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Double Bassist in Donostia
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performer's Spanish interlude
By Anthony Scelba
Catalin Bucataru and I met when the violinist visited Kean University early last fall. He erformed a recital there. My wife - Victoria Stewart, also a violinist - and I were impressed with his virtuosity and musicality.
Bucataru lives in the south of France and teaches at the Musikene, Spain's newest Superior Conservatory of Music and, along with the conservatories in Madrid and Barcelona, one of its best. The Musikene boasts of an international faculty that it flies in biweekly to teach its students. Bucataru lives close enough to drive and spends much more time at the school than most of the other studio faculty. This gives him the opportunity to do a fair amount of chamber music coaching. His teaching and his active schedule of solo and chamber music performances keep him very busy.
He is a robust and instantly likeable character with a quick and ready sense of humor. Although he understands hardly a word of English - something readily forgiven when one realizes he speaks his native Rumanian and his adopted Spanish fluently and understands, but does not speak, French and Italian - we were able to communicate through my feeble Italian and the facile interpretation of Marlenes Luvins.
Marlenes, a native Cuban and Kean's finest student pianist, met Bucataru last summer at a music festival in Segovia. The violinist befriended her and is coaching her; he hopes to make her his accompanist once she takes up graduate study in Spain.
A few months after Bucataru's visit to the States I received a telephone call inviting me to perform at the Musikene. I was delighted with the opportunity to visit Spain for the first time and to perform there. The timing couldn't have been better. I was to go for fifteen days in March. The first week was Spring Break at Kean; for the second I was able to have a colleague take my classes. I had only to cancel one professional engagement with the Long Island Philharmonic.
I was asked what I wanted to perform; the Musikene suggested solo pieces or any program of my works for the Yardarm Trio. The thought of playing soloistic works on a borrowed bass did not make me comfortable. I have long since given up flying internationally with a double bass. In fact the last time I did so we were still able to bring the instrument on board, something now impossible. Also the solo and Yardarm Trio works I perform require a special tuning called *solo tuning. The complications were too formidable, so I suggested playing a program to feature the Schubert Great C Major Quintet in my arrangement. It was a piece I was scheduled to perform with Kean's Affiliate Artists the night before my flight to Spain. Bucataru thought this a great idea and volunteered his own string quartet.
Kean University was generous with its funding and gave me and Marlenes Luvins grants. Not only was I going to Spain, I was sent with an
interpreter!Victoria, Marlenes, and I arrived in Madrid on March 5. The country was experiencing a cold spell and it was more frigid than the icy mess we left in New Jersey. We made our way to the Hotel Lope de Vega, two blocks from the Prado. Since we were not to be chauffeured north until the next day, we had a chance to visit the famous museum, something that I had been looking forward to for many years. The Spanish paintings at the Prado are an incomparable treasure; it deserves its reputation as being one of the world's great art museums. The works by Velázquez and Goya are worth the trip alone.
The next day we were driven to San Sebastian, a four and one-half hour trip that took well over six hours through the snowy mountains. We had been warned and came to Spain with plenty of warm clothing, but the Spaniards were complaining bitterly.
The Musikene is located in San Sebastian - called just as frequently by its Basque name, Donostia. It is one of the more spectacularly located of Europe's coastal cities. The regional and financial capital of the Basque province of Guipuzcoa, it lies on a vast conch-shaped bay flanked by two promontories and protected by the tiny island of Santa Clara. It is a rich, elegant 19th century city that became the royal seaside resort thanks to the patronage of Queen Isabelle II.
The narrow pedestrian streets of the old quarter at the foot of Mt. Urfull are full of cafés and tapas bars. The graceful promenade enveloping La Concha beach is heavily populated with casual strollers morning, noon, and night.
The Musikene looks out onto the beach and the promenade. The magnificent gabled stone and orange brick building occupied by the conservatory is both a blessing and a curse. It is the palace built in the English "Cottage" style, inaugurated in 1893, and used as a summer residence by Queen Maria Cristina. Its interior is remarkably beautiful, replete with hardwood floors, stairs, carved banisters, beamed ceilings, paneled walls, and ornate fireplaces. Every wood surface is kept immaculately clean and sparklingly polished. However, its square footage and floor plan are wholly inadequate for the music school's purpose.
The Musikene reminded me of my old days at the East 104th Street location of the Manhattan School of Music. Before its move to the old Juilliard building near Columbia, the Manhattan School also had a beautiful wood-adorned building too small for its purpose. In those years at Manhattan, and currently at the Musikene, every square foot of space not otherwise claimed was used for practice. I well remember walking into the men's room of the Manhattan School, whose anti-chamber permanently housed a music stand, and being serenaded in prelude to a flush. Spain is funding construction of a new music building for the Musikene. I am sure that the move from the beautiful castle to new, well-designed, and spacious quarters will be an ambivalent one.
The day after our arrival in San Sebastian, the Cadei String Quartet and I began rehearsals for our performance. We rehearsed and later performed in the room that served as a recital hall. It is a shoebox-shaped acoustical gem. What a difference it was to play the Schubert there rather than in the acoustically disastrous Wilkins Theatre at Kean. It made me long for January 2007 when our new, state-of-the-art chamber music hall will be completed at the University.
Schubert's Quintet in C Major for Strings, D. 956 (op. post. 163), known as "The Great," is one of the finest masterpieces of chamber music in the literature, and certainly the finest work in its genre. It was originally written for two violins, viola, and two cellos. This ensemble is unusual; the standard string quintet has two violas and one cello. My arrangement of the work is for an even more unusual combination of instruments: string quartet and double bass. A quintet with two cellos is unusual because it would tend to be bottom heavy. Schubert brilliantly handles this challenge by giving the second cello a featured part with lots of *pizzicato, making it an ideal candidate for arrangement for double bass.
The arranged double bass part is an idiomatic transcription of the original second cello part. While it makes no apologies for being a double bass part, it always reflects musical and acoustical considerations. The arranged version adds something to the work: one can argue that the original second cello part contains compromises (because of range limitations) that the double bass part does not. The double bass contributes something to the many pizzicato passages. At the very least, we have, in the double bass arrangement, a practical second version of this wonderful piece. As you may be able to tell, I'm rather proud of my arrangement.
At Kean, I had to play at a rather forceful dynamic to balance the rest of the strings. At the Musikene, I could pull back and play in a satisfying chamber music balance. It was wonderful to bring the Schubert in my arrangement to the Musikene. I wrote it under a released-time grant from Kean University and it is published by *Ludwin Music, Los Angeles. The programming provided the academic rationale for my grants.
The work is in four glorious, melodically and harmonically rich movements. The first uses *sonata-allegro form (the usual symphonic and chamber music form for opening movements), but expands it to have three, instead of the usual two, main thematic, key groups.
The second movement, the most stunning in the piece, has a big ternary design (A-B-A) but with a twist. The opening "A" section in E major is otherworldly in its calm and texture. The contrasting "B" section is fiery, in a different key (f minor), and with a faster tempo; it is also variation-like. The faster tempo is traditional and is not indicated by Schubert. The closing "A" is indeed a variation of the opening, but the texture that begins the movement is then reprised.
The Scherzo is robust and lusty; its Trio (or contrasting middle section) plays with the idea of key in the most sophisticated of ways. It is the most strongly contrasting trio in all of Schubert: not only is the tempo much slower, it moves from *triple meter to common time 4/4).
The fourth movement is dance-like: an Austrian foot stomper with divergent sections having glacier-like harmonic progressions. These two movements were
especially influential on Anton Bruckner.Written in the last year of his tragically short life, Schubert never heard this outstanding work performed. It was composed in September of 1828, two months before his death on November 19. It has become one of the best-loved works in the literature. Kean's Affiliate Artists and I are scheduled to record the work in the near future in my arrangement; we'll do this at Sony Studios in New York.
Rehearsals of the Schubert with the Cadei Quartet were at first a little strange. It was evident that Bucataru dominated the group, but by our second meeting, we were all contributing to the discussions and criticisms, chamber-music style. By the second rehearsal Daniel Francés (second violin), Luis Ibiricu (viola), and Elva Trullén (cello) and I had become friends. They reported enjoying my version of the Schubert and played it very well.
The day before our performance I had a meeting with José Bretos, Director of Academic Affairs at the Musikene. He told me that the school was making a transition from the traditional performance education of European music conservatories and is now stressing more music history, music theory, and the performance of chamber music in its curriculum. Dr. Bretos asked me to speak about the Schubert Quintet at the concert.
With a day's notice, I had to prepare a 20-30 minute talk on the Schubert. Fortunately, I had planned to use this work in my teaching of music history and form and analysis at Kean. I had arranged it as part of my attempt to augment the double bass chamber music repertoire. So I stepped into my lecture role prepared. My talk was simultaneously interpreted into Spanish by Marlenes. She was remarkable in her ability to do this. A number of English speakers in the audience complimented her on her exceptionally accurate and lucid translation.
Our performance was a wonderful success. Bucataru's dramatic Viennese *rubati presented an interesting contrast to Sharon Roffman's exquisitely subtle performance at Kean. His magnificent sound and dazzling technique made for a very exciting performance. Playing the Schubert with two such excellent ensembles back to back was a rare treat for me (as it would be for any double bassist).
By the time we approached our performance, the weather in San Sebastian grew spring-like and remarkably beautiful. During one of our leisurely rehearsal breaks, I sat in a gentle sun overlooking the blue Cantabrian Sea on a park bench outside the Musikene. Some students were taking their siesta lying out on the grass. The sounds of a trumpeter taking a lesson on the Haydn concerto were in the air. The soloist and accompanist added to the magic of the moment. The performance standard at the Musikene is outstanding.
The academic level is difficult to compare to U.S. schools. Technically it is an undergraduate institution, but a student who graduates from there is qualified to teach on the college level in Spain. Three grades of conservatory exist there. One can attend and graduate from the introductory and intermediate-level conservatories before coming to the superior institution. Or, one can enter the superior conservatory at 18 or 19, directly from the equivalent of our high school. The determining factor is the performance level of the student, not his or her prior training.
Only five years in existence, the Musikene has 280 students and 180 faculty, 47 of whom are international. This extraordinary student-faculty ratio is indicative of the importance this school has in the music education of the country.
The heavily subsidized tuition at the Musikene averages 800 Euros a year, the cost of attending Juilliard in the 1960s. A number of things in Spain reminded me of the 1960s, not least of which was the inveterate smoking of the citizenry. In many ways, Spain is still digging itself out of the hole the Franco regime dug.
Dr. Bretos told me that the Musikene is now cooperating with representatives of the finest music conservatories from all over Europe in the development of degree schemes that more closely parallel the U.S. The conservatories are especially concerned with developing music education programs for prospective teachers. In this they will emulate neither the U.S. model nor the older but very successful Hungarian model established by Zoltán Kodály, but the Scandinavian model that is considered by them to be the world's best.
It is especially important for the music schools of Spain to develop music education, because the classical music tradition is not as deep seated there as it is throughout the rest of Europe. Spain has only one professional string quartet, for example. It is the Casals Quartet, which until recently taught at the Musikene. Chamber music is a tough sell in Spain at the moment. One reason for the Musikene stressing it is that it hopes to bring more chamber music to the country from the top down, hoping the enthusiasm of the performers will catch on with an audience.
After our performance at the Musikene, Bucataru treated the quartet, Marlenes, Victoria, and me to an evening meal at a traditional Basque cider bar. The Spanish eat at the strangest hours. Lunch is from 1:30-4:00 (or, more often 5:00), and most restaurants don't open for dinner until 9:00 when they serve nothing but starving Americans. The Spanish don't sup until 10:30 or 11:00, even midnight. Their meals are always a party. Spaniards work to provide the means to enjoy life. Americans take enjoyment in order to replenish themselves so that they can work harder. The contrast of the two cultures is nowhere more evident then at meals.
Following our party, we had a few days off so we headed back to Madrid. My wife had to return to the States for a concert engagement, Marlenes was to visit her cousin, and I wanted to get back to the Prado. We were also able to see the Museum Sophia, Madrid's equivalent of the New York Museum of Modern Art. The Sophia has a wonderful collection of works by Dali, Miró, and Picasso. It houses [Guernica,] one of Picasso's masterpieces, and a large number of other impressive works by 20th century Spanish artists.
We also had time to see the Royal Palace in Madrid before we saw Vicky off at the airport and headed back to San Sebastian. This time I drove, so it was very comforting to have Marlenes along to ask directions. Once back at the Galeria, the charming hotel we stayed in near the Musikene, I prepared for my master classes. I was to work with the Musikene's class of bassists, each member of which is taught by two teachers, the French soloist Bernard Salles and the former Principal of the Berlin Philharmonic, Wolfgang Güttler. When von Karajan died, Güttler left the Berlin orchestra to become a soloist and teacher.
The four students I heard performed on a remarkably high level. All were Juilliard/Curtis caliber players, two of whom were on the graduate level. A 19-year-old French woman who could develop into a world-class performer especially impressed me.
All the bassists performed virtuosic solo repertoire for me. I spent some four hours with them before they took me to lunch.
In between double bass sessions, I had the opportunity to hear a talk by Matthew Burtner, professor of composition and electronic music at the University of Virginia, who was on sabbatical and working at the Musikene as Composer in Residence. He spoke on technology and its use in American 20th century music, particularly literature from the 1960s and 1970s.
In an afternoon session, the Musikene double bassists performed for me as a quartet, playing some excellent arrangements by Salles and other ensemble works I remember from my student days. The double bass quartet performance gave me an opportunity to do some chamber music coaching and criticism.
I ended my time with the double bass class in a discussion of their studies and the state of the music profession in the United States and Europe. Like young musicians in this country, the Europeans will not have an easy time making a living as classical-music performers. But if any can do it, it will be by virtue of their excellence.
It was a memorable trip. I have posted pictures on my website at http://www.AnthonyScelba.com. I am thankful to the Musikene for the
invitation and to Kean University, which makes possible such profitable and enjoyable exchanges. Once our new concert hall is completed at Kean, we shall have the opportunity to invite Bucataru and others from the Musikene to perform here and shall increase our connections with the Musikene and with other outstanding music schools and institutions worldwide.