Why am I pushing you to be more specific?
It's true, what you said, that
the Prelude, the function of the Prelude, is the set of characters that's going to go through the whole Suite.
But beyond that, with any piece of music, why would I—
why do I always push you to tell me
as precisely as possible, about mood, about character?
[Katz] Well you would want to know what you want to say to the audience.
[Student] Right.—Mhmm. [Katz] Right?—you're a communicator.
You are—you're bringing the message.
That's the way I think of performance anyway. That's—right? [Student] Yeah.
[Katz] When we walk on stage, the more powerful
and clear your own internal conception is
about this piece of music and what you want to say with it,
the better—the more compelling a performance you can give.
So, if you have some vague idea that you know,
this is in D minor and yeah it's dark and—that's a good start
but I'd like you to crystalize that.
[♪ music ♪]
We're just going to build this now a little bit at a time.
For example, is this movement,
or this Suite, is it extrovert?
[Student] No, I don't think so. [Katz] No, it's not extrovert—how so, describe it for me?
[Student] I think it's—I think it's,
it's introverted, it's very personal,
and I think that it has a lot of
longing in it— [Katz] Good.
[Student] some sense of memory.
[Katz] See, now we're talking—so, when you start to play with
those thoughts very much in your head,
I think you'll get a completely different sound.
It's often talked about in terms of being meditative,
prayerful, very, very personal, very inside.
There's a crying aspect to it—painful.
[Student] Yeah. [Katz] All of those kinds of things.
So, when you put the bow on the string, the first—
[♪ music ♪]
you want to create an atmosphere that—
because music conveys emotion and mood.
That's really what this is about. All the technical stuff we're going
to be talking about is how to do that ––to get us to that point.
And it's not too early—I really believe it's not too early
right from the beginning to be thinking about that. It shapes everything.
It's going to shape your fingerings, your bowings,
your bow distribution, it's going to shape all those technical things.
Because if you're thinking of it as introverted and prayerful,
as opposed to something neutral
or something, like "here comes the cello"—
right?—you're just going to use different bowings. [Student] Right.
[Katz] One of the other things that's basic to a Prelude
is that it has an improvisatory aspect to it.
That's different than the other movements of a dance suite
where you have strict rhythm
that an Allemande or Courante is derived from a dance
but still has a beat.
[Student] Right. [Katz] Right, okay.
The Prelude, which is setting the mood and the character and everything,
by nature comes out kind of from the street musician
who was sitting there with his lute and tuning up
and just improving a little bit
and getting the public around and getting people in the mood,
and then he did his dances.
So, I think when you play, for example—
[♪ music ♪]
you did something like that. That's not free enough. So...
[♪ music ♪]
Right here—
[♪ music ♪]
just adding another layer on, which has that
little sense of freedom or the creativity of the moment.
All right? You want to try that?
[♪ music ♪]
Okay, Okay. Now does that feel good?
[Student] Yeah, it felt—like I always think like—I don't know.
It was definitely more free but the attitude
of this movement—like when you're sad, you don't really have a lot of limitations
and when you're crying you can just all of a sudden
feel better for a second and then another sob can come—
and I want that feeling to be like
at any moment it could break down
or at any moment it could get really like—you feel better
[Katz] So, this—let's talk in those terms a little bit because that speaks to you.
What struck me was that
if you imagine yourself spent and sad
and in this very private state
that there was just a little bit too much
red blood in that, that when you to—
[♪ music ♪]
it was too early for that. [Student] Right. Okay.
[Katz] You didn't play it that loud but it had that— [Student] Potential.
[Katz] Yes. So, I think stay more private.
Now, let's add another technical thing, okay?
This is so deeply felt - and this is
actually controversial what I'm going to tell you -
In the time of Bach there wasn't that much vibrato used.
So, what do we do today? That's kind of a hard call.
For me, if I do this—with is pretty much what you did—
[♪ music ♪]
without any vibrato at all, especially here.
It's like for the modern day ear, it lacks some expression.
Now, there are artists that can do that very beautifully without any vibrato
but I think we're on a modern day cello,
we're in the 21st century—my particular philosophy
is that we're not really trying to recreate
a performance that Bach would've wanted to hear.
For one thing, we can't. We don't really know.
We know certain stylistic things but the instrument has totally changed.
The way I do—the way I believe we do justice to Bach
is that we say, what is his message?
What do these notes mean? What was he trying to say?
And then we say it through ourselves in a way
that makes sense to today's listener.
I think that's how music survives through the centuries,
rather than stays as a museum piece.
And that's totally debatable, and you should hear other viewpoints.
[Student] Yeah. [Katz] Right—and you'll find your own,
but for me—
[♪ music ♪]
if we color it a little bit with vibrato in the mood—
[♪ music ♪]
So, we make our left hand expressive—
not in a romantic sense, not with a juicy vibrato, but just coloring it.
[Student] I'm going to try it in the fourth position.
[Katz] Yeah, that was my next thing. Thanks.
[♪ music ♪]
So, I could hear—I can actually hear [mimics too much attack].
your index finger. Just –
[♪ music ♪]
Slow bow, slow bow—that's it, slow bow and light.
[♪ music ♪]
That's getting more personal.
[♪ music ♪]
Ouch.
[♪ music ♪]
Okay, so, let's make a clean shift, okay?— [Student] Okay.
[Katz] Because one of the things that we don't do in Bach
is we don't do slides, right, that really would be out—
you know what I mean, it is stylistically out, right? [Student] Yeah.
[Katz] So—[♪ music ♪]
That's a romantic concept that doesn't fit there.
I know you didn't mean it. It was technical.
But I think— [♪ music ♪]
you can just—the simplicity—simplicity or something
a little bit spartan about this also, right?
It's without frills, and what you find for yourself
is got to be different than what I find for myself.
I'm just putting ideas in your head—
in your creative mix, and then you're going to go home this week
and you're going to stir the pot, and you're going to find out what works for you.
Okay? [Student]Yeah.