CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Research Questions

What are the main attributes of Brahms’s Romantic style in music for string instruments, and how can Romantic interpretation techniques be used in Brahms’s chamber music repertoire for cello?

Motivation

The revolution of sound recording at the beginning of the 20th century influenced classical performance practice, setting definitive interpretations and eradicating more personal approaches to music-making. Many fundamental expressive devices were lost over the years and thus Romantic musical performance was no longer understood in the same way. This is why my research tries to look backwards in time with the aim of exploring the main attributes of Brahms’s Romantic style in music for string instruments. My research aims to: (1) understand lost Romantic expressive devices and how they worked, and (2) explore ways of using them today. What’s more, I feel a great interest in exploring period performance practice because I think it can be a huge stimulation and inspiration for performers and can give us new insights into music. So, I hope this research could motivate other cellists and advanced musicians to use the sources in a creative way in order to perform beautiful and inspiring music.

Research Methodology

I first analyzed primary and secondary literature to establish context. Secondary literature was my starting point, where I found a lot of background information, and which opened my mind and motivated me to go deeply in this topic. Then I took a step back into main sources, such as cello methods and edited scores (Cello Sonatas no.1 and no.2 by Brahms) by Julius Klengel and Hugo Becker, the composer’s contemporaries and leading cellists of the period and some chamber music scores edited by Ossip Schnirlin, violinist Joseph Joachim’s student. I thought this was a really useful way to gain valuable information about the performing practice of the time, especially in terms of using portamento. For that reason, I analyzed the fingerings of the edited scores, taking into account the intervals, slurs, place in the phrase and so on. Finally, I listened to cello and string quartet early recordings to hear sonic evidence of these techniques, before applying them in Brahms's chamber music for cello. In order to be able to find more cello recordings, I had the idea of searching through generations of cellists, and made the following genealogical table of teacher-pupil lineages. The main outcome I found is that diverse and emotional approaches to music-making made the Romantic period unique. I hope these tools can encourage today’s cellists and string players in general to create new, more personal, freer and more creative approaches to playing Romantic repertoires.

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