Lesson 76 - Bach Suites, Wigmore Hall

The Bach Suites have been the focus of all practise time away and on the cello. I'm so pleased that Deryn has included them in my repertoire at my current stage of cello playing. Both challenging and consolidating of all the things I've learnt up to this point, it has been the perfect balance to keep me motivated enough to learn the techniques needed to improve even further, especially in terms of fluid playing in the most comfortable position. This I found to be most exasperating as one needed to already be at ease before one could play notes in the least disconnected way but to do that, you have to be extremely focused at everything all at once and this is a most mentally intensive and exhausting task, so much so that you cannot help but be not at ease!

I've decided to try the Menuets this time and take a breather from the Allemande as I've been focusing too much on it and a fresh perspective is needed before I can improve.

We spent the first half of the lesson on Bunting to warm up the fingers. Using the third octave of the C major so we're covering more positions (2nd - 7th) and then the velocity exercises to flex the windscreen wiping bowing that I'm still trying to grasp; it seems more a mental challenge than anything. This seems be the "thing" I seem to be facing most of the days - mental challenges - definitely something I never would have associated with cello playing as from a layman's perspective, it all looks rather physical.

We then played through the first Menuet and then looked into the smaller details before applying those details with bow on string. The main lesson I got from this was - play with confidence, whole bow strokes - advice I should apply to everything I do really :}


Last week, as a birthday treat, my sister and I went to Wigmore Hall in London where David Finckel and Wu Han played with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on Tour. They were joined by Paul Neubauer, Inon Barnatan, David Shifrin, and Ben Beilman and played a wonderful selection of tunes, one of which I will post below since it was something new I've not heard before.



Actually, in truth, I've not heard of any of the tunes they were playing for the night but had "studied" them beforehand to enjoy them during the performance. Is this something people do?

Anyways, apart from the older lady sat next to me who wouldn't stop giving me dirty looks (probably because I wasn't wearing proper attire or maybe I looked like a ruffian who did not belong to the "scene") who then kept sleeping throughout the performance and waking up when her husband nudged her and the older gentlemen sat behind me who also found the performance nap worthy and rewarded us with his rather audible sleep snores, it was an enjoyable evening and we were treated with such an amazing performance by all the players.

I was obviously a little starstruck by Wu Han and David Finckel mostly because we were almost an arm's reach from them but also because the chemistry that exuded between the players during the performance was electrifying!