UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE PAST

Did the great string players of old know something that we didn’t? Some of today’s virtuosos reveal to Charlotte Gardner the various technical and musical tools of the trade that are in danger of being lost in the current pursuit of perfection

Josef Gingold (left) teaching a class, which included a young Joshua Bell (fourth from left), at Indiana University

Picture this. You’re about to make a shift down from a higher note on one bow stroke to a lower note on a new bow stroke. However, rather than making the shift and bow change simultaneously, you first make the shift, and only upon arrival change your bow.

This is the ‘Menuhin slide’, so called because Yehudi Menuhin was the violinist who regularly used it, and it’s one of a number of colouristic tricks that violinist Guy Braunstein has noticed aren’t so commonly heard these days. ‘It’s simple, but very difficult to do convincingly,’ he tells me. ‘Singers do it all the time – sliding from one note to the next, and starting the next consonant only after arrival – and if you listen to the singers and violinists of 80 years ago, the similarity between the two is much greater than in our era.’

That today’s players sound different from those of the past is indisputable. As for whether this matters, Braunstein himself is clear. ‘Musical interpretation is 50 per cent essence and 50 per cent trends or aesthetics,’ he states. ‘The aesthetics of how people play change every 30 to 40 years, and this is normal and OK. It’s evolution. The essence, though, never changes, and I think our predecessors were much better at this than we are. To give an example, there are more young violinists today who are playing with virtuoso technique, compared with our predecessors. However, technique only has to be good enough for it not to be an issue any more. So when the technique is good enough, what is left? That’s the essence. And if you take any one of the major concertos, you can hear that the older recordings – Heifetz, Szigeti, Stern – are just better. They are more present, they are more singing, they have more class.’

Yehudi Menuhin (pictured c.1976), purveyor of the ‘Menuhin slide’

MENUHIN PHOTO ALLAN WARR. GLUZMAN PHOTO MARCO BORGGREVE. BRAUNSTEIN PHOTO BOAZ ARAD

This brings us back to the aforementioned Menuhin slide – because while such tricks might at first appear to fall under the banner of aesthetics, if you lose enough of them the resulting narrowed colouristic palette can have you skirting essence territory. And it does seem that this is indeed happening, partly because of zero tolerance for mistakes in competitions and orchestral auditions, and partly because of trying to aspire to the smoothed-out versions of music and musicians that recordings now often present. ‘I’m really generalising right now,’ says Vadim Gluzman (left), ‘but over the past couple of decades there has been a shift in teaching towards the precision of intonation and articulation, and while this is fantastic, I wholeheartedly agree with what Guy says about singing. But the art of parlando is also somehow being lost, partly because of even bow speed. While it’s wonderful to have the control to play with an even bow speed, if it’s applied universally, as seems to be a tendency these days, it kills any possibility of “speaking”. We forget that bow speed is one of the main means of phrasing – often, a faster bow will make the string resonate better and create a more voluptuous sound, which you can contrast with a slower bow to shape a phrase. For example, take the second-movement theme of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto: if you have perfectly, evenly sustained bowing and beautiful vibrato, it will produce the most gorgeous sound, but with no shape or direction. Listen to the phrase-shaping of any of the great 20th-century singers in Mozart opera recitatives: you can hear how their speech becomes more intense, more excited or more relaxed, married to harmony. If you try to apply the same attitude to string playing, you will realise eventually that you will never find this kind of phrase shape by always playing with the same bow speed.’

Picking up the speech thread, Braunstein (right) observes: ‘The right-hand wrist and fingers used to be much more active than they are today. I’m seeing a trend towards playing mostly with the upper arm and elbow, which is like a singer articularing beautiful vowels but no consonants, so you don’t understand the text.’

At the top of violinist and conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy’s list of lost arts is the willingness to take risks. ‘I don’t want to overgeneralise,’ he emphasises, ‘but creativity never comes if somebody is in the safe zone. Yet I have the impression that there’s now a total fear of making the tiniest technical accident. By contrast, when I was at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest in the 1970s, the number one priority was spiritual radiation, and we were not afraid to make tiny mistakes in lessons.’ As for where that ability to move an audience is found, he says, ‘For me, it’s when a string player dares to use a lot of colours, and this is through bow technique. Specifically, it is the combination of speed, weight and contact point. I sense that today’s teaching focuses less on how to combine those three elements, whereas when I was very young, some of my Hungarian teachers – who were born as early as 1895 – never stopped talking about this combination.

‘THE OLD CELLISTS USED TO PLAY WITH A SLOWER BOW SPEED, MAYBE SOUNDING MORE INTROVERTED AT TIMES, BUT I LIKE THAT QUALITY’

‘I grew up with unbelievably fascinating, colourful lessons about the bow arm,’ continues Takács-Nagy. ‘For instance, if you play a very fast bow, but without great weight, and let’s say far from the bridge, then it’s going to sound significantly different from the way it would if it were closer to the bridge and with a slower bow – or if you were to play a much faster bow but with some arm weight. The sound also depends on how much bow hair you are using; how you tilt the bow; how big or small the bow stroke is; how close to the frog you are playing. There is endless variety and possibility. Then add to this the sort of energy you apply to the fingerboard with the left hand; at what angle; with what kind of vibrato. So while I’ve never been a virtuoso violinist in terms of physical technique, this kind of right-hand sensitivity – my very colourful bow technique – enabled me nevertheless to reach a very high level internationally on the concert platform, leading the Takács Quartet.’

Gluzman adds, ‘The correlation between bow speed and vibrato is also often overlooked. For instance, a very fast bow speed married to a very high-speed vibrato creates a borderline hysterical sound. We may need to find this colour at certain points, but needless to say this is not how we speak all the time!’

Some lost arts are very instrument-specific. Cellist Alban Gerhardt has some examples. ‘Many of the cellists I now come across in masterclasses use the bow in a very one-dimensional way,’ he says. ‘Flautando-ish, too quick over the string and not sinking into it enough, which doesn’t give much variety to the sound. The old cellists used to play with a slower bow speed, maybe sounding more introverted at times, but I like that quality.’

Another lost art, he thinks, is an acceptance that there’s only so much pristine polish that the cello is capable of. ‘To create a nice sound on the cello is pretty easy,’ he points out. ‘What is more difficult is to make a piece work on stage with an orchestra or piano, because we have challenges with balance; and if we want to get a point across then we cannot go for the smoothedout “ideal” cello sound that people try to get in a recording. You could hear Rostropovich because he didn’t care about the perfect sound. There were some audible bow-related side-noises, but they only added to the musical impact.’

Still on the subject of volume, Gerhardt also frequently misses the sort of bottom-register weight that can truly underpin an orchestral or chamber ensemble chord. ‘Watch cellists play on the lower strings and the bow is often on the fingerboard,’ he observes. ‘Yet the bottom strings have fewer overtones than the upper ones, meaning they carry less well. So the lower we go down the strings, the closer to the bridge we should bow – where the sound is stronger, more defined and characterful – in order to compensate. For the epitome of a focused, present sound, never too loud, with a slow bow and a tasteful, continuous swaying vibrato, look to Guarneri Quartet cellist David Soyer. He just carried the quartet.’

Though not a virtuoso herself, Sonia Simmenauer (left), director of one of the most prominent artists’ agencies representing string quartets, has her own thoughts on the subject. ‘When I began in the 1980s, string quartets had a big repertoire,’ she recalls. ‘For a concert organiser it was like operating a jukebox, in that you put money in and chose what you wanted to hear. Now you take what you’re given, and this also changes the way concerts are played, because it’s less about simply giving a concert than about performing something at the highest possible level. For some quartets that meant reducing the repertoire, and others have followed, therefore the string quartet repertoire has been reduced to just the main works. But it still needs the rest.’

Going back to non-instrument-specific arts, we return to portamento, courtesy of Brooklyn Rider viola player Nicholas Cords, who teaches a class on the aural heritage of string playing at New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. ‘There’s the same-finger slide that usually occurs within a legato,’ he begins. ‘Then there’s the B-slide, which refers to the beginning finger gliding up before you drop down a new finger on the arrival. Fritz Kreisler (right) frequently made use of this. Finally, there’s the L-slide, which again moves from one finger to another, but now with the slide executed with the arrival finger – think Jascha Heifetz.’

He continues: ‘Of those types of portamento, the idea which I think has nearly disappeared – or certainly is much less frequently in evidence – is the first one of intervallic connection within legato. In the 19th century, there would have been a much greater sense of melodic connection, inspired by the golden era of singing in that period – and the very term portamento comes from vocal terminology, meaning a carrying of the voice. If you listen to the Capet Quartet’s recordings, made in the 1920s (though bear in mind that the quartet began in the 1890s), in Lucien Capet’s playing in particular you hear incredible examples of this, always with true intentionality, where he will distinctively swoop into arrival notes. To modern ears, their Mozart ‘Dissonance’ Quartet (bit.ly/39vo1fP) has some truly ear-opening slides.’ He concludes: ‘I think all this matters not because I want to bring the old world back, but because I think knowledge matters. We live today within a pretty narrow range of what is considered stylistically acceptable, with people deathly afraid to step outside it. The more we know, the more informed our choices can be.’

The Capet Quartet’s recordings are inspirational for violist Nicholas Cords

CORDS PHOTO ERIN BAIANO

Joshua Bell picks up the thread on portamento. ‘Perhaps we tend to over-glorify how “things were better in the old days”, but I do think that some great traditions are in danger of being lost,’ he says. ‘I was lucky enough to study under Josef Gingold, a student of Eugène Ysaÿe in the 1920s, and he exposed me to the many ways the old masters would vary the slide. You can graze the notes in between so that it’s just the hint of a slide. You can slide down while vibrating and make the violin “cry”. It’s not just the giant leaps either. Sometimes it’s between neighbouring notes, and how you shift into a half-step slide can make a harmonic shift so much more profound. The speed is also very important. I think Heifetz revolutionised the slide. If you listen to his really early recordings you can hear him imitating his idol Fritz Kreisler – there’s more of the charming but rather “slurpy” slide in which he slid more slowly, up or down, with the previous finger. Later on, he tended towards faster slides – when you hear him slide at speed and almost hit the note underneath, it’s tasteful but thrilling, and signature Heifetz.’

‘YSAŸE WOULD DO UNCONVENTIONAL THINGS, LIKE SLIDING UP A BIG SHIFT FROM THE THIRD FINGER INTO THE SECOND FINGER’

Joshua Bell admires the great masters’ brilliance in rubato

BELL PHOTO GAN YUAN

It isn’t simply that the sliding repertoire has narrowed, though. ‘The choice of slide should fit the repertoire and suit the emotional moment. If it is overdone or if you use too many slides consecutively, they lose their value,’ says Bell. ‘You’re never going to please everyone, but this is a subtle art which I feel is somewhat neglected today. I’ll never forget learning the Vieuxtemps Fifth Violin Concerto as a 13-year-old. In the first movement there’s an emotional climax before the coda with a big leap on the D string from low E to high G, and Gingold imitated the way Ysaÿe played it – abig, juicy slide that fits this passionate moment, and then, with each shift between slurs over the following descending notes, he used both glissando and vibrato in a way that made the violin sound like it was literally weeping. It had a huge impact on me to hear this unabashed emotional vulnerability portrayed on the violin.’

Variety and individuality of fingerings is another area for Bell. ‘Fingerings are integral to the musical conception of the piece and are deeply personal. Gingold would try to “sell” me his but would never demand it, and he’d show how Ysaÿe (left) would do unconventional things, like sliding up a big shift from the third finger into the second finger, rather than vice versa, or using harmonics in places you’d never expect.’

Then there’s rubato. ‘The great masters were experts in this,’ says Bell. ‘Rubato goes hand in hand with good rhythm – the “beat” may remain strict and disciplined, while rubato is what happens in between, creating the feeling of spontaneity and improvisation. So using rubato, in its truest sense of stealing and giving back time, means that one can both play with great freedom, but also a rhythmic inevitability that will make your conductor or pianist grateful!’

The pursuit of perfection is not only to blame, however. Simmenauer adds to the list the loss of real communication with the audience, putting this down to the way that travel has evolved: ‘Travelling was difficult when I began in this business,’ she says. ‘Musicians would go on tour for a big chunk of time, often arriving in a city far earlier before a concert. Today they can just go overnight, and this has a huge influence on communication, because the way an artist relates to the public is different if they know where they are, rather than just passing through.’

Josef Gingold was a student of Ysaÿe

Gerhardt has two more lost arts to add: simplicity and individuality. ‘If Casals or Feuermann were to play today as an unknown, people might not love them,’ he states. ‘They might say, “No expression. No deeper feeling.” Because these days there is so much exaggerated expression, for instance through extremes of dynamics or through hyperbolic phrasing, if you cut away from that, then something is missing for the listener. Casals’s Dvořák Cello Concerto recording takes 35 minutes, and the quickest version nowadays is about 41.’ Some of this, he thinks, is down to how recordings are now used to form an interpretation. ‘Students ask me which recordings to listen to and I say none,’ he says. ‘The music is there to be interpreted, and we’ve lost the art of making it our own and not somebody else’s. Casals heard the Dvořák Concerto perhaps once or twice. Nowadays people grow up with certain recordings, which they start copying rather than finding their own interpretation, until something entirely different comes out that perhaps no longer even makes musical sense.’

In fact, it seems that the single most important dying art of all might be imagination. Although perhaps that also gives us grounds for optimism. As Gluzman puts it, ‘Ultimately, we can look for outside reasons for reduced expression until we turn blue in the face, when really I think the reasons are in ourselves. The moment young artists know what it is they are trying to say, they will open their toolbox and pick the right screwdriver. It might come with this or that degree of difficulty, but it will come. And the result will be much more satisfying than just thinking in abstract terms about which bow part to use.’

Moreover, we may already be reaching a tipping point, as more people realise that what is being lost is to the detriment of music. ‘I heard recently of a concertmaster audition for one of the truly phenomenal orchestras, where they ended up choosing not one of the three safe violinists but the spiritually strong one,’ recounts Takács-Nagy. ‘So there are some signs that perhaps things will change.’ Let’s hope.