#23: Determining instrumental fingerings
Section 2: Antonin Dvořák – String Quartet Op.51, ii: Dumka
We often found it difficult to establish the fingering choices of the Czech players from listening alone. A good example was the viola player’s opening answer, and in particular the finger used on the note following the harmonic G. The ‘lift’ of the harmonic means that next finger can be jumped to, rather than connected; there remain multiple options for how to execute the small ‘substitution’ slide between D and C. We will return to this in more detail in a later post; but in general, such cases were most interesting for what they revealed about the physicality of the left hand technique, and the flexibility with which they navigated (and deemphasised!) certain intervals when desired.
