They say the cello’s sound is the closest to the human voice among instruments. A cello, because of its size, feels like a person, sometimes even a partner.
You cannot just leave it alone: it’s very sensitive, reacting to changes in temperature, dryness and humidity. It’s also like a big brother, watching you whatever you do, day in and day out. If you treat it well, it rewards you with beautiful sounds and, eventually, successful performances. But for that to happen, you have to work hard, very hard, and in a physical sense too. One of the stickers on my cello case, wisely designed by an old London luthier, said: “Play it??? I can hardly carry it!”
Carbon fibre cases are lighter, but a flight case with an instrument still weighs 18 kilogrammes. Carry that through a crowded airport or run with it if you’re late for a concert, and you’ll quickly reconsider your gym membership.
Travelling with a cello is another subject entirely. I could write a book about being on the road with the instrument. One of my favourite stories as an orchestra manager occurred in Venice in 2001. My orchestra was booked on an Alitalia Airlines flight to Rome. We had four cellists in the ensemble, and as part of our group ticket we had asked for four extra seats for their instruments.
However, Alitalia told us we could only take two, despite the plane being almost empty. My travel agent tried in vain to get the airline to change their mind. Two cellos were acceptable, but four instruments were deemed a security risk. As tour manager, I had to decide what to do with the other two cellists: make them take a later flight? Take a train? Put the cellos in the hold?
Remembering one of my favourite authors, Luciano de Crescenzo (“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it”), I decided to take on the challenge. I instructed our travel agent to book tickets for two more “passengers”: Mr Antonio Stradivari and Mr Nicolo Paganini. At the crowded check-in counter of Marco Polo Airport, I told a fierce-looking Italian woman in my broken Italian that “due to unfortunate circumstances”, Mr Stradivari and Mr Paganini were unable to travel this time, so could she kindly give us the two seats for two extra instruments that needed to go on the flight, as we had a performance in Rome the same day.
As expected, she declined and told me that a cello was not a person, and that a name change was not possible at this point. Time to prove my negotiating skills, I thought, and began a lengthy argument in rapid-fire Italian that lasted around 30 minutes. You guessed it, the story ended with the two cellos flying as Mr Stradivari and Mr Paganini!
To this day, I still have their boarding passes.
Florian Riem