From Improvising in Caves to Spoken in Waves
Spoken in Waves is a new piece for cello and string quartet by Chris Beroes-Haigis, commissioned by cellist Cicely Parnas. The video performance was premiered in December of 2023. In this blog post, Cicely and Chris tell us a bit about the backstory of the piece, the journey to recording the piece, what it's like to perform the piece and more. The video performance can be found below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML40XGq2qI4 In 2019, I was on tour with my cello rock band and found myself in El Paso, TX, the city where my good friend Chris Beroes-Haigis lived. We had met two years earlier as fellows at the Sitka International Cello Seminar in Alaska, and I remember I was struck both by Chris’s beautiful music-making on the cello, and that [...]
A Brief History and Analysis of Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo
Introduction At the tender age of ten, Ernest Bloch wrote a vow that he would become a composer. He then built a mound of stones in the shape of an altar and burned the paper over the stones in ritual fashion. Before age 15, he made good on his vow, having composed both a string quartet and an Oriental Symphony. However, it was with the composition of his epic Schelomo: Rhapsody for Violoncello and Large Orchestra, that he proved to the world that he had indeed become a composer of world class ability. After a performance in November of 1923, the San Francisco Chronicle review affirmed the accomplishment, reporting: "Schelomo is a magnificent work by one of the greatest living composers. Splendid as it is in brilliant coloration, it is not in the vivid pictures that [...]
Expanding the Cello Repertoire to Include Women Composers
Several years back I discovered a recording of a beautiful concerto written by the French pianist and composer, Marie Jäell. I immediately fell in love with it’s infectious melodies and knew I wanted to be able to play the piece. I discovered it was unpublished but the manuscripts were housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg. A friend helped me obtain them so that I could prepare a score for cello and piano. The Jäell concerto is the first known cello concerto written by a woman. Marie Jäell wrote the concerto in 1882 and dedicated the concerto to the cellist Jules Desart who performed the premier. One may assume that he helped her understand cello technique as the work is in a very comfortable key for cello [...]
Opening Paths: Mexican Composer Ricardo Castro and Latin America’s First Cello Concerto (Part 3)
Español Editions Ricardo Castro’s cello concerto has been edited twice. The first edition was authored by Jorge Alejandro Mendoza Rojas as a part of his unpublished Doctoral Thesis at The University of Texas Austin: “The cello concerto by Mexican composer Ricardo Castro (1864-1607): A performance edition for cello and piano” (1994). The dissertation itself provides a through survey of information regarding Castro, including his life, composing style and other aspects that are relevant to anyone willing to understand the concerto from a wider perspective. Mendoza Rojas’ edition includes a fully edited cello part as well as a piano reduction. The second edition was sponsored by the Sphinx Organization and has been recently prepared by Strings of Latin America (2021). It includes a piano reduction, [...]
Opening Paths: Mexican Composer Ricardo Castro and Latin America’s First Cello Concerto (Part 2)
Español The Cello Concerto It is a mystery how Castro, who apart from being a composer was also a pianist of extraordinary ability, embarked on the composition of a cello concerto, the first written in Latin America. Although there had been associations between cellists and composers in important 19th century works for the instrument (e.g. Beethoven-Duport, Brahms-Hausmann, Chopin-Franchomme, Tchaikovsky-Fitzenhagen amongst others), Castro had no known personal association with any particular cellist who might have ignited his creative inspiration. Nevertheless, it is known that Castro was familiar with the work of the famous Russian virtuoso Karl Davydov (1838-1889), as he made and conducted an arrangement for cello and orchestra of a Lied composed by the Russian cellist. There are also documents in which Castro expresses [...]
Opening Paths: Mexican Composer Ricardo Castro and Latin America’s First Cello Concerto (Part 1)
Español All cellists know that our instrument’s sound is beautiful, but it also claims its own time from the moment our bow reaches the string until we get that characteristic warm, generous ring from our strings. It also took time, probably more than a hundred years, from the composition of the very first known Latin American piece that uses the cello -"Quatro Tractos para Sabbado da Semana Santa” by Brazilian composer José Joaquim Emérico Lobo de Mesquita, composed in 1783- to the composition of Ricardo Castro’s concerto -somewhere between the last two decades of the nineteenth century and its premiere in April of 1903. Through this series of posts, we are hoping to build a narrative that gives some context to Castro’s cello concerto, [...]
Cello Concerto Overview: The Should Haves (Part II)
Reprinted with permission from Interlude. Rostropovich Here are six more cello concertos a cellist should have in their repertoire. Robert Schumann studied the cello as a youngster and although he was unable to continue due to an injury to his right hand he developed a deep affinity to the instrument. Schumann’s Cello Concerto departs from traditional structure. Initially intended as a “Conzertstück”, each of the three movements meld seamlessly into the next. Perhaps the structure is due to Schumann’s aversion to interruptions from the audience. In any case the work breaks with tradition. Written late in his life, it is deeply lyrical, almost enigmatic and mystical in its sparse use of thematic material, which returns throughout the piece. It is best regarded as a one large-movement work. Two unusual features [...]
Cello Concerto Overview: The Should Haves (Part I)
Reprinted with permission from Interlude. Concert Favorites: Cello Concertos That You Should Learn Wilhelm Fitzenhagen My teacher János Starker used to say that cellist soloists have to be ready to play a greater number of concertos than our more brilliant sister, the violinist, who can play an entire season with four or perhaps five concerti under their fingers—think Brahms, Mendelsohn, Barber, and Sibelius; or Bruch, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Bartók. Likewise, audience members are thrilled to hear a pianist perform the masterworks of Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Mozart, and either of the Prokofiev’s; or, Grieg, Schumann, Shostakovich, Bartók and either of the Ravels. Cellists, though, have the disadvantage of fewer pieces written for their instrument and not all of them are considered the quality of the concertos named above. Some are neglected or obscure [...]
Baroque Dance and the Bach Cello Suites (November, 2002)
by Tim Janof A statement made by Nathaniel Rosen about the Bach Cello Suites has been bugging me for years: "People often talk about the notion that these pieces are dance movements. They're not dance movements! They are works for unaccompanied cello which have, with the exception of the Preludes, titles of dance movements." 1 Having never seen a Baroque dance, how could I know if this statement is correct? I've read a couple of books on Baroque dance, but, like learning to play the cello, a one can't get an intuitive sense of such a kinesthetic subject from a book. As luck would have it, I recently discovered that Anna Mansbridge, a Baroque dance specialist, had moved to my hometown, Seattle. She hails from the United Kingdom, where she [...]
A Profile of Robert LaMarchina (January, 2004)
by Tim Janof Though relatively few may know of him today, Robert LaMarchina was one of the most brilliant cellists of the 20th Century. A child prodigy, he was the toast of the music world and was showered with praise from some of the most celebrated musicians of his time. Gaspar Cassadó said that LaMarchina was "the most outstanding talent I have seen." Maurice Maréchal said "There is no doubt of it, the boy is unusually gifted." Toscanini referred to him as "my little angel." Had he not gone into conducting and had some self-sabotaging tendencies from a career standpoint, there is little doubt that he would have been a household name for cellists around the world. LaMarchina was born in New York City on September 3, 1928. His parents [...]
Conversation with Thomas Demenga (May, 2007)
Interview by Tim Janof Thomas Demenga, born 1954 in Berne, Switzerland, studied with Walter Grimmer, Antonio Janigro, Leonard Rose and Mstislav Rostropovich, among others. Important chamber-musical influences were Claus Adam, Felix Galimir, and Robert Mann at the Juilliard School in New York As an internationally renowned soloist, composer and teacher, Thomas Demenga counts among the most outstanding cellists and musicians of our time. He has performed at important festivals and musical centers around the globe and shared the stage with fellow musicians such as Heinz Holliger, Gidon Kremer, Thomas Larcher, Paul Meyer, Aurèle Nicolet, Hansheinz Schneeberger, Thomas Zehetmair, and Tabea Zimmermann. He has worked with conductors such as Moshe Atzmon, Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Claus Peter Flor, Howard Griffiths, Heinz Holliger, Armon Jordan, Okko Kamu, Mstislav Rostropovich, Dennis Russell Davies, [...]
Conversation with Mischa Maisky (May, 2007)
by Tim Janof Mischa Maisky has the distinction of being the only cellist in the world to have studied with both Mstislav Rostropovich and Gregor Piatigorsky. Rostropovich has lauded Mischa Maisky as "... one of the most outstanding talents of the younger generation of cellists. His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with great temperament and brilliant technique." Born in Latvia, educated in Russia, after his repatriation to Israel, Mischa Maisky has been enthusiastically received in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Tokyo, along with the rest of the major music centers. He considers himself as a citizen of the world: "I'm playing an Italian cello, with French bows, Austrian and German strings, my daughter was born in Paris, my older son in Brussels and my younger one in [...]
Conversation with Olga Rostropovich (May, 2003)
by Tim Janof This brief interview is with Mstislav Rostropovich's daughter, Olga, who attended the 2003 National Cello Congress in Tempe, Arizona. TJ: Do you still play the cello? OR: Not anymore. TJ: Did you quit because of the pressure of being the daughter of Mstislav Rostropovich? OR: Of course, I felt the pressure of being his daughter, but I dealt with it. I mostly quit playing because I got married and had children, and I knew that I couldn't be both a performing cellist and a good wife and mother. Somehow my mother, Galina Vishnevskaya, was able to do both. She was a prima donna at the Bolshoi Theatre Opera, the wife of a very successful man, and the mother of his children. I don't know how she did [...]
Leonard Rose Remembered (January, 2004)
by Tim Janof Leonard Rose was one of the greatest cellists of all time. Many of the recordings he made in the prime of his career continue to be viewed as the ultimate model of gorgeous cello playing. His greatest recordings have a timeless, unmannered quality that sound as fresh today as they did when they were first released. He also had tremendous success as a teacher. His former students are now leading cellists around the world, and include principal and section cellists in professional orchestras, highly regarded pedagogues, and revered soloists. Leonard Rose was a cellist's cellist, who excelled in every aspect of cello playing -- teacher, soloist, orchestral cellist, and chamber musician. While researching for this article, I had the tremendous fortune of finding Barbara Rose-Schirota, who is [...]
A Survey of Bach Suite Editions (1995)
I recently read that there are over 80 editions of Bach's cello suites in existence with publication dates ranging from 1825 to the present. When reading this, my initial reaction was one of incredulity; what significantly different information could the 80th edition, for instance, have to offer over the previous 79 editions? Fortunately, I didn't stop there. I realized that this could be viewed as a great tribute to Bach and a testimonial to the beauty of his cello suites. So I decided to investigate some of these editions and get a glimpse at the insights of each player. The Bach Suites have always been a point of contention in the cello world. Unlike violinists and their solo violin works, we do not have a manuscript copy of Bach's cello [...]