Bach

I am on the homestretch, getting ready for the concerts in Alberta.

The Concerts

• Sunday, April 12, 2009, 1 PM. Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives, Jasper.
  
• Sunday, April 19, 2009, 2 PM. Robertson Wesley United Church, Edmonton.
  
• Saturday, May 2, 2009, 2 PM. All Saints' Anglican Cathedral, Edmonton.
  
• Sunday, May 3, 2009, 2 PM. The ARTery, Edmonton.
• May 23, 2009, 1 PM. University of Lethbridge. Part of the University of Lethbridge Cello Festival.
• May 24, 2009,1 PM. University of Lethbridge. Part of the University of Lethbridge Cello Festival
  

The Venues

Each venue that I chose for the performances is very different.

• In Jasper it will be at a museum, at a contemporary art exhibit in a mountain town in the Rockies. The acoustics there are great and audiences can look around at the art while they listen.
• Two of the concerts in Edmonton will be at great churches.
  Churches have been popular concert venues throughout the centuries. Their acoustics are generally very good for instrumental music. It might be hard on the audience's bums though...
• One concert will be at 10 AM and is a so called Coffee Concert at Convocation Hall at the University of Alberta. This is a true concert venue with good acoustics, though not as "forgiving" as some others. For once the audience will have comfortable seats!
• This performance time may seem unusual in North America; at least here in Edmonton it is uncommon, but many concerts in Europe are on Sunday morning at “coffee time”. Usually this means about 11 AM, but since the 6 suites are a bit of a marathon, I decided to start early so that people can go for lunch after..
  At the end of the 17^th century Coffea Arabica reached Western Europe. For a long time it was regarded a kind of medicine. Contrary to tea, which was served in fancy salons, coffee was served in more ordinary “coffee houses”. Coffee soon became wildly popular and became synonymous with having a good time together. Many of those meetings at the local coffee houses involved concerts, some more spontaneous than others; Bach even wrote a “coffee cantata”! At this concert coffee will be served to honour an old tradition.
• The last concert in Edmonton is at a very alternative venue. It is in the rough part of downtown Edmonton, in an old, decrepit but very alive building, where a lot of "cool" arts events are happening; from poetry readings, to contemporary dance to provocative visual art. At this concert the audience will be much closer to the performer so it will feel much more intimate.This follows another tradition of performing music in a chamber setting. The audience is close to the performer, sitting relaxed around tables, enjoying a drink and nibbling food while listening to music.
• The concerts in Lethbridge are part of a cello festival, where participants and audience are immersed in "everything cello" for a few days. The buzz will be quite different there!
  

The Music

If anyone is under the impression that it has to get easier by now; it doesn't!

Bach keeps surprising me, challenging me and keeps me on my toes!
Hooray!

Part of this is something every musician is familiar with: the better we get; the more critical we get as well! Which means we loose track of the progression we make, and we tend to just notice what else still needs to be done. And believe me; there is always more to do! The good thing about that is that this keeps us practicing very hard until the last moment.

And that is just what I am doing. Did you think I was done with the metronome? I thought so too, but I resurrected it this week. And just when I figured I played the 10 million or so double stops in the suites exactly the way I wanted to, I changed my mind and since a few days I execute them all very differently!

Of course I have listened to so many recordings of the suites that I have lost track of the numbers. And I still listen, after a hiatus of about 3 months, during which I felt I did not want to be influenced.

I started listening again, and feel more intimidated by the suites than ever before. Don't get me wrong; I know every note of these suites intimately. I have studied so many versions of manuscript that I think I am able to distinguish whose version people are performing from, or even which version of manuscript the editor of the performance edition used. And still I feel humbled and at awe by them.

I still discover little and not so little things in listening and studying the manuscripts. I just changed a note in the first Menuet of the second suite. I must have played that suite since I was 16 years old or so, and yet it is only yesterday that I changed the a-e double stop just after the repeat to a-c#! It was such a revelation! And yet I have heard Bylsma and Rostropovich play that note "forever". Almost everyone else plays a-e though. Anna Magdalena writes a-c#, other sources write a-e. Who knows; I might change my mind again. And again. These kinds of revelations are huge for me, but may seem nothing for someone else. And certainly for my audience, who will listen to it; they won't care and most of them won't even notice!

A movement that every cellist perpetually struggles with is the first Menuet of the second suite. I mentioned the double stops before. The lengths in which they are spelled vary a lot. Bylsma writes about this in his "Fencing Master":

"Only a few movements have a bass as complete as the first Menuet of the second suite. The bass is logical in itself, and when playing it alone, what one suspected all along immediately becomes apparent; the notation is in a strange way "conventional". Without good musical reason the basses and other accompanying notes are given the same length as the melody notes to which they belong."

He continues:

"There are more conventions like that. For instance in the score of the St. Mathew passion, the basses of the secco recitatives are notated short and in the St. John passion the same notes are written long but they must be played exactly the same way (short). Why? I don't know. Tradition?

....

There are two things to be learned from this: the notated length of the bass really has no meaning, and when another voice is a long note, another note may very well be bowed back and forth(!)." Judge every bass note on its own merits. Arpeggiate in such a way that the logic of the bass does not suffer. Therefore, break 2 string chords as well, when in the midst of 3 and 4 part chords."

I have read Bylsma's book numerous times, and listened to so many recordings, including his, of course, but suddenly... click... something made sense:

Don't try so desperately to hold on to more than one note in a chord!

Duh!!

And it has made a huge difference already.

Yes: that Menuet of the 2nd suite isn't so bad after all!

Suddenly the Sarabande of the 6th suite is a lot easier too.

The Sarabande of the 4th suite has had a few challenges for me, because the fingerboard of the cello that I play this suite on (my Mirecourt), has a dent (playing too much) exactly at the bflat on the G string. (yes; I know; I need to get the fingerboard shaved). The chord in bar 3; b-flat and f, should be exactly across from each other, but they aren't on this cello, so it has been a terrible issue. The b-flat is shown as a dotted half note, but the quarter notes in the melody are all separate. I have always tried to get around that by at least holding b-flat and f together as long as possible, and even experimented with slurring the entire bar (I did not like that).

But if you just break the chord, and play the b-flat arpeggiated before the f...

Now I am laughing!

Then there are tempi. If you listen to 50 different performances of the suites, you will hear 50 different tempi. Even if you listen to a live performance of a suite by a cellist who's recording you have played a million times; the tempo choice is often different. I sure change my mind a lot! It keeps the suites alive and it does say a lot about Bach's genius. Casals called them "Masterpieces in constant state of evolution". Listen to any recording of any other piece and the tempo may vary by a notch or two, but never as drastically as with the suites. That is great and a little unsettling too. What will I do on stage? I make a strong commitment to a tempo one day and completely disagree with it the next!
Every cellist feels challenged by the suites. Pieter Wispelweij plans to record them every 7 years to keep putting out his new ideas. Rostropovitch was very reluctant to record them because he did not want to put a "definitive" interpretation out.

I play a Gavotte I fast and Gavotte II slow one day and I want to reverse it the next day, or suddenly feel they should both be rather slow...or both fast!

To feel the Prelude of the 4th suite in 2 makes it a lot easier to listen to.

And easier to play, to give it shape.

Or the Courante of the 3rd suite in 1.

I think... For now...

I think I will be humbled and challenged by this music forever!

Genius!

The Instruments

The constant change of instruments is challenging and great fun. I do feel like I finally have a grip on it.
When I say challenging, I am not just talking about the distance between the fingers or between the strings with the bow though. Sure; that will always be a challenge. The Mirecourt has a length from the bridge to the nut of 70.2 centimetres. The the carbon fibre cello is about the same, the baroque cello 69 and the piccolo 64 cm.

The bridges are cut so differently. I have to be careful on the piccolo that I don't bow on the G string when I mean to just play the d. But muscle memory (which truly is in your brain) is amazing and I seem to have found my way with that.

Initially I tried very hard to get the same volume out of the baroque cello that I got out of the carbon. That really sounded bad! Now I am very content with a softer sound. It still takes my ears a few minutes to get used to it every time I switch, but I really like it.

Even more challenging is to be able to get the intended expression out of each instrument. And to adapt my expectation to each cello. I do need more dynamic differences on the modern cellos than on the old ones, just because they can and it sounds silly not too (and it sounds really great when I do).
I can not go to those same extremes on the baroque cellos, even though you can make lots of dynamic differences still, of course. More importantly; the warmth of the gut strings on those allow me to play with the colour and make me search for overtones that I can not find on the steel strings.

A few weeks ago I played a short concert where I played the entire fourth suite, on 3 cellos. The Prelude and Allemande on the baroque cello, the Courante and Sarabande on the Mirecourt and the Bourree I and II and the Gigue on the carbon fibre. I spent little time preparing that, just because I figured I was in good shape, I practice the 4th suite on my Mirecourt all the time and I know the other instruments well. To my surprise I had a lot more difficulty on stage than I had anticipated.

The Prelude of that suite is of course a challenge at the best of times, but was hard on the baroque cello. It took me a while to realize that I needed much, much more bow than I was used to playing this on my Mirecourt. And when it came to the Bourrees and Gigue, I took a tempo that was much faster than I should have for my own comfort, just because I wanted to "show off" how easy the carbon fibre cello was.
Weird as it may sound: I have come a long way since then (and that was only 3 weeks ago). I guess that concert made a few things very clear to me and I have practiced differently since. Perhaps I became more aware? A concert is always different than time by yourself in the practice room.

The promotion; creating a "buzz"

The challenge for every musician is always to try to get people to your concert.
My husband is a painter and his work is done months prior to an exhibit opening. That means that he has a lot of time that he can devote to promoting the exhibit. He can write press releases, mail outs, call people, visit people and do whatever else is necessary to let people know that you have an event coming up. It also helps that he is quite shameless approaching people.
Musicians are in the practice room until the hour before the concert! That leaves us very little time to interact with our potential audience. Thank goodness for me, my husband is also a graphic designer, so he makes my website, updates it whenever I want him to, and he makes posters and hand outs for my concerts. Yes; I still have to write text, but at least someone else is taking care of the distribution of flyers and posters, etc.

I started early this time around, so that I do have time in the practice studio closer to the performances, but also to make sure that people know about it well in advance. People are busy; they need to be able to plan ahead. With these concerts, the "buzz" seems to be happening; the word spreads quickly. I am excited!
It is an expensive profession though: I have had to rent the concert venues, print posters and hand-outs. O yeah; and I bought two cellos and a bow...
There better be a lot of people to break even!
But it is so much fun!

The tickets:

I decided to make my Edmonton concerts work in such a way that the audience can buy a ticket once and then come to as many of the concerts as they would like. For many people 6 suites in one sitting is a little much (especially if they are sitting in a church pew).
I will play 2 suites, have an intermission, 2 more suites, another intermission, and then the last 2 suites. Every "set" starts on the hour. People can decide to leave after every set and come back for the next set or two on another date. Or they can come to all 6 suites 4 times, of course!
The options:

• Listen to all six suites in one afternoon
• Leave after two suites and come back for more at the next performances
• Listen to all six suites several times!

• 1st hour: Suite 1 and Suite 2 (Mirecourt cello, Baroque cello)
• 2nd hour: Suite 3 and Suite 4 (Carbon fibre cello, Mirecourt cello)
• 3rd hour: Suite 5 and Suite 6 (Baroque cello, Cello piccolo)

To perform from memory, or not?

With the performances just around the corner, I can not tell you how many people have asked if would be performing the six suites from memory.

Let me begin by saying that I strongly believe that in order to perform a piece well, one should know it from memory in all of its details.
However... should one always perform it without the music at least nearby?
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
...

I have decided that I will NOT perform the suites from memory!

While the ability to perform all suites from memory is hugely admirable, I don't think I could enjoy the performance the same way if I were to perform all six suites from memory. I would be too afraid I might loose sight of the "big picture", would feel restricted, too worried if I might possibly end up at the wrong end of a passage and having to improvise my way out of it.
Instead I think I would prefer having the music comfortably with me, giving me the freedom to re-invent my interpretation every time again.

I think that this way I would enjoy the performance.

How would the audience feel if I played from music? Would they care? Would the enjoy it more? Would they find it distracting? Would they find it embarrassing?

Some cultures emphasize the importance of performing from memory. The North American culture (if such a thing exists) is one of them, and so seem the Eastern European and Russian schools to be. For some of them there simply is "no other way".

When I am in an audience, I do not care if the performer does or does not have the music. What I care about is whether it is clear that the musician knows the music well and that the performance moves me.

I have, on occasion, felt very uncomfortable when musicians (some very famous ones!) lost their place and either had to start over or improvise to get out of their predicament. In those cases I never fully relaxed again in the audience, because; "what if he or she gets lost again?!"
Some musicians get consoled by the idea that even very seasoned performers get lost. "if it can happen to them, it does not matter so much that I struggle with these issues as well!"
I feel differently: "they" can get away with it; "they" will be forgiven very easily, given their status. However when I loose it in performance, I have to prove myself all over again.

On the other hand; I have listened to ill prepared performances where the performer was clearly just reading the notes. This too, is very uncomfortable, if not irritating, no matter how talented or famous the performer.

Hence my first sentence: in order to perform a piece well, one should know it from memory in all of its details.
For me, however, to be able to be creative, free, expressive and to enjoy it myself, I like to have the comfort of music in the vicinity.

Last fall I went to the second Amsterdam cello biennial. Every morning started with a different Bach suite, performed by a different cellist. These were all played from memory. At many other concerts including some cello concertos performed by very seasoned cellists, as well as most concerts involving cello and piano, the musicians had music in front of them.
I asked my former prof what he thought of the whole issue of memorizing. I remember that during my university years it was never insisted upon that we'd perform from memory, though we did need to be able to play the pieces from memory in our lessons.
He said: "you'd be an idiot to play that concert from memory" (referring to performing six Bach suites in one afternoon). Then he quoted famous Viola da Gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall to emphasize his point.
At a masterclass for Savall, one particular student was playing one of the gamba sonatas by Bach from memory. Savall apparently did not like that. Apparently he said "when you are playing from memory, you are placing yourself between the composer and the music. What you will hear is the performer, not the composer, and who are you to think you are better than Bach!"

You have to remember that I did not hear him say it first hand, so it may have been quoted incorrectly, but I do agree that for me, playing with the music, especially with the manuscript, allows me to interpret the composers wishes more truthfully.

Now that we are on the topic of manuscript: when you read manuscript, it gives you a great insight in the composers' head. Just by the way notes are grouped, slurs are placed, where notes are placed in relation to others, we tend to change the way we perform them.
Unfortunately we do not have an original copy by Bach of the suites. Thank goodness we have several good copies, including the one from his wife Anna Magdalena and some, that appear to have come from the same source, are remarkably similar. It gives us as close a glimpse into what he wrote as we can have.
Will I perform from one of those? Probably not, but they are always there when I practice. It is amazing how much the interpretation changes depending on which copy I play from!

This art of music writing will soon be lost forever. Many music students don't even learn to write music by hand anymore!
With composers largely writing on computers now we are on one hand relieved that we never again have to read badly copied scores but we are on the other hand sad, because we can no longer see the personality of the composer...

...and the winner is...

A much needed update on my blog is definitely required!

What have I been up to all this time?

Well...

I practiced...

and performed....

and practiced....

And performed some more...

At the end of this week I am going to Harbin in China to perform three, possibly four Bach suites on “Canada Night” as part of the opening ceremonies of the 2009 Universiade Games. This concert will sort of be the jump start of many performances; see my website for details!

In the mean time my journey with my four cellos has been an exciting one. I have grown to respect and admire the qualities in all four instruments.

I have done a few performances already, each teaching me more about what I am playing with.

Concert in Spruce Grove, Alberta. Explainations are in order.

With a project like this, audiences almost inadvertently want an answer to the question:

“which instrument is better?”

Opinions are much divided.

AND...; is “better “truly what I am searching for?!?

My personal answer to that: Not really; they are all so different, and each has its strength and weakness. And sometimes its strength can also be its weakness...

For my audiences... AH!... to be part of such discussion and clashes of opinion: excitement!!

I will share some of my experiences and findings with you.

In today’s environment we tend to relate all live performances to recordings we have. The expectation on the performer is to be “as good as the recording”.

If that is the prerequisite, the carbon fibre cello is the all round winner. It is clean, easy and fast. Everything I do on it sounds much cleaner than on any other instrument.

However: what is the sacrifice? The older instruments have character, complications, temperaments...

Have you ever listened to old recordings of master players such as cellist Pablo Casals, pianist Claudio Arrau or guitarist Andres Segovia, to name just a few? Many of those recordings were done just in one take and then never tampered with. It is difficult to listen to that today, if what you are looking for is so called “perfection”, but it sure gives us a connection to the performer and pure music does shine through. These recordings are much more like a live performance, and as a listener you feel as if you are a little bit part of the art as it was being created.

Today’s recordings are done in multiple takes, and performers take from those only the sections they like, splice parts of other takes in there and “voila”; we have the perfect recording!

There is both good and bad to this. With the old style recordings, the listener anticipates certain mistakes or out of tune sections after having listened to a recording several times. With today’s recordings, that toe-curling experience is now eliminated. You lose some of the flow though, and the sense of being part of the art. Only very few performers will still record mostly complete takes and use them in order to keep the emotion, the flow.

For the live performer this search for perfection has created a huge obstacle; we have to measure up! This too is good and bad; we have in general become much better performers because of it, but have we sacrificed some of the true art? When I listen to some very old recordings of the great cellists like Casals, Piatagorsky, Fournier, and many more, I wonder if that statement is true; are we really better players? Maybe not; those guys sure could play!

Spending some time in the practice room.

My old Mirecourt cello had his good days and his bad days.

I know that sounds funny, but it is true. Some days I will pick him up and he sounds absolutely fantastic, and thus: so do I!

Other days he sounds terrible. He will be cranky, moody, and uncooperative. And thus, I sound much like that!

I do, however, have a much stronger “relationship” with this instrument, than I do with my carbon fibre cello. On the other hand; when I get frustrated with the Mirecourt, the carbon fibre allows me to cool down, regain my confidence and does not complain. At what cost? Well, strictly technically speaking, the carbon is superior; I sacrifice character and depth. It is not the instrument for every day. But if I am cranky or just PMS-ing: give me the carbon!

For the Mirecourt, I also make sure I create the “ideal” environment for him: I try to keep the humidity around 50% and check temperature and barometric pressure, so I can adjust anything at any time.

On a stage, the instrument will do what it feels like doing anyway. If I haven’t played him enough he’ll get back at me and misbehave, or reward me when I have spent a lot of time together with him in the practice room.

Did you notice how I refer to this cello as “him”? It has been like that from the moment I got him and I have never had that with any other instrument, except briefly with a cello from California maker Andrew Carruthers. Had I not been so attached to this cello it would have become my companion for sure. I still think about that cello....

The baroque cello is an entirely different beast. It is much less predictable...yet!

The gut strings do not help either. The strings are made out of sheep gut and are extremely sensitive to temperature or barometric pressure changes. If it is not “just right” they will squeak and squawk. I have come to like this cello a lot; it is so warm and the bass is deep and resonant.

Tuning the baroque instruments frequently during performance.

In Bach’s time the expectations on the instruments were very different than today. Of course some of the very best instruments ever were created around that time, but most of the time many of the instruments were kept in less than ideal situations: too dry, too humid, usually cold and damp in the winter, kept in unheated rooms and then suddenly brought into a space heated by a fireplace. ..You can imagine the stress on the instruments. Many string instruments were cracked and had open seams, altering their sound and response enormously.

The gut strings broke frequently and musicians, poor as they often were, could not afford to buy new strings so they would just tie a knot in the string, even if it were in the middle of the string. Because of this, the instruments were also much more out of tune so larger orchestras emerged, since being out of tune was less noticeable in the larger ensemble.

Gut strings tend to get false quickly. This either means changing strings very regular (which is very expensive!), or live with it and change strings only a few weeks prior to important concerts. This gives the strings just enough time to allow them to stretch and reach their maximum sound quality, not long enough for them to become false again.

To the modern ear, many baroque string instruments sound indeed a little out of tune if they are not part of a larger ensemble. To our ear they also sound quite soft.

Because the neck is set in at a straighter angle, their bass bar is shorter, they are tuned at A415 rather than A440 and for many other technical reasons I won’t discuss here (Google it, if you are interested) they project much less than their contemporary brothers. It does, however, gives us a glimpse into the era that Bach wrote it in and the type of instrument he had in mind.

But how far do we want to go in trying to reproduce that?

This is exactly the issue that this whole project is about.

And I don’t want to commit to an answer, since I change my mind just about every fifteen minutes!!

The baroque instrument has its limitations to modern performers and audiences. But at the same time it has huge advantages, if you are open to it.

If, as an audience, you are willing to put aside your perfectionism, your need for extreme clarity in sound and are willing to open your mind and replace all of the above with character, colour and intimacy, then you will find it a very rewarding experience to listen to period performances.

The words “period performance” opens an entirely different can of worms... This will be a future blog entry!

I feel that I have very strong opinions about how a Bach suite ought to be performed. I either agree or disagree; seldom do I find myself neutral.

I do want to mention that I disagree that one should approach Bach the same way one approaches Brahms or Shostakovich. That does not mean you should get too fundamentalist about it though. I will discuss this in more detail a future blog entry.

This whole project so far has been a humbling experience. Because... I am such a different player with each instrument! And while I find I have a strong opinion about performance practice, I have to compromise somewhat, depending on the instrument I play. And to my own surprise, I can’t say that I prefer one over the other; it is just very different! I do sometimes feel strongly that I prefer one cello, but the next day I change my mind again. In general I find that, even during a performance, every time I change from one instrument to the next, the previous instrument sounded much better to me than the next one. As I am playing it and get used to it, I find that the instrument I play right now is always the best one though!

Generalizing quite a bit;

The carbon fibre is a great instrument to show off virtuosity.

With the baroque cello and the Mirecourt cello, I can move people with expression and sensitivity.

This just means I end up working very hard to get that expression out of the carbon fibre cello and the virtuosity out of the Mirecourt. They all teach me to become a better player and... it keeps me humble!

Like I have said before; I find myself searching for some qualities of the carbon fibre cello in the baroque cello, and vice versa. In addition, I cherish some things on each instrument and use them to accentuate the qualities of that instrument.

I will try to explain it through a few examples out of the suites (I repeat myself a little from previous blog entries):

Example 1:

The fingering choice is different depending on the instrument:

Prelude to 2^nd suite, opening bars; d-f-a:

· Open strings are very nice on the baroque cello. The a-string sounds warm, mellow and resonates just right.

· This fingering is OK, but a little harsh on the Mirecourt, so I prefer to play an open d and a stopped a.

· Open strings are just unacceptable on the Carbon I have to play a stopped d and a, or it sounds just silly.

Is one “better”?? Not persé; just very different!

Example 2:

Tempo choice is very different, depending on the instrument as well:

Bars 45 to 61 in Prelude of the third suite:

· Nice on baroque, but slower and obviously difficult. On this cello the pedal point sounds very mellow and actually very nice; easy to control; it will not “bark” at you when you play it and stands out just enough to not be obnoxious.

· Quite easy on Mirecourt. The pedal point is still nice, but much harder to control.

· Super easy on Carbon. The pedal point stands out almost too much if you don’t control it. But then again: at this speed it will be over before you know it!

Is one “better”?? Not persé; just very different!

Example 3:

Expression is very different.

The Sarabande of the 5^th suite:

· Very slow and haunting on the baroque cello. The gut strings demand time and effort.

· A little less slow on the Mirecourt. The steel strings respond quickly. To play it as slow as on the baroque cello would sound very artificial.

· Very different on the Carbon. This instrument responds almost too easy for the expression that I am looking for. I need to pull out a whole new series of “tricks” to try to mimic the emotional effect the piece had on the baroque cello.

Is one “better”?? Not persé; just very different!

The 6^th suite.

Now we are comparing 3 instruments against one; the piccolo. And the winner is....

Yes: this suite is brutally difficult on a 4 string instrument; forcing the cellist to go way up on the fingerboard and execute nearly impossible double stops.

It is close to impossible on a baroque cello, since its fingerboard is much shorter than that of a modern cello, and thus forces the cellist to play past the end of the fingerboard: pretty nasty sounding!

On the modern instruments it is slightly easier, but inconvenient (although I found that I can play it better on a four string now that I know it so intimately on the 5-strings: it has taught me to think about fingering quite differently!)

On the piccolo you could almost say it is “easy” (I said almost; it is not an easy suite by any stretch of the imagination!).

With the 5^th string you rarely venture above the 4^th position.

Of course the 5 strings pose their own challenges. Initially the fact that you now have the d string sitting on the highest point of the bridge poses some right hand confusion and unintended double stops. In addition, the fact that the instrument is quite a bit smaller and you have 5 string very close together is challenging for intonation. But once you get past that, it is pure bliss! I don’t understand why not every cello has 5 strings; it would make our life so much easier!!

This piccolo cello is a baroque instrument. But because it is so much smaller and so different than all the others, I find that I don’t compare it as much. It just has its own place, without competition, where the other three instruments truly behave as competitors!