| Content | BM approves the corrections in Sonata for Cello and Piano No.3 concerning the complete revision of the cello part for the forthcoming printing in the State Publishing House: 'I approve your corrections concerning the tech quartets after C.4 in the first movement, and I think it would be better to use quavers also in the second place before C.4" [Martinů seems to be referring to bars 83 and 84, where in the original he writes only tertian couplets, and Smetana suggests quartets in two places (f-c instead of d-f and b-es instead of c-es). Cellistically speaking, it's more comfortable this way. It is not clear, however, what he means by the "second place preceding c. 4" (presumably
number 4).]
Mention of the coda: "I'm a little worried about the octave, and I think it would be better to just take a simple c, not an octave, top c, and go to the empty string 6 bars before the end, as you suggest. Or descending the octave C to the empty string. But the double-octave thing doesn't really occur to me, I think it's too heavy, too massive, and then the empty string gets lost."
BM permits the tempo of the second movement to change to 63 (quarter note). 42nd bar in the first movement: the melody has the H and B meeting in the same position. "If I remember correctly there is supposed to be an H in the cello, which joins on C. So perhaps the chord could be arranged differently in the piano, so that the semitone does not collide in one register'. BM sketches a solution in his head for the letter. He doesn't have a copy with him, so he leaves the final decision to FS, but still asks for an impression to correct, to avoid mistakes like the ones that got into the Fountainhead. |