Music - Resources by Instrument

Exploring in depth the repertory of the unaccompanied cello, this work lists more than 1,500 works from the Baroque era to the present day. It gives succinct information, including durations of works, and composers' dates and nationalities.

This guide lists more than 5,200 works for the solo cellist written by 3,100 composers over the past thirty years. Entries give information on the date of composition, duration, publisher or source, first performances, and recordings, instrumentation, new performance techniques used, and degree of difficulty. Indexed by composers and cellists.

Christopher Bunting's celebrated Essay on the Craft of 'Cello Playing is much valued by teachers and advanced performers. Dorothy Churchill Pratt has 'distilled' this single volume from the original two-volume study in order to make available to the younger or less advanced student the essence of Mr Bunting's philosophy and the most valuable of the exercises aimed at a rapid development of instrumental skill. The order of the technical problems discussed follows that of the two-volume edition. At the end of each section reference is made to the relevant portions of the Essay for the convenience of teachers and in order to provide suggestions for further study.

Written for the cellist looking for an approach that demystifies cello playing, Cello, Bow and You is an innovative text in the field of string pedagogy written by a 40+ year veteran of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. Author Evangeline Benedetti has a unique voice and approach, and invites cellists of all levels to explore, make discoveries and organically internalize technique. Benedetti's approach compliments the work that students do with their teachers by encouraging them to be more aware of themselves and responsive to internal and external guidance. Cello, Bow and You allows students and professionals access to Benedetti's vast performance and teaching experience. She has pioneered an approach to playing that is a synthesis of the cellist's musical thought, the knowledge of the dynamic properties of the instrument and bow, and the ability to move effectively according to the mechanics of the human body. The synergy of these elements leads to physically healthy playing and frees players to be musically expressive. Written in engaging, informal prose, the book is a must-read for cellists and cello teachers - beginning, intermediate, or professional.

This innovative study of nineteenth-century cellists and cello playing shows how simple concepts of posture, technique and expression changed over time, while acknowledging that many different practices co-existed. By placing an awareness of this diversity at the centre of an historical narrative, George Kennaway has produced a unique cultural history of performance practices. In addition to drawing upon an unusually wide range of source materials - from instructional methods to poetry, novels and film - Kennaway acknowledges the instability and ambiguity of the data that supports historically informed performance. By examining nineteenth-century assumptions about the very nature of the cello itself, he demonstrates new ways of thinking about historical performance today. Kennaway's treatment of tone quality and projection, and of posture, bow-strokes and fingering, is informed by his practical insights as a professional cellist and teacher. Vibrato and portamento are examined in the context of an increasing divergence between theory and practice, as seen in printed sources and heard in early cello recordings. Kennaway also explores differing nineteenth-century views of the cello's gendered identity and the relevance of these cultural tropes to contemporary performance. By accepting the diversity and ambiguity of nineteenth-century sources, and by resisting oversimplified solutions, Kennaway has produced a nuanced performing history that will challenge and engage musicologists and performers alike.

This book is the first integral study of the history of imitative or co-creative artistic work that has led to the creation of cello transcriptions and arrangements. Of an interdisciplinary character, it explores the views that have shaped approaches to the art of cello performance and describes the role of cello transcriptions and the development of instrument making. The book also addresses issues related to philosophy, history of aesthetics and visual arts, including iconography presenting historical images of the cello. The theoretical part contains definitions and systematics that make it possible to categorise the vast amount of transcriptions, as well as descriptions and suggested recordings of a selection of those transcriptions.

Offers performers, teachers and students new insights into ornamentation. The Cello Suites of Johann Sebastian Bach contain some one hundred trills, many open to diverse execution and more than half sparking controversy among musicians. Now accomplished cellist Jerome Carrington brings together and examines historically informed interpretations of the trills and compares them with contemporary performance practice. Carrington collects and annotates every trill in the Cello Suites, examining each ornament individually to find the most historically accurate solution for its execution. For determining the form of each trill, he offers a method that includes analysis of harmonic structure. Because no autograph copy of the Cello Suites has survived, he undertakes a detailed study of the manuscript of the Lute Suite in G minor, which Bach adapted from Cello Suite No. 5, as a reference for correcting errors and verifying harmonic and rhythmic details. Bursting with new ideas, Trills in the Bach Cello Suites offers insight for performers and music theorists alike. It will aid in the interpretation of these classic works as it renews our appreciation for Bach's genius.

What does it mean to perform expressively on the cello? In Cello Practice, Cello Performance, professor Miranda Wilson teaches that effectiveness on the concert stage or in an audition reflects the intensity, efficiency, and organization of your practice. Far from being a mysterious gift randomly bestowed on a lucky few, successful cello performance is, in fact, a learnable skill that any player can master. Most other instructional works for cellists address techniques for each hand individually, as if their movements were independent. In Cello Practice, Cello Performance, Wilson demonstrates that the movements of the hands are vitally interdependent, supporting and empowering one another in any technical action. Original exercises in the fundamentals of cello playing include cross-lateral exercises, mindful breathing, and one of the most detailed discussions of intonation in the cello literature. Wilson translates this practice-room success to the concert hall through chapters on performance-focused practice, performance anxiety, and common interpretive challenges of cello playing. This book is a resource for all advanced cellists--college-bound high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, educators, and professional performers--and teaches them how to be their own best teachers.

This is the first book to address the full range of performance issues for the cello from the Baroque to the early Romantic period. The development of playing techniques and stylistic transitions are traced regionally through a comparison of Italian, French, German, English, and East European performance traits. Through a close study of contemporary violoncello methods, music, early instruments, periodicals, diaries, letters and pictures, Walden provides a cohesive overview which examines construction methods for instruments and bows, fingering and bowing techniques, special effects and ornamentation, accompanying skills and the stylistic preferences of the most famous soloists. Richly illustrated with over 300 music examples, plates and figures, this book provides playing instructions which can easily be applied by modern players to their own performance of period music.

This resource considers the Baroque cello's revival as part of the period instrument movement from the viewpoints of over forty cellists from three generations and four luthiers who have worked on period cellos. What emerges is a nuanced and detailed picture of the cello in the past and present and the varied instruments now played under the label "Baroque cello." Period instruments played with appropriate techniques have become a major presence in classical music in recent decades. For the cello, which changed substantially between the end of the sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries, it is challenging to describe specific traits for certain time periods, let alone how it was played in those periods. By chronicling the searches of over forty top cellists in England, Europe, and North America, the author goes far in revealing the great variety of forms that exist. This is the first study in which the revival of a single period instrument has been considered in such qualified detail and will be of great interest to musicologists, luthiers, and anyone interested in string history.

This is a compact, composite and authoritative survey of the history and development of the cello and its repertory since the origins of the instrument. The volume comprises thirteen essays, written by a team of nine distinguished scholars and performers, and is intended to develop the cello's historical perspective in breadth and from every relevant angle, offering as comprehensive a coverage as possible. It focuses in particular on four principal areas: the instrument's structure, development and fundamental acoustical principles; the careers of the most distinguished cellists since the baroque era; the cello repertory (including chapters devoted to the concerto, the sonata, other solo repertory, and ensemble music); and its technique, teaching methods and relevant aspects of historical and performance practice. It is the most comprehensive book ever to be published about the instrument and provides essential information for performers, students and teachers.

In 1720, Antonio Stradivari crafted an exquisite work of art--a cello known as the Piatti. Over the next three centuries of its life, the Piatti cello left its birthplace of Cremona, Italy, and resided in Spain, Ireland, England, Italy, Germany, and the United States. In 1978, the Piatti became the musical soul mate of world-renowned cellist Carlos Prieto, with whom it has given concerts around the world. In this delightful book, Mr. Prieto recounts the adventurous life of his beloved "Cello Prieto," tracing its history through each of its previous owners from Stradivari in 1720 to himself. He then describes his noteworthy experiences of playing the Piatti cello, with which he has premiered some eighty compositions. In this part of their mutual story, Prieto gives a concise summary of his own remarkable career and his relationships with many illustrious personalities, including Igor Stravinsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, Pablo Casals, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, and Gabriel Garc#65533;a M#65533;rquez. A new epilogue, in which he describes recent concert tours in Moscow, Siberia, and China and briefer visits to South Korea, Taiwan, and Venezuela, as well as recent recitals with Yo-Yo Ma, brings the story up to 2009. To make the story of his cello complete, Mr. Prieto also provides a brief history of violin making and a succinct review of cello music from Stradivari to the present. He highlights the work of composers from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, for whose music he has long been an advocate and principal performer. This book includes a CD of fourteen recordings by Carlos Prieto, including works by J. S. Bach, Dmitry Shostakovich, Astor Piazzolla, and Eugenio Toussaint.