The cello is an object of such consummate perfection that it is hard to believe that it was created by the human mind. It is exquisitely beautiful to look at, and has a range of musical expression rivalled only by the violin. By turns, it can provide a sturdy yet flexible accompanying line, or take flight in full-throated song.
Two aspects of cello lore are examined in these books. Nicholas Delbanco sheds light on the mysterious art of restoration, while Stephen Sensbach unearths hidden treasures of cello repertoire.
Delbanco holds the Robert Frost Collegiate Chair of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, but he is also the son-in-law of Bernard Greenhouse, the semi-retired cellist of the Beaux Arts Trio. Delbanco has written an engaging and affectionate portrait of Greenhouse's Stradivarius cello, which is named after two former owners of the instrument: Stanlein, a French 19th-century aristocrat, and Paganini, the legendary Italian violin virtuoso.
This is one of about 60 surviving Strad cellos, as compared to just 12 violas but 600 or so violins.
Stradivarius made the instrument in 1707 near the start of his "Golden Period", and it is the first of his smaller-sized cellos (75 cm long, as opposed to 81 cm in his earlier period). As such it has been the model for countless imitators ever since.
Greenhouse, who played this cello every day for 40 years, decided to have the instrument completely restored when he retired from active concert giving. He entrusted the job to the New York luthier RenΘ Morel, who gave two years of labour and love to the job.
It was a delicate balance between keeping the original material by Stradivarius (even small strips of canvas glued to the inside for reinforcement) and respecting the history of the instrument (for instance, by not replacing the back of the peg box, which was cut out by an earlier repairer and is now a distinctive feature of the instrument). Delbanco conveys wonderfully the arcane mysteries of what went into the restoration process and what makes a Strad something very much more than the sum of its parts.
Sensbach is a cellist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and his book is based on the doctoral dissertation that he completed at the University of Texas. The heart of the book is a catalogue of 100 published cello sonatas written by French composers between the Franco-Prussian War and the start of the second World War.
Each entry includes a musical incipit, information about the composition, publication and premiere of the work, biographical remarks on the composer, comments on the music, and bibliographical aids.
A series of appendices includes information on unpublished and lost sonatas, sonatas by foreign composers resident in France, works for cello and orchestra, biographies of all the cellists and pianists who premiered these works, a discography, and a useful list of recommended works.
A short introduction places the works in historical context, and there are copious illustrations, many from the author's own collection.
Some of these sonatas were written by professional composers, but many are by musicians who were primarily active as conductors, performers, or music historians. There are also quite a few by accomplished amateurs, including businessmen, civil servants, lawyers, a banker, a publisher, and a soldier; there is even one by an aristocrat. There are programmatic, operatic, dramatic, and didactic sonatas; diatonic, pentatonic, octatonic, chromatic, and modal sonatas; good, bad, and indifferent sonatas.
Only a handful of these works would be known to the average music lover: the Debussy and FaurΘ sonatas, and the two by Saint-Saδns, perhaps. Probably the most performed work from this period is not included here: the Franck Violin Sonata (1886) as arranged by the cellist, Jules Delsart, a leading teacher and performer of the late 19th century (Sensbach includes only works transcribed by the composer).
Uncovering all of this information was an extraordinary job of sleuthing, which involved searching the major music libraries of the world, corresponding with dozens of publishers, cellists, composers, and their descendants, and wading through the secondary literature on the topic. About a dozen of these works deserve to be resurrected from their obscurity and restored to the active cello repertoire.
Sensbach has done his part as a researcher. It is now up to him and other professional cellists to bring these works to life in performances and recordings.
Robin Elliott is a lecturer in the Department of Music at University College Dublin