Suite work for cellist at one with Bach's perfect world

Martin Rummel. Photo / Supplied

Martin Rummel is the eternal optimist. The 35-year-old Austrian cellist, now teaching in the University of Auckland's music department, calculates that two out of his 20 weeks of duty will be spent in the air, commuting between New Zealand and Europe.

"You get used to it. Luckily I don't suffer from jetlag and I enjoy those 24 hours during which people can't phone and email."

Rummel maintains a demanding concert diary back in Austria, as one might expect from anyone who has 35 concertos to hand, a number of which were written for him. These days he only searches out contemporary composers who are willing to interact with him. "It's difficult when a composer puts something in front of you saying categorically that this is the way it is supposed to be, when it's clearly written against the instrument."

Rummel's deep involvement with his instrument has drawn him to those studies only hard-core cellists know and revere. He has even recorded such works by Jean-Louis Duport and David Popper, music you might hear, by accident, if you passed the studio of a solitary cellist.

The Popper Etudes, which he edited for a new publication in 2004 and recorded, complete, on three CDs, two years later, are the "Holy Cow for cellists".

"Until recently, they were being played from the original editions, photocopied, with all these errors. Cello-playing has changed a lot since then; now we have steel strings and play with our arms open."

These are not works to be trudged through, in the privacy of the practice room; for Rummel, Popper is "absolutely a genius" and I can't resist asking him why cellists and other string players put such store on these works.

"There is inevitably such a mechanical aspect to string playing. You have to worry about intonation for the rest of your life; it's like velocity in piano playing. There are certain patterns that you have to be able to play and what better way is there to learn them?"

You can experience Rummel performing solo at the University Music Theatre Sunday week but Popper is not on the programme. On this occasion he is playing all six solo suites by Johann Sebastian Bach. He admits he feels "so much at home in Bach's language, having grown up in the world of Nikolaus Harnoncourt."

There are still childhood memories of Bach concerts in Vienna and "no other composer has this fantastic combination of structure and emotion." Rummel talks of how the perfection of this music is heightened by Bach's daring touches and even choice of key is significant. "There is a meaning to each key. Each has a certain colour and that is what makes the music so rich and what keeps you going."

Most major cellists have recorded these works and Rummel is working through the set when time permits. His favourite is Heinrich Schiff's 1984 recording.

"Technically he was at his prime and the playing has just the right combination of intellectual and emotional strength," Rummel says.

Performance

What: Martin Rummel plays Bach.
Where and when: Auckland University Music Theatre, 6 Symonds St, Sunday May 3 at 3pm