h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Why Cellists Detest Bartok"

*sigh*

hey. how 'bout why violinists detest bartok? Hvae you ever seen the romanian dances? way to many double stops, and one of them is all harmonics, with 1st finger down and 4th as harmonic note.
so, why do cellists hate him so much? is it the same reason across the strings? (assuming that you don't count the weird melodies. all of us here like them, or we wouldn't be writing this)
Bartok the Bat/Jen

I like the weird melodies, but Bartok never lets cellists play anything that comes anywhere near approaching a melody. The cello score for Bartok pieces always seemed to be the same durn notes (and double stops) over and over and over again. It sounds great when you hear the whole orchestra together, but it's awfully boring sitting in the cello section.


Mikey

i am *so* glad i gave up strings earlier in life and that at least bartok's piano compositions aren't half as insane as liszt's...

hey, which third of me posted that up there? please remember that we're all the same person.
Mikey, did Bartok ever write solo cello pieces? Because I know they would have to be quite nasty, on par with the violin ones, and then you'd have something else to hate, and not because of boredem.
Bartok the Bat/Jen

Hmmm.... I'm not sure on that one. I remember *playing* Bartok solo pieces, but a lot of the solo pieces you play as a cello student are not necessarily pieces that were written for the cello -- they're more often than not violin pieces that have been transcribed. I'm pretty sure the Suzuki Cello books had Bartok pieces in them.... When I finished the Suzuki books, my teacher was more flexible about letting me choose some of my own pieces, so it was no more Bartok for me!

Mikey

well, I know that not all Bartok violin solos can be transcribed for cello and be even remotely playable. The different fingering system (1, 2, 3, 4, and 1, 2, 3, 4, but as I'm sure you know that in violin this gives you one more note w/o shifting) makes some of it really awkward/impossible. Examples involve that for violins to play octaves (in first pos.) the fingering is 0, 3 or 1, 4. For cellos the fingering is 0, 4. And one of the Romainian dances is 1 held down, with 4 as harmonic. doesn't work on cello.
Just a question: did you ever play from Position pieces for cello, by Rick Moony, or his double stops or Thumb position books? My sister is using them, and she met him at a masterclass once. Got her book autographed. I do know it is fairly standard Suzuki repitoire, but I'm not sure how recent it is, and if you're done with the books the time when using these would have been appropriate is probably long past. I'm assuming the books with Bartok are approx. 6 and up?
Jen

i actually adore the romanian dances, although to be fair i can only play the easy ones (1 and 3) and i havent even attempted the false harmonic ones!! love listening to them being played tho. last yr our music tchr played us his work for two pianos and percussion, and that was incredible.

3 is the one with the false harmonic. I would define easy as 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, with the exception of some double stops that I never practiced enough to play very quickly. It was an audition piece for an audition that I did not go through with (did not qualify for round 2) and therefore stopped playing before I was done. They do sound nice (although I have a dislike for #1), particularly when my teacher plays them.

thats weird, i was sure mine only had 5 in it! havent looked at it for a while tho, so could be wrong. i didnt mean the one with the falso harmonics, i meant the slow one, that starts all on the A string. know wot you mean bout the dbl stops, definitely nasty!

The slow one is 4. And yes, it is Bartok's 6 Roumanian Dances (weird spelling, I know), at least in the editions in the States.

thats right, i remember now. i was forgetting number2! which is v nice. 5 and 6 are lovely but hard, and 3 is just ridiculous!

I like the way 5 sounds when better people than me play it. I don't like playing it myself as much, because I find the stretch difficult sometimes. My teacher is working to fix that. He has me playing tenths double stops.

ouch ouch ouch! andrew (my bf) has to do them at music college, he says theyre really nasty.

really very nasty. I can't even begin to describe it. Good news: I can play 3 in a row before my hand starts to hurt. It's like a fourth finger in fifth position and a first finger in third, but on two strings. but they sound sooooooo nice. I really love the sound of the interval. (I'm a sucker for major thirds too, so that probably explains it)