BOOKS

Up Bow, Down Bow: A Child with Down Syndrome and His Journey to Master the Cello Nancy M. Schwartz, April E. Beard

132PP ISBN 9781615997046

MODERN HISTORY PRESS £32.99

Up Bow, Down Bow tells the story of Alex, a boy with Down’s syndrome, and his quest to learn how to play the cello. Over the course of the book we are introduced to the teaching approaches of Alex’s mother Nancy, and April, the music educator at his school. As they spend time with Alex they are confronted with obstacles that push them to ‘relearn’ how they teach and assist the boy. It is a story about resilience, the power of love – how the player and instrument are friends – and perpetual open-mindedness. Most of all it is about the rewards of focusing on what someone can do, and not on what they can’t. The authors are not afraid to go against tradition if it’s best for their students and for them as teachers.

The two authors take turns in writing the chapters – which appear to be independent of each other, meaning that what Nancy writes in one chapter may not be related to what April writes in the next, or indeed the last. The two women tell their stories individually but I found that the way the narratives are intertwined adds a lot of freshness to the experience. That freshness, together with the overall cheerleading tone of the book, put the reader in a truly happy mood.

The book is full of good teaching advice and life lessons that can apply not only when teaching people with Down’s syndrome but to anyone in general, and that can only inspire better teaching and happier learning. Reading through the pages stimulates one’s reflections on teaching ‘off the beaten track’, as well as breaking certain inviolable codes in classical music tuition which – one will realise – might be worth breaking.

Alex (centre) practising with April Beard and Nancy Schwartz

SCHWARTZ & BEARD

The book is illustrated with lots of photos of Alex, his activities and the people around him. It is also accompanied by an extensive bibliography and many video links to listen to the young cellist’s progress. This gives us the impression of being deeply immersed in Alex’s life.

JACQUELINE VANASSE

Around the World with a Violin

Felix Ayo

204PP ISBN 9798871974346 STRANGEDAYS BOOKS $15

Before his death in September 2023, the Spanish-born Italian violinist Felix Ayo finished writing his memoirs. He is best remembered for his 1955 recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the chamber ensemble I Musici, of which he was a founder member. From the beginning, he tells us, ‘Vivaldi was our spearhead. We were thinking about the recovery of Vivaldi, especially from an interpretive point of view. We wanted a cleaner, clearer, more crystalline Vivaldi, full of vitality in the allegri and with intense yet restrained expressiveness in the slow tempos. We played Vivaldi for our debut at Santa Cecilia and he remained an important presence in our repertoire.’

I Musici was founded while Ayo was studying at the Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia: ‘I was present for 17 years right from the first rehearsal.’ A year later he also founded a piano quartet, which in 1970 would become the Quartetto Beethoven di Roma and tour the world for 36 years. Although he became synonymous with the Four Seasons for a whole generation of music lovers through his association with the piece, he had no particular background in Baroque style, let alone historically informed performance (HIP). But he projected, as Shirley Fleming once wrote, ‘that wonderful simplicity which is the key to music of this kind. His passagework is absolutely clean and pure. His melodic lines are natural as breathing, and he never for a moment loses the essential pulse of each movement.’ His writing style in this book is similarly clear.

Ayo’s detailed record of the extensive touring he did with I Musici, the Quartetto and later the Virtuosi di Roma – 750 concerts during the 80s alone – is a bittersweet reminder of times past when the US was constantly being criss-crossed by classical music tours for which players like those of I Musici received $25 a day plus expenses, were scheduled 13 nights in a row with the 14th off, and travelled everywhere by bus.

In addition to the concerts and colleagues, tourism, family and friends, repertoire, press notices and food, Ayo writes about teaching issues, including the importance of a good teacher, shoulder rests, how to attain ‘a magnificent basic intonation’ and the right way to hold the bow. He recommends studying the repertoire chronologically in order ‘to understand the gradual and fascinating development of instrumental technique and composition through the years’. The numerous grainy black and white photographs show up better in the paperback. The book is divided into ten convenient chapters, although with no index, which gives a distinct advantage to the Amazon Kindle version with its invaluable search function.

LAURENCE VITTES

The Amazing Violin Comics: Tips for practicing and mental images for learning stringed instruments Lauri Hämäläinen

128PP ISBN 9798367038651 SUOMI MUSIC VIOLIN FRIENDS OY €42.90

Lauri Hämäläinen, author of the Violin Friends series for beginners, has put together a novel approach to learning a stringed instrument. Taking the form of a comic book, The Amazing Violin has many merits in principle: it may be a better way to reach visual learners, as opposed to notebooks full of handwritten teacher’s notes, and it promotes a healthy, holistic approach to learning the instrument. Each page contains an exercise, mostly by Hämäläinen himself but also featuring some from musicians such as Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin, broken down into easy steps with visual guides. An index is provided to navigate the contents, which vary from stretching and bow hold exercises to bite-sized music history and how to open the violin case.

As much as I admire the ethos of this book, however, it is in undeniable need of revision. More than the occasional typo, the problem is that it’s visually overwhelming. Rather than choosing drawings or true photographs, Hämäläinen has opted for heavily edited photos with an uncanny-valley effect. Sometimes cartoonish and at other times utterly washed out, the art is inconsistent across the book. Most of the images also have distracting backgrounds from wherever Hämäläinen happened to be standing, making the subject hard to distinguish in the haze of the sepia filter, and competing with the brightly coloured stickers on almost every panel.

An example of the cartoon panels present in The Amazing Violin Comics

The layout can be confusing at times, sometimes requiring reading from left to right, then right to left within the same page. What is also lacking is an explanation of why each exercise is important and when it should be done. If this could have been added on a plainer page, it might give the reader’s eyes a much-needed break. Comic Sans may be a dyslexia-friendly font but, with overwhelming visuals on every page, this is not an easy read.

I could see this book becoming a great asset to a music teacher’s toolbox, as a way of sending the student home with a visual guide to recreate an exercise covered in the lesson. As it stands, however, the presentation distracts from what is genuinely good content.

LAUREN WESLEY-SMITH