Exposition

The endpinless cello in the 19th / early-20th century and today (2020)

Matyas Virag

About this exposition

Despite the fact that playing the cello without an endpin was common practice throughout the 19th and even early-20th century, it is a playing style that, in my experience, most of today’s cellists associate with the baroque cello only, and barely experience in general. However, this so-called da gamba posture was preferred by some of the leading cellists of the 19th / early-20th century – Auguste Franchomme, Alfredo Piatti, David Popper or Robert Hausmann, to name a few – all of whom made this choice at a time when the new ‘trend’ of using an endpin was becoming more popular. With the first part of my research, my goal was to gain insight into this transitional period – between approximately 1850 and 1920 – by looking into treatises, other written documents, illustrations and photographs of the time. This was followed by the documentation of my own practical experiments – mainly working on Brahms’ Cello Sonata in F Major (Op. 99) – which led me to the conclusion that: by trying to play instinctively and thus experiencing what is more natural to do – in terms of bow speed, the amount of bow weight in the string, the intensity/amplitude of vibrato etc. – in this changed position, one may get a sense of what types of sound or articulation a cellist from that era might have played with. And having these two equally important elements, the background research and my practical experiments, I chose to present my work as a research exposition.
typeresearch exposition
keywordscello, endpin, Robert Hausmann, David Popper, Alfredo Piatti, Johannes Brahms, historically informed performance, 19th century, Instruments & Techniques
date24/02/2020
published20/08/2020
last modified20/08/2020
statuslimited publication
share statusprivate
copyrightMátyás Virág
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/544471/723497
published inKC Research Portal
portal issue3. Internal publication


Simple Media

id name copyright license
544724 Carlo Alfredo Piatti (1822-1901) public domain All rights reserved
544733 David Popper (1843-1913) public domain All rights reserved
544737 Robert Hausmann (1852-1909) public domain All rights reserved
544740 Robert Hausmann and Johannes Brahms public domain All rights reserved
544746 Brahms_Hausmann public domain All rights reserved
633027 Kummer: Violoncell-Schule public domain All rights reserved
633041 Bernhard Romberg public domain All rights reserved
633044 Bernhard Romberg - 2. public domain All rights reserved
723501 Hausmann and Brahms Public domain Public domain
723504 Brahms and Hausmann Public domain Public domain
723506 Piatti, Joachim and Reinecke https://josephjoachim.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/media-php.jpeg Public domain
723509 KonCon_logo Public domain Public domain
723521 Tortelier Public domain Public domain
723525 Ebony_19th_century_style Public domain Public domain
724034 Servais_1862 Servaiscollectie Halle All rights reserved
724136 Franchomme_photo Elisabeth Pénicaud-Legagneur All rights reserved
724143 Lee_Violoncello-Schule_rev.Becker Public domain Public domain
730097 Introductory video Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
798235 Jules Delsart René-Gabriel Ojéda / Musée de beaux arts de Valenciennes Public domain
799306 Jules de Swert public domain All rights reserved
799352 Van der Straeten public domain Public domain
799371 Leo Schulz public domain Public domain
799659 Helene de Katow public domain Public domain
799664 Lisa Christiani public domain Public domain
799671 Elisa de Try public domain Public domain
802269 Brahms_1_da_gamba Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802272 Brahms_1_endpin Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802275 Brahms_2_da_gamba Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802278 Brahms_2_endpin Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802282 Brahms_3_da_gamba Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802287 Brahms_3_endpin Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802290 Brahms_4_da_gamba Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802293 Brahms_4_endpin Mátyás Virág All rights reserved
802311 Brahms_1 public domain Public domain
802318 Brahms_2 public domain Public domain
802323 Brahms_3 public domain Public domain
802326 Brahms_4 public domain Public domain

comments: 1 (last entry by Anna Scott - 10/12/2018 at 10:27)