It seems odd that Beijing's Central conservatory is tiled in sucha way
that it looks like a large, ugly shower.  The tiles are a chrned up white
with light beige, and the crime of the air settles upon it in a way that
resembles mildew more than anything else.  And yet miracles happen in the
shower, and miracles happen here.

Imagine, if you will, a wizzened old woman who could play Babba Yaga on
television.  Imagine her, going from passive, even pensive listening, to
animated outbursts, and finally motion as she walks over to a student and
moves his arms and hands in ways that he can do, but cannot imagine clearly
enough to do.

This is Shakhovskaya - a cellist with a long career, distinguished by every
praise that can be given someone so underpaid.  And yet she is hear, in an
ugly room with students who, in some cases, are struggling with the very
basic transition from someone who practices to someone who plays.

- - -

What one will learn by watching this class is rather simple - everything
flows up from below.  If the body is wrong, the movement is wrong, the
sound is wrong and the music is wrong.  Over and over again she will
correct shoulder position, tightness, holding the bow, direction of the
stroke.  It is clear from each correction that here - a woman who was a
medalist so many years ago at the Tchaikovski competition - has a looser
shoulder and wrist than students who were born after the death of Samuel
Barber.

The most interesting single student was a young man who elected to play the
Schostakovich Cello Sonata.  This work is not typical of what was to follow
it in Schostakovich's output - the middle quartets and symphonies.  It is
neither large, nor introverted.  It does share some features with the last
of the early quartets - simple chromatic turns to change the direction of
the music, motor rhthyms and a wide variety of techniques.

The young cellist took after his work, and instantly committed one of the
most cardinal errors in music.  There were many moments where he wanted to
communicate tenseness and churned emmotionalism.  He tensed hs face, his
shoulders tensed.  And he was late.  More over, the sound was wrong, and
he was unable to execute the rhythm correctly.  More over he communicated
weakness as the bow nearly skittered off of the strings.

This was particular notable in the transition from pizzacto to arco, and
in the changes from glissandi.  Each of these transitions had the slight
hesitation that came from tenseness.  There were other ills that followed
as he tried to push the bow over faster to catch up with the unrelenting
accompanist, who, to her, credit, played with that remorseless and
remarkable insensitivity which master classes should have.  The musician
must first play the music Schostakovich's way, before he may say that he
is stamping it with his personal artistry.

After listening patiently, the old head shook back and forth, and finally
she called a halt.  Taking the young man to the section where Schostakovich
has a single figure repeated rapidly and with great assertion, she led him
through it.  This figure, set against a delicate prettiness, must sound, in
any intelligent performance, like a prisoner watching the spring, while
scrawling his name endlessly on the wall as a way of venting the hopeless
frustration.

Without the loose shoulder, the cellist could only bow across, instead of
witha powerful downstroke.  The tone was brittle, hollow and he was unable
to hit the notated accents.  The older teacher again and again showed him
how to loosen the shoulder, and pull the bow almost as much down as across.
The accent became observed automatically, and more over any transition had
the power of a long stroke back.

He caught it, and then it fumbled away from him.  It was clear he could
hear the difference, but the tenseness flooded his face, and his shoulder
became a rock again.

- - -

Failures of mechanism are embarassing, but failures of soul are painful.
It is not that the young man was not promising, his finger work was fast
and clean, though far from flawless, his bowing, when he did not force it,
showed that his musculature had been honed to suppleness, and his placement
shined here and there.  More over he loved the music, he wanted to feel the
music.  But again and again tension spasmed from his face.  Again and again
he was corrected.

The cellist who is to sucede may well tense his face, but it is pulling the
tension out of his body, leaving it more fluid than before.  The tension
is, in fact, a way of controlling an urge which will otherwise shoot down
the spine and into the hands.  The expression comes, not from mimicking how
the listener will feel, but by mastering the impulse and transforming it to
its opposite, thus inducing a catharsis.  A catharsis which shows itself as
a pure line, a sharp attack and a smooth tone.

Perhaps it is a small thing, but listeners have eyes as well as ears.
Perhaps someday this CD age will pass a way, and we will put our interest
at a higher rate.  We will watch the struggle of the musician as intently
as we hunt for more music for the dollar now, and realise that a war goes
on in the artist.  Too little emotion, and there is no soul, too much, and
it overwhelms the ramparts of the technique, and leaves a ruin behind.

Stirling Newberry <[log in to unmask]>