily through the early stages of playing.

Although the scales (from Lesson VII onward) all extend up through the fourth position, the lessons themselves stay within first position. By Lesson XVII double stops are introduced and the duets continue to develop in complexity. After Lesson XX, studies in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th positions are introduced, as well as “Exercises” in three and four flats and five sharps. At this point the pupil is also given hints at improvisation through a series of “Preludes” which replace the former scales. These I would highly recommend to anyone wishing to take the first steps toward improvisation on the cello.

The book ends with an exercise in double stops, followed by arpeggiated variations of the same chords; and a series of bowing variations on a melodic passage. By this time the pupil, a solid foundation for his playing well in hand, is ready to move on to the challenges of the myriad compositions awaiting him in the 18th century repertoire. His 20th century counterparts will find that this book has not only given them a reliable foundation upon which to extend their Baroque and Classical techniques, but an excellent springboard into the diverse demands of Romantic and Modern music (which, after all, grew out of the foundations laid in the 18th century).

2. Oliver Aubert: Exercises or Studies for the Violoncello

The full title of this marvelous tutor is: Exercises or Studies for the violoncello… / “Consisting of three Parts / Part 1 / Thirty-two Lessons constructed on the Gamut in different Keys & Exercises for the use of the Thumb. / 2nd / Three progressive Duos / 3rd / Three Practical Solos / The whole is designed for the study of the different Cliffs & General Improvement of the Pupil.”

This book, which works well in conjunction with Reinagle, launches the pupil from the very first line into the act of music making in a most marvelous way: as the pupil plays a C major scale in whole notes, the teacher plays a melody above which transforms what might otherwise be a tedious scale into a true participation on the creation of a musical performance. It also transforms the usual flat-footed slogging through a slow scale into (in the musical pupil) a sensitive  reaction to the overall music it is helping to create. What a wonderful way to begin playing the cello!

On the first page this same “duet” is presented three times: first time with the upper line in bass clef, next (an octave higher) in tenor clef and lastly (of importance in the 18th century, but less today) in transposed treble clef. Although these clefs have little relevance for the beginning pupil, he or she has nevertheless been exposed to the idea at the appropriate time. (the “appropriate time” for Aubert comes as early as Lesson 4 for the tenor clef, and Lesson 6 for the transposed treble clef, assuming the pupil chooses to play the upper lines in the duets as well.)

In general these duets progress much more rapidly and go much farther than the Reinagle in their technical scope (hence the advantage in combining them with the Reinagle). Part I ends with eight exercises in thumb position plus a Rondo utilizing the newly acquired thumb techniques. The Duos in Part II and the Sonatas in Part III increase the technical demands on the cellist far beyond the level of “beginner” and, if pursued and mastered, will render him capable of tackling most works in the 18th century repertoire.

3. Anon.: A New and Complete Tutor for the Violoncello (c.1770)

As with the Reinagle, this tutor begins with a wealth of general information on the basics of music. It then commences a series of duets, all suitable for players in the early stages of development, arranged for two cellos from what must have been the current “hit tunes” of the era.

Finally, I would like to consider one additional 18th century cello tutor because of its very unusual approach:

4. Jean Stiastny: Il Maestro ed il Scolare

This unique tutor combines lessons on the cello with lessons in composition, and does it rather well. The first part, quite simply written for both cello lines, is a series of imitations – starting at the unison and progressing through to the octave. This is followed by six pieces with fugues, also in the form of duets, which are more extended works and technically more demanding. In the 18th century, when composition went much more hand-in-glove with performance than it does today, these must have been valuable lessons indeed for instilling in the budding performer some of the basic steps toward contrapuntal writing. It may be that we in the 20th century have something to learn here.

Viola Tutors

Anon.: Complete instructions for the Tenor (c.1790)

As with the Reinagle, the Anonymous Complete Instructions for the tenor [viola], published in London around 1790, attempts a boot-strap operation for budding violists. On the title page the intent is clear: “Complete Instructions for the Tenor Containing such Rules and Example as are necessary for Learners, with a selection of Favorite Song-tunes, Minuets, Marches etc. – Judiciously adapted for that Instrument by an Eminent Master”. And, again similar to the Reinagle, it contains five pages of instructional text (of interest to 20th century students seeking insights into 18th century performance practices) and in full-size fold-out fingerboard chart.

The use of duos of graduated difficulty appears again in a viola tutor by J. Martinn: Methode pour l’Alto-Viola which is comprised of twelve lessons and three sonatas in the form of duos for two viola (ostensibly pupil and teacher).

The Art of Bowing on the Violin

In considering the foundations of technique, mention must be made of the considerable number of works intended to expand bowing technique. These usually bear the title “Variations” or “The Art of Bowing” and are typically written for the violin (though, in keeping with the performance practices of the 18th century, cellists and violists would have felt free to make use of them). One recently released Grancino Editinos is “The Art of Bowing on the Violin” by Joseph Gehot. The title continues: …“calculated for the Practice & Improvement of Juvenile Performers” and the Material is laid out in a very practical way to achieve the stated aim.

Another work in this vein (soon to be released by Grancino Editions) is the 100 Variazioni per Esercizio del Violino by Wenceslaw Pichl. First published in Florence and Naples in 1787, subsequent publications in London, Berlin and Amsterdam attest to the popularity of this study work. The editor, Robin Stowell, writes in the preface that “each brief (eight bar) variation is devoted to an executive problem of technique or style. Sometimes this is identified in the text; e.g., variations 51 & 57 feature harmonics; 55 is to be played smoothly (liscio); 59 is in gypsy style (alla zingarese); 65 is una corda; 66  is marked zoppicando (literally “limping”).

What all of these tutors have in common is the admirable habit of sugar coating the early stages of learning via musically interesting duets which introduce the musical experience into the learning process at a very early stage – a very healthy kind of bribery! It was assumed that the pupil would bring the duos to his lessons and, by playing them through with his teacher, gain a doubly valuable learning experience. But they also had the additional bonus of being available for him or her to play with any musical friends or family. And, of course, it was but a small step from the study duos to the genuine performance repertoire of the day (in fact, in many duos of the period the line between the two is often blurred). We have no equivalent of this in our modern repertoire, but perhaps there is no reason why we should: the cellistic techniques and musical language of the 18th century are the foundation of all that has come since, so what better place to start?

Reflections on Teaching a One-handed Cellist

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by Nona Pyron

A few years ago I received a call from a man saying he wanted to learn to play the cello – that his dream for many years had been to play the cello and that now that he was retired he wanted to get started. George Cawelti was in his mid-sixties and while that was not an optimal time to begin cello playing, I knew from experience that simply the commitment – however little or much real accomplishment was achieved – could be a very fulfilling experience. However with George there was an even greater problem, one which I had never encountered, nor even imagined: George had no right hand.

George’s right hand and arm midway between the wrist and elbow – had been blown off in a chemistry explosion when he was thirteen. I was dumbfounded. How could anyone expect to play the cello without a right hand? I didn’t know what to say. However, he was so determined that I finally agreed to see him, if for no other reason than to demonstrate to him in person why this was an impossible dream. I was unprepared for what happened.

George appeared at the door and, after a few brief words of greeting, proceeded to unpack a cello which he had acquired some years earlier (a first step towards his dream). He was very deft, having learned through years of experience how to manage with just one hand, but I couldn’t avert my eyes from the stump that was the termination of his right arm some inches below the elbow. Then, to my amazement, he reached into a separate bag and pulled out a wooden hand – the kind with moveable fingers you see in art supply stores. The wrist of the hand had been glued to a blue Tupperware cup. Placing a washcloth over his stump, he pushed the cup on to his right arm and adjusted it carefully. Next he affixed the bow to an old-fashioned clothespin-like clamp which was attached to the palm of the wooden hand. He then sat down and proceeded to draw the bow across the strings (he had cleverly devised a post which was inserted into a protrusion extending from the fingerboard which served to keep the bow from sliding below the bridge).

I won’t pretend that the sound emanating from this effort was anything close to beautiful, but it was a sound that could be developed and that in itself was astonishing. I agreed to work with him. Surely someone with this much determination deserved an equal commitment on my part.

I should mention at this point that the same blast that took his right hand and arm also cost him the sight in his right eye and damaged the hearing in his right ear. In addition, he lost the last joint of his left thumb.


It is interesting how the musical spirit in a person will find its way out even in the most adverse circumstances. As he was packing up after one of his early lessons I left the room for a few minutes. Then from the music room I heard Beethoven’s Fur Elise being beautifully played on the piano. I had not heard anyone come in and couldn’t imagine who could be playing. I was astonished to find George seated at the piano playing most of the notes with his left hand and using the stump of his right arm like a mallet to play the tune in the right hand. He had mentioned in passing that he had studied piano for a while, but I hadn’t expected this. It made me realize that I was dealing with a very musical personality. Now it was my task to make it work for him on the cello.

Four years have gone by and in this time I have learned much from George. I have had to stretch my thinking in ways and directions I would never have considered. It was fascinating to discover how one could achieve bow strokes and articulations without a flexible wrist or fingers and even more interesting to see how much of what I teach my nonhandicapped students could apply, sometimes with minor alterations, to George. I saw early on that in order to know what to tell him to do, I had to experience it myself. “Give me your hand”, I would say jokingly to George, and George would obligingly remove the entire apparatus – Tupperware cup, wooden hand and attached bow – and give it to me. Placing my hand over the wooden hand, I would try to discover what was needed to achieve the stroke I was asking him to do. That way I could gain some understanding of what it felt like for him and then be able to describe to him what he had to do.

One thing became obvious quite early: for over half a century George had not really used his right arm except as a support for something he was doing with his left hand. The arm was stiff and unused to moving. To counteract this I had him take a dust doth and make wide dusting movements on the table -and then on the wall (“I have the cleanest table and wall in town”, he later joked). Eventually we were able to get a real prosthetic arm and hand for George. In some ways it was a great leap forward, but it also required a new learning curve. The first hurdle was to discover how to stabilize the bow within the prosthetic hand. George was very clever with rubber bands, and we spent much time finding the optimal combination – only to discard it a few weeks later for something that worked even better. Then there was the sheer weight of the new prosthesis and the question of how to compensate for that without stiffening the shoulder.

Another problem was how to open the elbow, which he tended to keep in a locked position. Many cellists and violinists have this problem, even without George’s handicap. But in George’s case, without the use of a moveable wrist, it tended to send the bow sliding in all directions. Over and over again I would ask George to give me his hand so that I could get the feel of it and discover what had to be done. Sometimes we even strapped the arm part to my arm so that I could be certain that I was duplicating his movements exactly. Little by little we found solutions. In the early stages George’s bow strokes were limited to the middle range of the bow. His right arm still balked at the big movements required for long bow strokes, and the problem of keeping the bow straight as he moved the arm out and the bow approached the tip even now continues to produce difficulties to some extent. But the difficulties are diminishing as time goes by. Bouncing bow (spiccato in all of its forms) proved less difficult. The hard part, which is true for any string player, was learning to ride the natural bounce of the bow and not interfere with it by one’s own determined efforts to control – something made even more difficult for George by the weight of the prosthesis.

One problem still remained. The fact that his bow (because of the post which he relied on to keep his bow from sliding up and down the strings) was confined to the middle area of the strings, made it almost impossible for him to take advantage of the broad range of tonal colors available to most cellists, and thus of much of the expressive qualities he wanted in the music.

Then one day not too long ago we had an exciting breakthrough. I can’t remember exactly how it came about, but in the course of a lesson George suddenly discovered that he didn’t need the post to keep the bow from sliding down over the bridge. He went home determined to practice without the post. It took a lot of work, but with the skills he had accumulated he found he was able to do it. Now he is beginning to discover the wide spectrum of colors that are available to every cellist by using the whole tonal range between the fingerboard and bridge.

While the primary focus at the beginning was, understandably, on the right hand and arm, as time went on I found myself devoting more and more time in his lessons to his left hand, almost forgetting that this was a man with no right hand. His were the usual left-hand problems of flexibility and agility, relaxed shifts and proper placement of the thumb behind the hand in the lower positions and in thumb position (made even more difficult by the fact that he was missing the last joint on his left thumb), but he approached them with the same determination he had with everything else. By now George has worked his way through the Reinagle Studies, and the Somis and Schonebeck Sonatas, each one requiring a monumental effort on his part due to the loss of his right eye and the poor vision in his left (in essence, he has to memorize most of what he plays). He even decided to tackle, on his own, The Swan, and played it for me one day as a surprise. I had avoided such lyrical pieces because of the difficulties is presented in shaping long, sustained bows (still the hardest thing for him), but George was up to the challenge. He loved it so much (George loved every work he played!) that he was willing to put forth the effort and ended up with a very credible performance. His greatest love, however, has always been reserved for the Bach Suites. I don’t know for certain, but my suspicion is that he plays them nearly every day. This is quite a wonderful thing for a man with no right hand and who only began to play the cello in his mid-sixties. But, for me, the greatest satisfaction came recently when he walked in for his lesson and said, “I had the strangest sensation the other day when I was practicing: it felt like I had a real right hand…it felt like I was playing with my own hand.” When I heard that I knew we had accomplished a big part of his dream.