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THE POPPER HIGH SCHOOL OF CELLO PLAYING

### by Charlotte Lehnhoff

  On March 3, 1990, the Chicago Cello Society presented a concert at which all forty of the etudes from David Popper's Hohe Schule des Violoncellspiels were performed, in numerical order. This article,originally published in The Cello Scroll, Vol. 8, no. 4, July 1991, is adapted from introductory remarks given before the concert as program notes. The use here of the term "concert" or "the concert" refers to this event.

History of the etudes

Most of the etudes in Popper's Hohe Schule des Violoncellspiels were written during the years 1895-1898 and his students began playing them in his classes long before they were published. According to Stephen De'ak, Popper's biographer, no. 19, the Löhengrin etude, was written while Popper was principal cellist at the Vienna Opera, between 1868 and 1873. For this etude, Popper took "…a fragment from Act Three, Scene Three of the opera…[to help] the orchestra cellists…perform the repeating figure in the first 111 measures in the score with ease." 1

The publishing firm Hofmeister published the Hohe Schule in four volumes in a span of four years, between 1901 and 1905. 2 The first volume was published in 1901 and contains etudes nos. 1-10. It was dedicated to Alwin Schroeder (1855-1920), Principal Cellist of the Boston Symphony. Volume II, dedicated to Bernhard Schmidt, contains etudes nos. 11-20, and was published in 1902. Volume III was also published in 1902. It contains etudes nos. 21-30, and the dedicatee was Edouard Jacobs (b. 1851-d.?) Volume IV, published in 1905, contains the last ten etudes, nos. 31-40, and was dedicated to Edmund Mihalovich (1842-1929).

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