Celebrating Rudolf Matz
Part 1: Reintroducing Cellists and Teachers to the Foundational Materials of Master Cello Pedagogue Rudolf Matz (1901-1988).
Dr. Stephen Feldman–Professor of Cello at the University of Central Arkansas.
[Find sheet music for this piece and other music of Rudolf Matz at www.dominismusic.com]
Suite “Lights and Shadows” for Solo Cello (1972).
Dominis Music has published two other works for solo cello in addition to Matz’s C Major Suite which center on 1st and 4th positions. “Lights and Shadows” provides another rich and engaging large scale undertaking for a student, this time with a more modern and at times highly-energetic musical language. The first two movements of this suite are the easiest of the group, but there are increasing technical and musical challenges as the work progresses!
A short biography of Matz–Croatian born Rudolf Matz (1901-1988) began work on what would become his First Years of Violoncello in the early 1940’s, and he continued to expand, revise, and make more complete this monumental undertaking over the next 45 years. His interest and experience as a teacher, performer, composer and author informed the content of these of these technical exercises, etudes, and concert pieces, as did his early life experience as a competitive sprinter and his later interest in and study of anatomy, physiology, and ergonomics. Further influences lending to the richness and depth of Matz’s vision include Matz’s work with the Vaclav Huml, a Prague-trained violinist and former student of Sevcik, and Matz’s work with Antonio Janigro, a virtuoso cellist well-versed in the modernizations of cello technique by Casals by way of Janigro’s study with Diran Alexanian.
The 31 volumes of Matz’s First Years of Violoncello were published in Zagreb between 1946 and 1971, but these editions are no longer in print. Many of the works have been newly published by Dominis Music in Canada beginning in 1982—a publishing house established by Matz’s former student and friend, Slobodan Gospodnetic.
All the pieces I will add to this channel in the first part of this Celebration of Rudolf Matz are published by Dominis Music and are widely available.
source