Unaccompanied Vol. 3: Didaktika - Homage to a Filing Cabinet

Most of this album was sourced from the top drawer of a filing cabinet I’ve not laid eyes on in decades. Located in a room on the third floor of Peabody Conservatory’s Leakin Building, the filing cabinet sat just to the right of the giant instrument lockers that dominated the space. Its worn gunmetal gray finish practically begged you to look right past it to the shelves full of colorful books, but I knew its top drawer was set aside for the viol. Inside there were spare strings, rosin, and, at least from my then-youthful perspective, so many odd books. These books were small and oddly shaped, they were full of music I couldn’t read, and even the ones with English text were hard for me to make much sense of. What I didn’t know then, but have come to appreciate now thirty years on, was that among those books was a fine selection of what I call the “mother texts” of the viola da gamba. Primarily written and published in the 16th and 17th centuries, these books and the music within came from a time when the viol was new, and music’s very nature was being redefined again and again across Europe. Each of these books contain music and perspectives I turn to continually in my practice as a performer and a teacher, so I thought it would be fun to get them out of my own filing cabinet and document a few decades of thought, practice, and appreciation in a project that eventually became Unaccompanied Vol. 3: Didaktika. 

Beginning the album is the first of two suites by the English viol player and composer, Benjamin Hely. Nothing is really known about “ye late famous master” Hely, as he left little behind aside from these pieces published posthumously in the 1699 volume, The Compleat Violist. These suites are found in the very back of the book, printed on the final four pages, and are typical four movement French ballet suites, each consisting of (in Anglicised spellings) an almand, courant, saraband, and jigg. It's plain from the highly idiomatic writing that Hely was a masterful player, clearly influenced by the works and technique of the French virtuosi Dubuisson, Hotman, and possibly Marais. All that being said, Hely’s music was far over my head when I first saw it in that filing cabinet in the 1990s. Years later, and after studying works written by other skilled performer-composers, I found Hely’s approach to the instrument novel. His style was so “French feeling” that I spent a lot of my practice time wondering if he crossed paths with an elderly Dubuisson, catching some lessons with the old master during an excursion across the English Channel. Or perhaps he somehow met the young Marin Marais during a visit to Paris, the possible influence on display in Hely’s grave and lyric sarabands. Whatever the truth may be, Hely’s two suites deserve to be part of the canon of masterworks for solo bass viol. The poise, beauty, and grace found in the music have made both suites favorites as of late. 

Following Hely’s suite in A major are four recerchars taken from Silvestro Ganassi’s Regola Rubertina. Published in 1542, just over a century from Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, the Regola Rubertina (Robert’s Rules) is among the first printed sources to provide instruction on playing a musical instrument. Full of practical and sometimes surprising advice (lots of discussion of vibrato, and different ways to tune a viol when your strings break come to mind), these four recerchars have been brought to me by students over the years. Today I come across these pieces most frequently in collections aimed at “beginning players,” which I think is a pity considering the sophistication of the works. To me these recerchars, much like Ortiz’s compositions dating from a decade later, are gnostic works whose meanings can only be reached through repeated readings. Unfortunately Ganassi gives us very little to go upon in terms of performance practice with these four recerchars, but luckily he provides the music in both tablature and “prick song” notation. The tablature is a particular gift to us 481 years after the fact: this modality of musical notation gives us a very concrete idea of the fingerings used in Ganassi’s left hand, and how he perceived the movement of the hand over the course of each piece. I feel these rare instances of having historic fingerings, bowings, and other technical details allow us to commune with the players of the past. I imagine their spirits somehow alighting in my hands and fingers, becoming my astral teacher for a moment. The study of how Ganassi and others moved across and around the instrument centuries ago has made me appreciate another period instrument that’s not changed much in millennia: the human body. 

The next three pieces come from Christopher Simpson’s seminal work The Division Viol, published in 1659. These preludes are included in a hellish section that Simpson seems to have mockingly entitled “for the practice of learners.” Found in that now-storied filing cabinet, these preludes were introduced to me by my first and most formative teacher, Ann Marie Morgan, during my studies at Peabody Conservatory. While I call these works hellish, I have to admit that these three miniatures are some of my favorite works by Simpson. To call them technically dense is an understatement, but as a performer I find the preludes musically self-contained and neatly satisfying. Each prelude is its own microcosm, with the D major prelude as energetic and bright as the sun (with some passing clouds), the B-flat major prelude warm and closed like comfy chair by a fireplace, and the E minor prelude steadily marching ahead like a mournful dirge. Teaching these pieces is a pleasure, introducing players to a deeper way of perceiving the viol’s fretboard, and learning to hear sounds past those created by the bow stroke. Undoubtedly a master teacher in his own time, Simpson’s preludes achieve the rare task of demanding much of the performer while rewarding anyone listening. 

After the second of two suites by the aforementioned Hely come Diego Ortiz’s four recercadas for solo viol, published in 1553 as part of the Tratado de Glosas. These pieces might be some of the “oldest” in my personal repertory, simply because these were found in the only “modern” book located in the top drawer of that filing cabinet. Printed in an edition by Bärenreiter sometime before the Second World War, I was ecstatic to find a book with music printed in a way I could actually read. When I was 17 years old the music made little sense to me: it seemed to ramble around, repeating itself only to change ideas on a dime, and it didn’t have a lot of barlines to divide the music into equal bits. AND WHAT MUSIC DOESN’T HAVE BARLINES?? Thirty years later I know a lot of music didn’t have bars in the 16th century, and though Ortiz was nearly as gnostic as Ganassi with his intentions for the music he did give us a clue. In a bit of text placed just before the first of the recercadas Ortiz says “These four ricercate that follow below I have thought fit to set freely and unbound to exercise the hand, and partly to give some information of the oratory to be observed when playing a violon alone.” While I’ll assign these to students near the beginning of their path with the viol, I’ve come to pay more and more attention to the second half of Ortiz’s statement - that these pieces are, like the earlier Ganassi, meant to exercise the practice of musical delivery and rhetorical practice. When first learning these works I was so steady in tempo, but from my perspective now I see the music as akin to a poem or monologue that must leap from the page in order to come to life. The notation as Ortiz gives it isn’t the end point, but rather a map towards an intention that is, in the end to me, intensely personal. Each recercada plays with motives, repeating them until Ortiz pivots and transitions towards a new motive, moving deftly across the instrument. The result is a kaleidoscope of affects, demanding a deep familiarity from the player. Written at a time when the purpose and practice of art, music, and performance was being hotly debated, these four recercadas are now labeled as being somehow rudimentary, like those of Ganassi. To me this is a huge disservice to the depth and sophistication present in these pieces and in the music of Diego Ortiz in general. Frankly, as I write about them I think these works might be the most subtly sophisticated and interpretively demanding on the entire album. My own process of recording these was to memorize each, becoming intensely familiar with them, and then simply to play. Like reading one of Shakespeare’s sonnets aloud, I saw each performance as a “reading” that would be influenced by so much more than the notes on the page. The resulting recordings are minimally edited (only one or two edits per recercada) in order to maintain a sense of spontaneity and their seating “in the moment.” 

Rounding out the record is another short suite of dances, but this time probably written by an Italian bassoonist working in England sometime around 1710. Taken from the anonymously authored Aires and Symphonys, this publication is a recent discovery that I initially bought for its wealth of popular Italian opera arias arranged for bass viol. That said, I noticed in the back of the book a section titled “A Suit of Lessons for the Bass Viol” that was full of these “French-ish” dances. While nowhere as profound as any of the earlier music, I included this assembled suite of pieces in C major because of their charm and immediacy. Certainly fun to play without overtaxing the player, I’ve come to introduce works from this collection to many students. I find that for all the time I spend practicing and performing at the edge of my abilities it’s important to balance that intensity with a touch of pleasure. The sentimentality of these pieces recalls the tunes found in John Playford’s enduring collections, so much so I could easily imagine working out arrangements to play at an English Country Dance session. 

Now some months after wrapping the last recordings on Unaccompanied Vol. 3: Didaktika, I’ve put most of this music back in my filing cabinet. Replacing Ortiz and Hely are Hume and Telemann. And while I doubt I’ll return to most of this music as a performer, some of it will definitely join me on stage in the future. Regardless, I think there’s much to be gained from these didactic sources than just raw technique. This opinion isn’t unique to me by any means, but going through the process of studying and preparing this repertoire has only added to my respect for these works. More than mere exercises, each piece is a fascinating - and rare - window into the minds, perspectives, and practice of artists impossibly separated from us today. I’m glad that old beat up filing cabinet in Baltimore still lives in my mind. Its memory a secret spot that means discovery and challenge, fun and growth.