A New YouTube Channel
Although I’ve had a YouTube channel for awhile, I’ve recently started to upload new content. I’ll be posting select items in an upcoming media page but in the meantime you can view the new videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/lynnharrell.
And please accept my apologies for not posting anything new for a short while, the travel schedule has been full but I’m putting the final touches on a new post about the differences between performing on an instrument from the Cremonese or Venetian or Brescian period as opposed to one from a living maker.
Welcome to my blog. I am a 67 year old solo cellist who has been touring the world for the last 40 years playing almost everywhere of note in the classical music scene alongside many of the greatest musicians. Over all these years, I have accumulated many stories, opinions, and insights, and gifts of the spirit as well as objects. It has been and still is incredibly inspiring work and even though I consider myself “techno-challenged” I wanted to have an outlet to share everything.
Please infer no belligerence or anger from this comment, as I mean only to pose a serious question. Have you ever considered the implications of what must be done to these instruments in order to render them useable as “master” instruments by mainstream string players? They are carefully pried open, their bass bars and tops shaved down, their necks and fingerboards replaced, their scrolls cut off and re-affixed, and their setups changed to accommodate steel strings. The result is a beautifully resonant instrument with amazing power and subtly variable tone. However, their sound as what we would now call a “period” instrument is lost forever, and the intentions of the maker along with it. Period players have stopped bothering to have such instruments “re-baroqued” because the process rarely yields a superior instrument to a good copy. Thus, all old instruments which have been modernized may as well be left that way since they work marvelously as modern instruments. Still, the sound of an old stringed instrument in its original setup is nearly always superior to a modern copy, but this is rarely heard as there are very few instruments from the renaissance and baroque periods which have not been modernized. I propose that while there is nothing left to do but enjoy the already modified old instruments, there should be some sort of international law or guideline prohibiting any instruments yet to be discovered from being modernized. I may be biased as a lover of HIP, but I hope that some mainstream classical musicians such as yourself will be on-board with my philosophy regarding old instruments. What are your views?
Dear Baroqueboy:
Thank you for your insights! Most professional string players don’t recognize many of your points. However , I have come to believe that the \modern set-up\ would not have worked at all in the first years of these instruments. I believe also that their power and quality is not achieved out of thin air. the Capacity of the modern sound was always there waiting to develop and mature. In that way it is exactly like the voice ( another parallel !) a young soprano who will become a Christine Brewer, or Zinka Milanov (two examples of quite differing voices) does NOT sound any way near the way they BECAME. By working their instruments and their language and style of vocal approach it develops. A singer at twenty may feel that they could tackle Brunnhilde or Aida, and maybe they could– but at the expense of doing their vocal chords great, irreparable harm. Similarly , the instruments must be played so that the individual character starts to emerge. And gradually they can be “altered” to make more power and brilliance. But the capacity of it was always there. Maybe a better way to describe it is to say that the balance of all 4 strings, of the differing registers and the percentage relationship between resonance and focus is close to perfect acoustically. It has a perfect “voicing”.
Looking forward to hearing you in Seattle, next year. If I can bring the kids, I will. Nice blog site, Lynn! fc