An Instrumental Problem in 'Pulcinella'

Author(s): Hans Keller

Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 105 (Jun., 1973), pp. 22-24
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/942979 .
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AN INSTRUMENTAL PROBLEM
IN 'PULCINELLA'
Hans Keller
knew little about violin technique. It happensin the best circles.
Schumann,on the evidence of his highlysubstantialstringquartets, knew as
muchabout stringplayingas I know about the cimbalom. Brahmsand Tchaikovskywrote greatviolin concertosagainstthe violin. And Mahler's auditioningof
violinistswas a joke: 'He attachedthe greatestsignificanceto the steadiestpossible bowing in sustainednotes', Carl Flesch' recounts,
STRAVINSKY

and thereforeconsidered the beginningof the thirdact of Siegfried[Flesch means the beginningof
Act III, Scene 3] a touchstonefor the bowing technique of an orchestralviolinist. . . He firstasked
me to play a Mozart Adagio, and thenset the Siegfried
passagein frontof me. As mybow glided over
the stringswith the phlegmaticcalm of a world-wearyphilosopher, he seemed greatlypleased,
wanted to nail me down to the post of leader at once, and accompanied me himselfto the administrationbuilding ...

Two dangersconfrontthe composerunversedin anyimportantinstrumental

respect. One is amateurism-which is the smaller danger. The real risk is
professionalism-havinghis imaginationcurbed by wrongprofessionaladvice, be
it lazily conventionalor indeed concealedly amateurishitself: a stringplayer's
advice tends to springfrom soloistic or chamber-musicalfeelingeven where
orchestralsound is concerned, and even when he is an experienced orchestral
worker,because it is his individualplayingthathis sound-consciousnessclingsto
realisticdefencein all conscience.
in ordernot to lose identity-a psychologically
I have, in thesepages, specifiedone exampleof Stravinsky
givingin to wrong
in
a
rehearsal
and
at
he felthe had to
advice-when,
my
presence,
professional
withdraw a direction which, in technical reality, would have been entirely
justified.2 I am convincedthatthereis another,farmore important,and indeed
dramaticexample; more importantbecause the wrong professionaladvice I am
alleginghas actuallybeen perpetuatedin the score, and because its effectis a
ofall composers!-obscuration of the intendmajordistortionand-in Stravinsky
ed textureand rhythm.
1 Memoirs,London, 1957, p. 87.
2 Stravinsky's
TEMPO Ioo,
Performance
of'Agon': a report,

Spring 1972.
1973 by Hans Keller

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AN INSTRUMENTAL PROBLEM

23

I am referringto the passage indicatedby my music example, i.e. the chief

accompanimentalfigurein the 'Serenata' from Pulcinella,as it appears in the
revised versionof 1965. For years,I have been unhappyabout this sound as it
emerges in performance-anyperformance,includingStravinsky'sown on CBS
SBRG72452 (if it is indeed Stravinsky'sown). I well rememberthatwhen I first
heard the work, not havingseen the score, I was unable to hear whatwas happening, or to divinewhat was supposedto be happening:the texturewas a mess and
has remainedone ever since, withthefirstfewdemisemiquaversjust audible ifyou
are lucky, and the rest merginginto a vague supportingnoise for the tenor's
sicilianamelody.
.

50

SV

Vn(
Erit l s
Solo
V'la.411140
.
_a
sil tasto ed

lrunta d'arco

Perhaps because I was co-responsiblefor it, the European Broadcasting

Union's recentperformanceof the work was, forme, thelaststraw: I decided I
miscalculation. The firstquestionto
musttryto do somethingabout Stravinsky's
ask is whethersharprhythmicarticulationor an indistinctnoise-as, say, in the
sextupletsat the beginningof Beethoven'sNinth-is intended; and there can, I
submit,be only one answer: the total texturestandsor fallswith its rhythmic
definition.The second questionconcernsthenotatedexecution. Again,therecan
followedbyan upbow,
be no doubt. The downbowforthe eightdemisemiquavers
the requestto playnear the point,and the staccatodots underthe slurmake only
or as one
one bowing possible-a thrownvirtuosobowing known as ricochet"
varietyof saltato,4and best rememberedfromsuch typicalfiddler'spieces as the
PaganiniCaprices,or assortedencores by Wieniawskiand other 'ki's. The point
here is that even in the most auspicious soloistic circumstances,with a good
fiddleron the one hand and a well-lyingpassageon the other,one does not easily
get a greatdeal of precisionfromthiskind of bowing: the magnanimouslistener
readily takes the approximatesound for the deed, since in such passages, the
notes are guessableanyway,and can thereforebe hallucinatedby the listeningear.
As a matterof fact, Carl Flesch, whom nobody can accuse of lack of pedantry,
actuallyallows himselfto record 'the slightdegree of exactnessdemandedby this
typeof bowing'.
Now while it is truethatin Stravinsky's
accompaniment,at leasttheproblem
of co-ordinationbetween leftand righthand does not arise, since the lefthand
does not change notes, the idea thata stringchoruscould execute these thrown
and clarityis so
bowings with anythingapproachingrhythmicsynchronization
absurdthatone is at a loss to explain the slavishadherenceto Stravinmanifestly
sky's notationdown the decades. It seems to me thata violinist'ssoloistic soul
musthave been responsibleforStravinsky's
carefullynotatedbowing: the fiddler
wanted to have, or wantedothersto have, a bit of fun,and nevermind what the
total texturewas going to sound like.
It might,of course, be suggestedthatif a more normalbowing is adopted,
if the stringsare asked to play down and up fromnote to note, the eightdemi3 See Ivan Galamian, Principles
of ViolinPlayingand Teaching,New Jersey,1962, pp. 8 xff.

4 See Carl Flesch, TheArtof ViolinPlaying,New York, 1924, Vol. 1,

p.76.

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24

TEMPO

be accommodatedwithinStravinsemiquaversmightnot easilyand well-definedly

either-but
he
himself
has giventheanswerto thatone:
sky's prescribed tempo
at the verybeginningof the 'Serenata',where the cellos have to playfifths
in natwere employed,
uralharmonicswhichcould notbe made to sound at all ifricochet
he notatesthe selfsamegroup withstaccatodots but withouta slur,merelydirecting the playersto bow at the point-a taskwhich has always been well accomplishedin performance.
The solution?To adhere,throughout,to the mere staccatodots of the openwhichmakestherequiredrhythmical
notation,
sound-picturequite clear. And
ing
let us leave the decisionhow best to realize it to the conductorand theplayers: it
is even conceivablethatthisquick rhythmcould be achievedby slightlydifferent
bowings on the part of individual players, according to their own technical
aptitudesand idiosyncracies,so thatnot everybodyneed automaticallyplay at the
principle,
point. Let us rememberthatStokowskihas, as a matterof ultra-realistic
abolished uniformbowings in his orchestras-and is there a more concretely
sound-consciousconductorin the world?
For the rest, those of us who have to read plenty of less than masterly
conclusion
scores in theirworkinglives have come to the slightlyoversimplified
thatthe less a composerknowsabout stringtechnique,the more carefullywill he
the self-evident
notatethebowingsin his stringparts-to thepointofdisregarding
factthatwhat bows up mustbow down, of meticulouslymarkingsuccessiveupand downbowsas iftherewere anyalternative;thenaiveintention,I suppose,is to
expertise. But in thisilliterateage, when musicianscan
prove one's instrumental
the
trusted
with
be
abilityto read music,greatcomposers,too, have taken
hardly
to over-notation-which, if they lack expertise in any particularinstrumental
field,is quite likelyto resultin the wrongnotationforthe veryrightsound they
have in theirminds-all the more so'since, so faras the orchestrais concerned,
therejust is no such thingas expertadvice, forthe simplereason thatthereis no
such artisticpersonas an orchestralplayer: it's a job, not a callingwhichdevelops
more thanthe mostelementaryspecificexpertise. And a stringsectioncan't give
collective expert advice because it can't hear itselfin the total texturalcontext
anyway;it can't even hear its own exact soundas a whole.

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