Robert Battey, Author at CelloBello

About Robert Battey

Robert Battey is a DC-area cellist, teacher, writer, and clinician.

His principal teachers were Bernard Greenhouse and Janos Starker, and he holds performance degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and S.U.N.Y.-Stony Brook. Bob’s career has included stints in professional string quartets and symphony orchestras, as well as many recitals and concerto appearances throughout North America, including several Bach Suite cycles in a single concert.

He has served on the faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, S.U.N.Y.-Potsdam, and the Levine School in Washington. He is Music Director of the Gettysburg Chamber Music Workshop and teaches at Cellospeak. He was also a founding faculty member of the Bach Cello Suites Workshop. He has contributed two Cellochats here.

Bob specializes in working with adult amateurs, and his widely-used text, “500 Sight-Reading Exercises For Cello” is dedicated to that demographic. He is currently preparing a wholly new edition of the Popper etudes.

A prolific writer, Bob’s articles and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, in STRINGS magazine, the arts blog “A Beast In A Jungle,” and in various ASTA newsletters.

A Biography of Gregor Piatigorsky (August, 2000)

by Robert Battey One of the pre-eminent string players of the 20th century, Gregor Piatigorsky was born in Ukraine in 1903, and died in Los Angeles in 1976. His international solo career lasted over 40 years, and especially during the 1940's and early 1950's he was the world's premier touring cello virtuoso -- Casals was in retirement, Feuermann had died, and the three artists who were to succeed Piatigorsky (Starker, Rose, and Rostropovich) were still in their formative stages. His one true peer, Fournier, was limited in his travelling abilities by polio. Thus, Piatigorsky had the limelight almost to himself. He was gregarious, loved to travel and perform anywhere, and he hobnobbed as easily with farmers in small towns as he did with Toscanini, Stravinsky, rubinstein, and Schoenberg. It [...]

By Robert Battey|2024-07-05T20:12:09-04:00March 16th, 2022|Categories: Historical, Biography, Internet Cello Society Archive|Tags: Biography, Carl Flesch, Gregor Piatigorsky, Vladimir Horowitz, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Robert Battey, Artur Rubinstein, Internet Cello Society, Don Quixote, ICS, USC|

A Biographical Sketch of David Popper

The following was written for inclusion in a new performing edition of the High School of Cello Playing that will be released soon. Robert Battey David Popper (1843-1913) It’s not commonly known that the composer of the famous Hungarian Rhapsody and cello professor at the storied Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest was actually Bohemian (Czech). David Popper was born in Prague to Jewish parents, his father a cantor at two large synagogues. Popper’s musical talent was evident from early childhood, first at the piano and then on the violin, which he studied from age 6 to 12 (this was not so unusual; others who began on the violin included Piatti, Servais, Becker, Casals, and Carter Brey). But at his audition for the Prague Conservatory, Popper was accepted with the curious [...]

By Robert Battey|2022-11-28T14:42:37-05:00January 20th, 2021|Categories: Biography, Artistic Vision, Performance, Repertoire|Tags: Franz Liszt, Etudes, Biography, Biographical Sketch, David Popper|

Why CelloBello Needs You Today — by Robert Battey

As a conservatory student back during the 1970’s, I devoured everything related to the cello, but always came to frustrating dead ends in my research. If you weren’t at a particular concert, you had missed it forever. If an out-of-print record or piece of music wasn’t in your school library, you were out of luck. If you couldn’t attend a masterclass, all you had were the varied memories of others. If you heard an exciting, brand-new piece on the radio and wanted to see the music, you could spend months trying to track it or the composer down. You maybe heard of some really hot talent at another school, but unless you traveled there and somehow heard him/her play, it was all just rumor. Your only peers were those in [...]

By Robert Battey|2018-12-19T18:19:39-05:00December 14th, 2017|Categories: Artistic Vision, Technology|

János Starker Remembrance Week: Reminiscences from the Starker Studio

Cello-playing aside, Starker’s intelligence, force of personality, and personal discipline were intimidating to most people, and downright frightening to students. Our culture generally allows our geniuses and high achievers to be self-indulgent and immature outside of their field of endeavor, but Starker lived out his ideals and principles at all times (that we could see). This discipline made him virtually bullet-proof as a cellist. During my two years in Bloomington, I carried a relatively light course load, as I wanted to observe as many lessons as possible. I was in MA 155 many mornings when he came in, looking tired and/or hungover, needing coffee, and not wanting to hear anything too loud. The student would play for awhile, and Starker would listen as long as he could before had to [...]

By Robert Battey|2017-10-30T05:01:19-04:00April 24th, 2015|Categories: Artistic Vision, Interpersonal Relationships, In the Practice Room, Janos Starker, Performance, Playing Healthy, Self Discovery, Teaching|Tags: Cello Blog, Janos Starker, Cello Legend, cellobello, Cello Master, Cello Pedagogue, Lesson with Janos Starker, Janos Starker Remembrance Week, Robert Battey, Cello teacher|

Phrasing and Meter — by Robert Battey

Today’s ruminations have to do with musical phrasing. As a music critic for the Washington Post, I'm regularly attending concerts of all kinds. That, plus a lot of chamber music coaching, leads me to ruminate on this subject often. The ability to produce clear phrasing is just as important as having good rhythm or intonation, but a lot of folks don’t do it well, or as well as they think. Remember, in grade school, when we had to take turns reading aloud from the book? And how some kids were flat, with little inflection and the same pause between every word, while with others it came out sounding like natural speech? To a certain extent it’s the same with music, sometimes even at the professional level. It’s often been remarked that the [...]

By Robert Battey|2018-09-13T03:22:28-04:00December 15th, 2013|Categories: Performance|Tags: Awareness, interpreter, recordings, youtube, Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio, intonation, interpretive decisions, studying, Brahms Double Concerto, musical phrasing, metrical organization, Feuermann, Capucon, phrasing, musical critic, Battey, complexity, conservatory, phrase lengths, robert, counting, powerful, resolution, dissonance, communication, score-study, accents, Bach, focused listening, alignment, stunning effect, Bach Cello Suites, vibrato, great artists, performer, stylistic conventions, slurs, cello, great composers, melody, text, Yo-Yo Ma, cellobello, intelligent artist, Rostropovich, Washington Post, bar lines|

Pezzo Capriccioso, Transitions, Alterations, and Rosin (Edited Version) — by Robert Battey

I am indebted to Aron Zelkowicz for correcting factual errors in the first version of this article, and to Peter Close for locating an on-line version of the original score. Today’s ruminations are on Tchaikovsky. And his congenital weakness regarding transitions. It’s kind of endearing, that such a genius would have this Achilles’ heel; for some reason, his muse regularly deserted him when he needed to stitch together two sections of music. It could be in a placid spot, such as the transition to the jerky second theme in the first movement of the Piano Concerto . . . or the connecting “music” preceding the waltz variation in the A minor Trio. It could also be in a transition meant to increase tension, like the second return to the [...]

By Robert Battey|2018-03-18T04:39:36-04:00September 8th, 2013|Categories: Repertoire|Tags: alterations, glissando, Rococo Variations, Piatigorsky, gummed-up fingers, options, sections, compositions, increased tension, melody, show piece, transitions, Leopold Auer, Rostropovich, sticky problem with shifting, rosin, lyrical, recordings, Tchaikovsky, sections of music, master, composer, trill, Achilles’ heel, modern artists, effects, charming, musical transitions, Battey, difficulty, opening material, robert, experimenting with rosin, creativity, Pezzo Capriccioso, virtuoso, flawed works, cello, repeated notes|

Bach Suites and You – by Robert Battey

“In a work of art the intellect asks questions; it does not answer them” -Friedrich Hebbel Few tasks are more daunting than attempting to discern and convey J.S. Bach’s precise intentions for his Cello Suites. Just playing them is hard enough, but a true and meaningful interpretation of the Suites requires an entirely different heuristic model than that of our other repertoire. This is because the autograph of the Suites has been lost, and we are left only with several flawed and inconsistent copies. Since there is no original source, everything, from notes to rhythms to phrasings, must be questioned. With many pieces, one can rely on the fidelity and accuracy of a high-quality edition, prepared either from autographs or composer-supervised prints. There, you have the simple choice of either [...]

By Robert Battey|2021-07-26T15:08:34-04:00January 16th, 2013|Categories: Artistic Vision, In the Practice Room, Performance, Repertoire, Self Discovery|Tags: recordings, meaningful interpretations, autograph, response, phrasing, genius, complexities, monochromatic, Pablo Casals, Bach Cello Suites, sloppy, challenges, historical, Battey, normal teaching model, Bach, Bach's original intentions, slurs, repertoire, inconsistent copies, robert, painting, Teaching, Bach’s precise intentions, study, colors, instrument control, Editions, parameters, Janos Starker, Barenreiter, text booklet, interpretive creativity, experimentation, paris, Rhythm, careless, textual, personality, interpretive ideas, accuracy, personal research, cello, conclusions, The Fencing Master, judgment, ambiguity, Pierre Fournier, cellobello, curiosity, transcribing, Instruments, liberation, Anna Magdalena, printing, Bach Suites, dilemma, uncertainties, virtuosity, lute, Anner Bylsma, publications, editors, enjoyment, lute arrangement, artistic, rainbows, flawed|

The View from Both Sides — by Robert Battey

Critic. n.: one who walks out onto the field after a battle to shoot the wounded. As a still-occasionally-performing cellist as well as a regular music critic for the Washington Post and STRINGS magazine, I feel exquisitely the sentiment expressed by the wag above. There are few things more discouraging than to give a concert of which one is proud, only to later read that you “had an off night, with wayward intonation and a pinched sound.” On the other side, to judge from the press quotes sprinkled in concert flyers and musicians’ bios, one might think that everyone is incredible. In such a subjective realm as the performing arts, these anomalies and injustices will always be with us. No two people hear the same thing at a [...]

By Robert Battey|2021-03-08T16:24:07-05:00January 7th, 2013|Categories: Artistic Vision, Beyond the Traditional, Performance|Tags: traveling, critic, commitment, Strings Magazine, problems, patience, Philosophy, expertise, Heifetz, Battey, Beethoven, robert|

A New Look at Sight-Reading (Part 3) — by Robert Battey

Successful sight-readers move deftly around within a rigid hierarchy of tasks (“the Levels”). They’re like fencers, thinking ahead, anticipating the threats and challenges in the music, and adapting what they do on a measure-by-measure basis. They keep to the hierarchy, adding the next Level only when the lower ones are completely under control; experienced players do not jeopardize the ensemble by fumbling at a Level they can’t handle properly. Thus, effective sight-reading training is about understanding these Levels to the point where you can apply and adjust them instinctively, automatically. As I’ve said, it’s a different kind of thinking, almost like playing a different instrument. For most people, the most difficult concept to wrap your head around is that finding the actual pitches comes last. Simply chasing notes will quickly [...]

By Robert Battey|2017-10-24T03:47:44-04:00February 3rd, 2012|Categories: In the Practice Room, Self Discovery, Teaching|Tags: perfection, cellobello, Coordination, music, Listening, Development, harmony, success, Janos, Technique, Starker, Battey, character, sight-reading, ensemble, Accomplishment, Rhythm, dynamics, Effective, cello|

A New Look at Sight-Reading (Part 2) — by Robert Battey

"I can play something ok if I have some time to practice it, but I can't sight-read to save my life." How many times have we heard this lament or some variant, particularly among adult amateurs? It does express a common deficiency. Sight-reading is a specialized skill, which must be acquired separately and in addition to one’s general technical work, so it’s quite common for a competent player to be a weak sight-reader. The term “sight-reading” is a poor one since it’s both obvious (how else will you read music if not by sight?) and inaccurate (“sight-playing” is a little closer, though not by much). It’s been used to mean several different things, but the meaning we’re concerned with here, and the only context in which the skill level really [...]

By Robert Battey|2017-10-24T03:29:53-04:00January 1st, 2012|Categories: In the Practice Room, Self Discovery|Tags: Technique, ensemble, chamber music, Observation, Rhythm, ability, cello, Battey, cellobello, robert, Practice, sight-reading, virtuoso, success|

A New Look at Sight-Reading (Part 1) — by Robert Battey

As a teacher who specializes in adult amateurs, and who coaches at chamber music workshops catering to the amateur demographic, I have been struck by the differences of approach between these players and the “serious” conservatory students. By definition, “amateurs” are those who pursue the art form simply because they love it, and without the goal of becoming a professional. Conservatory students pursue the goal of professionalism even when, in a few cases, they don’t actually love the art form that much. But inherent in that pursuit are the thousands of hours slaving away on exercises, scales and etudes, always with an eye on the competition lurking in the next practice room or the impending juries. Amateurs “just want to play.” They have no illusions about ever sounding like the [...]

By Robert Battey|2022-09-19T13:46:18-04:00December 1st, 2011|Categories: In the Practice Room, Self Discovery, Teaching|Tags: music-making, Technique, robert, sight-reading, Teaching, conservatory, workshops, cello, ensemble, cellobello, frustration, music, Development, students, chamber music, goals, coaching, Battey, discipline, art|