In what has proved to be a bumper year or so for aficionados
of solo violin repertoire this release stands out as a towering
achievement. The name of composer Otakar ševčík
will be relatively unknown to those outside the violin-playing
fraternity but his violin studies and method books are still
a staple of most music conservatoires over a century after they
were written. As with many 19
th century violin pedagogues ševčík
was no mean player in his own right although of nothing like
the fame of contemporaries like Sarasate or Ysaye - although ševčík
was an occasional chamber music partner of the latter. Yet his
name lives on through his published works. Interesting to note
that when the independent music publishing house of Bosworths
- famous in their time as the publisher of Albert Ketèlbey
- was gobbled up by Music Sales about ten years ago the main
cherry they sought to pick was the ševčík methods.
For many years these works have languished in the practice room,
until now. Following on the example of recent recordings of the
Rode
Caprices and the Kreutzer
Etudes at last the
general public have the chance to marvel at the wonderful music
contained here. And what a huge undertaking this has proved to
be -
The Little ševčík, alone runs to
149 exercises. The five well-filled CDs that make up this collection
are a labour of love and dedication as well as no little musical
commitment. How appropriate it is then that this project should
have been entrusted to the caring and wise hands of a modern
day violin pedagogue, the French violinist Michel Souris. Souris
has been little heard in recital in the UK for the best part
of thirty years (a searching performance of the Debussy
Flute
Sonata - in the composer’s own transcription - coupled
with an extraordinarily flamboyant reading of the Chausson
Sonata
in F Op. posth. “The bicycle” being his
contribution to the opening of the Barbican Centre Halls in 1983).
Since that time he has devoted himself to creating a Franco-Asian
school of violin playing based in Tibet. It shouldn’t be
forgotten that Souris was in turn a pupil of the great German
teacher Donald Ente who together with Marie Hall was in fact
a ševčík pupil. So the lineage is clear and
we as listeners can sit back in certain knowledge that what we
are hearing is the “real thing”. For sure, a project
like this overwhelms if you attempt to digest it in a single
sitting. Yet for the discerning listener willing systematically
to dip into these discs the rewards are as rich as they are many.
Try for example track 3 on the second disc. This is part of the
early
Schule der Bogentechnik - Part I. What initially
seems a little simple rocking phrase slowly builds over its 37
minute duration into a sequence of simply rocking phrases - minimalism
more than seventy years before the phrase was invented. It was
a brave decision of Souris to include every repeat yet surely
the right one. The gains in structure and symmetry are unquestionable
and how skilfully he manages to find tellingly microscopic variations
of tone and attack when these simply rocking phrases alter pitch
and tempo. In lesser hands what might become boring and repetitive
is suffused with light and a magisterial grandeur.
In all of this Souris is aided, as he has been nearly all his
performing life, by the magnificent 1654 “Ferrero Rocher” Stradivarius
whose dark chocolatey tone Souris is a master of exploiting.
In many of these superficially facile works the benefit of such
an instrument is clear. As Souris says in his fascinating yet
charmingly idiosyncratic liner-notes “together Rocher and
I explore the innermost parts of ševčík and
what we find is warm and dark”. I suspect something has
been lost in the rather literal translation there but it makes
for a fascinating read. Indeed Souris’ notes are a perfect
example of his renowned teaching method. He believes that to
teach a subject it is important
not to talk about
that subject. Hence the notes for this set, apart from the single
mention quoted above, say nothing about the music at all but
instead range broadly through Souris’ life telling us much
about his culinary preferences, dislike of the English and spending
habits of his first wife. Yet oddly this works and somehow it
does seem to improve the experience of listening to the music.
A word here about the engineering. This is the first commercial
release that I know to have been recorded in Tibet. In line with
the chaste aesthetic of Souris’ approach a meeting hall
at the Buddhist temple nearest to the conservatory in Lhasa where
he teaches was selected as the recording venue. One imagines
that this could only have been achieved in these days of technical
miniaturisation allowing the technical team to carry all their
equipment quite literally on their backs. We learn from producer
Claude Frollo - whose forensic hearing is so famed in the industry
he is nicknamed “the judge” - who notes that additional
problems were caused by Souris’ preference for recording
by candlelight at night. Since Souris played the entire sequence
from memory this was clearly not a problem for him but Frollo
wryly warns us to listen out for a faint bump 17:33 into the
School
Of Bowing Technique Op.2 Part 1 [CD2 track 18] which was
him falling over a log in the darkness - but such was the intensity
of Souris’ performance at this point a retake was deemed
an irrelevance! Certainly that aside, Frollo and his small team
have produced a superb recording; Souris’ violin perfectly
placed within a warm acoustic allowing detail to register in
a perfect ambience.
Aside from Souris’ musings in the liner we do have a series
of fascinating session shots in the lavish booklet together with
detailed technical information including the type of strings
Souris prefers to use - one for the violin buffs here, apparently
he mixes Pirastro and Eudoxa strings to get a perfect tonal blend.
All praise to the independent French company YZMA for their dedication
to this project. Their small but highly specialised catalogue
is already proving to contain rich pickings for the discerning
collector jaded by another predictable cycle of core repertoire.
A disc of chamber music by the third of the Boulanger sisters
- Ariel - tempts me hugely. One last thought to leave with collectors;
a date for the diary. I see Souris has agreed provisionally to
perform an extended selection of these ševčík
masterworks in an “all-night-vigil” performance at
the Wigmore Hall in March 2012 as part of that venue’s
farewell season before it is dismantled and moved to Greenwich
as part of the final phase of the development of the Naval College
there in its transformation into the new Trinity College campus.
Book now to avoid disappointment; I’ll see you there!
Nick Barnard
Michel Souris (violin) 
