Ševčík’s legacy: how important is he to string players today?

Every string player has heard of Ševčík, but how important is he to first-rank performers? How many of them, for example, used Ševčík’s exercises during their own student days? Janos Starker pleads exemption, protesting, ’I am a cellist!!!’ Victor Danchenko, violinist, explains th his Soviet training based on Henry Schradieck (who was in fact, a disciple of Ševčík), while Felix Andrievsky, professor at the Royal College of Music, did not use Ševčík at all.

Those who did study Ševčík will think of him with gratitude. ‘Ševčík helped me with my double-stops.’ Itzhak Perlman remembers, though he does not use Ševčík in his own practice any more. Rodney Slatford used a ‘private arrangement’ of Ševčík when he was a student, finding the exercises for articulation and bow development particularly helpful, though likewise he does not use them now. Violist Kim Kashkashian, however, still uses excerpts from the School of Bowing Technique Book 1 to improve her own technique, as well as various chord and position studies, while Bruno Giuranna, also on viola, uses left-hand and position-changing exercises which ‘directly originate from Ševčík’. ‘I enjoy demonstrating op.2 exercises to students; it feels like practising,’ he adds.

If the proof of the pudding is in the teaching, then who recommends Ševčík to their students? Kashkashian and Perlman recommend the same exercises to students which they found useful themselves. Kashkashian also uses Changes of Position op.8 with her students, advising them to practise all Ševčík exercises ‘slowly, and with ”concert” sound’. Slatford has used Ševčík with double bass students in the past, advising them to practise ‘daily, in small doses, taking a specific practice point at a time.’