BOOKS

I Am Cellist

Dave Loew

280PP ISBN 9781922527257

GREEN HILL PUBLISHING £16.99

Dave Loew may well be the world’s most popular cellist. He has sold thousands of albums ranging from Bach through pop songs, show tunes and film melodies to operatic arias. Yet for all his success he has been dogged by depression, about which he is very honest.

Born in Kenya in 1949, Loew started the cello at six and used to play it outdoors, where among his audience were his Ridgeback dog and Simba, an ageing lame lion. Show business ran in the family. His father Jack Filmer, a bandleader and double bassist, and his mother Maria, a former dancer, kept a hotel and diversified into chicken farming.

His first teacher was a Hungarian refugee from the Holocaust – which had swallowed up some of Loew’s family – and amazingly he had a lesson from Raya Garbousova, who was holidaying in Kenya. It was the 1950s, the time of the Mau Mau uprising, and apart from the fear engendered among the white community, young Dave suffered from being bullied at boarding school.

In 1966 the family emigrated to Australia, where the well-known John Painter totally overhauled Loew’s technique – so well that he became principal in the Australian Youth Orchestra. Another influence was violist Robert Pikler, who played with Painter in the Sydney String Quartet. In the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Loew (using his mother’s family name) had his first experience of how one misfit can make life miserable for a newcomer, but in the Melbourne Symphony he was happier.

Finally, after several abortive British expeditions including a teenage spell at school, Loew made it to London in 1977 and became part of the then flourishing freelance scene, playing especially with the LSO. His experiences of recording gigs run by the ‘mafia’ of senior players and fixers, chief among them Sidney Sax, range from humour to horror. He writes warmly about his studies with Christopher Bunting.

Back in Australia, he made his first solo album, Debut, founded his National Arts Orchestra and after many adventures, including another spell in Britain, broke through with his recordings and his own label. He goes into some detail about his love life, including a disastrous marriage, but in fact the chapter ‘My Five Mistresses’ is about his cellos: having played a Vincenzo Sannino instrument, nicknamed Gladys, for years, he now has a modern cello made for him by Kai-Thomas Roth.

Cellist Dave Loew

The writing style is cliché-ridden and the book’s organisation, or lack of it, is a little confusing. Errors such as ‘Andre Navarre’ and ‘Harry Bletch’ would have been spotted by a good proofreader. But Loew does have a tale to tell, his success despite bouts of bipolar disorder may encourage some colleagues, and there is much to enjoy, not least the many photos.

TULLY POTTER

The Double Bass Book Jonas Lohse

240PP ISBN 9783982260211 LOHSE VERLAG €39

Jonas Lohse, the bassist and bass maker from Frankfurt, brings his 30 years of experience around basses into this neat and captivating book, which has just been made available in an English edition. It is a charming cornucopia of fascinating gems from the world of low notes.

The first few pages of the book display a very interesting timeline charting musical styles from the Renaissance to jazz, interspersed with relevant facts about composers, makers, design and technology developments up to the invention of the first electric upright bass by Rickenbacker in 1936. We’re taken on a fascinating journey incorporating the history of the double bass, the craft of making the instrument, important bassists, the role of the bass in jazz, amplification, set-up and optimisation, through to practical advice on choosing a double bass.

As an instrument maker myself I have always looked upon the bass world as some strange hinterland, and it’s true to say the array of different models and tunings is at first quite baffling. But Lohse explains all the different concepts, giving interesting explanations where he can. I can’t think of any other instrument that has been subjected to so much experimentation of form, construction and variety of materials as the bass. This makes a refreshing change, coming from the conservative land of violins.

The history of instrument making in Germany is well described: in the second half of the 18th century a number of dealers such as Neener and Hornsteiner specialised in the distribution of instruments from various makers, selling them all over the world. This business model developed and soon makers were specialising in particular areas such as neck making, scroll cutting or rib construction and selling these to the wholesalers who would dictate prices. This manner of working only died out completely in recent years. It was also fascinating to see a copy-milling machine (think early CNC) being used in Schönbach for the carving of bass backs in the first quarter of the 19th century. Indeed, the book is full of fascinating imagery: of instruments, engravings, what looks like a photo of Dragonetti, excerpts from advertising materials, and manufacturers’ trade catalogues, including photos of historic German workshops. It’s a feast for the eyes.

This book crams so much into its 240 pages I simply can’t do it justice. We can be thankful that lockdown gave translator Martin Wind the time to bring us this English edition. Bravo Martin, and well done to Jonas Lohse for shining such a glowing light on 400 years of the bass.

PHILIP BROWN

Exercises and Scales for Violin Positions: Handbook for Violin Lessons Ines Ana Tomić

53PP ISBN 9798711917809

STUDIO PIZZICATO £11.94

Allow me to introduce you to my new favourite shifting and position-work book. Ines Ana Tomić’s publication is a calm and extremely methodical approach to learning to shift to different positions and play in them.

The book begins with preparatory exercises credited to Paul Rolland, all intended to promote freedom of the left hand in preparation for beginning to shift. After this, each chapter introduces a new position, working systematically from second through to seventh. (If you prefer to present third position first, you could always just skip ahead to that chapter.)

Each position is dealt with in the same way – first, a photograph illustrating the physical placement of the hand on the string, then a quick exercise to get you there from first position, followed by a four-bar finger exercise on each string in the new position. After the position has been established, then comes the serious work of the shifting exercises. These are consistent throughout the book, so that by the time the student is introduced to the higher positions, they are already familiar with the format, which makes the upper positions feel like a natural next step, rather than something scary and unknown.

The book feels considered and friendly from the moment you open it – first, it is a lovely size (smaller than an average book of sheet music), there is plenty of white space, and the font size of the music is huge, without looking babyish. The exercises are short and there is a sense of orderly progression. There are also very few words throughout, and nothing superfluous is included, including three-octave scales. It seems almost churlish to point out the few small typos as they don’t detract from the content. The one thing that perhaps could have been included is a more formal presentation of the use of different finger spacings within each position. This is something that would of course be addressed within the context of a lesson, but it might have been helpful to have featured an explanation or diagram for students using the book at home with non-string playing parents. As a general point, the absence of much in the way of written instructions makes this a book to be used and talked about in lessons, rather than as a supplementary volume for independent learning by students.

I would suggest that this is a book to give to a student who is ready to start learning to shift and play in new positions, and who might enjoy the challenge of a ‘grown-up’ and methodical approach to position work. It is a book that pupils will return to as they develop their playing, and although its rather serious approach may not appeal to all students, I think that for many, the repetition and inevitable sense of progress will feel comfortable and unthreatening, and should produce good and, dare I say it, quick results. I will be using it on a regular basis in my teaching.

CELIA COBB