//The Cello Lesson Comedy Show (4)//

ABRSM Cello Grade 7 Saint-Saëns: Le cygne (from “The Carnival of the Animals”)
Posted by The Cello Suite (2020)

During my class with Teacher last week…

Me: I watched your cello exam demo video The Swan last night.
Teacher: *Sigh* Told you not to watch my videos…
Me: I was bored. Anyway, you sounded weird in the video.
Teacher: (“Oh, no. Not again…”) Mm… How so?
Me: Just strange. So I dug up Maisky’s video to compare with yours. I know it is not a fair comparison since yours was an exam demo while his was a concert performance. But still…

Camille Saint-Saëns: Le cygne (The Swan)
Mischa Maisky, Boian Videnoff – Mannheimer Philharmoniker
Posted by Mannheimer Philharmoniker (2019)

Me: I watched both videos but I couldn’t describe the difference. So I closed my eyes and just listened to both videos again. Maisky’s tempo was much slower than yours. I assume it is much harder to play in a slower tempo. But the connection between his notes never dropped. Your notes seemed to stay on the surface. But each of Maisky’s notes seem to hit me in the inside, one by one like waves. And I started getting tears welled up in my eyes.

Teacher: Well…

Me: Maisky always says he intentionally exaggerates when he plays. But still, I wasn’t sitting in the concert hall with him playing live a few feet in front of me. How was it possible that I could feel what I felt through a laptop and a cheap earphone!

“And sometimes players have to make the details obvious, as Maisky explained: ‘I’m criticised for exaggerating, but I do it on purpose. I don’t play for people who know the music – I imagine the people who are listening to it for the first time. You have to guide them, to show them every change, every decoration. If you try to show 120 per cent maybe they’ll get 75 per cent. But if you only try 90 per cent they won’t get enough. But I might be wrong.’”[1]

Teacher: That’s…

Me: It just looks and sounds strange when one has to dumb down oneself to play a piece. For the exam videos, why not have 2 versions? In one video, you play the piece exactly the way you would if you were playing it in a real concert. In the second video, get someone whose skill level is closer to the actual grade to play the piece, like having someone at grade 3 level playing the grade 1 piece.

Teacher: Err…

So what’s the final score for the challenge? Maisky one. Teacher zero. (Sorry, Teacher.)

PS. Don’t get me wrong. I know Teacher can do it. He once played Bach’s Arioso during class which made me want to cry at each note. It’s so frustrating that others couldn’t experience that from the video.

Reference:

1. Mischa Maisky: ‘Bach is turning in his grave’. Oct 20, 2014. https://www.elbowmusic.org/post/2014/10/20/mischa-maisky-bach-is-turning-in-his-grave