from The New York Viola Society - Myron Rosenblum
January, 2001
Casimir-Ney, 24 Preludes for Unaccompanied Viola, 2 CD-set, Vestige Classics (no visible number). This is a remarkable recording and the first ever of these awesomely difficult viola caprices. Casimir-Ney remains a somewhat mysterious figure, but one who had some notoriety during his life time in France, as witnessed by the company he kept (see below for more details of his life and works). Written at a time when the viola was not yet a true equal partner ill the string family, these preludes are astounding for the demands they make on the player. High tessitura abounds, runs of double stops, rapid arpeggios, parallel octaves, tenths and even a twelfth are exploited, as well as pizzicati using all four fingers and harmonics.
Mr. Shumsky has produced a most impressive set of CDs and he "knocks" these works off with
seeming ease and aplomb. Mr. Shumsky uses much portamento, absolutely called for in this music.
No.6 has a wonderfully exotic aspect to it. Many of the preludes call for playing on one string
and go quite high. For example, No.12 starts "sul C" and then goes to "sul D" for extended
periods. One finds the use of many parallel octaves, and other sections with parallel thirds
and sixths. There is an improvisatory feeling to many of these preludes with many mood changes.
Prelude 20 is the one that calls for the violist to play pizzicato with all four fingers (there
may other examples of this technique, but I can't think of one!). Although Casimir-Ney has many
truly high tessitura passages for the violist, he explores the lower register as well which Mr.
Shumsky plays beautifully on his gorgeous-sounding viola (for these recordings, Mr. Shumsky
used a William Carboni, 171/2 inches and an Anders, 17 inches, c. 1910 instrument). If not all
musically rewarding, the Preludes are in themselves impressive string challenges and present
the violist with demands equal to anything written for the violin, including Paganini. Yet, some
of these preludes are very effective and capture moods on second hearing, the harmonic
invention was more enticing and the technical demands even more thrillingly challenging.
Casimir-Ney must have heard Paganini and been inspired to write these works for viola, for
there are many Paganini-type techniques and stylistic elements that point to the great Italian
virtuoso (Paganini was in Paris in the early 1830s).
It is a credit to Eric Shumsky to have undertaken the first recording of these difficult pieces
and the results are most impressive. This CD can be obtained directly from Vestige Classics,
1408 W. Balmoral, Chicago, lL, 60640 or Amazon.com. Vestige Classics has a website as well:
www.shumskymusic.com .
from The Strad magazine, Tully Potter,
May, 2000
The identity of the man who called himself L.E. Casimir-Ney was a matter of mystery in modern times until the musicologist Jeffrey
Cooper discovered an 1877 obituary of the Parisian violist Louis-Casimir Escoffier, who had died aged 75. Maurice Riley wrote about
him for one of the viola year-books and Frederic Laine, who edited the 24 Preludes for re-publication by Billaudot in 1994, offered
even mor detail about this now shadowy figure in The Strad of February that year.
Presumably Escoffier, well known as a player and slightly less so as a composer in his own time, took the Ney part of his pseudonym
from Napoleon's marshal. But why did he call his famous viola pieces Preludes? They are not beginnings-even in the sense that Chopin's
op.28 piano pieces may be seen as openings of fragments-but are fully fledged caprices.
They pose fiendish demands for the player and I would not say that Eric Shumsky makes them sound easy. He does, however, meet all
their challenges head-on, with excellent tone and intonation, and he makes them sound like real performances of real music. I think
I could learn to love no.20 in C minor for instance, which has some haunting left-hand pizzicato writing but also requires the violist
to play double harmoniecs. No.22 draws all the effects of a storm from a single fragile string instrument. These two remarkable
pieces are the longest in the set, at more than six minutes each.
The recordings, made in a church in Kalamazoo, Michigan,are excellent and the set will both fascinate and frustrate Shumsky's fellow
violists, to whom he dedicates this project in a little note in the booklet. I cannot imagine it being surpassed in the near future.