Lesson 62 - New pieces Saint-Saëns and Dove

Gosh. A fortnight really is a long time between lessons. I feel as if it has been ages since I last saw Deryn.

When she asked about my progress, I was quick to mention that I had mostly been experimenting with the cello; playing pieces and technical exercises from books that were not introduced in class.

You see, I had bought a rather large briefcase of old cello books off of a lady whose daughter played the cello when she was much younger. The books varied in degrees of use, some dog-eared and silverfished, some full of pencil scribbles whilst some remain untouched but collectively, a treasure trove of treats.

I still look on gumtree, ebay, preloved and such sites for discarded or forgotten cello books; mostly for naught but once in a while, people sell off their collections in bulk - usually the new learners that decide to stop after a short stint of unresolved new year's resolution.

I also scour the charity shops for miracles. Sometimes they surprise me with volumes of Beethoven Sonatas so I'm always encouraged to look; another man's rubbish and all that.

Deryn said I should email her the list of books I had procured so she could recommend pieces or exercises that might further assist me in my techniques. She said it was great practise to refer to all of the books one could get their hands on as there is literally an unlimited amount of approaches, methods and techniques for the cello and all of them valid.

In fact, it would actually do you less good to limit yourself to just the one approach or set of books. I agree wholeheartedly. Why limit yourself when there is a vast ocean of resources for you to lap up at a moment's notice!

And the past fortnight had been rather experimental indeed where I devoured books like the Piatti's Method for Cello and the Romberg Cello Sonata in Bflat Major; much more preferable to the Marcello Sonata which is, quite frankly, beginning to taste rather stale.

So Deryn gave me 2 new pieces for me to play. Both vastly different from the usual reportoire - one romantic (Saint-Saëns "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix" from Samson et Delila) and the other, modern contemporary (Jonathan Dove's Prayer-wheel). I will admit to some slight eyebrow raising towards the latter but after hearing Deryn play it so beautifully, meditatively (sp?) and tentatively on the cello, I decided that perhaps I have been very wrong about the genre.

We played through the Saint-Saëns piece together and then with Deryn on the piano so that I know what to expect during practise on my own. The piece sounds so straightforward as a listener but when you need to put notes on the cello, it becomes an entirely different matter. This never ceases to amaze me.