Louis Casimir-Ney, brought to you by guest blogger and guest violist Marshall Fine

My brother Marshall Fine (1956-2014) made recordings of the extremely difficult solo viola preludes by Louis Casimir Ney (1801-1877). Marshall, being beyond brilliant in some ways and rather naive in others, thought that by putting these recordings on the iTunes application on his computer, he was sharing them online. I must confess that I was confused about it for a while as well (why was the name used for different purposes?), so I understand his confusion.

Years ago Marshall sent me a CD of his recordings of these Preludes, but it was only the other day that I realized I have the mp4 files he made which I rescued from his computer after his accident. His laptop, which was in the van, was in sleep mode, so I was able to extract all the extractable files from it.

You can listen to the recordings he made through this link:

Louis Casimer-Ney Preludes played by Marshall Fine

Here are Marshall's program notes:

L. E. CASIMIR-NEY: THE 24 PRELUDES FOR SOLO VIOLA, op. 22

Louis Casimir-Ney (1801-1877) is one of the greatest enigmas in music. To begin, his birth: he claimed illegitimate descent from Napoleon’s fieldmarshal, Michel Ney (renaming himself from his original, Louis-Casimir Escoffier). Next, his career: he was well-known in Paris salons as a quartet violist and friend of the pianist, Charles-Valentin Alkan--he transcribed Alkan’s Sonate de concert op. 47 from cello to viola. Unfortunately the Alkan transcription and the Preludes op. 22 appear to be his only extant music. Other pieces, though mentioned in records (such as the op. 18 Etudes for the G-string only of the violin), have no copy available. The Richault edition of the Preludes (1860) is poor: wrong notes, missing accidentals, even errors in tempos. Several metronome markings are missing the flag from what is evidently an eighth-note beat, most flagrantly in nos. 10 and 13. Worst of all, research on Casimir-Ney is still rudimentary. He has no entry in either Grove’s Dictionary or MGG. The American and International Viola Societies apparently know the most about him, contributing most to the online Wikipedia entry for him which is the best entry of any kind.

That this musical enigma should have left behind a collection of legendary and notorious difficulty--a cycle through the keys in the style of the Well-Tempered Clavier or the Chopin op. 28 Preludes, as well--is therefore nothing short of miraculous. To this is added the sheer size of the cycle. At over 110 minutes it dwarfs every other cycle before or since, except the Bach and the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues op. 87. (Even my own Rock Etudes op. 114, which I completed and recorded directly before the Casimir-Ney cycle, is only twelve movements, and designed at some 45 minutes to fit on the second half of a recital program.)

Analysis of the Preludes shows why they are the stuff of legend. They are no mere bagatelles, but fully worked-out forms. Only one, no. 2 in A minor, is less than 2 1/2 minutes. Several are over 6 minutes (no. 20, over 8:00). To accommodate the extreme range--up to g’’’--Casimir-Ney invents a new clef, a sort of two-sided treble clef, to denote an octave above treble. (A similar system, using “phi” and “sigma” clefs, was invented about 1970 by the Savannah, Georgia savant Ted Bryan-Turner.) Double-stopping and chord problems of all kinds abound, tantamount to a true string polyphony in two voices. Some of these are tenths only soluble by using high positions; and in one conspicuous place, in no. 7, there is an outrageous twelfth in a low position, on the basis of which it is usually surmised that Casimir-Ney used a very small instrument. This and a similar passage in tenths in no. 8 are the only two passages that I have changed in this recording. Casimir-Ney even invents new techniques. In no. 20 he requires pizzicato with all four fingers, one on each string, a device not even Hindemith, in the 1937 solo sonata, could duplicate exactly. And in no. 10, he invents a new bowing technique, best described as a “portato-tremolo” because the notes are bowed in pairs unlike a normal tremolo.

The compendium of established techniques, plus new ones thrown in, is still not enough to interpret Casimir-Ney pro-perly. A too-literal approach results in disaster--this alone has probably given him his reputation of unplayability. One must know his derived forms and style concepts, all of which--absorbed from Paris of his day--reveal him as a consummate musical sophisticate. Nos. 1, 7, 14, 15, 19, and 23 are two-part forms derived from grand opera. Others, such as nos. 6, 11, 13, 17, 20, 21, and 24 are purely symphonic. In no. 17 in A-flat, he develops an alternative tonal scheme avoiding the dominant--modulating instead to E and C. For all these, the solo viola is clearly his orchestra and it is his aim to wring every available sonority from it.

But mostly these preludes derive from Chopin, with whom he was contemporary (from the the list of subscribers, which include Joseph Massart and George Onslow, they can be dated between 1843-1852, pending further research). The melos is astonishingly Chopinesque. Knowledge of Chopin’s slancio and rubato have helped me avoid the overliteral approach and allow time where needed, indeed demanded. The forms are reproduced with astounding effect and authenticity. Nos. 6 and 18 are nocturnes in extended song-forms. Nos. 9 and 17 are polonaise/rondos, the former in addition being written out entirely in three-bar phrases. No. 16 is a somber mazurka that changes in the middle to a giddy, phantasmagoric waltz. Nos. 10 and 12 are highly expressive laments. In no.12 the 4/4 main theme is set off by more flowing episodes in 3/4. The former is a funeral march whose main theme is transfigured dramatically in the recapitulation by the “portato-tremolo” bowing. No. 8 is in places (notably the end) very close to the G minor ballade. And no. 22 is an extended tone-poem, also in ballade style with six sections, capturing the mood of Rossini’s William Tell in a central “storm” section followed by a ranz de vaches coda wholly in harmonics, interrupted briefly by the severely truncated recapitulation.

Indeed, the one form Casimir-Ney eschews is sonata-form, a curiosity in itself since Chopin’s command of the form is sure and dramatic. And one must concede that he knows what he is doing. Only one prelude, no. 24 in D minor, uses sonata-form to any degree; and I believe he intends to mock it. There is no development section, only three chords that make a quick retransition; and after four or five notes of the second theme recapitulation--his sole gesture towards the form--he “pulls his punch” and enters the coda.