Jan Diesselhorst – the philosopher
When you go into the string players’ room at the Philharmonie in
the morning, you’ll often find Jan Diesselhorst there before you,
reading a weighty philosophical tome, while his admiring fellow-cellists
keep a safe distance. Jan is a cello-playing humanist and someone who
can be said to be truly cultivated. Occasionally, after a concert, he
pulls a bottle of the best grappa out of his locker. Philosopher he may
be, but not an ascetic!
Richard Duven – the serious one
Once in a while a rehearsal of the 12 Cellists threatens to descend into
unseemly hilarity. When that happens, it’s usually Richard Duven
who calls them to order (he’s also a member of the Scharoun Ensemble
and a keen champion of new music). Diplomatically, and efficiently, he
takes care of the cello group’s duty roster, aided by a strong streak
of stubbornness without which it would be hard to control his estimable
colleagues. Not only does he know all the details of everyone’s
schedules, but when the orchestra’s on tour he’s a mine of
information about the best sightseeing, excursions and good long walks.
Georg Faust – the sensitive one
When Rudolf Weinsheimer, the ensemble’s initiator and manager, left
in 1997, it looked like the end of the 12 Cellists. It was Georg Faust
who kept the show on the road, temporarily taking on every aspect of the
management, from hiring coach drivers to negotiating with composers and
impresarios, and ensuring the provision of scores. Yet he is not really
one of nature’s managers, he is too sensitive for that. The whole
orchestra is entertained by his sensitivity in the matter of hotel rooms.
The first thing others do on arrival after a tiring journey is take a
nap, but Georg Faust commandeers the services of a nice lady from hotel
reception and sets off, accompanied by her and her master key, to discover
which rooms in the hotel offer the most harmonious rest according to the
principles of feng shui.
Christoph Igelbrinck – the comedian
The ensemble’s jester has a second string to his bow, in that he’s
an outstanding pianist. More often late for rehearsals than on time, he
has a ready gift for mimicking colleagues or conductors, commenting on
the progress of the rehearsal in broad Saxon (he has a perfect command
of every German dialect), or creating pandemonium with inspired puns.
Until Richard Duven ... (see above).
Martin Löhr – the magician
A promotion film was shot during the recording sessions for the CD “South
American Getaway”, and the film crew, not knowing the players’
actual names, made them up: Martin Lohr was “Latin Lover”.
As No.12 in the ensemble, his functions include establishing and maintaining
the rhythmic impulse, and when the mood takes him he likes to carry the
whole ensemble with him from the bottom line. His secret passion is magic.
He can’t actually make a tiger disappear but his tricks are virtuosic
enough to baffle his colleagues.
Olaf Maninger – the businessman
He plays golf, he’s elegant, he’s cool: Olaf Maninger is
the media chief of the Berliner Philharmoniker, and he bears himself
on this slippery surface as to the manner born. He takes responsibility
for the 12 Cellists’ media contracts. Nobody
is better at reading the small print, nothing escapes his eagle eye. If
he wasn’t such a good musician and if he didn’t love the orchestra
as much as he does, he’d certainly be on the board of a media business
by now.
Martin Menking – the manager
On taking over the ensemble’s management, and relieving Geoerg Faust
of a heap of work, a mountain of e-mails and faxes and a trunkful of old
programmes, reviews, photos and correspondence, Martin Menking became
something very like the soul of the 12 Cellists. What his colleagues never
cease to marvel at is his capacity to ingest apparently unlimited quantities
of nourishment. He is never without “essential provisions”
in the form of sandwiches, packets of biscuits, thermos flask or bottled
water. And yet he maintains a constant ideal playing weight, on and off
the platform.
Ludwig Quandt – ideal colleague
Without vanity, selfless, pulling his weight, supportive in every respect
– that’s the kind of person we all want to share a desk with.
Gerog Faust found him: Ludwig Quandt. The two solo cellists never even
fall out over the question of who should play a particular solo –
if necessary, they toss a coin. Only if a discussion reaches stalemate,
has descended into bickering, if his colleagues are not working with the
same concentration as he is, then his mood can change suddenly, the speedometer
suddenly shoots up, 0 to 60 in a second, and he stamps his foot, beats
his bow on the desk. Very refreshing!!
David Riniker – the Swiss one
He’s a credit to his country: David Riniker plays with the precision
and reliability of a Swiss watch. Actually, aged 24, he auditioned for
a place in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Karajan Academy. But he
was refused! Over-qualified! He was asked instead if he would mind doing
another audition the following day – this time for a place in the
orchestra itself. It was a case of no contest. Since then he has blossomed
as a wicked arranger for the 12 Cellists, asking them to do things no
one had realized could be done on the cello.
Nikolaus Römisch – the Berliner
Always perky, sometimes cocky, and, when it matters, incredibly ready
to help you – Nikolaus Römisch is the only native Berliner
in the ensemble. With his “Berlin lip” he’s always ready
to air an opinion (warranted or not) on anything and everything. At the
same time he’s indispensable as the organizer of rehearsal times,
which would never get scheduled without his persistence.
Dietmar Schwalke – the quiet one
Witty and retiring, versatile and imperturbable – there seems to
be no end to the unexpected facets of Dietmar Schwalke’s personality.
He has brought dedication and imagination to setting up the 12’s
website, building a house, playing in several of the Philharmoniker’s
chamber ensembles – oh, and he has four (almost) grown-up children
as well.
Solène Kermarrec – the unruffled
Her greatest pleasure used to be horseriding along the Atlantic coast
of her native country, France. Today she is the first woman in the
Berlin Philharmonic Cello Section. And, incidentally, she is a big
fan of the pop group “Depeche Mode” ...
Knut Weber – everyone’s pet
The Austrian's ability to fit in
and his constant good humour make him universally popular with the
ensemble, and his good looks set many a female heart beating faster – witness
one fan whose e-mail address begins: “Knut-tut-gut@ ...” (“I-get-a-kick-out-of-Knut
...” covers it perhaps). He looks after the 12’s huge
music library efficiently, ensures that everyone has the parts
they need and prevents outbreaks of panic every time the repertory
changes.
Dropping a Few Clangers
Georg Faust as Spokesman: his darkest hour
June 2000. Delegates from savings banks all over the world have come
to Berlin to celebrate Weltsparkassentag (World Savings Bank Day). A highlight
of the celebrations will be a concert in the Chamber Music Hall of the
Philharmonie, given by the 12 Cellists.
Shortly before the concert the people in charge approach Georg Faust.
“You’re going to say a few words before each item?”
“Yes.”
“Super. Er, there are so many visitors from abroad, could you speak
in German and English?”
“Yes, I’ll have a go.”
“Oh, another thing, the Queen of Spain is here, could you please
welcome her specially?”
“With pleasure.”
“And would you be sure to give her this bouquet at the end?”
“Yes, of course.”
No time for a run-through this evening, Georg has to prepare his spontaneous remarks. Don’t forget: “Sparkassentag”, “Queen of Spain”. “It hit me that it was going to be too much for me. I asked Olaf Maninger if he would like to be spokesman ... or Martin ... and Christoph had always wanted to ...? No?”
So Georg grasped the microphone and with a big smile welcomed the delegates to the Weltsparkassentag (Day) to the “Sparkassentagung” (Conference) (at which point Martin Menking, who was responsible for this engagement, got that sinking feeling). “Then I realized I didn’t know the English for ‘Sparkasse’. So I gave it my best shot, with ‘Welcome to the German Sparkasse’. And everyone laughed.”
Then he welcomed the Queen of Spain, and then it was time to segue elegantly to the subject of the music. Georg revealed that the Spanish royal family owned a quartet of Stradivari: two violins, a viola and a cello. That went down well. It was an honour, Georg said, to be able to play such instruments, the 12 Cellists were proud to have a Stradivari in their ensemble. The instrument in question was raised on high and shown to the listeners in the hall. Murmurs of admiration and appreciation. Georg presses on with a few words about instruments and their cost and adds, finally, that this particular instrument is a loan from Deutsche Bank!
Not a savings bank. “It was not well received. An ominous rumbling and whispering broke out in the hall.” The Cellists wished the floor would open and swallow them as one band. The concert went well, considering. The World Savings Bank Day audience received it with enthusiasm. With a gallant flourish, Georg presents the Queen of Spain with her flowers.
And then he succumbs to the fatal temptation to say a few words more. Before any of his colleagues can stop him, he tells the audience, all applauding heartily, that he had no idea that a conference audience could be capable of such enthusiasm. “It was the lowest point of my career as spokesman. I made a vow I would never touch a microphone again.”
After the concert, the audience praised the “entertaining” words, the Queen of Spain invited the Cellists to visit the Spanish court, and two weeks later there was a telephone call from the lady at the Savings Bank Association, saying the director was so enthusiastic that he insisted on engaging the 12 again …
South American Accolades
January 2000. The 12 Cellists finished recording “South American Getaway”, the first CD made by the “younger” ensemble. They felt rather pleased with themselves, “It’d turned out really well, we were all quite high, it was a rebirth of the 12 Cellists”.
May 2000. The Berliner Philharmoniker set off on a tour of South America. Buenos Aires is on the itinerary. After the concert in the magnificent Teatro Colón (Mahler 3 under Claudio Abbado), the cellists, infected with tango fever by their CD, want to seize the chance to become better acquainted with the city known as the cradle of the tango. The plucky cellists find a dimly lit bar in which to pursue their research. They resist the lure of their beds and, in a sober musicological spirit of course, drink until 2 in the morning when at last the Argentine tango players start playing their passionate music. Couples dance, pressed to each other, neither speaking nor smiling. The hands of the clock creep round to 4 am.
Suddenly the tango band stops playing. A completely different sound emerges astonishingly from the speakers. Hang on, that sounds familiar!! Someone had pressed a newly pressed copy of “South American Getaway” into the waiter’s hand: “Could you perhaps play this CD ...?” What people are now hearing is Horacio Salgán’s A fuego lento – played by the 12 Cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker. No objections, no outcry, no grumbles. No, they just go on dancing – perhaps a little slower than the temperamental philharmonic tempo requires, but they accept it as one of their own tangos: accolade no.1.
The next day the record company EMI holds a reception in honour of the 12 Cellists, to launch their new CD, “South American Getaway”. The Twelve will play some tangos live. The ballroom of the Interconti Hotel fills with ladies and gentlemen dressed up to the nines. And there, looking as if they’ve stepped out of a book of photos, sporting spats, pince-nez and canes, two tango legends in the flesh: Horacio Salgán, who still plays tangos in his bar every evening despite his great age, and José Bragato, the wonderful cellist who played with Astor Piazzolla. “We’ve never felt more nervous”, the Twelve will say later. Does the philharmonic art-tango sound authentic enough? Too fast? Too Teutonic? Too laboured? It’s all right. No heads are shaken, no one sighs in despair, no one walks out. On the contrary: the audience loves it and the Argentine Tango-Meisters themselves couldn’t be kinder or more generous in their praise of the arrangements and the playing: accolade no.2.
Epilogue
One would have said, if pressed, that Claudio Abbado probably didn’t set any great store by Heitor Villa-Lobos. The Bachianas Brasileiras are the best things he wrote, of course, but ... Until Georg Faust put the 12 Cellists’ new CD in his hand while they were in South America. Abbado listened to it – and was suddenly all enthusiasm: “The Villa-Lobos Aria, we can play it as an encore!” The orchestra reaches Brazil itself, Rio de Janeiro to be precise, where their concert ends with Beethoven’s Symphony no.7, rapturously received by a public which makes it very clear that it wants an encore. A soprano, engaged specially for this eventuality, steps on to the platform and takes her place in front of the cellists. Abbado lifts his baton – and the Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras fills the hall. “The audience responded enthusiastically, the people were completely entranced, and it was only afterwards that we realized that we’d actually played Brazil’s unofficial National Anthem”, Georg said later. And besides all the praise and the applause there is an extra bonus: Claudio Abbado takes the whole cello section out to dinner in Rio! Accolade no.3
Things they say
Back when Rudolf Weinsheimer and Christoph Kapler were still in the ensemble, they were acknowledged as, to some extent, the pair of opposites within the 12. Not just as characters but even as musicians. The usual way of expressing it was to say that Rudolf Weinsheimer sometimes liked to play “a little bit too fast”, Christoph Kapler, on the other hand, “a little bit too slow”. They also sat right next to each other, Cello 7 and Cello 8. And then a kind of “divergent” field would arise, a faultline where, from time to time, there was sure to be an eruption. Invariably a brief but vehement exchange between the two, as to which of them was responsible for the muddle, was followed by an abrupt motion of the hand marking a line between them and the cry: “This is the wall!!!” So far and no further! And today, still, when the tension rises, the cry “This is the wall!” is enough to bring disputatious cellists back on to a fundamentally cooperative path.
It happens sometimes in rehearsals that something just won’t work properly. The cellists try different solutions, make helpful suggestions and, before they know where they are, there are twelve different diagnoses of the problem. Christoph Kapler coined the saying that someone is still certain to utter whenever the 12 Cellists reach deadlock: “This passage has never been a problem before!”
Lost in the Land of the Rising Sun
Or, How Martin Menking found the hotel again
It was not a good time for it to happen. Martin Menking was still in his probation year, and could not afford to put a foot wrong. He needed to play well – always, be nice to his colleagues – always, and above all never be late for rehearsals or concerts.
July 1996. The 12 Cellists were on tour in the Far East. Their first stop was a small town in Japan. “We arrived in the bus from the airport at midday. I wanted to stretch my legs and get some fresh air after the long journey.” Like many of his colleagues, Martin is a keen jogger. The town looked simple to get around. After two minutes he was pouring with sweat, after ten minutes his sinuses were aching from the polluted air and high humidity. Better turn round. He looked behind him: the hotel had disappeared. Sunk out of sight in the sea of houses.
60 minutes till they were due to leave for the concert hall.
“I thought, if I jog any further, I’ll fall down dead.”
He turned round. 50 minutes till they were due to leave. No hotel in sight.
Anxiety starts to add to the sweat raised by running. “Shit, it
was useless. I’d have to ask the way. But how?” A fitness
centre beckons. First question to the smiling young lady behind the desk:
“Do you speak English?” She nods: “Hai, hai, yes”
Martin tries to explain that there were 12 cellists in a hotel in the
town, the hotel was relatively big, relatively good and relatively near,
and this evening …
“At some point I realized she didn’t understand a word. She
trotted off and two more young ladies appeared. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘Hai, yes’” It soon transpires that these two young
Japanese ladies understand English no better than their colleague.
40 minutes till they were due to leave.
“Despite the air conditioning, I started sweating even more, was
given a towel to wrap myself in, and someone dropped a thick Japanese
version of Yellow Pages into my hands. “How am I going to read it?”
He flips through the “Hotels” section and finds a picture
that looks as if it might be the right one. “The buildings all look
exactly the same, but I thought, that could be the hotel.” He calls
the number. “Do you speak English?” “Hai, hai, yes.”
Not really. No English spoken, no 12 Cellists, no Berlin Philharmonic.
30
minutes till they were due to leave.
At last the manager of the fitness centre heaves into view. “I cried
out to him: ‘Hotel! 12 Cellists! Berlin Philharmonic!’ Kindness
itself, he tries to help me choose a hotel. I tried to explain to him
that I didn’t need a hotel! I already had one! I was going to spend
the night there! I needed to get back to it, very very quickly!”
20 minutes till they were due to leave.
“I was frantic!” Martin remembers that the bus from the airport
had passed a red-light district on the right-hand side, just before the
hotel. He shrieks at the fitness centre manager: “Red-light district!
Prostitutes!” No reaction. “Beautiful women!!” A cautious
nod. “Big boobs!” Accompanied by graphic illustrative gesture.
“Oh, yes, hai, hai, yes, I understand, yes, hai!!”
10 minutes till they were due to leave.
“My clothes were sticking to me. I was freezing. The manager made
an excited telephone call.” It turns out that the hotel Martin had
already called was the right one, and at last, in Japanese, his friend
the manager gets the call put through to Georg Faust. “When he said
simply ‘Hallo’, it was like the sun rising!”
5 minutes till they were due to leave.
The hotel is actually only 200 metres away. When Martin gets there, in
a state of nervous exhaustion, he sees someone sauntering towards him
from the lift, Christoph Igelbrink, a vision in dinner jacket and perfectly
kempt hair. “Well, well, where’ve you been, we’re just
about to give a concert?!?”
“When I told them what had happened to me, during the run-through at the hall, Wolfgang Boettcher came out with a story of getting lost in England, and Götz Teutsch had another, in South Korea in his case. Typical cellists, or what?” Probation concluded satisfactorily.
The Microphone – “Was it in the score?”
Georg Faust as spokesman: his finest hour?
The date is April 2002, the place the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the occasion a concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 12 Cellists. On the programme is the world première of Schampeng (Cham-Bang!) by Hans-Joachim Hespos, commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival. Hespos subtitles his work “music for scenes from a birthday”. As part of the composition, the musicans make a disastrous entry: they walk on to the platform but nothing is ready.
So they set about setting up their chairs and music stands themselves, with hammily exaggerated gestures. It has all been carefully rehearsed, with two choreographers. They trip over things, they contort themselves, thrum their strings, hiss and grunt, contrive to play a genuine tango, scratch and scrape, hold conversations and comment on what’s happening. Finally they draw pistols (at this point Dietmar Schalke gets into a tangle and can’t get his out of his trouser pocket, but that was not rehearsed). They fire into the air, other people join them on the platform, shake champagne bottles and corks pop: Cham-Bang! for a 30th birthday. The audience laughs and applauds, and during the concert interval, which comes next, Hespos’s work is the topic of conversation.
The second part of the concert is about to begin but something is wrong at the first desk. Ludwig Quandt stands up and walks off the platform, shrugging his shoulders: he has no music. Georg Faust thinks to himself: “This’ll take some time, I’ll say a few words to keep the audience happy” and makes his way to a microphone on the platform. The mike proves uncooperative, refusing to come out of the bracket on its stand. Georg tries shaking and then gives a vigorous tug – whoops, out it comes, and he has it in his hand. Unfortunately, the cable has come adrift. There are titters in the hall. Georg is now crouching, trying to find the other end of the cable. His body language expresses despair. At last he finds it, closes on the microphone and coaxes the socket on the cable to fit the end of the mike. Click! Done it! Georg draws breath and is about to launch into speech – when Ludwig Quandt reappears, waving his music in triumph. Georg sees him, gently drops the mike back into the bracket, and both of them quickly resume their seats. The audience roars with laughter, applauds tumultuously.
A brilliant mime scene, it could have been part of Hespos’s score.
Moral: not everything that goes awry is the work of Hans-Joachim Hespos.
Or: Sometimes life itself is the very best composer!
Taiwanese Horror Story
A Chapter of Accidents
“The eagerly awaited concert by the 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was nearly prevented by a series of unforeseen events.” So began the article that appeared in the Taipeh Times after a visit by the ensemble to the Taiwanese capital. First, their aircraft burst a tire as they landed in Taipeh.
- “No sweat. We’ve just been in the air for 16 hours,
changed planes twice, spent five hours hanging around airports, what’s
another few minutes (hours?) waiting on the tarmac? It’s several
hours before the concert, we can wait, let them take their time.”
It could be a lot worse, thank God, they only take an hour.
Baggage collection.
- “Shouldn’t we have two more cases than this?”
Yes, we should. The baggage handlers seem to have made a mistake.
- “Oh well, never mind, these things happen.”
Unhappily, the two cases contain the evening suits and music of two of
the cellists. 
Still,
all 12 are passing through the hotel’s revolving doors by 4.30 pm
and after a 24-hour journey two hours’ rest before they leave for
the National Concert Hall is really quite generous.
- “Fine. All we need is those two cases.”
Seven o’clock. Pre-concert run-through. No cases, no music.
- “Well, what shall we do if ...?”
Eight o’clock. Time for the concert to begin, but two cellists are still wearing T-shirts and have no music. The 12 are beginning to entertain the idea of going on stage, all wearing T-shirts and without music. There’s a thump outside. Two panting Taiwanese stumble in carrying two suitcases.
- “Great. Quick change. We’ll sort out the music on
the platform.”
The audience is getting a bit restless.
- “Better count, all here? Nine, ten, eleven ... Wait a minute,
where’s Georg? Everyone, spread out and look for him! ‘Have
you seen a cellist?’ Oh, you don’t speak English!”
Seven minutes later the concert can begin. All Twelve are wearing dinner
jackets, have their music under their arms and, yes, Georg Faust is there.
Rashly, he’d set off to look for a little peace and quiet without
taking a compass. Yet the Gents is really not hard to find. Down the corridor,
third door on the right, up the stairs to the first floor, through the
glass door, bear left, then sharp right, and it’s the second door
(or was it the third?) on the right.
“The concert went extremely well! Or was that just our imagination?”
Inconveniences
An everyday story of concert-giving folk
German Tour, 6 January 2001, the Herkulessaal in Munich.
It’s been a long time since the 12 Cellists last played in Munich,
and the eagerly awaited concert is due to begin at 8pm.
It’s 7.30.
In the foyer only one of the box-office windows is open (for reasons of
cost) because the promoter of the concert did not reckon on a large crowd.
The promoter also did not reckon with the 12 Cellists’ crafty PR
manager, who has succeeded on getting a long article about the ensemble
into the weekend supplement of the Süddeutsche Zeitung published
on this very day. An enormous queue stretches away from the box office’s
one open window. At her post behind the cloakroom counter the (for reasons
of cost) solitary lady struggles to keep on top of the onslaught of coats,
raincoats, hats, umbrellas, bags and backpacks. Good to see that the agent
responsible for this miscalculation keeps his cool. Sipping his beer,
he watches the pandemonium with interest while carrying on his conversation
with three delightful girls.
It’s 8.00.
The concert hall is now half-full but unrest is growing, because the concert
is due to start, now. It hardly looks as if it will. All the doors still
stand wide open and the influx of concert-goers continues unabated. The
12 Cellists are in the Artists’ Room, waiting for the summons to
the platform. They are thankful that they themselves are ready to perform:
news reached them when they were already on the train bringing them to
Munich from Hamburg that the soprano Ana Maria Martínez, who joins
them to sing in Bachiana Brasiliera no.5 on this tour, has suddenly been
taken ill.
Georg Faust: “I called every possible agency from the train, but
it was Saturday and I only got the answering machine in every single office.
I tried various opera houses and managed to reach a repetiteur in Munich.
We wanted another Latin American, if possible.
“But no one was free, it was just too short notice – the concert
was in only a few hours’ time. And the piece is not everyday repertory.
My ears were on fire by the time I finally raised a Mexican soprano who
was appearing at the Gärtnerplatz theatre in Munich and would be
able to stand in.”
It’s 8.10.
Things are hotting up at the door. Some music-lovers are beginning to
force their way into the Herkulessaal because they do not believe they
will be able to lay hands on their tickets in time. Other upright citizens
are clambering over the cloakroom counter to hang up their coats themselves.
It’s 8.15.
Chaos reigns in the concert hall. The balcony was supposed to remain closed
(for reasons of cost) and people who had already bought tickets for the
balcony were to be sent to the stalls. In view of the never-ceasing influx
of the public, however, the balcony was reopened and all the stalls put
on sale – with the result that seats in the stalls were double booked.
The opening of the balcony was due to Olaf Maninger who – instead
of playing himself in – entered into negotiations with a cello-loving
captain in the fire brigade; there were strictly speaking not enough firefighters
on duty (for reasons of cost) to cover both stalls and balcony.
It’s
8.30.
At last everyone is seated in the hall (sold out, of course), and the
Cellists are in their places on the platform, looking out over a sea of
red faces and ruined hairdos. A distraught concert promoter stumbles up
on to the platform. Her contribution will provide the concert’s
first highpoint, even before it begins: “Ladies and gentlemen [from
the hall: derisive whistles], I would like to thank you [Boo!] most sincerely
for the inconveniences you have suffered.” [Laughter, headshakes,
shouts.]
The Herculessaal is in uproar. It is several minutes before people calm down. Now it is Georg’s turn to perform the agreeable task of making an important announcement: something else has been totally forgotten. “Ladies and gentlemen, troubles rarely come singly. There’s something I have to tell you, and, again, we can’t help it. [An expectant hush falls.] This evening’s soloist, Frau Martínez, is ill and cancelled three hours ago.” Incredulous silence ... faces fall ... already a few concert-goers start to look for the exits. The situation looks likely to get completely out of hand.
After it was all over Georg finished his story: “Ana Maria is a wonderful singer, on her way to world fame, and many people had come to the concert specially to hear her. For a moment I thought the concert would have to be cancelled. All we could do was apologize. Thank God we had a substitute. ... Only a few people left, in fact, the majority just wanted us to start. The atmosphere was still rather tense in the first half of the concert, but in the second half we got uncannily in the mood and finally it was all a huge success. All the aggravation really fired us up emotionally. At the end we all agreed it had been a most unusual concert.”
Tap, tap
Dietmar Schwalke and the perils of fingering
The Israeli composer Noam Sheriff wrote a piece for the 12 Cellists in which every single member of the ensemble has a cadenza to play. That in itself led to some disagreement as to who should play the longest and most difficult cadenza. Dietmar Schwalke has no cause for complaint at least, in that his cadenza includes a very effective leap up to the highest register (into the “eternal snows”), which is not so easy to accomplish but is worth the hazard for the huge impression it makes.
He has worked out a fingering which allows him to to check the intonation of this high note in advance with a little “tap” before it resonates. The audience doesn’t hear the little tap but his colleagues do, alas. At first they just grinned a bit, but then, as they had nothing better to do while Dietmar was playing his cadenza, they began to imitate his little tap, even in concerts: “Tap, tap, tap”. “It’s so mean, I can’t really play the passage sensibly any more. I’ve tried other fingerings but unfortunately the fingering with the tap is the one that works best.”
A word to the audience: if you hear a tapping noise during the concert, it doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone wants to come in.
World record holder: Ludwig Quandt?
It’s perfectly possible to be so rapt by the music when one is
listening to the 12 Cellists that one completely fails to notice less
obtrusive acts that reveal equally high artistry. Never take your eyes
off Ludwig Quandt! You could well get to witness a tiny masterpiece.
It may be because his bridge has a rather sharp edge, but Ludwig’s
A string has a bad habit of breaking at inconvenient moments, such as
in the middle of a concert.
For example, it happened during a BBC Prom in August 2000, in front of 5000 people in the Royal Albert Hall in London. The 12 Cellists were in the middle of Twelve Angry Men by Brett Dean, and naturally they were all putting a lot of expression into their work, when Fate struck! With a gentle “plop” Ludwig’s A string snapped, just at a point where the score gave him a rest in any case.
What followed happened so quickly that even his colleagues on the platform were unaware of it: the pieces of the old string were detached and disposed of in an environmentally sensitive way, with a practised movement the spare string was produced unobtrusively from the jacket pocket, attached to the tailpiece, drawn over the bridge, wound dexterously round the peg, tautened and plucked ppp to correct the tuning. Bravo! 29·1 seconds! And Ludwig’s next entry was right on time and quite unruffled as if nothing untoward had happened. He had not missed a note.
On tour in South America, admittedly, he’d only taken 28·4 seconds. He needs to practise more!
