From time to time, while editing old scores or preparing repertoire from the nineteenth century, I find myself wondering what the great cellists of the past might say if they could address players today.

We often encounter them only through…

Gaspar Cassadó: Improvisation on The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II
Yuriy Leonovich, cello
Kristin Leonovich, piano

Gaspar Cassadó composed and arranged a remarkable amount of music for the cello, but many of his works remain almost entirely unknown outside…

Teaching music produces an interesting side effect. Over time, certain short remarks begin to appear in lessons again and again. They are rarely planned. Most of them arise in the middle of a rehearsal or practice discussion when a musical…

Our cooking photos sometimes remind me of a familiar type of concert photograph: a violinist playing very high on the fingerboard with an intensely concentrated expression. The image is impressive. The posture is dramatic, the bow arm is extended, and…

One common narrative in music history claims that major stylistic change occurred roughly once every hundred years before the twentieth century, whereas the twentieth century brought dramatic shifts with each passing decade. There is some truth to this idea, particularly…

Recently, I have been visiting several high schools and working with student orchestras. Sitting in those rehearsals reminded me of something that is easy to forget if you spend most of your time in one corner of the musical world.

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Spend enough time around classical music discourse, and you will eventually encounter a familiar divide.

On one side stands the “art song.” Elevated. Composed. Serious.
On the other stands the “popular song.” Commercial. Ephemeral. Mass produced.

The boundary often feels…

I have loved Henryk Wieniawski’s music for a long time. His music has fire, elegance, lyricism, and a kind of theatrical brilliance that immediately appeals to string players. Even when the writing is dazzlingly virtuosic, there is usually a singing…

If you have ever opened a modern scholarly edition of a concerto or chamber work, you may have noticed something curious.

Behind the cleanly engraved score often sits a critical commentary. Sometimes it runs a few pages. Sometimes it runs…

Music does not usually begin in the classroom. It begins in use: in churches, theaters, homes, streets, courts, clubs, ceremonies, and communities; in imitation, repetition, apprenticeship, and shared habit. People make music long before they theorize it. Only later do…

For generations of American string players, International Music Company (IMC) editions were simply the editions. If you studied the Lalo Concerto or Popper’s High School in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century, there is a…

In recent years, I have noticed a growing discomfort with terms such as “canon” and “standard repertoire” in artistic and academic conversations. In some contexts, these labels are treated not simply as descriptive categories, but as symbols of exclusion or…

Proofreading is not glamorous. It is rarely inspiring. It does not feel like creativity. And yet it might be one of the most important things I do.

How many of us have sent a text, DM, or comment, then come…

I started using notation software around 2001, probably Finale 97. A friend of mine named Raj, much older than I was at the time, recommended it. I think he worked professionally in a STEM field and was a capable, curious…

Discussions about the first human language often collapse into shallow alternatives. On one side, some assume that if Genesis is true, then Biblical Hebrew must simply be the original language of mankind. On the other hand, many dismiss the question…

Several years ago, I worked with a high school student who had a clear, ambitious goal: to audition for a highly selective undergraduate program. He understood the level of preparation this would require and was initially willing to commit to…

As a classical musician and educator, I’ve spent much of my life immersed in the works of Bach, Beethoven, and countless other composers from the Western tradition. I value the richness, nuance, and discipline that classical music demands. At the…

In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by the way systems of notation and writing are discussed in artistic and academic spaces. Tools developed to solve concrete problems of communication are often reframed as moral symbols, praised or condemned…

Bolognini - 5 Pieces for Solo Cello (First Edition)

The Argentine-born Ennio Bolognini (1893-1979) was a Renaissance man. In addition to being a cellist, he was a composer, boxer, and pilot. Many of Bolognini's compositions have a Spanish flavor, containing…

For many years, I have been interested in how certain nineteenth-century cellist–composers are spoken about, taught, and remembered. The violin and piano traditions of the nineteenth century produced figures of extraordinary originality and lasting influence, and they deserve the admiration…

Gretsch - Cello Concerto in C major (Urtext edition)

Johann Konrad Gretsch was likely born in 1710 and died in 1778. He served as a respected cellist in the chapel of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis in Regensburg and…

During my doctoral work, I spent several years studying the concertos associated with Gaspar Cassadó: his original concerto and a group of concertante works based on earlier material. Among these, the concerto derived from Tchaikovsky’s Op. 72 piano pieces occupied…

Giovanni Benedetto Platti (1697-1763) was an Italian Baroque composer and oboist. In 1722, he was called to Würzburg to work for the prince-bishop of Bamberg and Würzburg, Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn. There he married Theresia Langprückner, a soprano singer…

This is a difficult topic to write about because it involves people who are often excellent musicians and highly skilled teachers. What follows is not an attack, nor an attempt to discredit anyone’s artistry. It is an attempt to name…