BOOKS

Beethoven: The String Quartets David Vernon

433PP ISBN 9781739659929 CANDLE ROW PRESS £13.99

This volume’s tripartite structure conveniently follows the traditional separation of Beethoven’s oeuvre into ‘early’, ‘middle’ and ‘late’ periods. After a brief introduction, David Vernon devotes a chapter to each opus, acknowledging Beethoven’s crusading role in the genre and evaluating the ‘late’ quartets as the summit of the composer’s chamber music achievements. Each chapter provides relevant historical and biographical background, embracing Beethoven’s sketches and roughly contemporaneous works as a means of understanding his musico-cultural circumstances at the time, and each offers a lively, movement-by-movement appraisal, rather than a starchy, intellectual analysis, of every quartet.

Two appendices complete the structure. The first is essentially a literature review of selected secondary sources about Beethoven; in Appendix II Vernon reviews a selection of his favourite recordings but adds a seemingly superfluous guide to selected quartet repertoire pre- and post-Beethoven.

Vernon is musically widely read and demonstrates a thorough knowledge of these quartets. His chapter on op.130 discusses the benefits, or otherwise, of performing both finales in a seven-movement sequence, as advocated by the musicologist Robert Simpson, and that on op.131 ponders whether the quartet should be considered as a one-movement or seven-movement work or as one ‘divided into four “units”, with some movements paired up’. His writing style is expansive and he tends to interpret historical sources (including some of varying reliability) with some poetic licence. He takes several contextual detours to discuss contemporaneous repertoire and draw illuminating parallels with the outputs of artists, authors, film directors and other composers. Vernon expresses his opinions clearly and enthusiastically, bringing the music vividly to life with colourful scenarios and often amusing turns of phrase. Beethoven composing his op.18 quartets is likened to an ‘engineer battling the elements to construct his bridges to Romanticism’; development sections from op.59 onwards become ‘blood-soaked combat zone(s)’ and op.132’s Heiliger Dankgesang is viewed as a ‘stable centre around which the volatile, irregular outer movements can orbit, the adagio’s blend of polyphony and harmony a steady rotating sun for its four circling planets’.

The lack of an index is regrettable, given the text’s diverse content and the myriad issues and personalities discussed. Cavils are otherwise minimal – only a few minor grammatical issues and convenient statements for which there may not be firm evidence. Although clearly focused, the book’s various contextual asides almost transform it into a life-and-works study of Beethoven rather than simply one of his quartets. It may not offer fastidious scholarly solutions to the countless structural and harmonic puzzles that Beethoven created, but it certainly provides a thoroughly accessible, enlightening and entertaining guide to these pinnacles of the repertoire, containing substantially accurate insights that will enhance readers’ understanding and enjoyment when listening to, or participating in their performance.

ROBIN STOWELL

A monument to Beethoven in Vienna

GETTY/FOTOMAREKKA

Da Spalla: How violinists can find their unique voice and open new career opportunities in 14 days Dmitry Badiarov

208PP ISBN 9798379291518 10-10-10 PUBLISHING €29.95

In early 18th-century Germany there was a market for smaller cellos for choir lofts, continuo work and even street performances. These small cellos existed in various sizes and shapes between violas and full-size cellos, with either four or five strings. Some were held between the knees while others were held on the arm resting against the right shoulder, sometimes hanging from a strap around the neck. They were called bassetto, viola pomposa, violincino, basso violino, violetta, and cello piccolo. Bach wrote specifically for several of these instruments and may even have written the Sixth Suite for the violoncello da spalla, as Pieter Wispelwey and others conjecture. Sigiswald Kuijken described the spalla as ‘paradise on earth… an ideal continuo instrument’.

The spalla had mostly disappeared from view until violinist Dmitry Badiarov, looking for an instrument and a new voice, fell in love with the idea of the spalla while in Bilbao in 2003 and subsequently rescued it from obscurity. Now a fully fledged luthier and a keen entrepreneur, Badiarov has written an owner’s manual on how to make, play and market the spalla, embedded into the absorbing tale of his voyage from being apprenticed to the violin maker Vladimir Oiberman in southern Russia aged eleven, to making spallas in The Hague.

He goes into invaluable detail about fingering, shifting, double-stops and other playing issues based on lessons learnt while recording the Bach Suites. He devotes chapters to bows, strings, the Brussels, Leipzig and 26 other small cellos, and how to transfer technique from the violin or viola. In its ethos, Da Spalla is situated somewhere between Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Anner Bylsma’s Bach, the fencing master.

A violoncello da spalla by Dmitry Badiarov

DMITRY BADIAROV

Having heard Sergey Malov, the instrument’s pre-eminent champion (reflected in the legend on his website logo which reads ‘Spallenmann’) play the spalla, I have an impression of an almost exotically beautiful instrument, somewhere between the viola and the cello, with a facility at playing cross-string adventures which makes it easier to concentrate on affect and gesture, and a striking ability to cut through and project. Badiarov delivers three or four a year and is not looking to scale up: ‘I am in the business of offering life-changing opportunities,’ he says, ‘not merely crafting wooden boxes.’

The many photographs and illustrations are in low-res black and white, but they are clear and well chosen, including Malov in Badiarov’s studio playing his new spalla for the first time.

LAURENCE VITTES

Viola Mix

Kathy and David Blackwell

BOOK 1: 56PP ISBN 9781786015860 £10.95

BOOK 2: 64PP ISBN 9781786015877 £11.95

BOOK 3: 68PP ISBN 9781786015884 £12.95

ABRSM

The ABRSM has recently released the string syllabus for 2024 (see October issue). Grade packages have been created for the violin but not for the viola (except at the new Initial level). These three volumes, Viola Mix, are the next best thing: 20 new arrangements for Initial grade to Grade 1 level; 20 for Grades 1 and 2 level, and 19 at Grade 3 level. The volumes are compiled and edited by Kathy and David Blackwell, so we know we are in very safe hands.

Many of the arrangements are on the ABRSM viola syllabus and, because they are carefully graded, all the pieces may be chosen by pupils and teachers for performance grade exams. There is a super variety of repertoire to choose from. At Initial level, ‘Autumn’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons finds itself next to folk music from China, Sweden and Ukraine while at Grade 3, pupils will be inspired by arrangements of famous and familiar tunes by Beethoven (Für Elise) and Holst (‘Jupiter’) while discovering the jaunty, syncopated Rabbit Foot by Florence Price.

All the pieces come with a piano accompaniment, as expected. Some also include a second viola part, which is great for non-piano-playing teachers and for encouraging stronger chamber music skills for pupils at an early stage. Older, more experienced performers can help the younger ones practise while developing their own teaching and mentoring skills. Even greater flexibility for the teacher is provided with the option of guitar accompaniment for some of the pieces.

Each arrangement comes with a small programme note and fun facts which I am sure will open doors for curious young musicians to discover more about a hitherto unknown composer or national style, culture or way of life. Even as a not-so-young musician I was pleased to read about Francesca Lebrun (of whom I had not previously heard), who was famed for being able to sing stratospherically high.

These volumes are a terrific resource for the young violist and viola teacher. It would be excellent if recorded accompaniments could be made available in the same way that they have been for the new violin syllabus, but again the ABRSM is to be congratulated on providing another set of fun, varied and interesting volumes for the young learner.

ALEX LAING