In this and the following chapters, ‘portamento’ denotes any audible connection between notes, and ‘vibrato’ is taken to mean a regular oscillation of the left hand, used either occasionally or continuously, and denotes any such embellishment however named elsewhere.1 These are the two most frequently discussed expressive techniques used by string players, but they have quite contrasting statuses in modern performance. There are more generally applicable expressive techniques, such as embellishment, or the use of tempo rubato, but they do not have a specific manifestation unique to the cello or even to instruments of the violin family in general, and will therefore not be discussed here. Earlier in the nineteenth century, cello tutors often included merely routine instructions in the realization of ornaments that are of no intrinsic interest, and nineteenth-century cellists are completely silent on the topic of rubato. No concert review of a cellist examined to date mentions or even alludes to the term; Becker is the first cello teacher to discuss it.2 It is of course entirely plausible that cellists would have followed the examples of violinists or pianists in this respect, but that does not provide grounds for a study of rubato concentrating specifically on the cello.3
Portamento is still viewed with some suspicion in historically informed circles, while the lack of vibrato is almost a shibboleth of modern historical performance practice. What is more, neither portamento nor vibrato are theorized by cellists to anything like the degree found in at least some violin methods. The detailed explanations found in earlier nineteenth-century violin treatises, such as those by Baillot, Spohr, Bériot or David, have no real equivalents in the cello repertoire until the second decade of the twentieth century. No cellist goes into as much taxonomic detail as Bériot does for the violin, with his gradations of ports-de-voix,
‘vif’, ‘doux’ and ‘trainé’.4 While one could reasonably assume cellists imitated violinists in the technique and application of vibrato and portamento, this a priori
1 In essence this follows David Milsom, Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century Violin Performance (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 75–6 (portamento) and pp. 111–12 (vibrato). The different historical terminologies (and the use of the term by singers, are elucidated in Brown, CRPP, pp. 517–21 (vibrato) and pp. 558–9 (portamento).
2 Hugo Becker and Dago Rynar, ‘Vom Rubato’, in Mechanik und Äesthetik de Violoncellspiels (Vienna and Leipzig: Universal-Edition, 1929), pp. 169–73.
3 The most recent detailed examination of rubato is Richard Hudson, Stolen Time:
The History of Tempo Rubato (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), which does not approach the subject from the point of view of individual instrumental techniques.
4 Charles de Bériot, Méthode de violon (Mainz: B. Schott fils, 1858), p. 237.
assumption should not go unquestioned, if for no other reason than that there are significant technical differences between the two instruments. Vibrato on the violin is a fundamentally different physical technique; portamento is ‘enforced’ on the cello far more than on the violin.
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson’s assertion, in the context of singing, that portamento
‘can be suppressed at will’, does not quite fit the physical realities of large string instruments.5 Unlike the violin, playing the cello necessitates frequent shifting of the left hand. In its normal configuration, the fingers are only a semitone apart, and even in extension the hand conventionally only covers a major third in the lower positions. There are many instances in the baroque repertoire of passage-work requiring a stretch of a fourth in order to play octaves in first position, and there are also a few examples in Duport and Baudiot, as well as one passage in the third, adagio, movement of Beethoven’s String Trio op. 3. But this is the limit for normal-sized hands; only in the twentieth century is there an attempt to develop a larger extension or ‘grosse Spannung’.6 The discussion of scale fingerings in Chapter 2 showed that cellists frequently overcame this fundamental physical obstacle by the simple expedient of shifting with the same finger, typically the first or fourth in a diatonic scale, or with almost any finger in a chromatic scale. Clearly, if the passage in question uses intervals larger than a tone, then, unless the piece remains wholly in first position, some shifting is inevitable. There are therefore, on the cello far more than on the violin, ‘forced’ as well as discretionary or ‘unforced’ shifts. This complicates the discussion of portamento, as some fingerings unavoidably ‘slide’
unless the player employs a degree of sophistication (taken for granted by modern players, but largely unexplained in the nineteenth century) in the action of both left hand and bow. Some cellists may have shifted audibly as a matter of course, while others were concerned only to shift audibly when musically appropriate. Some cellists suggested quite simple ways to minimize the effect, but in other cases they designed fingerings specifically to create portamento opportunities.
Cello methods of the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries, even the most technically advanced treatises such as those by Azaïs, Raoul or Bréval, more or less ignore portamento. The material offered to the student generally does not raise the issue as it uses very little sustained cantabile and a great deal of detaché or mixed slurred/detaché bowing in fast tempi.7 Baillot introduces portamento in the context of an explanation of the appoggiatura:
5 Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ‘Portamento and Musical Meaning’, Journal of Musicological Research, 25 (2006), p. 237 n. 9.
6 So termed by Joachim Stutchewsky (1891–1992), in his Violoncell-Technik, Vol. 1 (London: Schott, n.d.).
7 See, for example, Pierre-Hyacinthe Azaïs, Méthode de basse (Paris: Bignon, [c.1775]); Jean Marie Raoul, Méthode de violoncelle (Paris: Pleyel, [c.1797]); J.B. Bréval, Traité du Violoncelle (Paris: Imbault, [1804]).
Composers sometimes employ the small note to indicate the portamento, or porte-de-voix. [a music example shows this notation] The appoggiatura should never be used on a note commencing a melody nor on any notes whatsoever preceded immediately by rests.8
He includes portamento with his discussion of appoggiatura because both are notated with additional small notes. This implies that his prohibition on the use of the appoggiatura at the start of a melody applies equally to portamento; this limitation was not observed by some later cellists.
Duport’s Essai offers a more detailed discussion of the topic, albeit a largely negative one:
You may think it extraordinary that in scales I have avoided with great care making two notes with the same finger, as is found in all published methods until now. In my opinion this custom is a vice, in that it produces a bad effect.
Everyone knows that it is the touch [tact] of the fingers that makes good articulation (perlé), and certainly, it is impossible to have this touch when one slides with one finger from one semitone to another, since if the bow does not seize the moment when the finger has slid to attack the string, one hears something very unpleasant. One can, it is true, play two notes with the same finger, quite slowly; one can shift over even an interval of a third, fourth, fifth, etc., sliding firmly with the same finger, and this produces a very good effect, called portamento (porter le son). [Music examples showing slides between first and fourth position] These slides, if I may explain myself thus, are made more or less quickly, according to the expression required by the melody, but at speed (of which clarity constitutes a large part of merit), notes with the same finger are, in my opinion, insupportable, in that they oppose this clarity. Playing at sight, if one is taken by surprise, not having foreseen the best position, one would be better, without doubt, to play two notes with the same finger, rather than not to play them at all, but in a prepared solo it is well to avoid them.9
8 P. Baillot, J.H. Levasseur, C.-S. Catel and C.-N. Baudiot, Méthode de violoncelle (Paris: Janet et Cotelle, 1805), p. 20.
9 ‘On trouvera peut-être extraordinaire que j’aie évité avec le plus grand soin, dans les Gammes de faire deux notes du même doigt, comme on le trouve dans tous les livres de principes qui ont étés publies jusqu’ici. Mon opinion est que cette manière est vicieuse, en ce qu’elle produit un mauvais effet. Tout le monde sait que c’est le tact des doigts qui fait le perlé, et certes, il ne peut y avoir de tact, quand on glisse un doigt d’un demi-ton a l’autre, car si l’archet ne saisit pas bien l’instant ou le doigt a glissé, pour attaquer la corde, on entend quelque chose de très-désagréable. On peut faire, il est vrai, deux notes du même doigt, un peu lentement: on passe même d’un intervalle de tierce, de quarte, de quinte,
&c en glissant fortement le même doigt, et ceci produit un très-bon effet, cela s’appelle porter le son. [example] Ces glissades, si j’ose m’exprimer ainsi, se font plus ou moins rapidement, suivant l’expression qu’exige la mélodie, mais dans la vitesse, dont la netteté fait une grande partie du mérite, les notes du même doigt sont, à mon avis, insoutenables,
Later, he makes an exception, allowing some same-finger shifting in fast detaché and in slurred passage-work. Nonetheless, for Duport, same-finger shifting is generally a necessary evil for use in an emergency, or when there is simply no alternative. The above quotation includes his only example of portamento, and the detailed fingering he gives in the 21 studies that comprise ‘Titre XIX’ of the Essai excludes almost any possibility of using it, even in slow tempi.10
Baudiot is scarcely more forthcoming.11 In the short section of his Méthode devoted to the fingering of expressive melodies, he looks at two fingerings that make ‘a good effect’. The first is used when the same note is repeated with different fingers within the same bow (Example 4.1).
These shifts are however clearly not meant to be ‘scooped’ – a new finger is substituted so that the note is only lightly articulated.12 The second type of shift is simply ‘made with a single finger between two different notes ascending or descending, sliding the hand’. Baudiot gives no real indication as to how quickly, slowly, when, or how often, such portamenti should be applied, and gives no further examples.
Dotzauer’s 1824 cello method gives more detailed shifting exercises, with same-finger and different-finger shifts (Example 4.2), both within one bow and combined with a change of bow. Dotzauer’s first example strongly resembles that given by Duport.13
en ce qu’elles s’opposent à cette netteté. En jouant à livre ouvert, si l’on se trouve surpris, n’ayant pas prévu la meilleure position, on sera mieux, sans contredit, de faire deux notes du même doigt, que de ne pas les faire du tout; mais dans un SOLO étudié, on sera très-bien de les éviter.’ Jean-Louis Duport, Essai sur le doigté du violoncelle (Paris: Imbault, [1806]), pp. 17–18.
10 Duport, ‘Titre XIX’, in Essai, pp. 176–267.
11 Charles Baudiot, Méthode de violoncelle (Paris: Pleyel et fils ainé, 1826), pp. 17–18.
12 Spohr describes the same technique, with an almost identical exercise. Louis Spohr, Violinschule (Vienna: Haslinger, [1833]), p. 175.
13 J.J.F. Dotzauer, Méthode de Violoncelle. Violonzell-Schule (Mainz: B. Schott fils, [1825]), pp. 38–9. Inconsistent key-signatures and accidentals have been silently corrected here.
Example 4.1 Baudiot, Méthode, finger substitution exercise
Example 4.2 Dotzauer, Violonzellschule, portamento exercises
Overall, however, Dotzauer, though more enthusiastic than Duport, is still very restrained on the subject. For him, portamento is primarily a technical device, an aid to staying in tune when shifting to difficult notes:
The glissement gives the artist the means to grasp and progress with more accuracy from one note to another, in awkward passages; but this means, unless applied with taste, rarely makes a good effect. It is obvious that one would not wish to use it in a tutti, since ornaments in general only have their place in a concerto or a solo, which allows the artist to give way to his feeling.14
Romberg is more positive:
The expression Portamento di voce (the sustaining and combining of notes) is applicable in the same manner to Instrumental, as to Vocal Music, and signifies the gliding from one note to another, by which means, the most strongly accented notes of the air are blended together with those which precede them, and an agreeable effect produced.15
In the demonstration exercise following this observation Romberg specifically points out that a grace note indicates portamento: ‘the blending is marked by a small note’ [‘dies Hinüberzeihen vermittelst einer kleinen Note angegeben ist’].16 However, in practice, he does not restrict portamento to this particular notation:
it is strongly implied by his fingerings elsewhere. Although Romberg does not provide specific exercises for shifting, there are many small examples throughout his Violoncellschule, particularly of multiple unforced same-finger shifts, such as those from his ‘piece in the style of a concertino’ (Example 4.3).17
Like Dotzauer, Romberg is fond of the combination of a turn followed by a shift up to the octave harmonic, a feature of another Romberg ornamentation
14 ‘Le glissement facilite a l’artiste le moyen de saisir et faire succéder, avec plus de justesse, un ton a un autre ton, dans des passages embarrassans; mais ce moyen, quoiqu’
appliquer avec goût, fait rarement un bel effet. Il est évident qu’on n’ose pas s’en servir dans le tutti, puisque les agremens, en général, ne sont à leur place que dans un concert ou dans un solo, qui permet à l’artiste de céder à son sentiment.’ Ibid.
15 ‘Die Bennenung (das Tragen des Stimme), portamento di voce, wird bei der Instrumental-Musik eben so angewandt, als bei der Vocal-Musik, und bedeutet das Hinubersiehen eines Tones zu einem andern, durch welches die am starksten betonte Note de Gesanges mit der vorhergegangenen zusammen gezogen wird, und dadurch mehr Anmuth erhalt.…’ Bernhard Romberg, trans. anon., A Complete Theoretical and Practical School for the Violoncello (London: T. Boosey & Co., [1840]), p. 87. Violoncellschule, (Berlin: Trautwein, [1840]), p. 85.
16 Ibid., p. 87.
17 Ibid., p. 100.
exercise.18 However, Romberg was exceptional among cello teachers in the earlier nineteenth century in his relative enthusiasm for portamento. He may simply have particularly liked its effect, but his taste may also have been influenced by his idiosyncratic violinistic left hand shape, which would have made it harder to avoid audible sliding.
Friedrich Kummer was much more cautious about portamento:
There is another bad habit against which the young player should be equally cautioned: – that is, frequently – in some cases continually – gliding the finger along the String from one note to another in intervals of thirds, or fourths; for both the ear and feeling run a great risk of being spoiled by this habit so that by degrees, even the most exaggerated expression of this sort will appear tasteful to the player; whilst to an unvitiated ear it will give no other effect than that of continual moaning and wailing.19
While he deplores its unthinking overuse, he gives no suggestions as to how to minimize its effect. Techniques for concealing shifts, such as the subtle manipulation of bow pressure and speed, relaxation of the pressure of the shifting finger, or simply by shifting as quickly as possible, are only described much later in the nineteenth century. Davidoff may be the first to examine such techniques of minimizing audible shifting. He begins with simple shifts from first to fourth position on the same string, where he demonstrates his fundamental principles in some detail:
The shift from one position to another is made possible by the sliding of the thumb on the neck (i.e. of the instrument); the finger has its own role to undertake; it is very simple, if the first note of the new position is to be held by the same finger as the last of the foregoing position [example]. Here the thumb slides down the neck and the finger down the string quickly and easily from one position to another. It is a harder exercise if the first note of the following position is to be held by another finger than the last note of the previous position. One can in this
18 Ibid., p. 94.
19 F.A. Kummer, trans. anon., Violoncello School op. 60 (London: Ewer and Co., [1850?]), p. 27.
Example 4.3 Romberg, Violoncellschule, same-finger shifts
case (with few exceptions) establish a basic rule, that the finger already lying on the string slides into the new position without leaving it, and at its destination either stays still or is quickly lifted up (whether that following position begins with a higher or lower finger), and where the new position is reached the latter finger drops in place, in but a moment. – If two fingers are replaced in a change of position, one must also let one finger slide and the other drop – to be precise, following the above-established rule, drop the beginning finger of the new position. The opposite case is not absolutely to be rejected; now and then, the player can achieve a glissando in this way. The learner is nonetheless advised initially not to depart from this rule; he thus achieves precision in playing and avoids many needless unattractive-sounding glissandos.20
Davidoff is the first cellist clearly to describe what Flesch calls the ‘B-shift’, where the slide is made with the ‘beginning’ finger (the alternative is the ‘L-shift’, sliding on the arriving or ‘last’ finger). Although Flesch used this terminology, the distinction originates much earlier in Spohr.21 Cello methods that discuss portamento in the nineteenth century concentrate on the B-shift, although in practice the L-shift was often used, as will be shown below – Davidoff himself acknowledges its occasional usefulness. Davidoff’s principles also apply in the case of a shift involving a string-crossing (‘the established rules remain similar,
20 ‘Der Übergang von einer Position zur andern wird durch in Gleiten des Daumens am Halse ermöglicht; die Finger haben dabei ihre eigene Rolle durchzuführen; sie ist sehr einfach, wenn der erste Ton der neuen Position mit demselben Finger zu greifen ist wie der letzte der vorhergehenden Position, z. B. [music example]. Hier gleiten Daumen am Halse und Finger auf sen Saiten schnell und leicht von einer Position in die andere. Schwieriger wird die Aufgabe, wenn der der erste Ton der folgenden Position mit einem andern Finger zu greifen ist wie der letzte Ton der vorhergehenden Position. Man könnte für diese Falle (mit wenigen Ausnaen) als Grundregel feststellen, daß der Finger, der schon auf der Saite liegt, ohne sie zu verlassen, in die neue Position gleitet, und auf dem erreichten Platze entweder liegen bleibt oder schnell aufgehoben wird, je nachdem die folgende Position mit einem höhern oder tiefern Finger beginnt, daß dieser letztere Finger aber in dem Augenblick, wo die neue Position erreicht ist, auf seinen Platz fällt. – Man hätte also, wenn sich zwei Finger beim Positionswechsel ablösen, den einen gleiten und den andernfallen zu lassen, und zwar müßte nach der oben aufgestellten Regel der neue Position beginnende Finger fallen. Der umgekehrte Fall ist nicht absolut zu verwerfen; zuweilen kann der Spieler dadurch ein ausdrucksvolles Glissando erzielen. Dem Schüler ist aber anzuraten, anfangs nicht von der gegebenen Regel abzuweichen; er erreicht dadurch Präzision im Spiel und vermeidet viel unnütze und unschön klingende Glissandos.’ Carl Yu. Davidoff, Violoncell-Schule (Leipzig:
Peters, [1888]), p. 32.
21 Carl Flesch, trans. Frederick Martens, The Art of Violin Playing, 2 vols. (New York:
C. Fischer, 1930), Vol. 1, p. 30. Spohr, Violinschule, p. 120.
whether the new position is on the same or on another string’)22 and to longer shifts
whether the new position is on the same or on another string’)22 and to longer shifts