Ricci article on Paganini in October Strad - thoughts?
The October issue of the Strad is a Paganini special, and has a very interesting article by Ricci discussing Paganini's left hand technique. I found this article fascinating, and would be curious to know others' take on it. It is an excellent article (and entirely an excellent issue) and I encourage anyone who is able to read it.
According to the article, Paganini played with his left hand against the ribs of the instrument, and played in first position via backwards extension of the wrist and fingers (and this is borne out by another article mentioning wear patterns on Paganini's violin, and many contemporary pictures of him I have seen). Ricci states that trying to figure out Paganini's playing using modern shoulder-rest playing styles isn't the correct way to go, as the modern style tends to whole-arm shifting, and a very different means of playing in positions. Apparently, Paganini could play in all, or almost all positions without moving his thumb at all, lending itself to a different fingering style and more gradual (safer) shifts with a lot less excess motion.
He further quotes conteporary (to Paganini) accounts of the great Italian playing with his left elbow against his body (I'm imagining the string teachers commiting ritual suicide in the audience) and a downward slant to the instrument.
Some say Paganini had a connective tissue disorder that gave him added flexibility in his fingers. (There are other theories, too, such as surgical modification and triple-jointedness.) Now I have fairly long fingers, but not unusually long, and no unusual attributes to them. I did a little experiment in what I believe to be this style last night (I have never played without a shoulder rest with any success before), and discovered that in the course of about an hour of playing:
1) After only a little practice, I can play comfortably from first through seventh position without moving my left thumb at all (except extending it under the neck a little) from the approximate position for third position (or maybe fourth).
2) Playing second and first positions through backward extension does indeed lead to totally different fingering patterns. In my meager experience, the reach between the fingers is increased, and it becomes more natural to play all half steps with the same finger, so, i.e., you would play DEFGA on the D string 0 - 1 - 1- 2 - 3.
A lot of people on this board have a lot more experience than I have playing without shoulder rests, and be aware of this style of shifting as well. So what is the opinion of others who have read this article? Was this really a standard way of playing (the fixed thumb, not restless, which I know was standard) in Paganini's day? Does anyone have experience playing this way today?
At the end, Ricci makes the tantalizing suggestion that there is a second half to Paganini's "secret", which is finger patterns which work with this and provide easier access to left-hand virtuosity. He says he derived them from one work which Paganini fingered for his pupil Sivori, and left us with the teaser that he will publish all in a book he (Ricci)'s working on. Anybody have any inkling what these patterns might be? Has anyone seen the fingerings for Sivory?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts! :-)
Replies (21)
Mattias,
Thanks. I found a post you wrote in the following discussion
http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=5018
(about five from the end) which I believe is what you mean. Indeed, very interesting! (I didn't know that Pagnini had fingered other works...not sure if Ricci did, either.)
Greetings,
Mattias, which edition of the Barucaba has Paginini`s original fingerings?
I think Ricci is an absolute genius. He is one of those people in the crowd who can shout out `look the Emperor has no clothes on` and not give a damn. Also, he -really- knows his stuff.
Having said that, I think he is just alittle like Paginini or maybe Barnum (?) in being a little larger than life and a little extreme in his claims. Since this is never true when he is actually analysing stuff (spot on) it doesn`t matter a jot but it does make me smile. I feel one example of this might be the claim that this is a forgotten style of playing. I think that the great players of the early /middle 20c were familiar with the cocnepts to a large extent. For example, a careful study of Heifetz` fingerings in his editions opens up new tehcnical posisbilities very much base don the techniques Ricci claims to be unearhting or revealing. Ditto Milstein.
As Friedmann pointed out once in an interview , the great player sused a tremndous amount of palm contact compared to modern players. My first teacher made me use what he called the `unhook` technique with the index finger which he said Paginin adapted form his guitar technique. Francescatti can claim direct pedagogic lineage with Paginin through his father and he played very much in this way. The socalled soviet school associated with Oistrakh and Kogan claimed to have made revolutionary steps in the performance of Paginin compositions by the implemetation of a technique of being in between positions which to my mind is very similar to saying there are no positions.
Cheers,
Buri
Greetings,
come to think of it, I think the great man got closer to revealing the secrets of Paginini in his masterpiece technical work on the left hand than he did in that particular article. Ricci is a kind of paginini ;phenomenon himself.
I get the feeling Mr Bron has worked quite a lot on these issues. I see similarities between his ideas on left hand and Ricci.
Cheers,
Buri
So true, Burrito.
I'm assuming this
http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/022195/details.html
is the Ricci work on left hand technique to which you're referring?
Thanks! :-)
Thats the one.
Time to drop all the traditional ways I've learned the violin... and play a la Paganini.
It's not Just Bron .
It was a known approach in Philip Hirshorns techniques .The belgians are also far from unfamiliar with a technique that depends on extending "back" with the LH.
That was not Myerscough by any chance Buri?
Mark N
Greetings,
Mark, no. My first decent teacher was a gent called Stuart Johnson who was somethign of a specialist in Paginini.
I think Myerscough died recently. If so that is a real loss.
Cheers,
Buri
I wonder if left hand technique, particularly thumb placement, doesn't tend toward the Paganini-ish. I once had a teacher of Italian heritage who advocated keeping the thumb relatively stable on the neck, which none of my other teachers (mostly Americans, with an Israeli and an Icelander adding diversity...) have approved of. On the other hand, that teacher was born in Costa Rica and was trained in Israel and the US, so his Italian heritage may have been irrelevant. Does anyone know the term "smanicamento" and its precise definition? That is the term he used for the technique of playing high on the fingerboard with an anchored thumb.
Interesting. I'd never heard the term. Googling for it turned up only pages in Italian.
One of them mentioned Paganini, so I tried the "translate this page" feature, and this is a section of the mangle which resulted that might be of interest. Or not. The translation is bad enough that it is quite hard to tell what it's saying:
"The prodigiosa technique consta of some fundamental rules: first of all it does not have to support l?armadio, that is the espalier of violino, on the shoulder because this is one ominous position for the strumentista. The position must be sluice, with the elbows towards the bottom, l?interno of the body, in order to allow one great spin of the arms and one maximum extension of the fingers. In the second place the negation of every muscular relaxation is necessary, must have much force in the arms from being able to emit a sound, solo grazing the ropes (Paganini studied with attacked losing to the skillful arm). Essential thing, finally, is the position centers them and of support of the inch, approximately to half of the manico of the instrument, in order to avoid the "smanicamento" dell?avambraccio, only using the wrist."
Here is the URL for the translated page I was reading:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.torreomnia.com/Testi/francescamari/22paganini.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsmanicamento%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN
And here is teh URL for the original in Italian:
http://www.torreomnia.com/Testi/francescamari/22paganini.htm
The page might be interesting. Btw, I tried babelfish and it returned essentially the same translation of that section (I guess google might use it).
This is what the last sentence is, in Italian (anyone?):
Essenziale, infine, è la posizione centrale e di sostegno del pollice, circa a metà del manico dello strumento, per evitare lo "smanicamento" dell’avambraccio, utilizzando solo il polso.
Greetings,
seems mor e like a description of the Exorcist to me.
Cheers,
Buri
The story goes more or less like this. There is a 80 yr old carpenter in Genova called Giuseppe Gaccetta who recorded 9 Paganini caprices in wax cilinders in 1931. Since he was poor, however, and because of the war, he could not pursue a musical career. Many yrs later, Giuseppe Bignami, a cellist and a customer of Gaccetta's, told him that the cilinders could be not only heard but digitalized. This was done. The cilinders had never been used and Gaccetta had never heard his recording.
Gaccetta studied w/ Francesco Sfilio, whose teacher was Camillo Sivori, Paganini's only student. The rules he gives are the following:
1) "Niente armadio sulla spalla", i.e. do not rest the violin on the shoulder.
2) "Posizione che deve essere essenzialmente "chiusa", con i gomiti verso il basso, verso l'interno del corpo, così permettendo una grande rotazione delle braccia, una massima estensione ed il dislocamento rapido delle dita." He talks of a "closed" position in which the elbows are pointing down, towards the inside of the body (?). This would allow a wide rotation of the arms and fast finger movement. He says Paganini had to do this because his limbs were long.
3) "Altro assunto fondamentale è la negazione della ricerca del rilassamento muscolare. "Paganini studiava con un peso attaccato al braccio destro!". " Gaccetta says P. practised w/ a weight attached to the right arm. Unless I'm getting this completely wrong, he was also supposedly against relaxation.
4)"Bisogna insomma acquisire una forza tale nelle mani che basta sfiorare la corda per farla suonare." That is, you should develop enough strength to make the strings sound by just grazing/brushing them.
5) "A proposito, la sensorialità è ulteriore parola chiave del metodo: uso del tatto e conseguente sicurezza di intonazione, determinata anche da una particolare diteggiatura (ancora un secolare arcano dell'arte di Paganini, pare "svolto" dalla manciata di esercizi del metodo di Sfilio). " Intonation is made precise by maximizing touch, contact and by choice of fingerings (ref. to Sfilio).
6) "Ed una modalità percussiva delle dita sulle corde tale da ottenere la massima scioltezza ed indipendenza, soprattutto nei passaggi cromatici."
Percussive use of fingers to achieve maximum separateness and independence, particularly in chromatic passages.
7) "Ultimo ingrediente per una sommaria esposizione, la posizione centrale e di sostegno del pollice, circa a metà del manico dello strumento (in "terza posizione") per evitare lo "smanicamento'` dell'avambraccio utilizzando invece solo il polso. Intuizione mutuata dall'iniziale approccio musicale paganiniano, che fu alla chitarra: strumento che il compositore ha idealmente "girato" dalle ginocchia alle spalle, adattando l'impostazione della mano alla tastiera del violino." Last ingredient was to keep the thumb in 3rd position or in the middle of the neck to AVOID the smanicamento of the forearm using instead only the wrist (?) This tecnique was transfered by P. from the guitar to the violin.
Source:
http://users.libero.it/claudioronco/genocron2.html
I revive this old thread just to point out that http://www.fondazionesfilio.it has some free, but brief, audio samples adverstising the CD made from these Gaccetta recordings which claim to preserve the Paganini tradition. The website also advertises diplomas recognized by the Italian goverment in the method, and books, one in English (F. Sfilo, Advanced Violin Technique), articles, and a summary in Italian of the principles.
Anyone know the books? The audio samples of Gaccetta sound intersting. Any thoughts? I rather liked them but am not qualifed to judge.
F. Polnauer, Total Body Technique of Violin Playing (1974) claimed to have 'rediscovered' Paganini's method of holding the instrument. Does anybody know about that method, and what happened to it?
I suppose the mid-20c left hand technique of Heifetz and Milstein involves the relatively static hand position, without the additional factor, espoused by Polnauer, and apparently by Sfilo, of holding the left elbow against the ribs?
Intersting points in the Italian summary of the Paganini technique on the website include speical chromatic fingersings (123-1234); vibrato involving varying pressure on the string but (if I have understood) never pressing it right down but feeling the pressure on string with the finger tip; and practising the son file type exercise, drawing the bow one centimeter above the string, but with a weight attached to the elbow!
Incidentally, I read, I think on this board, about how Gypsy technique starts in second position. Is that also based on a left hand kept in contact with the ribs of the fiddle?
John, thanks for restarting this thread. I felt I had wasted my time translating that stuff above. I was also concerned about what would come out of this "rediscovery". Was it going to unearth some idiosyncratic playing posture that worked only for Paganini or would it open new possibilities that could be articulated w/ the schools of Sevcik, the Belgians, Auer and Galamian? I hope for the latter.
One last comment (for Buri in particular, if he is around). When playing w/o a shoulder rest, I feel more comfortable allowing the violin scroll to drop (droop?) in the left hand. But according to Fisher in BASICS, that's bad for bowing and yet Ricci seems to play this way. Maybe someone can clarify this. Paganini seems to have played w/ a lowered scroll.
I thought the Gaccetta snippets for free download very impressive, the low angle of the violin did not stop him 'getting into the string.'
As you refer to Ricci playing with lowered scroll I tried a search of Google 'images' for Ruggiero Ricci, they show that in all but the earliest the violin slopes down. None clearly show him resting left elbow on his ribs - it is hard to tell though. One of the best is http://www.novalynx.ca/MusicianPhotosPg19.html
There is plainly a school of this style of playing in Genoa - which seems to show national traditions still running their separate courses.
I looked at the thread as I have a new teacher who on the second lesson advised me that many of the best violinists keep hand against the violin's rib apart from 1st, 2nd and very high positions.
John,
Shar had a VHS of Ricci playing all the capricci. That is what I saw. I don't know if it is still available.
My thanks also for restarting this thread! Tristan, I certainly appreciated your translation - sorry I didn't reply to it at the time (I was really busy).
Those recordings arevery interesting...he had phenomenal tone,espcially given the recording technology of the times. In my opinion, Gaccetta's caprices seem to rival any I have heard. Wow!
As far as the scroll drooping, it looks like Milstein plays with a scroll slightly drooping some of the time, though (on his Tchaik DVD) I saw him lift it up temporarily a few times to facilitate a shift. If Paganini actually played with his left elbow against his body, he must have had quite a lowered scroll, I assume. I have done some experiments with a posture of both elbows against the body, as seemed to be described above, and had mixed results. It is playable, but I'm not convinced that it is better than more modern styles.
I also haven't been able to settle on Ricci/Paganini's first-position-by-backwards-extension style from the original Strad article, though I'm still experimenting with it. Perhaps (following along with the second position Gypsy mention above), the trick is to only go into first position on the G string? The problem I had with the wrist-on-the-rib technique is that, in order to get into 1st and 2nd position on the E string, I had to move the wrist so that a differnet part was resting on the rib, and that seems awkward and slow. Now I realize that there is no real need to use 1st or 2nd on the E string, or any strings other than the G. More experiments are in order.
Also, it occurs to me that using the Ricci article left hand style, it might be possible to play 3 or 4 octove arpegios (such as an Amaj) using a fingering 1-3-4 on one string, then 1-3-4 on the next string, and so on, rather than
1-3-(change strings) 1-(shift)1-3-(change strings) etc that I have seen suggested some places. I've never actually been able to make this work, though. Anybody have experience using this fingering?
Later!
Francis
Im curious if anyone has studied his portraits. From the ones I've taken a look at, including that famous Delacroix painting, he does seem to always have his violin pointing downwards. Has anyone seen those quick sketches of him playing? His posture in those are very interesting!
Im also wondering if the fingerboard of his violin was shorter, this may shorten the distance of the intervals compared to modern violins.
I have looked at some pictures (I did an image search on Paganini on google), and some do seem to support the report that he played with elbows against his body, and used his left palm the way Ricci describes. Not sure how reliable these sketches are, as he was hardly standing still for them. Some written accounts apparently also suppor this hypothesis, and I think some of those might be written by violinists.
As far as fingerboard, his instrument probably would have had a shorter fingerboard, but I believe that the scale length was the same (?)...he just would have been playing high notes further past the end of the fingerboard. (Does anyone know for sure? I don't know that much about the adjustments that were done in the early Romantic era to old instruments.)
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October 4, 2004 at 07:51 PM · You can trust Ricci on his observations.
He is not the first, there was an article back in -97 regarding the same thing.
But regarding the fingering (only in Cantabile & Walts for Sivori) is erratic.
He fingered his Barucaba (not throughout but at times very detailed) and a fev of his quartets and some other minor pieces. Sparingly, only indicating a position or a shift.
I wrote out a shorter analyze of Paganini's fingereing a couple of days ago. Search and you will find.