An Ancient Book -- An imaginary dialogue between a Cello and a Viol [Author; Paolo Pandolfo] From the CD liner Notes to: Johann Sebastian Bach: the Six Suites cello suites (BWV 1007-1012) adapted to the viola da gamba Performed by Paolo Pandolfo published by Glossa Music http://www.glossamusic.com/catalogue/0405.htm http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005Q39U/qid=1119563745/sr=2- 1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-9712186-7218428 ======================================================================= ==== An Ancient Book -- An imaginary dialogue between a Cello and a Viol [Author; Paolo Pandolfo] CELLO Good day, dear colleague! And what good fortune brings you here today, my good lady? VIOL And Good day to you, Sir! My path today brings me to cross yours: I hope it does not offend… CELLO Of course not, why should it? Please, do tell… VIOL The truth of the matter is… well, I don't know if I dare say it… CELLO Tell me, I beg of you! VIOL Honestly, I wouldn't want you to consider it a lack of respect… CELLO Oh… things are starting to get interesting: speak, I pray you… VIOL Well, then: imagine that someone desired a thing very near and dear to you. CELLO Oh, you know that I am noted for my generosity: should you have any doubts, rest assured that I shall not go against my reputation this time! VIOL And yet, imagine that it be a thing you have held for a very long time, that you consider the basis of your knowledge… and that another, oh dear, in this case it's us, we, should ask for it – if only for a loan, for a bit of time. CELLO You have excited my curiosity! By our friendship, I beg you to get to the point, without further ado: pray keep me no longer in suspense. VIOL It might seem simple, but simple it is not: I well know how much that book by Messer Bach means to you. Asking for it from you seems almost like asking you for… your own mother… CELLO Bach, you said? Now that I think of it… You must mean that book, in three sections, that has your name on it: the one which has been laying since time immemorial on the bookshelf in my library. Well then, if that's the one you're talking about, take it back, I beg of you! I was just waiting for you to get hold of yourself… after all which happened… VIOL … water under the bridge, three centuries of neglect… nothing, next to the eternity of every note we sound. CELLO Yes, but in the meantime: if we were young and green at the time, now we have matured, 'grown up' and you: when I think of how grand you were… VIOL Grand… grandiose, so proud, perhaps it was the sin of pride that was our downfall. And you, with the force of youth, and all the impetuousness and inexperience of those first years, you, together with your crony… oh, excuse me, I meant associate, Messer Violin… CELLO That's an old tale, ancient history… three hundred years – water under the bridge, as you yourself said. And the violin… well, you yourself know that things have changed and the idyll of many years ago is over… so that I shan't even anger myself over your 'crony', dear lady, even if it be not the most friendly of expressions… VIOL That… well how should I say it, then? Friend? Confidant of yours? Or perhaps your… Master? It was he, certainly not you, who tore us from the throne… from the important and influential position we built up for ourselves during those many passionate years. You, as was later written, were only, and I pray you to excuse the term which I only quote from Messer Le Blanc's book, were nothing but… his lackey! I can't believe that you could have been capable of laying a trap for on your own for us: we who dined with Prince and King… CELLO How dare you! Lackey! VIOL Come now, let's look truth in the face, call things by their proper names! CELLO Were it not for your sex, my Lady, or for your age, I assure you that I would have slapped you. VIOL This is no time to get upset over things that happened three centuries ago. CELLO Three centuries… it seems like yesterday… VIOL Oh yes, you can say that again… CELLO Now… I don't want to think of… back then, we all had to do everything that that cocky violin expected of us. His iniquitous orders still ring in my ears: 'You'd best play this note long… the one there is short… here, wait and be silent: I've got to show them how fantastic I am… let me play the cadenza!' He called me by my given name: as if we'd raised pigs together, or like master and servant. Then, to blandish me… 'We'll succeed, I assure you, they'll welcome us at court. By now, they're tired of the viols, and their weak, nasal sound. Soon it will be us, I and you, to dine with King and Queen…' VIOL So that's what he said… oh, yes… I should have known it… and moreover, he left out the half of it: that very soon, the heads of those Kings and Queens would roll like billiard balls. Viol and harpsichord would feed the fire in the great halls (I will spare you the tragic tales of friends and families…) and so, when you were finally welcomed into the halls and homes of the influential, you played, of course, but for notables, merchants… at the most, a few nobles who were able to save their skin by disguising themselves as stable hands. Liberté, égalité, fraternité: that's what they called it… but for those of us who had been at Court, it seemed the madness of a dog whose chain had suddenly been broken. CELLO So much blood… VIOL It is Man who wills it so: the tragic tribute of blood, which Man owes his Maker… and who knows… perhaps, in the extreme solitude of the Human Condition, he finds inspiration… the appalling human sacrifice which always finds a new pretext: only the altar never changes. CELLO What a smooth talker you are… VIOL You know, that at times, besides Kings and Queens, a philosopher would sometimes join us at table… but… let us get back to us! We were talking about Messer Bach's book, and you were reminded of a three-part volume which carries my nameplate: the Three Sonatas. No, that is not the book I wished to speak of… I still have a copy left in my library, and even if you took advantage of what came to pass, I do not hold it against you. CELLO Took advantage of, you say? VIOL Well, it is not the moment to reopen old wounds… but I do remember that time when, whilst I lay on what seemed to be our death bed, I heard you reciting from it, full of blunders and with an insufferable pronunciation… CELLO Now it is you who takes advantage of my patience! I was only practising… VIOL Yes, testing the power of your vocal chords… without concerning yourself too much with that of your brains… CELLO I must admit that we enjoyed playing loudly: loud… louder… loudest! The hall seemed to be filled up with a dense, almost visible substance… VIOL A classic example of debasement… CELLO How could you?… I open my heart to you for one moment… VIOL And I open your eyes, hopefully for more than a moment! CELLO But… VIOL Picture the way sound carries in a cave or in a mountain gorge. So exciting, of course! But if you try to reproduce that effect with every note, I assure you that you debase yourself… and take the force away from 'forte', that comes from a whisper, from silence… CELLO You could be right, but they kept having us play in larger and larger halls… VIOL Well, you know, there have always been more stable-hands (even feigned), merchants and notables than Princes and Kings… CELLO … and then the great theatres… they ate and drank whilst we played, and we tried to make ourselves be heard… VIOL Oh yes, I understand: the common people. But with all due respect, what did you expect? CELLO Who knows? My patron of those days, Messer Violin… VIOL Yes, you are right, I can't really hold a grudge against you. It was only a reminder of past rancour, and of the long sleep, or perhaps I should say, as they do nowadays, the profound coma,into which we fell… now, thanks be to God, we are once more not doing so badly, and indeed, I pray you will excuse my insisting if I once more ask you for that book… CELLO Please tell me, at last… at this point I don't even remember which one you are referring to… VIOL But of course you've caught on! It's the one of the six… CELLO … Suites…? VIOL That's it. CELLO You can forget it! VIOL But… CELLO You couldn't really be asking me for that one! VIOL And I had hoped… CELLO We don't really want to go back to the days of our old squabbles, I hope. Therefore: to each his own… I'd be only too happy to give you back the three sonatas of Messer Bach, that you can recite from as you see fit, but I beg of you not to nourish any ambitions for the six… Suites… it makes my voice tremble just to say it: the s..six Sui..tes… where we, the Celli, find our ancient ways… our dignity… VIOL And yet, if you wanted to… CELLO Never! VIOL Come now! What are you afraid of? I would just like to borrow them for a short while… just enough time to read them through… perhaps I could find some accents, some assonance… CELLO I'll say it once more: impossible! You've got to understand: the Suites are protected, as you certainly must know, by a sacred seal. No one could dare ask so much. You have been trusted with the secret itself of our arrival in this world… of the Cello… and of all music… from the stars and from the moon… VIOL … from the sun… CELLO … and the sea… VIOL … the plants… CELLO … and the flowers. But what could you know about it, you who only know about frets, and the weak peeping of frail catgut strings? VIOL With all due respect, we know at least as much about it as you… and perhaps, by virtue of our superior age, we even succeed in looking back a bit further… CELLO Into the Dark Ages. Before our world was complete… that is to say… VIOL You understand, that is to say… there, where your eyes cannot see… ours, with your despised catgut strings, and obsolete frets… just might be able to… CELLO You're saying that… VIOL I'm saying that… CELLO No! It must remain a secret! The mystery that surrounds the Suites must remain as it is… and we… and the world… must remain as they are. Please do not insist, my dear lady, as it would be useless… VIOL Come, now! You yourself, for a moment, ventured that if I, the ancient Viol, the proud and noble Viol, could, just for an instant, have a look at that book, you would be the first to profit from it… CELLO And why? And in what way? I can't really see it: it's just a ruse to deprive us of what we hold most dear… VIOL And how could we ever deprive you, as you call it. I should rather remind you that such terms are better adapted to the careless use made by you of our three sonatas… CELLO Enough… I beg of you… VIOL … playing them in the most unseemly ways and forms… CELLO Might we not put it behind us? VIOL … with that most strange prosthesis, what is its name…? The 'endpin' and those metal strings… and with your vibrato that seemed more like a palsy of the vocal chords… CELLO Youthful irresponsibility… VIOL … or senile dementia…! CELLO For heaven's sake, how dare you! VIOL Well, you must admit that we, from the vantage point of our years… could permit ourselves to pass certain judgements! And I assure you that time… the years, decades, the centuries… start to leave their mark on your face… CELLO Like the pot calling the kettle… VIOL Well… but we slept, even reposed ourselves, in a certain sense, for two… three hundred years… while you, as you said yourself, 'grew up'. Who knows, in the end, between the two of us, which one is actually the furthest along, in the sense of 'senile'… CELLO You insult me! VIOL Don't annoy yourself over such a trifling matter… resign yourself: time leaves its mark on all that it touches. CELLO How dare you call us old and senile, when we are at the height of our powers… VIOL … perhaps, at times, you could draw more strength… by knowing when to remain silent… CELLO … VIOL … CELLO Enough… let's get it over with: and what do you believe you will find, there in that book which to us is sacred? VIOL Perhaps a bit of silence… CELLO Come on… VIOL And… distant voices… echoes of our footsteps in magnificent halls… the movement of bodies standing up… sitting down… coming together… moving apart… dancing… smiling… CELLO But why, for goodness sake, do you believe them to be yours… those echoes… those steps…? VIOL Oh… just intuition… we too… like yourselves, I would think… are searching for the traces of our past… CELLO Well then, why not look for them in your own books, and leave ours alone! VIOL But… and yet… no matter how much we search for it in our books, we'll never be able to know, to understand as much as he… CELLO He…? VIOL He… CELLO He who? Spare me your riddles! VIOL Him… Bach… CELLO I don't get it! VIOL Bach… Johann Sebastian, he must have understood everything. He understood perfectly the path we had followed to bring us where we were… as he foresaw where your trail would lead you… He lived at the end of one era and at the beginning of another, bringing them together… he… excuse my boldness… brought us together… despite of us… indissolubly… CELLO I still do not understand… it seems as if you have lost your reason! VIOL And yet, that is the way it is, and if you would abandon for just a moment your unjustified fears, you might be able to understand! CELLO I'm all ears… VIOL There, you've finally come to your… CELLO But no trickery or deception! VIOL I give you our word… the Viol… noble, proud, at the same time fragile and vulnerable… CELLO … VIOL Pray don't look at me in that way… CELLO … and you will avoid flattery and banalities… VIOL … So, might you understand that that book might hide secrets to which its owner does not hold the key…? That Memory, no matter how refined and powerful, can get no further in the darkness where remembrances do not exist… because others have experienced them in our stead… others, do you understand? Not us… others… not… you… do you follow me? CELLO I am trying hard to follow you, but it all sounds like trickery to me… VIOL I beg of you, trust me! So… what are you hoping to discern in that book? Why do you consider it sacred, if it does not hold a mystery within, a language at least partially unknown… signals that, perhaps, you are not in a position to interpret thoroughly… and the more mysterious the signals are, the more sacred your book. And we all know that much of Man's life is bound to Mystery, and yet, Man's destiny is to try, to attempt to solve it… but you… you should really understand… you should, perhaps with the help of our humble contribution… be able to shed… who knows… a bit of light on your origins… should you truly wish to… CELLO Even if we should wish to… I cannot believe that any contribution of yours could help us to… VIOL But that's where you are wrong. Those ancient footsteps… I can still hear them now… and the echo of the hall… the voices, the smells, and then, the sadness and the joys of men… and of women. The flavours of a world so like ours, and yet, so totally different. A world where, oh dear, you were, shall we say, still in your swaddling clothes…? While we, on the other hand, were on top, at the height of our powers, although, perhaps, already showing those first signs of fatigue, of… oh dear… old age. Perhaps that is why he… CELLO He…? VIOL He… realised that… his thoughts turned to you, that lad with his whole life before him. And those things… that world, which was our world, that you could not yet have known, with all of its odours, its lights, and all the rest… he preserved it in a work which he dedicated to you… can you understand me? CELLO … I'm starting to understand where you wish to lead me… VIOL Trust me… I beg you, sir, to go and look for the book. I shall read it for you… what am I saying?… for us. I beg you to excuse me, should I commit a few errors… and perhaps I shall be constrained to change something on the surface in order to keep the essential. And if my voice should seek, at times, registers diverse to those now familiar to you… CELLO … here is the book… VIOL … I beg of you… open it for me… and then… here… let us listen together… sounds… odours… light… CELLO … the sun… VIOL … and the night… CELLO … the sea… VIOL … and the plants… CELLO … the flowers… VIOL … the pain… CELLO … and the pleasure… VIOL … and all… dancing… like a feather in the wind… a tree in the breeze… like a fish in water… CELLO … Let us listen… … It seems as if the two of them are still there… playing the music of Messer Bach for one another, oblivious to all that goes on around them… like an old couple bent on remembering the events of their common youth… with the grace that belongs only to those with all of their life behind them. We can still hear them chattering on, like two teenagers… let us sneak away on tiptoe… they won't even notice we're gone… not now, that they've finally found each other… Paolo Pandolfo -- © 2000