February Trip - Nottingham and Oxford, UK

NICK’S BLOG:

Learning Cotumacci up to No. 56. Nick showed Elinor a method: (1) first sing/play the melody to get accustomed to it, noting phrases, cadences, basic discourse and style. (2) add a minimal bass, using root position I, V and IV chords and formulaic schema basses (such as the bass cadence 3451, 171 against 123 or 543, Prinner bass, converging HC, Fenaroli, Fonte, Monte, etc.). (3) Solmize the melody, taking care to match with the bass; a syllable-note generally corresponds to one functional bass note, but there are exceptions, such as 671 under a fa mi, 451 under a re do, 251 under the fa mi ending a Prinner, etc. (4) refine the bass to complement the melody. It should support the melody by e.g. matching its style, answering it (very rarely being answered), filling in gaps between phrases, providing the required strength at cadences, imitating where called upon.

Elinor also learned the art of variation by composing a variation on a minuet by Vivaldi (RV 406). Nick reduced the theme to a solfeggio and explained how to choose a rhythmic pattern to apply throughout. The solfeggio should not change: the syllables should be maintained in their original metric position and the figuration should remain within the harmony implied by the syllable (passing notes etc are allowed). This is more an aspect of playing than composing. It is the first step on the way to composing. It teaches how to internalize a melodic framework and to realize it with different rhythms and figures. A next step in terms of the art of variation is to rephrase the original into phrases with their own cadences. After that, with expertise, a maestro may alter the pitch and rhythmic profile of a standard schema; for instance, Leo applied syncopations to a standard re mi fa in his Cello Concerto in F minor/iii.

Elinor practised the Largo from the Leo Concerto in F minor without using a score. She has never seen the score. Nick sang the solfa patterns to her while playing the bass on a keyboard. For her, the first solo is conceived as a re-mi-fa followed by an answering do-re-mi, a classic three-step Monte fa-mi, fa-mi, sol-fa, a soprano cadence la sol la, and a descent to full cadence la-sol-fa-mi-re with an additional compound voice la sol la. Nick discussed how the Siciliano includes steps for the man (the dotted rhythm) and swirling gestures for the woman, and that these should be in balance, one following the other. He noted that the compound melody at the final cadence depicts the dancers coming together.

22/02 we practiced Leo Largo in F minor, Nick at harpsichord playing bass and singing syllables, Elinor on cello realizing. We used a metronome for Nick to keep the accompaniment in strict time, as this allows Elinor greater freedom. If Nick ‘follows’, it sounds to her as if he is slowing down or pulling back. In strict tempo Elinor achieved an amazing feat: her melodies floated above the harmony, freed from its constraints yet dependent on its support to keep her in the air. True freedom, of the sort rarely encountered in this repertoire. Elinor improvised lead-in flourishes from the ritornello low G to her high G. She had an astonishing wealth of invention. So much so that Nick suggested the need to limit her ideas to just a few manageable ones that could be memorized and used as ‘go to’ formulas. Nick also regretted that the session wasn’t recorded as this might help Elinor to learn. She should at least bring a notebook, to note down what seemed to work best.

We decided that Elinor will ‘play’, i.e. improvise, more variations on concerti by Vivaldi to gain fluency in the technique of applying rhythms and diminutions to solfeggi. We will also work on further repertory without looking at the score.

Elinor has too much on! A concert on 24/02 playing two Bach cello suites and other stuff, then to Brussels to play a Tartini concerto and a new commission!

We met up with Ben Hebbert and saw his collections of historical string instruments. Also had lunch with Gascia Ouzounian. No sightseeing.

ELINOR’S BLOG:

Meeting Nick in Oxford definitely confirmed how much more powerful and efficient in-person work is compared to online sessions. It was great to be able to concentrate on our project and to have more flexibility in our work flow. Nick was very kind and responsive and it’s truly remarkable how much he can teach me through his knowledge of solfeggio, style, and harmony. I also sincerely enjoyed it !

Composition through imitation

As a method of composing, I used Cotumacci’s solfeggio no. 38, a beautiful melody in e minor, as a harmonic and proportional basis to compose my own two-part “Siciliana’ movement for cello and basso continuo. My movement was in 6/8 and in g minor instead of Cotumacci’s 4/4 e minor solfeggio. Maintaining the overall rhythmic proportions, I also used Nick’s bass realization as a guide for successful harmonic relationships that could go under the solfeggio framework. My new rhythms and new ornamental gestures make it a completely new piece, but the overall solfeggio line were similar.

It was very satisfying and interesting for me because I was able to create music, but have a lot of guide rails. I didn’t need to rely on my intuition for everything, although I still had to make many decisions and try to find gestures that would fit the cello in a beautiful way.

Here are some aspects that didn’t work well:

Cotumacci’s melody is quite compact because each syllable fits with the logic of the specific melodic line in the solfeggio exercise. My Siciliana version had it’s own ornaments and a different rhythmic profile, so some of the transitions seemed either missing or truncated. In order to improve this, we needed to add a few bars in the bass alone, or add a bit more music in both parts.

There was a moment in my bass where I shifted to be on the beat a few harmonies that in Nick’s orignal bass line realization were not on the beat (they were pickups). I thought that I was making a convincing anticipation gesture. Although the ear kind of accepts it as “not wrong,” Nick identified this moment as very un-stylistic and didn’t like it. These kind of insights and adjustments reveal what perhaps we see in the approach that Neo-Classical composers took in the early 20th-century. They didn’t have Maestro Baragwanath. This moment in my composition highlights that some of the concepts are “lost in translation” for me. A harmonic rhythm seems ok because my ear (maybe accustomed to centuries more music of such possible exceptions) accepts it, but not because it is stylistic or very well-conceived.

Vivaldi variations

Nick made a solfeggio reduction of the Minuetto from Vivaldi’s Cello Concerto in D Minor, RV 406. He showed me his work and also taught it to me in an aural way at the piano. I then was told to stick to the solfeggio syllables, even on the beat, and to improvise different rhythm and pitch contours within those solfeggio. I found some rather fast and “snappy” ideas that fit with my enjoyment of running up and down the cello and that also gave an even more “Spanish” flair to the movement. I wrote down my ideas on sheet music paper so as not to forget. Sometimes I made an error that Nick needed to correct. This often centred around my lack of understanding where the phrase groupings went together. The comma in the solfeggio phrase, like the separation of word groupings in a sentence, often happened after the down beat, so I needed to keep a better sense of the separation of solfeggio syllables in that light. For example, if there are two “la” syllables at the beginning of the phrase, I can’t necessarily just let one drop an octave below the other and sound like a cadence, because the second la is a beginning, not a cadence.

You can see here the two variations as performed in our concert in Oxford at the Holywell Room.