Woman Playing the Cello
Róbert Berény 1928
(Hungarian National Gallery)
Finally, silence.
The sultriness with which the day began had not diminished and by the time I alighted from the train, the sky had become a threatening blue-grey. Dollops of summer rain flopped onto my boots as I trudged homeward. I opened the gate, and the rain wept down a thick, silver curtain.
Our house was dark and silent as always. I hung my blazer and hat on the hallstand, opened my bedroom door and dragged my chair to the foot of my bed. I picked up my ’cello from its place, removed the bow and cover, flung the cover on the bed, sat in the chair and slotted the spike into a groove in the floorboards. The bow I tightened with six deft twists and rubbed with rosin. Taking a deep breath, I removed my glasses, closed my eyes and sighed into the strings. One by one the fingers of my left hand planted themselves on the fingerboard and rocked into a vibrato. It was pouring now and I thudded my fingers in a series of chromatics, each sequence progressing higher and higher. My bow began to sweep across the strings and I felt my shoulders loosen. My ’cello and I were one great muscle of sound, and we mourned with all our might through Bach’s D minor Prelude while outside the thunder rolled and heavy rain pounded the roof.
– From Chapter 1 of A Distant Prospect. (You can read Chapter 1 here.)
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Here’s Pablo Casals playing the same piece, in 1936: