PETER J. CLEARY
“He’s wearing black on the bottom and black on the top,” said Valerie L. Kosednar, a music teacher at Keene’s Wheelock School, as she
introduced a school guest this week. “This,” she said, “is Dobbs.” And Dobbs, a 61-year-old man with a bushy gray beard, walked in
front of the elementary-school students, picked up a bass and began playing from the Bach cello suites — all without saying a word of
introduction. Yes, he was dressed in black from head to toe.
Yes, he was also playing a piece written for cello on the bass. But the kids didn’t seem to mind. The students were mesmerized from the
first note, and Dobbs, who is also known as Richard Hartshorne, captured their attention throughout the few movements of the 300-
year-old piece he played. Then he started playing and singing a song he wrote about a tree and a beaver who ran off to join the circus.
A new approach
After 30 years with the renowned Apple Hill Chamber Players of Sullivan, Hartshorne left the group to form Bach with Verse, an
organization that supports his work playing classic music for groups that don’t normally hear it, such as schoolchildren, prisoners and
refugees. Hartshorne, of Nelson, has played at all the prisons in New Hampshire and just returned from a trip to California, where he
played at San Quentin State Prison, a place that such musical legends as Johnny Cash and B.B. King have played in the past. Hartshorne
still plays classical music, but he also plays comic pieces such as a song about a cow landing on a Japanese fishing boat after being
dropped from a Russian airplane, and another about crime in New Hampshire, in which he simulates a police siren with his bass. He
plays in prisons to reach out to a part of society that would otherwise not be exposed to the type of music he plays, he said; to bring in a
human element to them. And what he does has meaning for the inmates, said Gretchen L. Fisher, a former inmate and current Bach With
Verse board member. “He, I think, really transported everyone in that room,” she recalled of hearing Hartshorne while in prison. “There
was hope in life and laughter and music there.” Everyone in the prison was “free from the walls” while Hartshorne played, she said.
An ongoing obsession
Hartshorne has also freed himself from the walls of classical music. The classical piece he plays in schools and prisons is a bit different
than what’s normally played by bassists. It’s Bach on a bass — exactly as the composer had written it for cello. That’s not an easy
thing to do, Hartshorne said. He first attempted to play the cello piece on a bass in 1967, when a professor of his at The Juilliard School
suggested he get a score of the cello suites. The professor told Hartshorne it was something to challenge him, but not a piece he would
ever perform. But Hartshorne didn’t listen, and playing the cello piece on a bass became an obsession. He spent the next 25 years trying
to master it, and between 1992 and 1995 he recorded the piece, becoming the first — and only — person to ever do so on bass. Last
year he played the suites at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, a performance he considers the pinnacle of his career.
And he still plays off of the same score he used in 1967. It now has tattered pages and is held together with layers of tape.
Reaching out
The piece that became his obsession isn’t just a challenge for him these days. It’s something he can use to reach people who might not
normally listen to classical music. “It’s simple on the surface,” he said. “And yet it has this intense undercurrent of emotion.” And the
sound coming from the bass, he said, has a human, soothing sound, making it a good instrument to reach out to the underserved
audiences he plays for. But while the Bach piece seemed to enrapture the Wheelock School children, the other pieces he played had them
howling with laughter. “His comic pieces are very rich, very accessible and very surprising,” said Andrew C. Harvard, his longtime
friend and Bach with Verse board member. Hartshorne has been writing comic pieces, such as the one he sang about Billy the tree and
Brenda the beaver, since the mid-1980s. He considers the pieces stories with musical accompaniments to help move them along, much
like the score of a movie helps carry the action. “It’s really a story with incidental music,” he said. “Even though you’re not really
listening to the score, you’re emotionally affected by it.” The stories Hartshorne tells during his shows at prisons and schools are human
stories with universal themes anyone can relate to, Harvard said. “Sometimes it seems a little bit like Garrison Keillor with an extra
dimension of sound,” he said. Hartshorne plans to head to the Middle East next October to play his songs for children in Palestinian
refugee camps. He said he’s had his comic pieces translated into Arabic, and while he doesn’t speak the language himself, he’s learning
how to tell the stories in the language the refugees will understand. And he’s considering taking his show to Afghanistan in the future.
A lifelong challenge
The bass didn’t always produce a smooth, soothing sound when Hartshorne sat down to play. He took up the instrument at age 12,
when his school got a bass and needed someone to play it. “It was so scratchy and ugly that I decided I wouldn’t practice it,” he said of
his early years with the bass. And he didn’t practice until after he graduated from high school in upstate New York. But he kept playing
it through his years at Juilliard, and it grew into a passion.
Today, Hartshorne lives with his wife, Emily, in Nelson. He has a son, Richie, 35, from a previous marriage. His nickname, he said,
doesn’t have a clear origin; it’s something he picked up as a child and kept because people continually mispronounce his last name — it’
s Harts-horne. The noise coming from the bass no longer scares Hartshorne. But the venues he now plays offer an added challenge.
Prisons are intimidating places to play, he said. While walking through a courtyard at San Quentin, he heard loud grunts of a prison gang
doing calisthenics. The grunts brought to mind images of rough, prison violence. And he’s had to get used to passing through rooms
lined with bars. But prisons aren’t the hardest gigs, he said. “The toughest group to play for is the kindergartners and 1st-graders,” he
said. Children like the 5- and 6-year-olds of Wheelock School, he believes, are a tougher crowd than the hardened prisoners of one of
the most famous jails in the country. It’s hard to keep the attention of the schoolchildren, Hartshorne said, while the prisoners are
starved for any form of human contact.
Other obsessions
Hartshorne is a man of intense focus. He says that even after nearly 40 years he’s still obsessed with playing the cello suites on his bass.
But other obsessions have also marked his life. Up until four years ago, Hartshorne would run his age in miles in one day every year. On
his 57th birthday — while he was running 57 miles — he decided he was suffering too many injuries and gave up his annual epic run.
Earlier in his life, after graduating from Juilliard, Hartshorne joined the Peace Corps so he could go to South America to climb mountains,
another obsession. Since then, he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount McKinley in Alaska and Aconcagua, the highest peak
in South America. In 1987, he went to the Himalayas for two months to climb Chamlang, a 24,000-foot peak. He spent about six weeks
on the mountain preparing for the trek to the summit. After the first day of the summit ascent, as he and his climbing partner were
getting ready to settle down for the night, the winds were howling across the mountain. The two did not bring a tent, so they sought
shelter from the wind in a crevasse. The storm forced them to stay in the crevasse for two days while they waited for conditions to
improve enough so that they could start climbing again. But during that time, his partner’s feet froze, and they had to turn around
without reaching the top. Hartshorne made his last climb about 15 years ago, but the attempted Himalayan ascent stays with him. He said
climbing mountains is a lot like playing the Bach cello suites on a bass. “Along the way there is all this beauty and excitement and fun,”
he said. Just like with Chamlang in the Himalayas, Hartshorne said he doesn’t think he’ll ever get to the summit of the Bach cello suites.
Every day he plays, it holds a new challenge.
“He’s wearing black on the bottom and black on the top,” said Valerie L. Kosednar, a music teacher at Keene’s Wheelock School, as she
introduced a school guest this week. “This,” she said, “is Dobbs.” And Dobbs, a 61-year-old man with a bushy gray beard, walked in
front of the elementary-school students, picked up a bass and began playing from the Bach cello suites — all without saying a word of
introduction. Yes, he was dressed in black from head to toe.
Yes, he was also playing a piece written for cello on the bass. But the kids didn’t seem to mind. The students were mesmerized from the
first note, and Dobbs, who is also known as Richard Hartshorne, captured their attention throughout the few movements of the 300-
year-old piece he played. Then he started playing and singing a song he wrote about a tree and a beaver who ran off to join the circus.
A new approach
After 30 years with the renowned Apple Hill Chamber Players of Sullivan, Hartshorne left the group to form Bach with Verse, an
organization that supports his work playing classic music for groups that don’t normally hear it, such as schoolchildren, prisoners and
refugees. Hartshorne, of Nelson, has played at all the prisons in New Hampshire and just returned from a trip to California, where he
played at San Quentin State Prison, a place that such musical legends as Johnny Cash and B.B. King have played in the past. Hartshorne
still plays classical music, but he also plays comic pieces such as a song about a cow landing on a Japanese fishing boat after being
dropped from a Russian airplane, and another about crime in New Hampshire, in which he simulates a police siren with his bass. He
plays in prisons to reach out to a part of society that would otherwise not be exposed to the type of music he plays, he said; to bring in a
human element to them. And what he does has meaning for the inmates, said Gretchen L. Fisher, a former inmate and current Bach With
Verse board member. “He, I think, really transported everyone in that room,” she recalled of hearing Hartshorne while in prison. “There
was hope in life and laughter and music there.” Everyone in the prison was “free from the walls” while Hartshorne played, she said.
An ongoing obsession
Hartshorne has also freed himself from the walls of classical music. The classical piece he plays in schools and prisons is a bit different
than what’s normally played by bassists. It’s Bach on a bass — exactly as the composer had written it for cello. That’s not an easy
thing to do, Hartshorne said. He first attempted to play the cello piece on a bass in 1967, when a professor of his at The Juilliard School
suggested he get a score of the cello suites. The professor told Hartshorne it was something to challenge him, but not a piece he would
ever perform. But Hartshorne didn’t listen, and playing the cello piece on a bass became an obsession. He spent the next 25 years trying
to master it, and between 1992 and 1995 he recorded the piece, becoming the first — and only — person to ever do so on bass. Last
year he played the suites at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, a performance he considers the pinnacle of his career.
And he still plays off of the same score he used in 1967. It now has tattered pages and is held together with layers of tape.
Reaching out
The piece that became his obsession isn’t just a challenge for him these days. It’s something he can use to reach people who might not
normally listen to classical music. “It’s simple on the surface,” he said. “And yet it has this intense undercurrent of emotion.” And the
sound coming from the bass, he said, has a human, soothing sound, making it a good instrument to reach out to the underserved
audiences he plays for. But while the Bach piece seemed to enrapture the Wheelock School children, the other pieces he played had them
howling with laughter. “His comic pieces are very rich, very accessible and very surprising,” said Andrew C. Harvard, his longtime
friend and Bach with Verse board member. Hartshorne has been writing comic pieces, such as the one he sang about Billy the tree and
Brenda the beaver, since the mid-1980s. He considers the pieces stories with musical accompaniments to help move them along, much
like the score of a movie helps carry the action. “It’s really a story with incidental music,” he said. “Even though you’re not really
listening to the score, you’re emotionally affected by it.” The stories Hartshorne tells during his shows at prisons and schools are human
stories with universal themes anyone can relate to, Harvard said. “Sometimes it seems a little bit like Garrison Keillor with an extra
dimension of sound,” he said. Hartshorne plans to head to the Middle East next October to play his songs for children in Palestinian
refugee camps. He said he’s had his comic pieces translated into Arabic, and while he doesn’t speak the language himself, he’s learning
how to tell the stories in the language the refugees will understand. And he’s considering taking his show to Afghanistan in the future.
A lifelong challenge
The bass didn’t always produce a smooth, soothing sound when Hartshorne sat down to play. He took up the instrument at age 12,
when his school got a bass and needed someone to play it. “It was so scratchy and ugly that I decided I wouldn’t practice it,” he said of
his early years with the bass. And he didn’t practice until after he graduated from high school in upstate New York. But he kept playing
it through his years at Juilliard, and it grew into a passion.
Today, Hartshorne lives with his wife, Emily, in Nelson. He has a son, Richie, 35, from a previous marriage. His nickname, he said,
doesn’t have a clear origin; it’s something he picked up as a child and kept because people continually mispronounce his last name — it’
s Harts-horne. The noise coming from the bass no longer scares Hartshorne. But the venues he now plays offer an added challenge.
Prisons are intimidating places to play, he said. While walking through a courtyard at San Quentin, he heard loud grunts of a prison gang
doing calisthenics. The grunts brought to mind images of rough, prison violence. And he’s had to get used to passing through rooms
lined with bars. But prisons aren’t the hardest gigs, he said. “The toughest group to play for is the kindergartners and 1st-graders,” he
said. Children like the 5- and 6-year-olds of Wheelock School, he believes, are a tougher crowd than the hardened prisoners of one of
the most famous jails in the country. It’s hard to keep the attention of the schoolchildren, Hartshorne said, while the prisoners are
starved for any form of human contact.
Other obsessions
Hartshorne is a man of intense focus. He says that even after nearly 40 years he’s still obsessed with playing the cello suites on his bass.
But other obsessions have also marked his life. Up until four years ago, Hartshorne would run his age in miles in one day every year. On
his 57th birthday — while he was running 57 miles — he decided he was suffering too many injuries and gave up his annual epic run.
Earlier in his life, after graduating from Juilliard, Hartshorne joined the Peace Corps so he could go to South America to climb mountains,
another obsession. Since then, he’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mount McKinley in Alaska and Aconcagua, the highest peak
in South America. In 1987, he went to the Himalayas for two months to climb Chamlang, a 24,000-foot peak. He spent about six weeks
on the mountain preparing for the trek to the summit. After the first day of the summit ascent, as he and his climbing partner were
getting ready to settle down for the night, the winds were howling across the mountain. The two did not bring a tent, so they sought
shelter from the wind in a crevasse. The storm forced them to stay in the crevasse for two days while they waited for conditions to
improve enough so that they could start climbing again. But during that time, his partner’s feet froze, and they had to turn around
without reaching the top. Hartshorne made his last climb about 15 years ago, but the attempted Himalayan ascent stays with him. He said
climbing mountains is a lot like playing the Bach cello suites on a bass. “Along the way there is all this beauty and excitement and fun,”
he said. Just like with Chamlang in the Himalayas, Hartshorne said he doesn’t think he’ll ever get to the summit of the Bach cello suites.
Every day he plays, it holds a new challenge.
The following article appeared in
The Keene Sentinel Saturday June
4, 2005 and is posted here with
their permission.
Web Posted 6/4/2005
The Keene Sentinel Saturday June
4, 2005 and is posted here with
their permission.
Web Posted 6/4/2005
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