a barefoot cellist

Thanks to a very inspired suggestion of the youtube bots, I discovered the performance of Dvorak's cello concerto by Anastasia Kobekina which opened the Schleswig Holstein Festival on 5.7. (the video on youtube has now been blocked, but it is available via the ARD Mediathek). I guess the bots not only remembered that I love this concerto but also that I watched a number of movies from ex-Soviet Union countries with a manic pixie dream girl character in the main role. As the video fits all of these these criteria, it was an easy catch. (Anastasia Kobekina is Russian but has been living in Germany since the age of 18 or so, according to this German TV documentary about her.)

I'm loving her emotionally intense interpretation of the Dvorak to bits. As the cherry on the cake, I discovered some way into the Adagio that she was playing barefoot on this very posh occasion of a festival opening concert, so that just tipped me over and I had to look up her entire back catalogue as well. Turns out that she very much likes the repertoire pieces that I like, so I'll list a few links below to her videos of pieces for which I have the sheet music in the hope that it helps to inspire me to actually learn some of these pieces.

Barefoot publicity shot from her website.
©Nicolas Hudak_Sony Music Entertainment

Bach: Cello suites 2 and 3 - recorded in the plague year 2020, when I was also studying these suites.

Debussy: Cello Sonata - recorded 2018.

Franck sonata in A - recorded with an orchestra in 2017 at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, with other pieces including movements of the 6th Bach suite. I've played the Franck sonata on the flute at some point.

Haydn: Cello concerto Nr 2 in D - recorded with an orchestra in 2017 at the Queen Elisabeth Competition.

Marin Marais: Les folies d'Espagne - a music video filmed in 2022 to promote an album. More barefoot playing in this one. I tried this on the flute around the same time, but didn't get the hang of it.

Schubert: Arpeggione sonata - recorded in 2015 with a pianist. I've always loved the arpeggione sonata and actually played it on the flute when I had lessons. I also have the cello version, although my daughter's teacher insisted that it is too difficult for mere amateurs.

PS I had looked at the German version of her Wikipedia entry but not at the English one - I only just discovered that it has a very lovely barefoot (and spikeless) photo of her which I would have nicked:

Kobekina in deSingel Antwerp
Source: Wikipedia

dvořák's American adventures

Some thoughts on

Dvorak in Love: A light-hearted dream
Original title of the Czech edition: Scherzo capriccioso
1984
Josef Škvorecký

I have always been a fan of Antonín Dvořák's works from the American period (1893-1895), including his cello concerto in B minor, the New World symphony, the American quartet, the Sonatina, and the humoresque. I did not however, have a very clear view of how this body of work came into being, i.e. how the composer's "discovery" of this new world came about.

Josef Škvorecký's (1924-2012) light-hearted and indeed boisterous novelisation of this part of the composer's life gives a very vivid impression of how it may have happened. Although the second part of the title seems to suggest it's probably imagined. I guess to find out which parts of this were true I will have to re-read the relevant 30 pages of Neil Wenborn's biography: Dvořák: His life and music, which didn't leave much of a lasting impression when I read them more than 10 years ago.

Škvorecký's version is a very elaborate choreography swirling around just about everybody who had anything to do with the composer's decision to move to New York, and then with the decision not to stay after the expiration of his first contract. The best parts go to the women around him, including his employer, the very remarkable Jeannette Thurber (1850-1946), his wife Anna, her older sister Josephine, and his daughter Otylia. Men come in as love interests for these formidable women, and also for comic relief, which often involves some very heavy drinking.

Many of the chapters are like crowded rooms where it is at times difficult to keep track of the many characters and their multiple interactions, with the narration typically jumping between times as they reminisce about earlier encounters with each other or with the great composer. With hindsight I should have drawn a flow chart for this. The author must have had one and I imagine it may have had a beautiful symmetry too complex for me to grasp while juggling all these connections in my mind while reading.

Leaving aside the gossipy bits involving a lot of heavy drinking and extramarital adventures, there is enough food for musical thought to justify reading the book as a source to learn about Dvořák's work of the American period. Musical and other soundscape influences of the New World that we now find immortalised in his works are pointed out and put into their biographical context (or quite possibly into an imagined context). Conversely, there is also some thoughts on how Dvorak's work in New York influenced the nascent American music scene, and how both sides of the deal might have co-evolved further, if Dvořák had decided to stay in New York. Which he might have done if his daughter, allegedly torn between two admirers, had opted for the one based in the US. So this musical question kind of justifies the reporting of young Otilya's New World adventures.

Apart from the works mentioned above, the American (inspired) output also includes a string quintet (with a second viola) and a suite (written for piano then arranged for orchestra), both of which I only discovered recently, and the opera Rusalka, which strangely didn't capture me when I listened to it once or twice. Will try again.

back to Suzuki school

Four months into the adventure sparked by my aunt's ancient violin, I feel I'm ready to use more interesting fingerings than the 1-2-3 that will get you through most folk tunes. So I was glad to discover vols 2 and 3 of Suzuki violin school at Oxfam. There is a big overlap in the pieces used at the same stage in the cello school, so I have much of the music in my head already (a fifth down, as they are arranged to fit easily on the respective instruments).

I started with Boccherini's very famous minuet and Dvorak's humoresque (Passengers will please refrain ...). Both great fun to play and not actually too hard if you have the tune in your head. As I hoped, Suzuki includes fingerings to alert me to the places where it makes sense to depart from the standard (folk) fingering. Watch this space.

The editions date from 1970 and lack the piano part but I don't mind. Might go back for vol 4, but I didn't recognise any of the pieces, that may be the point where violin and cello editions go different ways, following the specific repertoire of each instrument. Note also that the editions are A4 format - they date from before the availability of photocopying, to which publishers responded by printing larger formats not so easily copied.

PS speaking of Dvorak, it just dawned on me (after this entry went live) that I have a printout of his sonatina Op 100, which I played on the flute back in 2017. Now that's a nice little project ...

Update 10.3. A video of this month's Slow Session has appeared here, where you can see me fiddling ...

quartets for random instruments

In addition to duets and trios, we (a hardy subset of Cowley Orchestra and some newbies) have also played some quartets over this summer. These included baroque pieces set for three melody instruments plus basso continuo (Baroque composers didn't mind very much what melody instruments were used). On some meetings, when we had a strong ensemble, we also ventured into the string quartets of classic/romantic periods.

This Bank Holiday Monday we had a particularly strong ensemble (nothing to do with me, I am either the weakest link or hiding behind a stronger player) with an interesting variety of instruments and played Dvorak's American quartet among other things. It struck me that I actually prefer our version with five different instruments (violin, flute, oboe, clarinet on the viola part, cello) to the string quartet performance. Listening to string quartets, I don't really like the fact that the four string instruments have similar sound textures and all blend into one sauce - having a variety of different sounding instruments is actually an improvement to me. Also, with its richness of textures, the random instruments version is a lot closer to the New World symphony.

(UPDATE 11.9.2021: Just discovered it's been done before. Somebody called David Walter arranged it for wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, published by Billaudot - Paris 1986) and YouTube has live videos from the Amsterdam Wind Quintet (fourth and first movement) as well as sound-only recordings from the Royal Flemish Philharmonic (complete) and Meliora Winds.)

Anyhow, here's my nascent collection of quartets so far:

Bach: 14 fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier arranged for string quartet by R. Hofmann. Part 2 (No. 8-14)
Beethoven: quartet op.18, No. 1 in F (lovely performance by GoYa quartet here)
Beethoven: quartet op.18, No. 3 in D
Boccherini: 9 string quartets (various opus numbers).
Borodin: string quartet No. 2 in D
Dvorak: string quartet No. 12 in F major (American quartet)
Haydn: Quintenquartett Op 76, Nr. 2, in D minor
Haydn: Quartet in d minor Op 103, his last quartet, which remained unfinished, there are only two movements, of which the first is performed here.
Mozart: quartet in B flat, K485, played by Carmel Quartet here
Mozart: Adagio for cor anglais (oboe/viola), 2 violins and cello, K580a. Another unfinished work, a lovely performance is here;
Pachelbel: Canon in D, arranged for string quartet by Donald Fraser
F. X. Richter (1709-1789): String quartet in B flat Op 5 No. 2, audio here
Schubert: Excerpts from 5th symphony, strings pack
Schubert: Quartet for flute, guitar, viola and cello (YouTube). Found this in an edition published 1956 - it later turned out that Schubert had just arranged a trio by Czech guitarist Vaclav Matiegka (1773-1830) and added the cello to give it a bit more oomph. The original trio (Notturno op 21) is lovely, actually, but doesn't harm to have the cello part too.
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 1 Op 49.
Various composers: The String quartet: Original string quartet movements of simple character by old masters; Walter Höckner, ed.

And a bunch of baroque quartets I borrowed for the summer:

MA Charpentier, Noels (9 short pieces, some christmassy)
Naudot, concerto in C major
A. Scarlatti, Sonata in F major
GP Telemann, concerto in G major
JB Fasch, quartet in Bb major
JC Schickhardt, sonata in D major

The last page of the autograph score of Dvořák's American quartet with his inscription: "Finished on 10 June 1893 in Spillville. Thanks God. I'm satisfied. It went quickly."

Source

Updated 6.9.2021 to add the Schubert quartet based on the Matiegka trio.
Updated 21.4.2022 to add Haydn op 103, Mozart, Richter, and Various.
added Beethoven and Mozart K485.
Updated 23.2.23 to add Bach and Borodin

dvořák times seven

I've rounded up all recordings we have of the Dvořák cello concerto (including two I inherited from my grandad who didn’t play but had witnessed (and photographed) his dad playing cello).

Still space for a few more. Natalie Clein, I’m looking in your direction ...

dvořák sonatina

I've just finished off the Dvořák sonatina op 100, having played all four movements over the last few months. I love it mainly for its echoes of the other "American" works, including the cello concerto and the New World symphony, which Dvořák wrote around the same time.

I started this adventure by buying a flute arrangement by James Galway, but soon realised he needlessly transposed the entire work as high up as physically possible, which in my ears doesn't sound very nice even if it is played competently, never mind when I try it. So I went back to the violin version (which is free online) and started from that, made it a bit more flutey with my teacher's help, looking at Galway's version for inspiration only where changes were necessary.

You can find a version that follows similar lines and uses the richer colours of the lower register here, played by Julien Beaudiment.

Next up: Albert Einstein's favourite Mozart sonata.

Dvořák abbreviated

The latest addition to my growing collection of arrangements for cello and flute is an adaptation of the slow movement from Dvořák's cello concerto. I've left out a section in the middle, bringing it down to 6 minutes length. The rest in bar 66 marks the spot.

As the original work is largely a dialogue between the solo cello and the woodwind instruments in the orchestra, I'm hoping that my edit makes some kind of musical sense, but all hints and suggestions for improvements are welcome.

PS: Noteflight members can see a handy list of our other scores here. Mere mortals can access them individually through the earlier blog entries.

Prague slide show

I spent a rather lovely week at Prague, checking out the EuCheMS conference and also spending a lot of time roaming the city in the footsteps of Kafka, Dvorak, Jacopo Strada, Tycho Brahe, Kepler ...

Here's a slideshow of a small selection of my photos:

Dvorak for cello and flute

the young cellist in my family has arranged Dvorak's famous humoreske (originally a piano piece, but also found in the Suzuki string methods) for cello and flute, so I can play it with her (the limiting factor being, as she likes to put it, that I should first learn to count to four). The score is in noteflight and registered users can view it there, but for everybody else I am now trying to embed it here:



Wow, it actually works (requires Flash, though). If you press the button on the left above the score you can hear an approximation to the music (the cello sound doesn't sound much like a cello, and it's too metronomical for a romantic piece!) Check here for the kind of style we're aiming at :D

Seeing there seems to be very little repertoire available for cello and flute, I may put our other pieces online as well, by and by. They'll be around grade 5 level and are aiming to have a good balance between the two instruments.