BOOKS

Vaughan Williams Eric Saylor

360PP ISBN 9780190918569 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS £22.99

It is one of the more curious aspects of the post-Beethovenian musical world that composers tend to be rated more highly for their work on the ‘dark side’ and for chest-beating heroics. As a result, much English and French music (from which Vaughan Williams learnt a great deal) still tends to be underappreciated. Yet VW expressed himself with a profound individuality, which is in part why general histories struggle to find a coherent place for him in the stylistic time-continuum. Now, thanks to Eric Saylor’s well-researched biography, we can appreciate his achievement from a more balanced and informed perspective.

Particularly illuminating is the light cast on VW’s early music, once thought to consist almost entirely of songs and hymns. Readers of The Strad will already be aware, for example, of the run of chamber works he produced between the late 1890s and early 1900s, including a Cminor String Quartet and two differently scored piano quintets, which had remained largely hidden from view until Faber published them in 2002. OUP released the early orchestral Serenade and Bucolic Suite ten years later, and here we gain a greater sense of the mature composer in the making. Saylor’s observations of VW’s formative years are deftly handled, pointing out their inevitable indebtedness to the era’s creative big guns. Yet perhaps its most profound value is the way it emphasises the startling rate of stylistic acceleration that occurred subsequently, starting with 1907’s Towards the Unknown Region, through 1909’s On Wenlock Edge and A Sea Symphony of the following year. Examining the music of just five years before, there is little to suggest (even with hindsight) that VW would have been remotely capable of such a work.

Vaughan Williams conducts the Boyd Neel Orchestra in rehearsal

GETTY

Indeed, it is Saylor’s insightful handling of VW’s music in the context of his life and times that is the book’s greatest strength. He illuminates The Lark Ascending’s originality and its ‘soaring to picturesque heights that few in the post-war world still dared’, and points out the Concerto Accademico’s ‘many violations of precepts expected from a truly “academic” work’. Along the way a very different composer emerges, aeons away from the avuncular, grandfatherly figure that is often portrayed, but rather full of creative vim, energy and passion, tirelessly pushing back the boundaries of what an English composer could and might aspire to.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

Questionario Renzo Bacchetta del 1936 Ed. Luca Bastiani

238PP ISBN 9791220081627 LUCA BASTIANI LIUTAIO €140

In 1937, the bicentenary celebration of Antonio Stradivari’s death was a crucial event for both the city of Cremona and the national and international violin making community. The exhibition organised at the Palazzo Cittanova showcased an important selection of Cremonese and Italian violins from the classical period. As well as the glorification of Italian heritage, it was considered crucial to the support of contemporary lutherie: professor Renzo Bacchetta was put in charge of organising an exhibition of makers’ work and, to check the violin making landscape of the time, he arranged for a survey to be filled out by every luthier currently working. In the letter addressed to each luthier, Bacchetta wrote that he ‘would like to use the occasion to illustrate the life and work of living Italian violin makers, particularly in order to show abroad [that] the tradition of the great masters of the past centuries still continues’.

The survey begins with general information about each maker (biography, address) and goes on with questions on their apprenticeship; i.e. if the maker is professional or amateur, and had ever held another occupation. Then the questions become more specific: how many instruments made per year, the kind of wood used, type of varnish, how many instruments in their collection and so on. Fifty-nine luthiers completed the survey, among them Ansaldo Poggi, Carlo Bisiach, Gaetano Gadda, Cesare Candi, Giuseppe Lecchi, Gaetano and Pietro Sgarabotto, Giuseppe Ornati, Giuseppe Pedrazzini and Gaetano Pollastri. Nine makers answered to the survey in the form of a letter, but unfortunately are not included in this book. The luthiers’ answers clearly reflect their different personalities: some are evidently reluctant while others reveal an outgoing attitude. It’s interesting to note the different answers regarding their individual production: the average is about twelve violins per year, but Azzo Rovescalli claimed he could make up to 45 in the white!

The book is well organised and easy to read: the answers to the survey from this considerable group of makers are still interesting, and help give an idea of their work and their personalities. It’s a good research tool for enthusiasts and those who are acquainted with Italian 20th-century violin making.

ALBERTO GIORDANO

Pizzicato Performance Collection: Fifteen Pizzicato Works for the Beginning String Orchestra Doug Spata

VIOLIN: 16PP ISBN 9781644020968 $7.99 VIOLA: 16PP ISBN 9781644020975 $7.99 CELLO: 16PP ISBN 9781644020982 $7.99 DOUBLE BASS: 16PP ISBN 9781644020999 $7.99 TEACHERS EDITION: 148PP ISBN 978164402-0951 $29.99 WINGERT-JONES PUBLICATIONS

Pizzicato Performance Collection is a group of 15 pieces, all of which are intended to be played pizzicato, and they progress in difficulty in an interestingly systematic way. The first few pieces just use open strings, and as the book continues, the pieces use open strings and only one other finger, then open strings and two fingers, but – and this is where it gets interesting – although the notes used are all in the standard first-position basic finger pattern, none of the pieces actually use a full major scale or even a tetrachord in any of the string parts. This gives the music a quirky, interesting and perhaps more ‘grown-up’ sound than some first string orchestra collections, and this may well appeal to students who are tired of the relentless chirpy happiness of do-re-mi-style tunes found in many beginner methods.

The string parts are more or less in unison, with adjustments for E strings and C strings, and as always in unison playing for beginner strings, some compromises have had to be made, mostly in the bass part. The final number in the book, the aptly named ‘Bid You Adieu’ has a sweetly comical feel to it, caused by deliberately abrupt dynamic mismatches between the piano accompaniment and the strings.

The Teacher’s Edition contains a full score and separate accompaniment parts for piano and drum kit, as well as a download code for backing tracks on the publisher’s website. As well as the piano and kit accompaniments, synthesised pizzicato strings are included on the tracks, which some players may find helpful as they navigate their way through for the first time; it might also have been good to have had the option to play along with the accompaniment alone.

The pieces are typically between one-and-a-half and two minutes in length, which doesn’t sound long until you attempt to play and rehearse any of them with a group of children and are faced with a chorus of complaints about hurting fingers, bursting blisters and the like. Though the book is aimed at beginners, it might be better suited as material for slightly more experienced groups to use as sightreading and general ensemble practice. The upbeat tempos of many of the backing tracks make them difficult for little fingers to pluck, but older players would rise to the challenge more successfully, and the collection could provide a useful opportunity for them to focus on their note-reading skills and rhythmic accuracy. Every piece contains clear dynamic contrasts, and at least one small section of rests to count, which also provides great training opportunities for ensemble skills. In addition, older children might enjoy the challenge of adding some arco instructions and deciding on bowings, as well as just using the book to hone their pizzicato skills. I am sure that many ensemble leaders will find this book to be a useful collection to dip into occasionally to supplement their regular resources.

CELIA COBB