ák’s First Cello Concerto,” Music and Letters 37 (1956): 350–355. It has been played by the Czech cellist Milos Sadlo in an orchestral version by Jan Burghauser.1. Adolfo Salazar, La Música en la Sociedad Europea (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1983), 2:212.
2. Elizabeth Cowling, The Cello (New York: Scribner’s, 1975), 53.
3. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York: Macmillan, 1980), s.v. “viol,” 19:793.
4. Giuseppe Strocchi, Liuteria: Storia ed arte (Lugo, Italy: Tipografia Michele Cortesi, 1937), 15.
5. The complete family of the violas de gamba includes the pardessus de viole (or viol contra soprano), the soprano viola da gamba, the bass viola da gamba, and the violone (an augmented viola, or double bass viol).
6. Another intermediate instrument that appeared in numerous paintings at the end of the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century was the lira da braccio. It had seven strings and was played with a bow. It looked like a violin, but like the gambas, it had frets.
7. The term violoncino comes from the Italian violone piccino and, concretely, from violone cino (small violone). Still in our days, cino is used in Bologna instead of piccino (small). Lauro Malusi, Il Violoncello (Padua: Edizioni G. Zanibon, 1973), 231.
8. Adolfo Salazar, Juan Sebastián Bach: Un ensayo (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1951), 233.
9. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. “Marais, Marin,” 11:640.
10. Curt Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments (New York: Norton, 1968), 360.
11. Ibid.
12. Hubert Le Blanc, Défense de la basse de viole contre les entreprises du violon et les prétentions du violoncel, reprinted serially in La Revue Musicale 9 (1927–1928): 54.
13. It was used for the first time in the opera Armide (1686) by Lully. In an aria of the second act, the parts of string instruments have the indication: Il faut jouer ceci avec des sourdines (This part should be played with mutes).
14. Alma in Spanish and Portuguese, âme in French, and anima in Italian.
15. Werner Bachmann, The Origins of Bowing and the Development of Bowed Instruments up to the Thirteenth Century, trans. Norma Deane (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1969).
16. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, ms hh 58, fol. 127r.
17. Louis Antoine Vidal, Les instruments à archet (Paris: Claye, 1876–1878), 1:271.
18. Joseph Roda, Bows for Musical Instruments of the Violin Family (Chicago: William Lewis & Son, 1959), 287.
1. Salazar, La música, 2:215.
2. Cowling, Cello, 29; Charles Beare, Capolavori di Antonio Stradivari (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1987), 23.
3. Alfred E. Hill, Arthur F. Hill, and W. Henry Hill, The Violin Makers of the Guarneri Family, 1626–1762: Their Life and Work (1931; repr., London: W. E. Hill & Sons, 1965), 110.
4. Beare, Capolavori, 23.
5. Ibid.
6. Cowling, Cello, 30.
7. Beare, Capolavori, 25.
8. Ibid., 26.
9. Malusi, Violoncello, 15.
10. The information in this section relies heavily on Jacques Français, Jacobus Stainer and Eighteenth-Century Violin Masters, a leaflet prepared on the occasion of the exhibit prepared by J. Français at Lincoln Center, New York, October 1981–January 1982.
11. I have relied in this section primarily on Hill et al., Guarneri Family.
12. Ibid., 13.
13. Ibid., 33.
14. I have relied in this section primarily on W. Henry Hill, Arthur F. Hill, and Alfred E. Hill, Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work, 1644–1737 (London: W. E. Hill & Sons, 1902; repr., New York: Dover, 1963). Citations are to the Dover edition.
15. Ibid., 285.
16. Ibid., 125.
17. Ernest N. Doring, How Many Strads? Our Heritage from the Master (Chicago: William Lewis & Son, 1945), 309.
18. Information supplied by Rene Morel, New York, 1998.
19. The recent work by Stewart Pollens has caused a lot of commotion in the world of stringed instruments. According to him, one of the most famous violins by Antonio Stradivari dates from after his death and should be attributed to his son Francesco. The work of Pollens is already known, but is unpublished. Pollens based his research on recent techniques of dendrochronology, the science of dating aged wood. (Source: conversations with Stewart Pollens, New York, July 1998.)
20. Simone Sacconi, I segreti di Stradivari (Cremona, Italy: Libreria del Convegno, 1972), 44–45.
21. My main source of information has been Hill et al., Guarneri Family.
22. Ibid., 94.
23. Among other works, I consulted Les Violons: Lutherie Vénitienne, Peintures et Dessins, catalogue of an exhibition at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris (Paris: Association pour la Promotion des Arts, 1995).
24. Hill et al., Stradivari, 251.
25. Duane Rosengard and Carlo Chiesa, “Guarneri del Gesù: A Brief History” in The Violin Masterpieces of Guarneri del Gesù: An Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the Maker’s Death, ed. Peter Biddulph (London: Biddulph, 1994), 17.
26. Hill et al., Guarneri Family, 111.
27. George Hart, The Violin: Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators (London: Dulau, 1875), quoted in Doring, How Many Strads?, 201.
28. Beare, Capolavori, 24.
The only period of time about which I have been unable to obtain any detailed information on the history of this instrument is from its birth in Cremona up until its first years in Cádiz. I have filled in the gaps with a hypothetical but likely history of the cellist Carlo Moro, based, as far as possible, on real historical data. I point to the specific sources in my footnotes. After 1818, all historical facts are well documented.
1. Hill et al., Stradivari, 281.
2. Ibid., 140.
3. Ibid., 245.
4. Ibid., 94, 245.
5. This occurred in 1775. Charles iii sent Father Brambilla to Cremona. Paolo was already very ill, and Father Brambilla succeeded in acquiring the ornamented quintet for the Spanish crown, thus granting, though posthumously, Antonio Stradivari’s wish.
6. Marques de Ureña, El viaje Europeo del marques de Ureña, ed. María Pemán Medina (Cádiz, Spain: Unicaja, 1992), 31.
7. Ibid., 34.
8. Ibid.
9. Data provided by María Pemán Medina (Madrid, 1994) and by a letter from violinist Paul Alday to the Reverend Booth (Dublin, Clergy Library, 1832).
10. Pablo Antón Solé, “Un testimonio artístico y religioso de la burguesía gaditana: La Santa Cueva,” Anales de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de Cádiz 2 (1984).
11. Robert Stevenson, “Los contactos de Haydn con el Mundo Ibérico,” Revista Musical Chilena 46, no. 157 (1982): 3–39.
12. Ibid., 11.
13. A. C. Dies, Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn (Vienna: Carmesinaische Buchhandlung, 1810); translated by Vernon Gotwals and contained in his Joseph Haydn: Eighteenth-Century Gentleman and Genius (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1963), 288.
14. Preface to the score, published in 1808 by Breitkopf und Härtel. See Karl and Irene Geiringer, Haydn: A Creative Life in Music, 3rd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1982), 83.
15. Carta edificante del V. sacerdote o Relación Sumaria de la vida de José Sáenz de Santa María, marques de Valde Íñigo (1807), in the Biblioteca de Estudios Gaditanos, Cádiz.
16. Geiringer and Geiringer, Haydn, 84.
17. Juan Antonio Ruiz Casaux, La música en la Corte de Don Carlos iv y su influencia en la vida musical española (Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, 1959), 16.
18. This story appears, as told by a great-grandson of Boccherini, in Nicolás Solar-Quintes, “Nuevos documentos sobre Luigi Boccherini,” Anuario Musical (Barcelona) 2, (1947): 91.
19. La colección artística de Sebastián Martínez, el amigo de Goya (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciónes Científicas, Instituto Diego Velázquez, 1978), 201.
20. Ureña, Viaje Europeo, 35.
21. Partición Combencional de los Bienes quedados por muerte del Sr. Sebastián Martínez, Thesorero General del Reino (1805), II, legajo 5387 (folios 1233–1394), Archivo de Protocolos [Public Records], Cádiz.
22. Hill et al., Stradivari, 137.
23. Ramón Solis, El Cádiz de las cortes: La vida en la ciudad en los años de 1810 a 1813 (Madrid: Silex, 1987), 63.
24. Archivo de Protocolos, Cádiz, vol. 2662, folio 69–72; vol. 5401, folios 778–781.
25. Ibid.
26. Lista general de los comerciantes establecidos en Cádiz, así nacionales como extrangeros, Guía Patriótica de España para el año de 1811, Real Isla de León, imprenta de D. Miguel Segovia, impresor de la Real Marina Guía.
27. Hill et al., Stradivari, 267.
28. Ibid., 137.
29. I owe knowledge of this document to Professor María Pemán Medina of Madrid and to Professor Bara Boydell of Dublin.
30. Hill et al., Stradivari, 138.
31. A document from the Pigott House. I owe the knowledge of this document to Professor Barra Boydell of Dublin.
32. Hill et al., Stradivari, 138.
33. Ibid., 139.
34. Ibid., 127.
35. W. E. Whitehouse, “About Piatti,” The Strad, May 1929, 15.
36. Hill et al., Stradivari, 132.
37. Biographical data on Piatti taken from “Alfredo Piatti: A Grand Master of the Cello” (an article based on material from Morton Latham, Alfred Piatti: A Sketch [London: W. E. Hill and Sons, 1901]), Newsletter of the Violoncello Society, Inc. (New York), May 1978. All quoted material in the rest of this section on Alfredo Piatti is taken from this source.
38. Whitehouse, “About Piatti.”
39. Arthur Hill’s diary (August 27, 1918), published with the kind permission of Charles Beare, London, who bought the Hill diaries.
40. Gregor Piatigorsky, Cellist (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 128.
41. New York Times, December 11, 1936.
42. Ibid., December 13, 1936.
43. Charles Beare, conversation with the author, London, February 1998.
44. Thomas Blubacher, conversation with the author, Kronberg, Germany, October 2002.
45. Joe Roddy, conversation with author, New York, 1980.
46. Adolf Busch, Adolf Busch: Briefe, Bilder, Erinnerungen [Adolf Busch: Letters, Pictures, Memories], ed. Irene Busch Serkin, trans. Russell Stockman (Walpole, N.H.: Arts and Letters Press, 1991), 265n.
47. The Busch Quartet lasted thirty-two years, till Adolf’s death in 1951.
48. Busch, Briefe, Bilder, xi.
49. Sam H. Shirakawa, The Devil’s Music Master: The Controversial Life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwängler (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992), 151.
50. Ibid., 272.
51. Ibid., 247.
52. Mrs. Anna Lee Wurlitzer, conversation with the author, New York, January 23, 1998.
53. Ibid.
54. Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Knopf, 1994), 101.
55. Ibid.
56. Busch, Briefe, Bilder, 493.
57. The founding members were Rudolf Serkin, Adolf Busch, Hermann Busch, Marcel Moyse, Louis Moyse, and Blanche Honegger Moyse.
58. Wurlitzer, conversation.
59. Ibid.
60. Both the great Spanish violinist Víctor Martín (a friend of Cassadó and an assistant to his courses in Siena) and Felícitas Keller (the prior representative of Cassadó in Spain) confirmed this information in November 1997. They both remember the “Mendelssohn Stradivari” well.
61. Wurlitzer, conversation.
62. Marta Casals Istomin, conversation with the author, New York, January 15, 1998.
63. Wurlitzer, conversation.
64. Roddy, conversation.
65. René Morel, conversation with the author, New York, January 1998.
66. Wurlitzer, conversation.
67. Ibid.
68. Roddy, conversation.
69. José María Corredor, Conversations avec Pablo Casals: souvenirs et opinions d’un musicien (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel, 1955; repr. Collection Pluriel, 1982), 288.
70. Jacques Français, conversation with the author, New York, 1978.
71. Ibid.
1. It is not commonly known that mit has an undergraduate program leading to a bachelor of science in music.
2. Stravinsky assured us that he had enjoyed going to the bullfights since the times of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Spain, when he had witnessed many in the company of Picasso and Nijinsky. He claimed that both these artists were very familiar with bullfighting. When the bullfight began, we realized that the composer had exaggerated somewhat. “What are those pillows for?” he asked when he saw the protective covering on the horses. The next question, which he asked as the bull entered the ring, left us speechless: “C’est un monsieur, ou c’est une dame?”
3. Carlos Prieto, De la URSS a Rusia: Tres décadas de Observaciones y Experiencias de un Testigo (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993 and 1994).
1. Carlos Prieto, Alrededor del mundo con el violonchelo (Mexico City: Alianza Editorial Mexicana, 1987).
2. Roxane Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch’ing (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977), 386; Ross Terrill, Mao: A Biography (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 315.
3. Jay and Linda Matthews, One Billion: A Chinese Chronicle (New York: Random House, 1983), 245–256.
4. Ross Terrill, Madame Mao: The White-Boned Demon (New York: Bantam, 1986), 250–251.
5. Witke, Chiang Ch’ing, 459.
6. The name “Persia” derives from “Pars.” “Persis” is the hellenized form of “Pars.”
7. Prieto, URSS a Rusia.
8. Now we know that these canals have caused an ecological disaster of colossal magnitude.
9. I remind the reader that this text was written in 1991.
10. Ogonëk 21 (1989), 4–5, 30–32.
11. Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1990).
12. Note published by John Kinsella for the program of the National Symphony Orchestra, March 15, 2002.
1. The composer always signed his name “Sumaya.” However, in the chapter records of the cathedral in Mexico City, his name appears as “Zumaya.”
2. Note by Craig H. Russell in his edition of Sumaya’s Lamentaciones (Los Osos, Calif.: Russell Editions, 1993).
3. Periodicals Library, National Archives, Mexico.
4. Jorge A. Mendoza Rojas, “The Cello Concerto by Mexican Composer Ricardo Castro,” PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1994. Mendoza has recently undertaken a comprehensive critical revision of the score and parts.
5. Jorge Velazco obtained a copy of the manuscript from the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection in the Free Library of Philadelphia.
6. For a more detailed account of the subject, see Robert L. Parker, “Carlos Chávez’s ‘Opus Ultimum’: The Unfinished Cello Concerto,” American Music 11, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 473–487.
7. Napoleón Cabrera, Clarín (Buenos Aires), May, 23, 1991.
8. Horacio Salas, El tango (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta, 1986).
9. Ibid., 36.
10. Estéban Pichardo, Diccionario provincial de voces cubanas (Matanzas, Cuba: Real Marina, 1836); quoted in Salas, Tango, 36.
11. Salas, Tango, 52.
12. Cited in Salas, Tango, 82.
13. Nicolas Slonimsky, Music of Latin America (New York: Crowell, 1945), 61.
14. Ibid.
15. Salas, Tango, 115.
16. According to certain Argentinean sources, Gardel claimed he was Uruguayan to avoid military service in Argentina.
17. Astor Piazzolla, A manera de memorias, comp. Natalio Gorín (Buenos Aires: Editorial Atlántida, 1990), 80.
18. Ibid., 45.
19. Ibid., 56.
20. Ibid., 31.
21. The details of this story were provided by Efraín Paesky and Mstislav Rostropovich.
22. Efraín Paesky, conversation with the author, 1999.
23. Renato Almeida, História da música brasileira, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro: Briguiet, 1942), 298.
24. Celso Garrido-Lecca, conversation with the author, 1997.
25. Alejo Carpentier, La música en Cuba, vol. 12 of Obras Completas (Mexico City: Siglo xxi, 1987), 171.
26. Quote from the official program for the concert and award ceremony, Madrid, October 31, 1997.
27. Notes written by the composer for the Urtext Digital Classics recording (jbcc 015, 1997).
28. Program notes for the Urtext Digital Classics recording (jbcc 047, 2001)
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Carlos Prieto, As aventuras de um Violoncelo: Historia e Memorias (Rio de Janeiro: Top Books, 2000).
32. For those interested in such facts, the five largest countries by land area are Russia, Canada, China, the United States, and Brazil.
33. See Chapter 9 for more detailed information on Ricardo Lorenz.
34. Note sent by the composer for the program notes of the concert of November 21, 2003.
1. A sonata was a piece to be played (from the Italian sonare, “to play”); a cantata, a piece to be sung (from the Italian cantare, “to sing”).
2. Leopold Mozart, A Treatise on the Fundamental Principals of Violin Playing, trans. Editha Knocker (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1948 [orig. pub. in Augsburg, 1756]), 10n.
3. Salazar, Juan Sebastián Bach, 142.
4. Robert Stevenson, “La música en el México de los siglos XVI a XVIII,” in La música de México: I. Historia, vol. 2, Periodo virreinal (1530 a 1810), ed. Julio Estrada (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1986), 27.
5. The scordatura was not unusual at that time, when widespread experimentation with the tuning process and even with the number of strings of an instrument was common. In 1618 Michael Praetorius observed that the cello was called—as we have mentioned—basso de viola da braccio and had five strings: f, c, g, d, a, although its tuning was variable. Praetorius himself added, “Attention: the way that someone tunes his violin or viola is not of great importance as long as he plays with precision, clarity, and in tune” (quoted in Hans Vogt, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chamber Music: Background, Analysis, Indvidual Works [Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1988], 48).
6. Vogt, Bach’s Chamber Music, 21.
7. Cowling, Cello, 67.
8. For information in this section I have consulted, among other works: Ugo Biagioni, Boccherini (Madrid: Instituto Italiano di Cultura, 1993); Germaine de Rothschild, Luigi Boccherini: His Life and Work, trans. Andreas Mayor (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965); Ramón Barce, Boccherini en Madrid (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, 1992).
9. Cowling, Cello, 112.
10. H. C. Robbins Landon, ed., The Mozart Compendium: A Guide to Mozart’s Life and Work (New York: Schirmer, 1990), 343.
11. Ibid., 355.
12. This “numbered” writing is the equivalent of a kind of musical shorthand.
1. Sonata form consists of three sections—exposition, development, and recapitulation—and is used especially in the first movement of sonatas, quartets, concertos, symphonies, etc.
2. Joseph Schmidt-Görg and Hans Schmidt, eds., Ludwig van Beethoven (New York: Praeger, 1969), 153.
3. Wilhem von Lenz, quoted in Schmidt-Görg and Schmidt, Beethoven, 152.
4. Lev Ginsburg, History of the Violoncello, ed. Herbert R. Axelrod, trans. Tanya Tchistyakova (Neptune City, N.J.: Paganiniana Publications, 1983), 109.
5. The music critic who covered the event wrote: “I believe that no cellist has ever dared perform this difficult task, for which Herr Popper deserves to be doubly thanked. This work is not intended for the general public, but a connoisseur would appreciate its outstanding musical merits . . .” (quoted in Ginsburg, Violoncello, 92).
6. Ginsburg, Violoncello, 129.
7. Malcolm MacDonald, Brahms, Master Musicians Series (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), 437.
8. This version was published in 1897 as “Edition for cello and piano,” but was subsequently lost. A copy was discovered in 1974, and a new edition was subsequently published (International Music Co., 1975).
9. McDonald, Brahms, 320–321.
10. The manuscript for this concerto was discovered in Würtemberg in 1925. See John Clapham, “Dvoák’s First Cello Concerto,” Music and Letters 37 (1956): 350–355. It has been played by the Czech cellist Milos Sadlo in an orchestral version by Jan Burghauser.
11. John Clapham, “Dvoák’s Cello Concerto: A Masterpiece in the Making,” Music Review 40, no. 2 (May 1979), 136.
12. Ibid., 123.
13. Brahms to Simrock, letter dated January 27, 1896, in Dvoák and His World, ed. Michael Beckerman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), 80.
14. Donald Francis Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis, vol. 3, Concertos (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1978), 148.
1. For further information on this subject one can consult the excellent book by the cellist and professor Elías Arizcuren, El violonchelo: Sus escuelas a través de los siglos (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1992).
2. Pablo Casals, Joys and Sorrows: Reflections by Pablo Casals, as told to Albert E. Kahn (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974), 69–70.
3. The Gagliano family, founded by Alessandro Gagliano (1640–1720), was Naples’s most distinguished dynasty of violin makers.
4. Casals, Joys and Sorrows, 98.
5. Ibid.
6. José García Borrás, Pablo Casals: Peregrino en América (Mexico: Talleres Gráficos Victoria, 1957), 96.
7. The winners of the competition were Rama Jucker, from Switzerland; Anner Bijlsma, from Holland; and Josef Chuchro, from Czechoslovakia.
8. Emanuel Feuermann, “Cello Playing: A Contemporary Revolution,” Newsletter of the Violoncello Society, Inc. (New York), Spring 1972, 2.
9. Piatigorsky, Cellist, 49.
10. Soviet criticism was unanimously negative, partly for ideological reasons, but the composer himself was not satisfied with the concert and chose to withdraw it. See Harlow Robinson, Sergei Prokofiev: A Biography (New York: Viking, 1987), 356.
11. Piatigorsky, Cellist, 144.
12. Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994), 324.
13. Michael Scammell, Solzhenitsyn: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1984), 603.
14. Professor Daniel Homuth drew up a list of 4,600 cello works since 1960: 2,119 for cello and piano, 1,541 for solo cello, 695 for cello and orchestra, 125 for cello and string orchestra, and 120 for cello and chamber orchestra. Naturally, because of a lack of information he included few works by Latin Americans. See Daniel Homuth, Cello Music since 1960: A Bibliography of Solo, Chamber, and Orchestral Works for the Solo Cellist (Berkeley, Calif.: Fallen Leaf Press, 1994).
15. I am very grateful to the Latin American Music Center at Indiana University (Bloomington), and in particular to Carmen Téllez and Gerardo Dirié for the information they provided me.
16. Among his numerous contributions to music, in 1945 he founded the Revista musical chilena, perhaps the most important Latin American publication of this type.
17. When violinists and cellist do not play in tune, it is usually because they are inadvertently venturing into “Sonido 13”!
18. Perhaps the transcription of Frescobaldi’s Toccata is an original work by Cassadó, in the style of works by Fritz Kreisler.
1. All train schedules follow Moscow time. Due to the sheer size of the country, there are eleven time zones, so it is more practical to follow a system that is familiar to everyone. We spent a great deal of time figuring out the time difference!