Kate Kennedy's 'Cello' is part memoir, part musical detective story

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day: Summary of Kate Kennedy's Cello

Introduction to Cello and Its Author In the January 15, 2025 episode of NPR's Book of the Day, host Andrew Limbong delves into Cello, a nonfiction work by BBC broadcaster and cellist Kate Kennedy. The book intertwines memoir and musical detective story, exploring the lives of four passionate cellists. Limbong introduces the narrative as one that transcends mere interest in the cello, capturing universal themes of obsession and the profound connections individuals form with their passions. He remarks, “these are stories about obsession, about loving something so much you're willing to travel the world to look for stories about other people who are just as in love with that thing as you are” ([00:02]).

The Deep Bond Between Musicians and Their Instruments Kate Kennedy discusses the intricate relationship musicians have with their instruments. Reflecting on her personal connection, she shares, “I think if my apartment were on fire and I had to save one thing, it would be my cello” ([02:23]). This intense bond is a central theme in her book, mirroring her own experiences as a cellist who faced a debilitating arm injury. Kennedy explains her motivation for writing Cello: “I thought, as a biographer, I'm going to put my biographer's hat on my cello identity, if that's even an image, and see if I could actually puzzle out what this relationship is by looking at other people's relationships and talking to so many other cellists about what does this instrument mean to us” ([02:40]).

Profiles of Remarkable Cellists

Lise Christiani: The Trailblazing Female Soloist One of the cellists profiled in Kennedy's book is Lise Christiani, the first female professional cello soloist from Paris in the 1840s. Kennedy highlights Christiani's extraordinary journey and the gender challenges she faced: “this is a huge gender issue” ([03:24]). Christiani captivated Europe with her performances, including a remarkable expedition across Russia with a Stradivari cello wrapped in wolf fur. Despite the lack of recordings, her legacy endures through historical accounts, such as the influence she had on composer Felix Mendelssohn. Kennedy notes, “Felix Mendelssohn... wrote a very beautiful, very famous song without words for her” ([04:34]).

Paul Hermann: A Musical Genius Lost to History Another significant figure in Cello is Paul Hermann, a Hungarian cellist of exceptional talent and compositional prowess. Kennedy recounts Hermann's tragic fate during the 1930s in Berlin, where rising anti-Semitism forced him into hiding before his eventual capture by the Gestapo ([05:41]). Determined to uncover his story, Kennedy traces Hermann's last known whereabouts to a concentration camp in Lithuania, bringing her cello into the very cell where he was held. In this poignant moment, she plays Bach’s Second Suite, describing the experience as “the most extraordinarily powerful” she has ever had ([07:10]).

The Detective Story: Unraveling Paul Hermann’s Legacy Cello serves as both a biography and a mystery as Kennedy seeks to piece together the life and fate of Paul Hermann. Her journey leads her to Lithuania, where she immerses herself in Hermann’s history. A significant breakthrough comes when Hermann's cello concerto is discovered among his daughter's possessions. Kennedy describes the concerto as “optimistic” and “forward looking,” reflecting Hermann's vibrant personality: “He was huge fun... that was who he was” ([08:17]). This discovery not only resurrects Hermann’s musical contributions but also honors his enduring spirit.

Recreating Hermann’s Cello Concerto: A Musical Tribute In a moving tribute, Kennedy attempts to perform Hermann’s rediscovered concerto. She shares her preparation process: “I even sent it to my cello teacher back in college, and he had never heard of it” ([08:43]). Despite the technical challenges, she embraces the opportunity to bring Hermann’s music to life. The performance is met with admiration for its “optimistic” and “uplifting” qualities, showcasing the concerto’s modernity and the emotional depth it conveys ([09:51]). Kennedy expresses her connection to Hermann’s spirit through the music, emphasizing the importance of remembering his energy and lightness.

Conclusion: A Celebration of Music and Resilience Kate Kennedy’s Cello is a testament to the enduring power of music and the resilience of those who dedicate their lives to their art. Through her meticulous research and personal reflections, Kennedy not only honors the legacies of remarkable cellists like Lise Christiani and Paul Hermann but also explores the universal bond between musicians and their instruments. As Kennedy eloquently puts it, “the cello... is the thing that we are closest to for most of our lives” ([02:03]). Cello offers listeners a profound exploration of passion, memory, and the timeless language of music.

Notable Quotes

• Andrew Limbong ([00:02]): “These are stories about obsession, about loving something so much you're willing to travel the world to look for stories about other people who are just as in love with that thing as you are.”
• Kate Kennedy ([02:23]): “I think if my apartment were on fire and I had to save one thing, it would be my cello.”
• Kate Kennedy ([03:24]): “This is a huge gender issue.”
• Kate Kennedy ([04:34]): “Felix Mendelssohn... wrote a very beautiful, very famous song without words for her.”
• Kate Kennedy ([07:10]): “I played Bach. I played the Second Suite, which is so mournful and so lonely and so beautiful. It was the most extraordinarily powerful experience I've.”
• Kate Kennedy ([08:43]): “I even sent it to my cello teacher back in college, and he had never heard of it.”
• Kate Kennedy ([09:51]): “He was huge fun... that was who he was.”
• Kate Kennedy ([02:03]): “...they adored their instrument in the way that I do... it’s the thing that we are closest to for most of our lives.”

Kate Kennedy, author of Cello, provides a compelling narrative that intertwines personal memoir with historical investigation, offering listeners an engaging and insightful exploration of the world of cello music.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Kate Kennedy's book, Cello is a nonfiction story about the lives of four fascinating cellists. And it's interesting even if you don't care much about the cello, because these are stories about obsession, about loving something so much you're willing to travel the world to look for stories about other people who are just as in love with that thing as you are. Although I'll say it will help if you do have some affinity for the cello, seeing as Kennedy and NPR's Daniel Eshrin are both cellists. Listen to them talk cello, including a very special performance after the break.

[Unknown]

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[Kate Kennedy]

What better instrument than a cello, half thunder, half prayer, to listen to the world? But what if that instrument falls silent? That is from the opening line of Cello, a new book from writer, BBC broadcaster and cellist Kate Kennedy. She crisscrossed Europe with her cello on a mission to tell the remarkable stories of four cellists and some lost instruments. Cello is part detective story, part memoir, and really resonates with me because I also play the cello. Kate Kennedy, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to be here.

How do you tie the four cellists together in your book? What ties them together?

Well, I didn't really know what would tie them together until I got to the end of the book. It was a genuine detective story for me, but I found increasingly that it was things like absence and resilience and silence. All of them adored their instrument in the way that I do, so that probably was the common denominator.

I mean, that is a deep bond that I know very well. I think if my apartment were on fire and I had to save one thing, it would be my cello. I think about that a lot. How do you think about the relationship between a musician and her cello?

Well, that was what I wanted to know because I was a very, very serious cellist very young. When I was about 17 or 18, something happened to my arm and it was permanently injured from over practice. And so my relationship to my cello was intense, hugely complicated, and it's one that I've never really fully understood. So I thought, as a biographer, I'm going to put my biographer's hat on my cello identity, if that's even an image, and see if I could actually puzzle out what this relationship is by looking at other people's relationships and talking to so many other cellists about what does this instrument mean to us. That's like our own body and it's the size of a human torso. It's the thing that we are closest to for most of our lives.

One of the cellists you write about is a woman who was the first female professional cello soloist. Tell us about her.

Sure. She was called Lise Christiani and she was pretty extraordinary. She was from Paris in about the 1840s. And it's a huge gender issue. You read through all the reviews and all the male reviewers from right across Europe are obsessing about whether this is a grotesque spectacle or something very beautif. Is she Saint Cecilia or is she kind of more of a prostitute with this cello between her legs? You know, this is scandalous stuff, but she was a sensation and she conquered Europe very quickly and then went to Russia and did this extraordinary kind of exploration of Russia with this Stradivari from St Petersburg right across Siberia, right to the very furthest edges where Russia meets China. She had a cello wrapped in wolf fur on a sledge. She dropped it into bogs, she zoomed along with Cossacks on horseback through incredibly difficult circumstances.

And there are no recordings of her playing. But there is something that lasts till today, right?

Yeah. One of her concerts, I think, in Leipzig, Felix Mendelssohn came to and heard her play and I think kind of fell in love with the sound of her cello. I don't know whether he fell in love with her, but certainly something about the way she played really took his fancy. And he wrote a very beautiful, very famous song without words for her spec when she had to, I think, quite consciously decide what a woman cellist sounded like, which was to play quite high. Nothing too ferocious, nothing too gutsy, lots of harmonics, lots of lovely, wafty, lyrical song like sounds. That's what Mendelssohn writes for her. So it is like a little time capsule.

You write also about another cellist, Paul Hermann. Yeah, a remarkable story. He was a Hungarian cellist. Tell us a little bit about him.

So he was an astonishingly brilliant player. Fantastic technique. He was Also a great composer. He was making a huge name for himself in Europe. He lived in Berlin, but he was Jewish. And obviously 1930s Berlin is not the place to be if you're a Jewish musician. So he was hounded out of Berlin, went into hiding, and then was caught in Toulouse, rounded up by the Gestapo. Managed to get a little note out of the train window as he was taken off to a concentration camp to get to relatives to tell them that his cello had been left behind in a sealed flat with Nazi guard. And that's the last we ever hear of poor Paul Hermann.

And you are crisscrossing Europe with your own cello on the hunt, following this breadcrumb trail of clues that he left behind, trying to solve the mystery about his fate. You ended up in Lithuania in what was likely his prison cell before he was killed.

Yeah. Powell was taken to camp on the edge of Paris and then on probably to Lithuania, to a dreadful place called the Fort of Death.

You brought your cello into that prison cell.

Yeah.

What did you play?

I played Bach. I played the Second Suite, which is so mournful and so lonely and so beautiful. It was the most extraordinarily powerful experience I've. I've never heard a cello sound so mournful. These walls are about, you know, a meter and a half thick. It's a proper fortress. As well as the fact that all around me was the graffiti of the 800 Frenchmen who'd been held there.

As you said, he wrote a lot. He wrote a lot of musical compositions. Much of what Paul Hermann wrote was lost during the war throughout the ages, but some has survived, including his cello concerto, which was only recently discovered.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It was in his daughter Corrie's house, just in a bundle of papers in a drawer somewhere. You know, she doesn't play the cello. There was no interest in his music because his. He was forgotten. His story was forgotten. But she found this manuscript, and her son, who's a great advocate for his grandfather, managed to get it sort of published and get it available on the Internet.

You sent me the notes of that opening cello concerto.

Yeah.

I even sent it to my cello teacher back in college, and he had never heard of it, but no one has very kindly sent me some Boeings and advice on how to play it. And. And I have my cello out here.

Yay. Fantastic. You're going to give it a go. It's not easy. I'll give. I'll give you that disclaimer.

I know I've been practicing it. Feverishly but here goes nothing.

Well done.

Thank you. Thank you.

It's hard to play. He was a fiendish technician, so all his cello repertoire is pretty hairy, but very rewarding.

I love how it's optimistic. It feels forward looking, uplifting. It feels modern.

Yeah. He was in his 20s when he wrote this. He was basically a student and it's full of optimism, it's full of life, because so is he. He was huge fun. This amazing violinist he used to play with called Zoltan Zakeli, who was hugely famous through the 20th century, described him as vlot. And I spent ages trying to interpret what vlot means. It's a Hungarian word, I think, for kind of light and easy and fun and chilled out. But he was up for a party. He was that kind of a guy. He was great. I want to remember him with that vlot, that energy, that lightness, because that was who he was.

Kate Kennedy, author of A Journey Through Silence to Sound thank you so much. This has been so fun.

Thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure.

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