SKU: PR.414412380

ISBN 9781491137956. UPC: 680160692644.

First published in 1930, Stephen De’ak’s two-volume Modern Method for Cello remains a timeless and beloved resource for new and developing cellists at every stage of practice and performance. A student of David Popper, De’ak presents a thoughtful and thorough method for beginning cellists with a detailed focus on fundamentals, including posture and balance of the bow and left hand. Unlike many other methods, the Modern Method spends considerable time developing note-recognition and tone production by isolating a skill or concept in a single exercise. These include open string and bow distribution exercises, as well as systematic left hand practice focusing on one or two notes at a time. This careful approach in the beginning allows the new player to reinforce important right- and left-hand skills before attempting performance pieces.Sequential scales and exercises in various keys and positions are supplemented with songs and tuneful etudes, allowing the player to apply practical technique to expressive performance. These etudes are both pedagogical and performance-worthy, rich with musicality and charm. The musical and technical concepts presented in this method can be learned in any order at the teacher’s discretion to best serve the student. Revisions in this new edition include additional instruction, clarification of fingerings with shifting indications, updated melodies, and a beautiful new engraving. The wealth of practice and performance repertoire in The New Modern Method for Cello, Volume 2 makes this book a valuable addition to every cellist’s library. Volume 2 offers training in higher positions and thumb position, advanced left-hand and bowing techniques, and musical exercises including 29 concert studies. These etudes, often heard in recitals, were designed by De’ak as the perfect stepping stone to Popper’s High School of Cello Playing.

SKU: HL.14028929

Written for Moray Welsh whilst still an undergraduate at York University. This piece was completed in mid-September. Inspired by Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. A solo 'cello seemed an appropriate medium for music which might explore the character of Harry Haller, with his desire for bourgeois comfort and his strong misanthropic and suicidal tendencies. The opening theme attempts to express this - melancholy, nostalgic, a bit Biedermeyer (cf. Brahms Intermezzi). The basic theme of the book, at its simplest, is that every human personality consists of hundred of different personalities - within every man there lurks a wolf. Accordingly the tendency of my piece is for all its musical material to become distorted, either by thematic transformation or by changes of timbre. There are three movements played without a break. The first is a character portrait of the Steppenwolf. The second is concerned in the most general sort of way with the dance elements in the novel - Harry's being taught to dance and appreciate low 'popular' music - a tango is recapitulated in a waltz and 'Yearning', a popular song of the time (1927) is hinted at. The third movement concerns the Masked Ball and the Magic Theatre. Mozart is one of Hesse's great loves and he is repeatedly mentioned in the book. Inevitably some Mozart quotes have been worked in, the most significant being a reference to The Magic Flute 'fire and water' flute theme in the middle of the second movement. Long before I finished the piece, I was disenchanted with the work of Hesse. Much of Steppenwolf I now find rather embarrassing and the claims currently made for Hesse's greatness seem to me exaggerated. Since my piece is in no important sense programmatically specific, this change of heart doesn't really matter. ~ David Blake.