Easy Playing

I knew that he did it—I didn’t know that he did it so well, and to such an extent.

Because there he is, the preeminent cellist of our day, Yo-Yo Ma, playing baroque cello, and playing it damn well.

It may not look like it to you—but there are real differences in the equipment and the technique. First, the strings are gut—not the metal strings that the modern cello has. And that accounts for the softer sound.

Second of all, the endpin—the metal rod that goes from the bottom of the instrument to the floor—is not there. And that means that the instrument has to be cradled in between the legs, a feeling which I, at least, enjoy.

The bow is radically different: here’s one writer on the subject:

Italian music was light and airy, requiring agility and rapidity. German music was more introspective; tempi were slower, and the music frequently required individual string players to produce true chords.

These two musical styles were reflected in the violin bows. The Italian bow was slim and light, the bow strings fixed in relatively high tension, while the German bow was highly arched, and the string tension was fairly loose. In contrast to the Italian technique of holding the bow lightly from above with curved wrist, the German bow was held with the thumb placed under the bow strings. In this way the player could tighten or relax the bowstring tension at will. A tighter tension in the bow was used for single string, single melodic line playing, while a relaxing of the bowstrings' tension permitted playing on two or more strings simultaneously, and thus of course, the playing of true chords.  

The instrument is also held differently—more vertically, with the pegs near the left ear, not behind it.

But one of the most important elements of baroque playing is that the pitch is different. To start with, the A—the note that the oboe plays at the beginning of a concert to tune the orchestra—is not the 440 Hz, but varied from 392 to 465 Hz. But generally, the A was much lower—which contributed as well to a softer, darker sound. And so the standard among baroque players has settled at 415 Hz.

There are stylistic differences, as well. The tendency of the baroque era was to ornament heavily—whatever got written on the page was meant as a guideline, not a Bible. So a performer was free to ornament, and did so.

When I first moved to Puerto Rico, I played in a baroque group, and the experience was a revelation. It was hard, initially, to limit the vibrato, and to create the long, expressive notes that start softly, grow slowly, and then recede again. Most difficult was tuning—the high leading tones and major thirds of modern playing vanish when playing baroque.

But there’s something tantalizing about it—it is the simplest, easiest playing in the world.

“I never want to work so hard again,” I said to the violinist of the group. She knew exactly what I meant: a large, major Romantic work like the Dvorak Concerto is less a piece of music than a battle. To play baroque music is…well, to play.

The last question, of course, is whether Ma gets away with it. Has he really mastered the baroque cello? I drifted over to Amazon.com to check on what the audience was saying.

Predictably, Ma has his critics. But me? I’m convinced!