SOUNDPOST

LETTER of the MONTH

CHRIS LEE

CAMERA READY

‘The first time you hear someone tell you they love you is the most beautiful. How would it be if you had a recording of it on your phone? Would you listen to it every day? It just wouldn’t be the same.’ Th is is how Anne-Sophie Mutter explained her decision to pause a recent performance in Cincinnati to ask an audience member to stop filming it on their cellphone. ‘I found it extremely disrespectful to the orchestra, the conductor and to myself,’ she continued.

‘The concert hall is the last place – except perhaps for in church – where we can let things soak in without experiencing them through a machine. Nothing is as beautiful as your memory. No recording in the world can reproduce it – and why do you want it to?’

I quote Ms Mutter at length because I could not have put her point better myself. The person making the recording must of course have been enjoying the performance and probably did not realise how off -putting her actions were.

However, it is not the responsibility of performers to make allowances for behaviour that detracts from their art. The only thing I would add to Ms Mutter’s eloquent comments is that such behaviour also shows a disrespect for the rest of the audience, who were there to experience the music without the glare of someone’s smartphone getting in the way.

Th at said, I’m not sure I can really blame the would-be videographer. In an age when social media is brimming over with photos and videos of the most tedious and banal subjects imaginable, the urge to post a video of a performer of Ms Mutter’s calibre instead must have been irresistible.

ANGELA CLARK

Baltimore, MD, US

ANOTHER STRING TO ITS BOW

Reading the article on the treasures of the Chimei Museum collection (‘The Jewel of Taiwan’, September 2019) took me back to my own visit to the institution four years ago. While it was nice to see the Andrea Amatis, Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ and so on, I couldn’t help thinking that The Strad had missed a trick in not also highlighting the Foundation’s magnificent bow collection at the same time. At the time of my visit I learnt it encompassed 743 bows by 344 archetiers. Among my favourite discoveries were a Vuillaume steelcomposite bow with a revolutionary ‘self-rehairing’ mechanism, and the actual performing bow used by Fritz Kreisler. It would be wonderful if The Strad could revisit this magnificent collection in the future with a view to bringing out the best in the bow world.

MARK RUSSELL

Bexleyheath, Kent, UK

DUTY OF CARE

I was shocked to read the findings of the Musicians’ Union’s recent survey of members, which found that almost half had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and – possibly more worrying – that 41 per cent feared that reporting the incident would result in their losing work. My daughter is about to start a degree course at one of the leading conservatoires and although we’ve discussed at length what she should do if she finds herself in a difficult position during the next four years, there’s no telling what’s in store for her beyond that time.

Isn’t it high time the 2010 Equality Act was updated to extend the protections relating to discrimination and harassment to freelancers, as opposed to just those in fixed employment positions.

ELAINE JONES

Swanage, Dorset, UK

PICTURE IMPERFECT?

And so, another Stradivari portrait rears its head in Cremona (‘Is this a true portrait of Stradivarius’, bit.ly/2W8nxSb). Never mind that it bears little resemblance to the other alleged portraits of Antonio, nor that the artist seems to have even misspelt the poor man’s name ‘Stadivarius’ – isn’t it a bit of a problem that there exists no known description of what he actually looked like?

JAMES HAKHNAZARYAN

Sacramento, CA, US

Elena Cherkashyna

FACEBOOK COMMENT

The ‘ultimate heresy’? Visitors to The Strad’s Facebook page were not exactly united on whether violists should practise the violin too

bit.ly/2W5gyJw

KATIE CALLAGHAN I’ve been playing both pretty much equally for 40 years. I teach both as well. I would say it’s about 90 per cent overlap regarding technique. The violin definitely helps me play viola better. I’m a lot more comfortable in fifth position and higher because of the amount of work I’ve done on first violin parts. I play cello a little bit too. I have borrowed some cello fingerings for viola from time to time. Playing cello also helped me figure out how to play tenor clef on violin. Never resist the opportunity to broaden your learning experiences.

ALBERT BAULIES PEREZ They are practically the same instrument. Think of Ysaoo was also a brilliant violist, or Antoine Tamestit, who started his career on the violin.

SIOBHAN O’QUINN The two instruments have nothing in common. But sure, practise both.

THEODORE DELIYANNIS Given that everyone hates violas anyway, why don’t we replace them with third violins instead?

ANNE DALES If someone had put the alto clef one line lower there would be a lot more violinists who played viola too.

Svetlana Tsivins kaya A violinist must master the viola to obtain the horizons and depth that the latter instrument opens and gives.

PHILIP KHALID If you haven’t practised the violin for some time and you want to get better quickly, practise on a viola!

Editorial notes

Apologies to French luthier Roland House whose name was misspelt on page 61 of The Strad ‘s October issue.

In Mozart’s Don Giovanni the Commendatore is in fact Donna Anna’s father, whom the title character has murdered – not, as stated in last month’s Sentimental Work, of Don Giovanni himself.