David Popper and his High School of Cello Playing

In the 1949 film noir classic "The Third Man," set in Vienna, con man Harry Lime (portrayed by Orson Welles) makes the following observation: " In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed--but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."

Likewise, Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century was a society in turmoil. In those perilous years leading up to World War I and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Viennese artists, thinkers, and writers--people like Gustav Klimt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Arnold Schoenberg, Heinrich Schenker, and Sigmund Freud--were revolutionizing their fields. As the political climate in Vienna became ever more unstable, these geniuses turned inward: away from the tumult and toward their inner psyches. They strove to find within themselves a kind of alternative reality. Salvation--for themselves and for mankind--could be found through their art and intellect.

The twin cultural movements of fin-de-siécle Vienna--exploration of the psyche and salvation through art--can be detected in David Popper's High School of Cello Playing. Although the score lacks an explanatory text, its scope and content speak volumes about its purpose. Simply stated, Popper created here a complete world of the cello; a world that can be mastered, its problems overcome. Furthermore, interpretation of the etudes' music demands real and deep reflection, leading us on a path to artistry.

Who was David Popper?

At the invitation of Franz Liszt, Popper left Vienna in 1886 to teach cello at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest. This coincided with Popper's decision to end the very successful, but extremely demanding, career he'd built as an orchestral musician. It also coincided with the end of his tumultuous first marriage to the piano virtuoso Sophie Menter.

Moving to Hungary allowed more time for Popper's career as a soloist, and also for his composing and teaching. He married a second time, and he and his wife Olga soon welcomed their son Leo. Together they built a very pleasant life for themselves in Budapest. As a Jew, Popper was less directly affected in Budapest by the ferocious rise of anti-Semitism that, for example, caused Sigmund Freud such professional frustration in Vienna. At the time, the Jewish community of Budapest seems to have been politically stronger than its Viennese counterpart. In Budapest, at least, Popper was more likely to be criticized by Hungarian nationalists for being too "German" an influence on the arts community than for being Jewish.

But even here, 134 miles east of Vienna, Popper surely saw the storm clouds gathering. Although his life and career was based in Budapest, he was an international artist and he was well aware of the currents, musical and otherwise, flowing around Europe. By the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century, political instability was shaking even Budapest. Popper, who died in 1913, would not ultimately live to see the horrors of the First World War, nor the collapse of the empire. Olga, however, was twenty years younger than her husband. Not only did she lose virtually everything because of the First World War, she later perished in a concentration camp during the Second World War.

* * * *

One of the first things you notice about the High School of Cello Playing is its great length. On closer examination, you will see that Popper repeatedly focuses on certain technical issues, whereas other technical issues he barely touches on at all (artificial harmonics, for example). In this way, Popper pinpoints those aspects of cello playing that must be well learned, and how much reinforcement is required to achieve mastery.

The first three etudes foreshadow the content and purpose of the entire work. Etude #1 deals with musical phrases comprised of separated notes, in high and low ranges, connected by very large leaps and extreme string crossings. Etude #2 deals with musical phrases comprised of many notes under a bow, again in high and low ranges, with some very large leaps. This etude also exposes the critical need for cellists to know how to equalize the sound of down bows and up bows. For both etudes to sound like beautiful music, the phrases must be carefully shaped. One is reminded here of Casal's comparison of musical phrases to rainbows. Each phrase must relate to the ones around it, played with greater or lesser intensity, depending on one's own interpretation. The integrity of the musical lines must be maintained through careful handling of the bow's speed, placement and pressure.

Etude #3 is among the most technically accessible yet interpretively challenging of all the etudes. To make this moody, mysterious piece sound like music, you must look deep into yourself and draw out melancholy and optimism, despair and hope, confusion and clarity; all the things that color modern human experience and make us sometimes feel like an island in a sea of humanity. Even the phrase shapes of Etude #3 lead downward, ever downward--and inward, to the soul of the musician.

* * * *

Bibliography

Blum, David. Casals and the Art of Interpretation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

De'ak, Stephen. David Popper. Neptune City, NJ: Paganiniana Publications, 1980.

Lukacs, John. Budapest 1900. New York: Grove Press, 1988.

Schorske, Carl E. Fin-De-Siécle Vienna. New York: Random House, 1981.