Day 4

Welcome to Day 4!
Isn’t it cool that you already have a practice plan for today?
We’re going to expand that plan for today’s activity.

Downloads:
A more detailed checklist than yesterday. Please do try to fill in the whole thing. It might be tough at first but then I suspect you’ll actually run out of room…

practice checklist - mid-range

Today’s Recommended Listening:

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Cello Quintet: Movement 1
Yo-Yo Ma / Cleveland Quartet
[Spotify] - 20 minutes

Schubert was a Mozart-level genius and actually studied with Salieri. In his brief life he wrote 7.5 Symphonies (the 8th Symphony is famously the “Unfinished”), more than 600 songs, and countless pieces of Chamber Music.

Chamber Music just means a few instruments, usually 2-8, like a group that would have been playing in a room at a party. The most common Chamber Music instrument configurations are:

  • 2 people: Sonata = Instrument + Piano

  • 3 people: Piano Trio = Violin + Cello + Piano

  • 3 people: String Trio = Violin + Viola + Cello

  • 4 people: Piano Quartet: String Trio + Piano

  • 4 people: String Quartet: Violin 1 + Violin 2 + Viola + Cello

  • 5 people: Piano Quintet: String Quartet + Piano

The “Cello Quintet” isn’t a work for 5 cellos is really a work for Cello + String Quartet. This is an unusual configuration, except that the 18th-century cellist Luigi Boccherini wrote like a million of them so that he could play along with a string quartet.

In Schubert’s Cello Quintet, the extra cello is heavily featured and frequently has the melody. You’ll hear the incredible variety of moods that Schubert is able to convey and there’s something so special about the lightness of the melodies in this first movement.

This recording is Yo-Yo Ma with the Cleveland Quartet. I had the pleasure of studying chamber music with Peter Salaff (Violin 2) on this quintet when I was studying in Cleveland, and it was a highlight of my musical studies. What an amazing coach and genuine human being. As an aside, Violin 1 is Donald Weilerstein, father of cellist Alisa Weilerstein.

What to explore next:

  1. Franz Schubert | Arpeggione (Cello) Sonata [Mstislav Rostropovich / Benjamin Britten]

  2. Franz Schubert | String Quartet #14 - Death and the Maiden [Cleveland Quartet]

  3. Eric Moore | Soliloquy for 5 Cellos [Score + Video]

See you tomorrow!
—Eric