A LESSON IN PERFORMING SHORT PIECES

Cellist Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt gives advice on how to present Fauré’s Élégie, Elgar’s Salut d’amour, and Saint-Saëns’s ‘The Swan’ with colour, contrast and expression

Fauré Élégie op.24 for Violoncello and Piano. Ed. Jean-Christophe Monnier. Pf fingering Pascal Rogé. Vc fingering and bowing David Geringas. Order no.HN563, ISMN 979-0-2018-0563-4. €8.50.

Elgar Salut d’amour op.12 for Violin and Piano. Ed., and vn fingering and bowing, Rupert Marshall-Luck. Pf fingering Rolf Koenen. Order no.HN1188, ISMN 979-0-2018-1188-8. €8.50.

Saint-Saëns ‘The Swan’ from The Carnival of the Animals. Ed. Frank Buchstein. Vc fingering and bowing David Geringas. Order no.HN943, ISMN 979-0-2018-0943-4. €8.50. All urtext edition, paperbound with marked and unmarked string parts, printed with permission of G. Henle Verlag, Munich © 2013, 2014, 2009

Playing short pieces is a completely different art from playing sonatas or concertos. In a short piece, you have to tell a story and develop a character within just a few minutes. My teacher Aldo Parisot used to compare this to painting in watercolour: with acrylic or oil, you can correct your mistakes, but with watercolour you have only one chance to find the correct mixture of colour, water and brush speed. It is the same on the cello: you need to know how fast to vibrate, what speed of bow to use, and where to bow on the string, to create each colour, emotion and character.

To be able to do this spontaneously on stage takes preparation, so practise how to create different emotions on your instrument for 15–30 minutes a day, as part of your warm-up. To begin, find techniques that help you to evoke simple emotions such as ‘happy’ and ‘sad’, then divide those up into desire, love, hope, excitement, hopelessness, depression, pain and so on. The flexibility and life in your sound come from the bow, so practise without vibrato to begin with, to find a free, resonant sound at different speeds and contact points, then add vibrato to enhance each effect. In general, a faster vibrato and bow speed, towards the fingerboard, will give an airier, more intimate sound; a slower vibrato and bow speed, closer to the bridge, will be warmer and richer. For body and depth, sink the bow into the string, and move closer to the bridge for brightness. Experiment with vibrato amplitude, to change from warm and relaxed to emotionally intense. Find out how to create every colour and emotion that you want to portray, and how to move quickly between them.

Fauré’s Élégie: creating contrast

To me, interpreting a short piece is like living a life: you reach a certain point in the journey, you make a decision, and when you return to a similar situation later on, your approach is influenced by your previous experience. It is the same in Fauré’s Élégie: from bar 2, the main theme is in forte, but it returns in pianissimo from bar 6, in ppp from bar 18, and in fortissimo from bar 39. Each time it has its own character, as you return to it with a new level of experience and more care, hesitance or confidence.

THE SOLOIST

• NAME WOLFGANG EMANUEL SCHMIDT

• NATIONALITY GERMAN

• STUDIED WITH DAVID GERINGAS, ALDO PARISOT, MSTISLAV ROSTROPOVICH

• RECORDS FOR SONY CLASSICAL

‘By learning to create different colours and emotions on demand, you will build confidence, mastery and control’

SIMON PAULY

Schmidt’s CDs Very British, featuring Elgar’s Salut d’amour (bit.ly/3DLJ3R8) and French Impressions, with ‘The Swan’ (bit.ly/30BIpaK) are available on Sony

‘Each time the theme returns, it comes with new life and expression’

Have a clear intention of the emotion you would like to show each time the theme returns. To me the forte from bar 2 is grand, intense and singing, on the A string and towards the bridge. The D-string pianissimo from bar 6 is expressive and warm, midway between the bridge and the fingerboard, with a slow vibrato.

That character becomes suddenly more talkative in bars 10–12, with the accents, hairpins and crescendo, and here I use less bow but more vibrato. I really separate the repeated notes in bars 10–15 and give more each time, for a feeling of constant development. Bar 16 is agitated, stubborn and speech-like, with small diminuendo breaths between each pair of quavers (e).

For the ppp return of the theme in bar 18, it is challenging to create a real contrast with bar 6. This time the material is intimate and delicate, like a sweet memory tinged with darkness, so I use lots of bow, with a faster vibrato. For the new phrase from bars 23–30, I try to find the miracle in the accompanying harmonies, and to shape them to support the melody. The chromatic notes in bar 29 are so rich and full of suffering, and then the passage from bar 30 is like a fluttering butterfly, sometimes hovering, sometimes moving forward. The music is light and chromatic, filled with sunshine and a fresh spring breeze. I play this with a faster vibrato and bow, with agogic and dynamic flexibility.

Suddenly, from bar 32, a storm starts to build. I come down before the crescendo, then let my sound grow as dark clouds form and tree branches start to swing, with heavy rain, thunder and lightning. The ocean waves crash down from bar 35, and suddenly, in bar 39, the theme returns, fortissimo and an octave higher. Pull the bow, without pressing, for a full and resonant sound, and be careful not to lose control. This can be heroic and intense, as though a whale has jumped out of the ocean and landed with a big splash, or majestic rays of light have broken through the clouds! I find these types of images help me in my search for colours and emotions.

After this outburst, bar 47 brings a nostalgia for bar 30, with chromaticism and a sense of sadness. This repetitive passage needs variety, so take time to focus on the B natural in bar 48, then move ahead in bar 49, but bring out the B flat in the last triplet. In bar 50 you could emphasise the triplet before the B natural. It’s as though you are saying the same sentence again and again, but with a different emphasis to give it new meaning.

Elgar’s Salut d’amour

This piece is joyful, but also nostalgic, and very different from the mournful Élégie. It is about the crazy, spontaneous things you do when you’re in love, with a sweet, delicate beginning, and moments of passion and drama, for example leading into bar 29. In bar 32, time stands still before the original theme returns in bar 41. Create a new setting for every phrase: bring out different notes for a new agogic, or try a new colour. Each time the theme returns, it comes with new life and expression, so play flexibly and with fast-changing colours.

I prefer to play the violin version of this piece, an octave lower than the original. This starts in E major, a note higher than the cello, and to me it feels ‘shinier’ and more delighted. It also interacts more with the piano, as from bars 33 and 77.

Saint-Saëns’s ‘The Swan’

Now imagine a swan gliding across water, with nobility, elegance and pride, and try to focus on that big picture rather than on individual emotions. Pay attention to the little details. For example, bar 3 has a rest, but bar 7 does not. To bring out this transformation of two two-bar phrases into a more intense four-bar phrase, find a different vibrato for the A in bar 4 and the A sharp in bar 7, and release away through bars 3–4, then phrase towards the A sharp in bar 7. The shift in bar 5 can be relaxed, with a diminuendo, and in bar 9 it can be expressive, with a crescendo to add tension. The sequence in bars 10 and 12 should sound different each time, too, in dynamic and colour. The first one could be full and rich, and the second quieter and more hesitant, with a faster vibrato and bow speed, and an airy, dreamy sweetness.

The minor material from bars 14–15 repeats in the major in bars 16–17. I like to diminuendo towards that C sharp, with a fast vibrato and a sweet sound that grows towards the F. I then lighten the F sharp, to move into the bar 18 memory of the theme. The sound here can be airy and bright, with a faster vibrato in dolcissimo, leaving room to crescendo into bar 22. Here you can slow the vibrato and sink the bow into the string. Every shape and colour should contribute to one majestic, eternal image of a swan passing by on a lake.

Colour and spontaneity on stage

To check that you really are using different expressive tools when you play these pieces, record yourself. Are you really playing with a faster vibrato and more bow, closer to the fingerboard? Do your bow and vibrato slow down when you mean them to? Has the amplitude of the vibrato changed as much as you had thought? In performance you will have to exaggerate everything, like an actor who has to over pronounce every syllable on stage so that it is understood in the hall.

For inspiration, I recommend listening to recordings by great violinists including Heifetz, Kreisler and Aaron Rosand, to hear how they approach slides, dynamics, vibratos and fingerings to bring out their own beautiful, unique characters.

I also recommend practising the beginning of any short piece in five different characters, to give yourself the flexibility to adjust your interpretation on stage. By learning to create different colours and emotions on demand, you will build confidence, mastery and control, so that you can decide on stage which colours and emotions you want to portray. There is always the a risk that you’ll make a ‘wrong decision’, but it is worth it, because it is that spontaneity that makes a performance magical, unique and alive.

INTERVIEW BY PAULINE HARDING

Élégie

à Monsieur Jules Loëb Komponiert 1880 . Erschienen 1883

Violoncello