"The Repertoire That Enchants and Frustrates Us" (A FEW Famous Examples)...

The main idea and "thrust" of this essay attempts to be a well-meaning effort, but might instead be rather murky and perilously unfocused. It began as a potential rant at composers primarily for "writing what they hear" (supposedly--that's what they do anyway!!), with secondary attention paid to the rudiments of technique--basic, intermediate and certainly "advanced" cello technique.  (That "rant" will somehow be reincarnated in another post!!)  In the study of the creative process however, the true history of germination and performance is instead a "developmental dialogue" between a creative craftsman and a creative practitioner of our selected instrument.  What might often begin in  virtual conversation as "So...you wrote this?? Uh...have you lost your MIND"?? could hopefully mellow into "Well, let's see what we can do to make this SELL even FASTER"!!  Therefore, in the interest of world peace and continued good creative relations, I'll do my best to refrain from either of those questions of incredulity posed and bellowed in the previous sentence!!

More than a "few" works easily fit into the categories of extended musical athleticism and audience experience; for the sake of time and deadline, I'll limit my discussion to five (5) works from the standard operating (and still expanding) repertoire of the violoncello.  The suggested title of that aforementioned "rant" was to be "hazardous cello music", and that subtopic will remain (parenthetically) but hopefully expand to an attempted comment about: a. the quirks that emerge amid the creative process in a musical composition; b. the possible notion of perceived unconcern for the technical issues of the cellist on the part of the composer, and most importantly: c. the details of larger expressive communication to a receptive concert audience. (Besides, when we cellists complain about playing a particular work, the larger truth we are loquaciously EVADING is the fact that the notes are spanking us something fierce, but we HAVE to tell our trials to SOMEONE!! Even creative "misery...loves company"!!)

PART I
There is an amicably unspoken and yet agreed upon fact between cellists: these two words will start some measure of discussion and possible altercation between us: "SOLO BACH"!!  I tell students and colleagues alike that 'Ol Sebastian SET US ALL UP!!  He is LAUGHING at us all from the hereafter, but hopefully smiling in approval at our developed interpretations of his creative blueprint--as well as an invitation to think with even greater creative capacity for improvisation!!  While the Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012 of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is the longest and "most-stringed" suite of the set of six, it is the "extra string issue" that makes for "less than convenient" but NOT impossible nor hazardous cello writing in numerous passages in every movement. Therefore, this suite is exempt from copious analysis and complaint--'so many passages in it are PAINFULLY ecstatic!! The beauty of this creative and athletic "super-feat" somehow outweighs the frustration of both hands struggling to cooperate with the notes and the music!!

Bach, Sixth Suite, BWV 1012/Allemande

Johann Sebastian Bach, c.1720

The Cello Concerto in a minor, Opus 129 (1850) of Robert Schumann (1810-1856) is a work that has maintained a  considerable interest to me on account of several biographical and musical matters. This work belongs to a relatively late and bittersweetly tormented time in Schumann's life.  The fourteen years that he spent in Leipzig (1830-1844) was overshadowed by the "court battle" Friedrich Wieck waged against Robert, who had asked for the hand of fellow student Clara Wieck in marriage.  Their move to Dresden had to have represented something of an "emancipation" on two levels: Clara was a married woman and free from her stubborn and controlling father; Robert had weathered this storm as well, having moved on from a piano teacher-student relationship which undergone an irrevocable change. The move was not one of freedom from conflict or mental anguish.  Robert found release in both literature and music; the work of supporting and assisting Clara occupied a significant amount of his time as her career as a concert pianist matured as their family grew: four of their eight children were born in that decade alone.  

The 1840s were also years of mounting changes in the political world which would ostensibly affect the musical world and their personal lives. The Schumann family was in Dresden by the mid-1840s  and Schumann would be in regular conversations with Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner about writing music in a new way as the spirit of Romanticism guided them toward lofty artistic ideals in each work they composed. The Revolutions of 1848 would force Wagner into exile, and Liszt was riding a crest of cult-like popularity among the Weimar aristocracy ("Lisztomania" it is called by some scholars) that somehow  protected him from the political fugitive status that dogged Wagner.  The Schumann family would relocate to Kreischa in 1849, twelve miles safely distant from the protests in Dresden.  They would not remain there long; the family moved to Dusseldorf where Schumann had accepted the position of Municipal Music Director.  His duties involved direction of both the Choral Association and the Municipal Orchestra.

The Cello Concerto was written over the hasty course of two weeks (!!) during the fall of 1850.  Originally titled "Konzertstuck", it is legendary for its beautiful melodies and sensitive orchestral accompaniment, but its demanding technical passagework doesn't immediately endear it to the cello masses. Schumann's compositional approach is highly organic and appears in a highly technical "guise" as a result, meaning that it is neither  conveniently written nor is it for "the faint of left-handed"!!  Its constant changes of melodic range also make for exceptional challenges in maintaining the balance between soloist and orchestra.  While its window of composition was surprisingly short, its path to public performance was unusually long, and was associated with at least three notable cellists during mid-century. During his last year in Kreischa he wrote the Five Pieces In Folk Style, Opus 102 for Andreas Grabau; the success and satisfaction of this work encouraged Schumann to write the Concerto. Both works share a common key, melodic tendencies and degrees of expressive conversation between instruments. The Concerto may have been intended for Christian Reimers (the principal cellist of the Dusseldorf orchestra); although they rehearsed it in 1851 no public performance was scheduled.  Another informal reading was done in 1852 with the cellist Robert Bockmuhl, but no scheduled premiere would follow.  These reading rehearsals provided Schumann time and opportunities to make revisions to the work as necessary, which were incorporated into the commercially published score in 1854--a few precious months following his mental collapse.  Its premiere would not take place until 1860 when Ludwig Ebert performed it, not in Dusseldorf or Dresden but in Leipzig.  (Talk about a somber "Homecoming"...it was for the 50th anniversary of Schumann's birth...four years after his passing at the age of 46.)

Robert Schumann, c.1850

However, its unusual degree of "role flexibility" had to have served as a daring and convincing compositional model for the next generation of composers, including Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921). However, scholarly research into the body of cello concerto repertoire that Schumann may have used as a "conscious model" remains ahead. Sadly, the years in Dusseldorf were to be his last years. While a young Johannes Brahms would meet Schumann and Liszt there in 1853, the very next year would be most fateful in Schumann's personal life. In February 1854, hearing voices described as "angelic, then followed by animal shrieks", he threw himself into the Rhine River.  He was rescued by a passing boat, but would spend the remaining two years of his life in a sanatorium, overcome by the deteriorating effects of syphillis.  That "young Brahms" would become a lifelong friend of the family after Robert's passing.  Several of his early works bear the stylistic and emotional imprint of Schumann's life and influence.

Johannes Brahms, 1853

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

As a graduate cello student at The University of Michigan, I worked with Jerome Jelinek. He referred to the Saint-Saens Concerto No.1 in a minor, Opus 33 (1876) as "the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto for Cellists"!!  In the same manner as the Mendelssohn, its unbroken three-movement structure and flowing process have ensured its popularity among concert audiences worldwide. The beautiful melodies emanating forth from the violin or cello dialogue with the orchestra automatically makes the soloist a dramatic figure of theatrical import--in BOTH works!!  Imagine having a work that inspires a violinist or cellist to "attempt scaling the theatrical performance heights of Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Viola Davis or Meryl Streep"--for and in the moment!!  My doctoral colleague and longtime friend Robert Reed once remarked to me that Pablo Casals (who as a young man played the concerto with Saint-Saens conducting) related a remark from the composer that the concerto was inspired by the "stormy" fourth movement of the  Sixth Symphony of Beethoven ("Pastoral").  Therefore, that opening orchestral "thunderclap" must, in the real and expressive moment of performance "serve as a lightning rod of inspiration" for the solo cello entrance--which in turn, must represent "wildlife scurrying for cover and protection"--human beings included!!

There is the well-known (oft-lamented!!) solo passage in the opening movement that all cellists  struggle to play with consistent intonation and accuracy due to the Perfect 5ths across the string...halfway up the fingerboard:

This is my own solo part with the "X" placed by the most problematic line; please notice the superscribed fingering above the top line of that page!!  It was Jelinek who passed along an alternate voicing and fingering of the passage from one of his teachers, Luigi Silva (1903-1961), which makes use of the open A string and reharmonizes a chord or two in the process...'no injustice or injury done to the music, and MUCH anguish averted for the soloist!!

PART II: "Tchaikovsky, Fitzenhagen and The Art of Bait and Switch (Or Stick and Move??)"
There are actually TWO works of Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) bearing the title Variations on a Rococo Theme; the one most familiar to cellists is the one that was most revised and nearly overhauled...with astonishing results. The provided notes tell the interesting story about the "dual genesis and version life" of this work (www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W17969):

The Variations on a Rococo theme, Op 33 were written in Moscow in December 1876, while the composer’s tenure at the Conservatoire was slowly dragging to a close, and his lucrative, epistolary relationship with von Meck beginning to flower. Although he resented the hours teaching that prevented him from composing, Tchaikovsky had nevertheless made some enduring friendships at the Conservatoire, among them the cello professor Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, who had taken positions in Moscow after refusing an offer from the great Franz Liszt to remain with his orchestra in Weimar. No cellist and famously riddled with self-doubt, Tchaikovsky had agreed to a number of alterations suggested by Fitzenhagen, for whom the work was composed, and it seems to have been this ‘original’ version which was premiered in November 1877, in Moscow, under Nicolai Rubinstein, with Fitzenhagen as soloist. So far so good. However, Fitzenhagen had further ideas of his own for the piece and set about ‘improving’ the work; substantially altering the solo part, tagging endings on here and there, shuffling the movements and even omitting the final variation altogether. ‘Horrible Fitzenhagen insists on changing your cello piece…and he claims you gave him permission. Good God!’ wrote the unconvinced publisher Pyotr Jurgenson to the composer. Nevertheless, the piano score was published in 1878, presumably without the composer’s approval, and the orchestral score appeared some years later, in 1889, both ‘revised and corrected’ by Fitzenhagen. In the case of the piano score, Tchaikovsky’s seeming reluctance to get involved may have been in part due to the extensive travels undertaken to shake off the horror of his badly-judged and swiftly-aborted marriage in 1877. And in the case of the publication of the orchestral score, a furious, and either accepting or resigned Tchaikovsky famously declared, ‘The devil take it. Let it stand!’. And so the Fitzenhagen version of the Rococo Variations remains the standard version of the piece—even to this day.

Not until 50 years after Tchaikovsky’s death did the composer’s ‘original’ version come to be heard in the concert hall, its first modern performance documented as being by Daniil Shafran in 1941. The Soviet-published edition of 1956, the composer’s ‘original’ score, obviously still retains much of Fitzenhagen’s initial and, indeed, subsequent revisions to the cello part, but the variations are restored to Tchaikovsky’s original plan.

The Rococo Variations reflects Tchaikovsky’s adoration of the music of Mozart, a composer he revered above all and referred to as the ‘Christ of music’. The poise and order of the music of Mozart and his time appealed greatly to a composer we regard as representing of the heights of the so-called Romantic period. The work has a brief, almost subdued, orchestral introduction leading into the refined charm of the cello theme—not an 18th-century original, but rather Tchaikovsky’s idealised view of such a theme. Thereafter the cellist barely draws breath, the melody expanding into ever more expansive declarations, duets with the flute and the clarinet, cadenzas and a virtuoso package of classic cello cantabile, pizzicato, double-stopping, nostalgic waltzes, runs and trills until the coda brings us to an invigorating conclusion.

Peter Ilytch Tchaikovsky, 1874

Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (1848-1890)

After so much strange commentary on Bach, Schumann, Saint-Saens and Tchaikovsky, what follows is a revisited (and STILL ongoing) investigation of "historical development" in one of the most significant works in the violoncello repertoire: the Concerto in b minor, Opus 104 (1895) of Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904).  It was the flagship concerto of the first half of the 20th century with cellists and audiences, and will most likely remain among the most familiar, accessible and popular concerti well beyond the present time.  Much of its performance tradition has been so thoroughly documented, and yet the process of its creation and the dialogue between Dvorak and the cellist Hanus Wihan (1855-1920) remains so "rosed and briared" that more than a few passages emerge as both quizzical and even problematic.  Part of the inherent challenge of playing this work can be derived from the fact that the composer himself was not thoroughly convinced that the violoncello was most effective as a solo instrument for feature with full symphony orchestra.

It is of great interest that two of Dvorak's contemporaries, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Victor Herbert (1859-1924) contributed concerted works featuring the cello: the Double Concerto in a minor for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Opus 102 (1887) of Brahms was written for Joseph Joachim and Robert Hausmann; the cello is given an interesting "lion's share" of the limelight, and often sings in higher ranges than the violin throughout the work's three movements. Victor Herbert was already an established cellist, composer and member of the faculty of the National Conservatory of Music in New York by the time Dvorak arrived to assume the directorate and teach music composition (1892). Herbert's Concerto No. 2 in e minor, Opus 30 was composed and premiered a year prior to the Dvorak Concerto.  It stands to reason that a wealth of ideas and "cello laboratory work" must have flowed freely between the two colleagues. It is also more than coincidental that the Herbert Concerto shares the same key as Dvorak's Symphony No.9, Opus 95 ("From The New World").  Reflecting the further Herbert influence, fortunately this work features very effective instrumental paired writing between the soloist (strings, winds, even brass and percussion) with poignant musical effect. However, one significant detail that has always grabbed my attention is the triplet 16th-note "bariolage passage" which occurs and recurs in the Exposition and Recapitulation of the first movement. This detail has a very intriguing "germinative history".

In his May 1999 published article "Some Thoughts On More Rational Cello Fingerings",(www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/fingers/fingers.htm), Dimitry Markevitch included an alternate version of that passage appears with recommended fingerings.  The cited example (p.7 of 9) includes this passage, but the meter isn't 4/4, but 3/4!! (Please refer to the example below.)  The bariolage effect remains, but the lack of a fourth beat of bowed effect AND fingered exertion raises a rather engaging issue and question: was the 3/4 metrical structure Dvorak's idea that was revised to 4/4 upon Hanus Wihan's recommendation? It is easy to assume that such might be the case: the ink has been dry for at least 123 years!! It could also be that Markevitch's article cited his bariolage exercises for practical student use, not the actual passages used in the commercially available performing editions.  I recall seeing this same passage in a Czech published score, and a story passed on to me from the late Erling Blondal Bengtsson regarding the original rhythm of that same passage. It was not a triplet 16th passage but a duplet passage!!  This discovery sounds so unusual and foreign to our gathered performing tradition that even the mere mention of it seems to wreak of heresy and sacrilege!! While Jonathan Del Mar's edition has made further attempts to achieve a "definitive critical edition", a very interesting discovery remains for our perusal.

Markevitch's comment: For those playing the familiar Hanus Wihan version of the Dvorak Concerto, and not the much more musical original version by Dvorak himself (published in Prague), I have this fingering to offer, keeping the first or second fingers on the same spot (thumb on A only).



Example 16 -- Dvorak



The cellist Inbal Segev offers this interesting and perhaps "hidden" account and timeline of the early germinative history of the Dvorak Concerto (http://blog.inbalsegev.com/author/admin/), in which the "Alwin Schroeder Manuscript" came to my attention for the first time!!  Upon further online  investigation of this 2017 lead, web posts from 2014 point to the same item of discovery and study: http://www.dvorak-society.org/cello_concerto_manuscript_discovery.html 

– 1893: Dvořák tours Bohemia with his friend, cellist Hanus Wihan, for whom he wrote the Rondo in G minor and arranged Silent Woods as well as Slavonic Dances No. 3 and No. 8 from Op. 46.

– October 1893: Dvořák orchestrates Silent Woods and the Rondo.

– March 10, 1894: Dvořák attends the premiere of Victor Herbert’s second cello concerto in New York City. (Victor Herbert himself was the soloist.) Dvořák is inspired to write a concerto, the idea has been percolating in his mind for a while, plus Wihan has been bugging him for years to do so…

– November 1894: Josefina Kaunitzova, Dvořák’s sister-in-law, writes Dvořák a letter saying she is seriously ill.

– November 1894: Dvořák starts writing the cello concerto while director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He dedicates it to Wihan.

– February 1895: The concerto is completed.

– 1895: A separate cello part for the principal cellist of the Boston Symphony, Alwin Schroeder, is made by an anonymous copyist. It is evident that the copy was done from a now lost autograph cello part written out by Dvořák*. Many of the later changes are not included in this cello part.

– February 25, 1895: Dvořák writes a letter saying he played the concerto for Schroeder. (He played solo piano, probably reading from the orchestral score.)

– April 27, 1895: Dvořák returns to Bohemia.

– Josefina dies in May 1895, after which Dvořák revises the ending to the last movement. Starting bar 453, he incorporates musical quotes referring to her from earlier in the concerto in the new coda.

– Wihan is practicing and editing the concerto with Dvořák in preparation for the world premiere but due to a scheduling conflict, he does not play the world premiere.

– September 9-16, 1895: Dvořák writes a piano reduction for the orchestral score. The piano version does not include the solo cello part.

– September 1895: Wihan privately performs the concerto with Dvořák in Luzany (located in Bohemia, today Slovakia).

– January 27, 1896: Brahms – who is involved in proof reading the score as a favor to Dvořák and their mutual publisher, Simrock – writes a letter praising the concerto.

– January/February 1896: The concerto is published by N. Simrock, Berlin.

– March 19, 1896: The concerto is premiered in London by the English cellist Leo Stern, conducted by Dvořák.

– December 18/19, 1896: Schroeder gives the American Premiere of the concerto. The program notes state that Stern is responsible for many of the bravura passages although there is no evidence of that being true.

So far so good. But!

There are discrepancies galore, between the manuscript score and the handwritten copy for Schroeder, and especially between the cello part and the cello line in the orchestral score in Simrock’s first edition. Not to mention the second Simrock edition, which is the Stegmann/Klezki revision from c. 1925.  Oy gevalt!  Dvořák seems to have never reconciled the Simrock solo cello part, which he revised with Wihan, with the solo cello part in the Simrock orchestral score.  To add a twist to the plot, fingerings from Schroeder’s copy made their way to the first edition, so everyone assumed they were Wihan’s. The hand written Schroeder cello part was discovered only a couple of years ago. Jeffrey Solow, president of the Violoncello Society of New York, was kind enough to explain all this and also share the manuscript with me. Thank you Jeffrey!!

*From Jeffrey Solow: “The manuscript cello part that was prepared for Schroeder was given to Schroeder’s student Robert Williamson, who bequeathed it to his son, Robert Williamson, Jr., who presented me with a copy.”  Jeffrey also writes: “While the Dvořák autograph score is certainly interesting and I believe contains a few things that Dvořák intended to keep in his final revision that are not in the Simrock cello part (and so not in the Barenreiter urtext), it is important to remember that it is an early version of the concerto (as is the cello part manuscript) and so should not be viewed as ‘the truth’ in most regards.”

Well, dear reader, I tend to like a few things from the original manuscript score a lot and who knows, was it Wihan, Schroeder or even Brahms himself who convinced Dvořák to make some of the changes? I’ll leave you with that.– Inbal Segev

One closing side note of mysterious irony here: while Hanus Wihan made numerous suggestions to Dvorak regarding the composition of the solo cello part, he apparently went ONE suggestion too far in appealing to Dvorak in favor of a final movement cadenza when Dvorak had already decided to rework the closing section to pay memorial tribute to Josefina Kaunitzova. Wihan did not perform the world premiere of the Concerto, but NOT on account of the "cadenza incident". Prior contractual obligations with the Czech String Quartet prevented his availability to give the premiere. The English cellist Leo Stern (1862-1904) gave several of the earliest performances in 1896 and 1897.  Source documents also reveal that the cadenza incident did not sour personal relations between Dvorak and Wihan, but a written letter from Dvorak to the publisher Simrock clearly expressed Dvorak's earnest stipulation for the close of the Concerto NOT to be tampered with via any insertions of a cadenza.  I have yet to see the suggested Wihan cadenza in manuscript or in print , but it remains a detail of considerable interest for the study of composer-performer relations, with particular regard to works judged to be of masterful quality. The Enchantment, Frustration and Mystery amid our violoncello repertoire sings on!!

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

Hanus Wihan (1855-1920)

Victor Herbert (1859-1924)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Leo Stern (1862-1904)

Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928)