“Rostro…
…povich.. Some Russian guy…”
Could it be
true? I went to YouTube
to see, or rather to hear. And yes, the same Rostropovich that
could be ardent, heroic, tender, raging, mythic, you-add-your-own-adjective in
the Dvorak
concerto was not so much playing the Bach suite as assaulting it.
Look, his
was an age that knew relatively little about baroque interpretation…well,
that’s what I was about to write. But then I looked up Anner Bylsma, who is
famous for playing both the modern cello and the baroque cello. And yes, he
plays in what is now tiresomely called “historically informed performance,” or
sometimes “historically informed style.” And he’s only seven years younger than
Rostropovich….
Back up for
anyone who didn’t spend time in music conservatories in the seventies or
eighties. Generally, students were taught to play music essentially the same
way. True, if you were playing Bach, you weren’t supposed to have the lush,
rich tone of Rachmaninoff.
You aimed for simplicity, clarity, articulation; with Bach especially, you
tried to bring out the musical ideas: the counterpoint, the harmonic
progressions, the lines and phrases.
Into this
picture emerged a new group of players whom everyone accused mentally and
occasionally orally of being unable to tackle the technical challenges of the
classical / romantic literature. Because let’s face it—the Dvorak concerto is
not something you give to a beginning student. However, any kid in high school
can saw his way through a Bach solo cello suite. They’re just not that hard.
And so the
new group specialized in playing baroque music, learning the historical
performance practices, refitting their instruments, using gut instead of metal
strings, adopting a convex instead of a concave bow. And in those years, there
was a lot still to be learned, and a lot of controversy about what was and
wasn’t authentic.
The
historically informed performers (hey, let’s call them HIPsters!) tended to
bunch together and look down on the rest of us—or so it felt to me at least.
And they also tended to play in ways that—however deadly correct—were
completely uninteresting and unmusical.
The good
news? Most of us grew up, began to listen to each other’s playing, and began to
find out ways to make music that was—apparently / supposedly—consistent with
what Bach and other Baroque composers might have wanted. But the point was that
it was music, not an exercise in historical performance.
Well, I
said we grew up, but did we? Because my current feeling is that the “early
music people”—as we used to call them—have gone on, learned, and started to
create some astonishingly beautiful music. Bylsma, for example, recorded the
Bach suites twice: in 1979 and then again in 1992. And while I’ve heard
criticism of the recordings from HIPsters, the recordings are out there and
should be listened to, especially if you’re in the business of playing the
suites.
That said,
why was the young conservatory (I presume) student I heard playing his cello in
the New York City subway rendering a Bach suite in exactly the same way as did Casals, all those many
decades ago when he was championing the works? Has performance practice become
fossilized? Are we to go on playing the suites as Casals played them for the
rest of all time?
The curious
thing is that—reportedly—Casals was never particularly satisfied with his
recordings of the suites: he felt, as I recall, that they were all too slow.
For years,
I disliked the suites, and felt that they were greatly inferior to the solo
violin sonatas and partitas. Still, I played them, since they occupy a central
place in the repertoire. And more—they are to cellists as the Bible is to
Christians. There are other religious writings, as there are other pieces of
music for the cello. But for many of us, a part of every day is given over to
Bach, even if we don’t play Brahms or Beethoven on that
day.
And now?
I’ve started to like them a lot, and only discovered why yesterday. I was in
the café, recording myself—but that wasn’t it. I was on a small stage, across
from which was a long mirror. I thus had a perfect chance to watch myself play.
And what did I see?
‘What was
the big deal, for all those years’ was what I thought when I first saw myself.
Because there was nothing physically difficult, nothing strained in my arms or
neck or torso. My fingers were making funny little movements up and down on the
fingerboard; my left hand was making funny little movements sideways with the
bow. Wildly, for a moment, I conceived the idea that anyone, anywhere, could be
taught in ten seconds to play the cello as well as I was playing. Silly little
movements here, silly little movements there—presto, you’re a cellist!
It wasn’t
that I made it look easy—it was that it was easy. I could have been playing the
fastest movement, and still have given you directions to Plaza las Américas, our largest mall.
That was
part of the equation. And the second part? Well, I turned to a clip of the
Master himself—Casals—giving a master class to a young cellist at the
University of California, Berkeley. The cellist plays correctly, if somewhat
unimaginatively; Casals responds simply by playing the same passage as he would
play it.
Sadly,
however great he was as a cellist and as a musician—he was a bit lacking as a
teacher. Yes, any student can hear that his teacher plays better than he or she
does: he knows that, that’s not the point. The point is how to get to
the level of the Master.
The student
was playing the opening of the Brahms E
minor sonata—a wonderful, expansive, Brahmsian theme. I heard what Casals
was playing, and the difference between his rendition and the students: Casals
was being metrically precise, giving each note its proper length, and playing
strictly in time. In addition—ever so slightly—he was emphasizing the first and
third beats. The effect was to give the passage the feel of a dirge, of
something solemn and majestic that drove to a climax.
Casals
could play it; he couldn’t explain it. And as I saw myself yesterday, I
realized that I had taught myself what I believed about the suites. I had
thrown out most of what people had told me, I had played them in wildly
different ways in various tempi, and various styles. I had made them beautiful,
I had made them ugly; I played them as I might play Brahms, or as I imagined
Bach would want me to play them.
I stopped
caring, you see. There have been other cellists, who have played them better
than I. There will be other cellists, who will play—perhaps—them much better.
But you know what? I don’t care, nor do I need to. And in that space, that
freedom from the tyranny of teachers or the disapproval of audiences, I made my
peace with the suites.
“Oh, no;
oh, no!” cried Casals to the student. “Don’t separate the notes at all, don’t
separate them at all!”
I winced.
I grew up with
a lot of “don’t,” you see—with an occasional “do,” added for good measure.
I now live
in “try” and “maybe.”
