SCHUBERT, Franz
Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor, D 821, “Arpeggione” (version for cello and piano)
I. Allegro moderato
Asier Polo, guest professor
Alejandro Viana Herreros, student
Ofelia Montalván, accompanying pianist
Before the performance, followed by the movement, Polo asks the student how long he has been working on this sonata. He does not get to play it all the way through; the teacher begins with comments on the tempo and fingering for a certain difficult passage. In general, he sees him playing well despite the great difficulty of this work. Regarding the sound, he points out that he always plays with a little portato, very subtle, but perhaps due to the difficulty of placing the left hand, and then the bow ends up waiting for that correct placement. To avoid this, he advises working more on the bow, paying more attention to the right hand so that the sound is of high quality.
He recommends that they use the same edition (Peters) to avoid differences in dynamics, etc.
Starting again from the beginning to review the work in detail, Polo proposes an experiment: to practise thinking only about the bow. This results in better, more stable sound production, also working on the movement of the right arm.
Regarding phrasing, he should work less on the detailed shaping and process of each cell and each note, and more on the overall musical sense of the phrases and their harmonies, on the musical discourse in its overall structure. It is also a matter of a more spontaneous, fresher attitude: technique must be at the service of musical meaning, not the other way around.
The phrasing is not diminuendo at the tip and crescendo at the frog; it is the other way round. To that end, he recommends changing the bowings. In the classicism of Beethoven and Schubert, one must play on the note with a purer, flatter sound, not between the notes, and the phrasing should be longer: he should seek a type of bow sound aimed at that, with the right arm stable and relaxed. He then proposes a different accentuation in the pizzicato and using less bow afterwards so that the internal pulse does not go out of alignment. He also suggests, for the right arm, feeling more the movement of the back part of the forearm rather than the hand, and doing the bariolage closer to the frog.
The diminuendo is a consequence of physical relaxation: to play more piano, he must relax more. They continue to the end working on that relaxation and body posture.
Language: Spanish
