{"id":13941,"date":"2015-11-27T17:09:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T01:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=13941"},"modified":"2015-11-27T19:31:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-28T03:31:45","slug":"on-bach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/11\/27\/on-bach\/","title":{"rendered":"on bach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ligocki\"This past Saturday afternoon I played on the occasion of a memorial service for a violist friend of mine. His name was Scott Ligocki. He grew up in Seattle, went off to study at Curtis with Michael Tree, and returned to Seattle to begin an enormously successful teaching studio, and play principal viola with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra, among many other things. One of those other things was teaching each summer at the Max Arnoff Viola Institute, which I co-founded with my viola teacher at the University of Puget Sound, Joyce Ram\u00e9e, in 1990.<\/p>\n

Scott was a person of remarkable depth. I don’t know anyone who really knew all of him (is that ever possible for anyone?), but his lifelong friend Terry Muir, who spoke Saturday, said that he certainly didn’t – even though he knew him perhaps better than anyone. I only really knew Scott through that one week a year when we’d basically see each other at meal times and in the green room backstage during faculty recitals. But he affected me in subtle ways that I’m only just now beginning to understand. Some of those realizations just came to me right before the service began. Kim Zabelle, a long-time friend of Scott’s, who organized much of the service for the family, came up and thanked me for coming up to play. She said that the Bach D minor Suite was “Scott’s piece, he played it all the time, whenever [Bach was called for].” And while I sat in the audience, listening to reminiscences of friends and colleagues, and watching the ineveitably devastating slideshow with music from his life, the\u00a0rightness<\/em> of the Bach D minor for Scott came into focus.<\/p>\n

The Bach Cello Suites (appropriated by violists since, basically, forever) each have their own character. The G major is open, and freely, even naively happy. The C major is much the same, perhaps with even more exhuberance. The E-flat Major is more cerebral and intense. The C Minor is darkly translucent. And the epic D\u00a0major is dark and light in equal measure, peppered with virtuosity. The D minor, the second of the six, however, is for me the suite of the introvert. It is deceptively simple from\u00a0its outward appearance, but surpassingly deep. It is dark, pensive, flowing. It has moments of energy – particularly its quicksilver Courante<\/em> – but even the ‘happiest’ of its movements, the concluding Gigue<\/em>, pulls its punches, leaving room for tinges of melancholy amidst its\u00a0charactaristic bounding gestures. And that, it seems, is much like Scott was, and is, to me. Scott had a wonderful sense of humor, but also had silent depths (reached through his many years of studying meditation) that anchored everything. He always seemed so\u00a0considered\u00a0<\/em>in all that he did. Every conversation I had with him seemed meaningful, which is exceedingly rare. And special.<\/p>\n

So, as I began to play the\u00a0Allemande<\/em> and\u00a0Gigue<\/em> from the D minor Suite this past Saturday, it all seemed to make perfect sense. And my awe and admiration for the genius and humanity of Johann Sebastian Bach grew again by leaps and bounds. In the words of one of my dear colleagues, “Bach KNEW”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past Saturday afternoon I played on the occasion of a memorial service for a violist friend of mine. His name was Scott Ligocki. He grew up in Seattle, went off to study at Curtis with Michael Tree, and returned to Seattle to begin an enormously successful teaching studio, and play principal viola with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,22],"tags":[2396,1707],"class_list":["post-13941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-viola","tag-bach","tag-scott-ligocki"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3CR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2792,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/01\/odds-and-ends-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":13941,"position":0},"title":"odds and ends","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The day's final glow from Bastyr dormitory. Photo: \u00c2\u00a9 Charles Noble Tonight was the final faculty chamber concert of the 2009 Max Aronoff Viola Institute, a string camp that I started along with University of Puget Sound viola faculty Joyce Ram\u00c3\u00a9e back in 1990.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a great concert on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_1374","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/IMG_1374-400x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4930,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/29\/mavi-day-two-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":13941,"position":1},"title":"mavi – day two report","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I awoke Monday morning with the happy awareness that the Bart\u00f3k performance was behind me, and that it didn't suck, so the day started off pretty well, just by that standard.\u00a0 I taught a couple lessons right after breakfast, which was much more fun than it sounds like, and then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4939,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/30\/mavi-day-three-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":13941,"position":2},"title":"mavi – day three report","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Lots of teaching and chamber music coaching was done on Tuesday, with some private lessons thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 Got to meet a young woman who was taking viola lessons via Skype while on deployment with the US Army in Iraq, what a story!\u00a0 She came to the evening\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/4749792649_f3fef4af3b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4944,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/01\/mavi-penultimate-day-report\/","url_meta":{"origin":13941,"position":3},"title":"mavi – day four report","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was the last full day of MAVI.\u00a0 Instead of the day beginning with a lesson at 8:30, I was assigned to run through the piece (my dress rehearsal) by Daniel Ott that I was to perform that night in the chapel.\u00a0 I dragged my caffeine-fueled carcass to the chapel\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/4749371399_b6e303466b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":19044,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2020\/07\/07\/oh-no-a-viola-recital\/","url_meta":{"origin":13941,"position":4},"title":"oh, no! a viola recital!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This Thursday (July 9th) at 3pm Pacific Time, I'll be playing a short recital of pieces for solo viola (OK, one of them is for four violas) on AllClassical.org's Thursdays @ Three program. All the pieces were recorded in my home practice space, including the Zoom interview with program producer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/thursdays-%40-three-promo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/thursdays-%40-three-promo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/thursdays-%40-three-promo.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/thursdays-%40-three-promo.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/thursdays-%40-three-promo.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/31\/shostakovichs-viola-sonata-redux\/","url_meta":{"origin":13941,"position":5},"title":"shostakovich’s viola sonata, redux","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 31, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Zach Carstensen (who writes for the excellent NW music blog collective The Gathering Note) posted the following comment to my first post on Shostakovich's Viola Sonata: I suppose it is well known that Shostakovich\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failing health made the sonata one of the composers sparsest works of music. Yet, I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}