Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Recently, one of my former students sent me a long and detailed book on how to play the cello, by a great virtuoso cellist. Half the book had every page titled, “THE RIGHT FINGERINGS”. To me, all those “right” fingerings were the wrong fingerings if I wanted to sound good and be comfortable.

Since I did regard this cellist as a great virtuoso, I checked out his recording of two Beethoven Sonatas and the Brahms E Minor. Without sounding egotistical, I would have to say that my renditions of those pieces were just as accurate and very much more satisfying both in tone quality and general conception.

All of this stimulated some thinking about Bears and Honey.

I don’t know any bear who needed to read a book about how bees make honey and what the best way is to climb a tree to get at it. They just smell it and GO. They don’t care whether there’s a swarm of bees buzzing around their heads or stinging their noses while they devour all the honey in the beehive. Maybe…we should just do the same thing. Take a piece of music that moves and excites us, and find a way to make it sound as good as we think it can sound. If, for chance, there’s some passage that we can’t make sound as good as we would like, we should find a way to finesse it so it doesn’t sound bad.

I had an interesting experience editing a number of my recordings. In one place, there was a passage that did not sound awfully distinguished. I did get the least offensive rendition possible, and when I listen to it now, I don’t hear anything that bothers me. On the other hand, there were many things in those recordings that put a smile on my face every time I listen to them. I don’t believe that any book on cello playing could’ve made me sound better on any recording that I’ve done. That is not to say that books by great cellists have no value, or that their authors were less than wonderful performers, who had and continue to have my admiration. BUT I think we all need to write our own books on how to do it.

A week ago, I submitted my edition of the Beethoven Eb Variations to International Music Company for publication. I was curious to see how I played these variations when I did the Beethoven cycle at Carnegie Recital Hall. I was surprised and delighted with how good it was! That gave me the courage to listen, for the first time in 35 years, to the whole recital. That recital was the first of two and I put all the big works on that recital expecting to get reviewed (if I was going to get reviewed) on that program. One cannot imagine my shock and chagrin at the way that I played. All the things that I tried not to do, I did in spades: rushing, over-accenting, and generally not being 100% with the piano 100% of the time.

The second program, a week later, featured all the early works of Beethoven, and fortunately for me, two of my students came to the dress rehearsal and read me the riot act about exactly what was coming out of my cello. I was advised, at no uncertain terms, to scale down my execution because it sounded too rough.

I took their advice seriously and ended up having an excellent review in the New York Times by a notoriously tough critic, Bernard Holland. Among other things, he commented on the fact that we played with great eloquence and really knew how to handle the acoustics of that “troubled space”. Needless to say, that was a review worth having, and, “What would have happened if he had come to the first concert,” I shudder to think.

Music reviews (particularly really good ones) are especially coveted third person endorsements. I was lucky enough to have a reasonable number of quotable quotes, and they definitely helped me have the credibility to be engaged and reengaged nationally and also, for the American Chamber Trio, internationally.

The most consequential review, in which I was dubbed, “A First Rate Cellist”, was written by the nastiest and most feared critic from the New York Times, Donal Henahan. This review appeared by dint of two accidental circumstances. In June of 1971, space was created only because the Nixon Administration had a restraining order on the publication of Daniel Ellesberg’s Pentagon Papers. Henahan had a great time writing, “Some musicians, and good ones, seem to struggle with music, to wrestle it out of themselves; others play as smoothly and effortlessly as politicians lie, and as effectively. The trio that appeared at Carnegie Recital Hall on Monday gave the latter impression, and it made for a wholly enjoyable program.”

The second reason why this concert should not have been reviewed was that there was an important concert happening at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center at the same time. In my opinion, Henahan showed good taste in attending our concerts.

The third unlikely incident happened in 2007. The critic from The STRAD (not the New York Times this time) called, leaving a message on my phone saying he wanted tickets to the American Chamber Trio concert in Carnegie Hall. Normally, I would’ve had no problem with that, in fact, I would’ve personally delivered them to him, even though I was in Chicago, and he was in New York, BUT he had given us a bad review three years earlier, so I had no intention of giving him a free ticket to do it again. Three months later, I saw a picture of my friend, the late Aaron Rosand, on the cover of The STRAD and bought a copy to check out the article. To my great surprise, there was a review of that concert, in which I was called, “A Superb Cellist”. While this review did not result in any more concerts for either me or the American Chamber Trio, I was in conflict with the music director, and being able to throw this golden review in his face, helped me keep my job for another five years. These three incidents reminded me of the capriciousness of fate.