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.

Virtuoso Visual Artistry

When I watch these videos of Boubou Dakar, an artist from Senegal, I am astounded. Who wouldn't be?

What he does with paint depends (or seems to depend) on an inborn way of seeing (he often paints upside-down) and replicating what he sees. It is a specific talent that is not, in my mind, that far removed from musicians who can hear a complicated polyphonic piece and replicate it faithfully, either by writing it down or by playing it on the piano (or maybe both). Glazunov, Shostakovich, Mozart, and my brother Marshall come to mind.

I marvel while watching videos of super realist artists like Devon Rodriguez, and wonder if his work comes as a result of a lot of careful study, or if it comes from a way of seeing and a hard-wired connection between his eye and his hand. And what skill set makes it possible for a young person like Youngsung Kim paint photographically in oils the way he does?

My great uncle Aaron Bohrod spent a great deal of time (I believe it was a decade) doing still life paintings, but he also worked in various other styles throughout his life (as you can see here). Uncle Aaron worked as a commercial artist as well as a "fine artist," and was extremely prolific. His work is evocative, expressive, witty, and is often filled with visual puns. I wonder what he would have made of these young artists and of their work. I wonder if these young men, who are already "internet famous" will have the room to grow as artists and explore the emotional nature of artistic creativity that goes beyond faithful representation.

A Tempest in a Logo

A long time ago I cobbled together this design to use on some quartet business cards by combining curves I found in the Dingbat font in our old Dell computer and some noteheads from Finale. I must have assembled them in Microsoft Paint.

Imagine my surprise the other day when I opened up an e-book (2006) of The Tempest, and found that the designer at Yale University Press had either come up with the same logo herself, or happened upon one of our quartet's business cards, liked what she saw, and took a picture.

Brahms Songs for Alto, Viola, and Piano with Marian Anderson, William Primrose, and Franz Rupp

This recording from 1941 is pure pleasure from start to finish. Marian Anderson's voice matches William Primrose's viola voice exactly. I have never heard such a perfectly matched performance.

Questioning Authority

I remember in Junior High School one of my teachers wore a button that said "Question Authority." I took the message seriously, and have been faithfully questioning authority for most of my life.

In the world of music making we are expected to follow directions faithfully, particularly when they are given by a director, a conductor, an employer, or a section leader. Orchestral string players follow a hierarchy when it comes to where we play in the bow, and in which direction we draw it. A good viola section leader will make choices that allow for comfort, but the choices that s/he makes can always be overridden by the leaders of other sections. As violists we know that our place is to keep peace, and as long as nobody notices (and they often don't) we can usually adjust our parts to suit our needs.

Still, the main charge of string players in an orchestra is to play correctly (with the right pitches, rhythms, and dynamics) and express themselves as a group.

The conductor serves in many situations as the person who judges whether we are doing our jobs properly. I have found that conductors are not a singular breed. Some are stern and aloof, and they model themselves on authoritarian conductors of the first part of the twentieth century. Some have excellent ears, and take pride on being able to pinpoint exactly who it was that played something wrong. I sometimes wonder if those remarks are only made in cases when the conductor is absolutely sure, thus cementing a repudation of being able to hear every offense. When playing for such a conductor the main goal is to play accurately, and to follow directions.

Then there are conductors who have the ability to relate shapes of phrases to the people playing with their gestures. Conductors who relate musical shapes effectively make it easier (for me) to connect musically with other people in the ensemble, making rehearsal time very enjoyable. It becomes a chance to learn more about the music I am playing. I know that I am less likely to make mistakes when my mind is focused on participating in the music rather than concentrating on trying not to screw up. After an accurate performance I can only hope that the people listening enjoyed themselves. After a performance when I felt expressively connected with my orchestra mates, I am always sure that the people listening enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

Unfortunately we still have a musical culture that prides itself on accuracy as an end goal. We also have a musical culture where people learn so much from imitation that unique musical thought has a difficult time making its way into a developing musician's priorities. And when personal musical expression from a solo wind player (for example) in an orchestra conducted by an authoritarian conductor is at odds with what that conductor wants to hear, accuracy often wins out over expression. I really appreciate the concerts when it does not.

Finding Confidence Through Practice

One of the questions that Alan Alda asks his guests during his "Clear and Vivid" podcast episodes is what it is that gives them confidence. I found Penn Jillette's (Penn as in Penn and Teller) answer really resonated for me. He said that practice gave him confidence.

Practice for me is the slow process of setting a small goal to overcome a small difficulty, and acting upon the solution that I happen to have chosen during that particular practice session. If after trying that particular solution I find that the (in my case, most often) musical puzzle is not becoming solved, I know that I have to find another solution.

This takes time. In the case of violin and viola playing it has taken me thirty years to even figure out the questions that need to be answered, but in the process of daily practice my body has learned (very slowly) the easiest and best route to letting the music I am playing sound as well as I am capable of having it sound.

If I hadn't put thirty years and a lot of serious thought into learning to be a string player, I would not have the kind of confidence I have now.

Confidence is different from ego. Confidence is knowing that I can participate in the game of string playing without being the weak link in a section or an ensemble. Confidence is knowing that if I am faced with a difficult passage, I will be able to navigate it as long as I pay attention to what is required to do so. Ego (at least in my mind) is the need to be noticed for what I am able to do. Recognition used to be important to me, perhaps because I got so little of it when I was younger. It has, however, become less and less important now that I have entered my sixties, and the more I feel that my work (both as a player and as a composer) has personal merit for me, the less I care about how it is perceived by others.

I do, of course, want people to use the music I write in order to express themselves musically and connect with other people (other musicians and people who listen to them play), and I don't want the hard work I put into the things I do to evaporate into nothingness.

When I was a young flutist I used to wonder if I was any good. My Juilliard classmates all seemed very confident in the quality of their playing, and the major gripe they all seemed to have (flutists and others) was that they didn't get the opportunities they deserved. I didn't get many opportunities compared my more forthright peers, but I figured it was because I didn't deserve recognition. Deep down I suppose I knew that my heart wasn't in flute playing, though I was trying my hardest not to listen.

I have no complaints about the playing opportunities I have as a string player, although I blush when I think about the audacious musical challenges I chose to face without having the necessary bow control and left-hand technique. I once played the Beethoven "Kreutzer" Sonata and the Brahms D-minor Violin Sonata on the same program, and don't like to imagine the physical discomfort the performance must have imposed on the people in the audience. Fortunately I did not have the ability to make a big sound, and my pianist friend navigated his part with enough gusto to keep the music flowing.

I had to work SO HARD in order to play those two pieces (and just about everything else I played during my forties and fifties). Now (at almost sixty-three) I have the necessary technique and strength, and therefore I have the confidence to play them the way I would like them to be played, and with one tenth of the effort I needed before. For the nonce, though, I can only play them (masked) in my (masked) pianist-friend's living room. But that's really enough for me.

I still get a special thrill from making my way from "can't" to "can," and my daily mindful piano practice is starting to show results. I finally have the confidence to practice while Michael is in the room (while he is doing something else, of course). And my reward for all my practice (I'm not putting the word in quotes because it really is a reward) is feeling a little more confident about navigating my way expressively through piano music, and feeling more connected to the music than I did before I could play without looking at my hands.

I'm Gonna Walk It With You and Strange Fruit

"Strange Fruit" was written by Abel Meeropol, who is rarely given credit for his work.

The "Think" System

In Meredith Wilson's The Music Man the "think system" of learning to play a musical instrument is presented as an absurd way of learning to play, but if you listen to this interview with Molly Gebrian on the violacentric podcast, you will surely be impressed with her "take" on the importance of thinking (while not playing) when learning to play an instrument. The interview begins about 20 minutes in.

My (semi) private menagerie

This April Mel Bay will be publishing the first of two books of scale pieces for solo violin that I wrote around the time I was writing "Weights and Measures." The first book, which can be played entirely in first position (or in the first through the fifth positions on the viola) is called "Scale Tales," because each of the pieces is a musical "portrait" of an animal that has scales. The second book, which will come out later in 2022 is tentatively called "Advanced Scale Studies" (though I wish it could be called "Upscale Tales"), has portraits of twenty-four more animals with scales, and uses the whole range of the violin.

I have made a set of ten musical videos that show the life cycle (sometimes) of the various animals to accompany the music.

You can see videos of the first ten pieces here.

Cloud Ninth

I put new strings on my violin for the new year, and therefore can now play harmonics that are more in tune than I could in 2021, I made a little video with one of the pieces in "Dancing on the Fingerboard." I hope you like it!

New Year's Greeting for Two Trumpets

I wrote this piece to greet 2018, and Daniel Gianola-Norris just recorded it and posted it this evening to greet 2022. What a surprise! Happy New Year!

Spending the New Year with Fred Cowan (and friends)

The logistics involved with getting together with friends this New Year make reading memoirs that discuss social and musical antics of the past most appealing. Today I happened upon a book from 1913 by Frederic Hyman Cowan (Sir Frederic H. Cowan) called My Art and My Friends that I skimmed through today and plan to read tomorrow.

What, you ask, led me to this particular memoir? Well, I was searching through the IMSLP for pieces of music to celebrate the New Year, and came upon a set of piano pieces by Cowan from 1912 called The Months. The piece for January, it turns out, works nicely as a piece for string quartet (transposed and adjusted, of course).

You can listen to a computer-generated recording here.

(You can find the music here and (eventually) on this page of the IMSLP.)

Cowan's book is filled with stories about musicians he met during his travels through Europe (Brahms included) and Australia, and through his professional life as (mainly) a conductor. I'll share this gem from a performance of a Chopin Piano Concerto he conducted with Clara Schumann as the soloist.

Here's a peek at two more pages from the book. Some of the jokes in the menu I get, but there are some that go over my head. If anyone reading this would like to leave "answers" in the comments, I would be extremely happy. Welcome to my New Year's party with Sir Frederic! Remember that the link to the book (it's in the IMSLP) is above.

A Great Day with Beethoven and Vivaldi

My musical day started with reading through the second part (the last six sonatas) of Vivaldi's La strava ganza on violin, and reading through some of his l'estro armonico. It seems to me that Vivaldi might have written La strava ganza for students as an enjoyable way to develop their bow arms. L'estro armonico is much more interesting (and much more difficult). It's not something just to read through. I definitely want to explore each piece carefully and thoughtfully.

Beethoven was on my piano menu, but I decided to skip the early sonatas I had been working on. After the first sonata they do get rather expansive, and since I can't play them at tempo, I tend to lose patience. I decided try playing the Pathetique Sonata. I know that the piece is quite economical: it has lots of bang for the buck, so to speak. I have analyzed the piece, and taught it to countless musical appreciation students over the years, but, until now, I have never been able to play the Pathetique well enough to understand what is going on in it pianistically.

Being able (finally) to observe how Beethoven writes for the piano by playing this piece feels like a gift. Playing it (for me, with my particular set of purposes) is like putting on Beethoven's shoes and going for a walk in his neighborhood.

Over the past several years I have come to understand that my relationship to music is extremely physical. Holding the music (not the sheet music, but the music itself), whether it is Vivaldi or Beethoven, in my hands, is a richer and richer experience. And the more ways I can enter into that experience, the more I learn about this multi-faceted thing we call music.

Whatever I learned from today's piano time with Beethoven seemed to bleed into today's violin time with Beethoven.

A little armchair musicology

Back in my flute playing days I used to enjoy playing Vivaldi's Il Pastor Fido. My father once remarked that one movement (the final movement of the sixth Sonata, and the one I liked best) sounded just like the first movement of Vivaldi's G minor Violin Concerto, which I now know as RV 316a. Neither of us knew that Johann Sebastian Bach also used it as movement of a concerto for solo harpsichord.

When I went to the IMSLP to search for Il Pastor Fido, I was surprised to be redirected to an entry for Nicolas Chedéville, with the following statement in the notes:

Nicolas Chédeville made a secret agreement in 1737 with Jean-Noël Marchand to publish a collection of his own compositions as Vivaldi's. Chédeville supplied the money and received the profits, all of which was attested to in a notarial act by Marchand in 1749. Long attributed to Vivaldi, the set of sonatas are actually the work of Chédeville.

But it looks like, according to the IMSLP dates, Bach wrote his G minor harpsichord movement in 1713, and Vivaldi's transcription of it as the first movement of a concerto for violin and strings was published in 1716.

Playing through the first movement of BWV 975 feels like a transcription, and really sounds like Vivaldi (at his very best). The other movements sound and feel more like Bach "speaking" Italian to me. I like to imagine that somehow a pre-publication copy of this Concerto movement got into Bach's hands before 1713. Who knows?

Look at the Bach:

Look at the Vivaldi:

Look at the Chédeville:

Listen to the Bach: Listen to the Vivaldi: Listen to the Chédeville:

One more transcription of Florence Price's Adoration

Sheronda Shorter, the director of the Kentuckiana Viola Choir asked me to make a multi-viola transcription of Florence Price's "Adoration." I thought I would share it here for other multi-viola ensembles to play. You can find a PDF of the score and parts here as well as on this page of the IMSLP.