Day 8

Sweet, now that we’ve made it more fun, it’s time to get real.

Downloads:
One thing for today

self-talk assessment

Today’s Recommended Listening:

David Popper (1843-1913)
Dance of the Elves for Cello & Piano
Janos Starker, cello and Shigeo Neriki, piano
[Spotify] - 3 minutes

David Popper, a man whose music I swore was the bane of my existence, probably has the most important set of technical studies in all of cello - his 40 Etudes, op. 73. Having studied them with Richard Aaron and then co-edited the now-standard edition and having made a course like this that requires 90 minutes of daily work on them for 53 weeks… I’ve now spent way too much time with my mortal enemy slash bff Popper ;)

However. The Dance of the Elves (Elfentanz) remains one of the great Showpieces of all time and a pinnacle of the cello repertoire. He was an insanely gifted cellist and was apparently famous for doing spiccato at the tip of the bow. Hugh Jackman could play him in a biopic performing this piece - Popper truly was the greatest showman.

Janos Starker is one of the great cello pedagogues of all time, and like his Hungarian countryman Popper, one of the great performers too. Starker taught at Indiana University (which, in case you didn’t know, actually has the largest music school in the US - go figure).

What to explore next:

  1. David Popper | Spinning Song [another showpiece]

  2. David Popper | Requiem for 3 cellos and orchestra [beautiful piece but don’t tell anyone I said that]

  3. Jeremy Crosmer | Crosmer-Popper Duets [equally challenging duets written as a passion project by my buddy Jeremey to be played alongside the 40 Popper Etudes - I guess he was bored during his doctorate]

See you tomorrow!
—Eric