Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Royal Musical Association and Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Journal of the Royal Musical Association.
http://www.jstor.org
The bow has repeatedly been described as the soul of the violin.
Variety of articulation, dynamic nuance and, until the twentieth-
century advent of continuous vibrato, tone production have been
regarded as almost entirely dependent on its management. Develop-
ments in bow making during the second half of the eighteenth century
radically affected the bow's capabilities, and the subsequent changes
in bowing techniques undoubtedly had a profound effect on the sound
of the instrument and on the style of performance. The newer
hatchet-headed bows, with their stronger, more elastic sticks which
put the hair under considerably greater tension, behaved quite
differently from most earlier bows. Earlier eighteenth-century pike's-
head bows, because of the initial 'give' in their bow hair (the 'small,
even if barely audible softness at the beginning of the stroke' referred
to by Leopold Mozart), produced an articulated effect similar to the
modern spiccato, though somewhat less sharply separated, when used
on the string with short strokes for a succession of detached notes.
The later hatchet-headed bows, whose development was to culminate
in the work of Tourte, produced a much more legato sound when used
in the same manner, but a true spiccato - a stroke in which the hair
slightly leaves the string between notes - was possible because of the
increased tension of the hair and elasticity of the stick. In addition,
the increased tension made possible an incisive attack near the point
of the bow and led to the development of a range of marteli strokes and
sforzando effects, for which the older bows were unsuitable.
At some stage or other in the nineteenth century virtually every
technique that the Tourte bow made possible was tried, but there
were substantial divisions of opinion about what constituted good
style. Various schools of violin playing were sharply differentiated,
and bowing played a large part in distinguishing them from one
another. One of the most important conflicts of opinion occurred over
the question of whether, particularly in passages of successive de-
tached notes in a moderate to fast tempo, the bow should bounce or
should remain firmly on the string. The passage in Example 1, for
instance, can quite effectively be played either with a spiccato or sautilli
bowing in the middle (which is the bowing most modern violinists
would use), a broad bowing in the upper half, a marteli bowing near
the point, or a slurred martel6 (staccato) in the upper third of the bow.
Each of these methods of performance produces a markedly different
effect. Many passages in the music of the period can perfectly easily
be played in several of these ways, and the notation is not, in most
cases, precise enough to indicate whether any particular interpreta-
tion was intended by the composer, but there is sufficient evidence to
suggest that a nineteenth-century violinist's choice of bowstroke
would have been dictated largely by when and where he lived, or to
what school he belonged.
Evidence suggests that springing bowing in passages of detached
notes was one of the earliest of the effects offered by the new bows to
be extensively exploited. It was admired for its brilliance and incis-
iveness, and for a while this style of playing seems to have become
fashionable in many places. There are certainly indications that
recent innovations in bowing style were gaining currency during the
1780s and 1790s. An article on deficiencies in performances at the
'
Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, ed. Carl Spazier, 1 (1793), 9.
2 Francesco Galeazzi, Elementi teorico-practicidi musica, con un saggio sopra / arte di suonare il violino
analizzata, ed a dimostrabili principi ridotta, 2 vols. (Rome, 1791-6), i (pt 2), 201.
'
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1 (1798-9), 579.
(Of these only Rode was actually a pupil of Viotti, but the other two
were strongly influenced by him.) The broad bowing style which made
springing bowings seem old-fashioned to Spohr had much in common
with the approach of Christian Cannabich (1733-98) and the Mann-
heim School, but it was the impact of the Paris school, which was
directly linked with Tourte's development of the bow, that was of the
greatest importance in supplanting the springing-bow style in general
esteem.
There can be no doubt about the enormous prestige of the Parisian
school of violinists at this time. Viotti was repeatedly called the
greatest violinist of the day and the founder of a new style. Woldemar
commented, in the introduction to his 1801 revision of Leopold
Mozart's Violinschule,after discussing the excellent qualities of Corelli
and his successors: 'but it was to be reserved for Viotti to eclipse the
glory of his predecessors and to become to some extent the leader and
model of a new school'.' And in 1811 Naigeli, discussing the impor-
tance of string instruments, wrote:
Here, as nowhere else, art is brought to life through the power of the arm;
indeed, it is astonishing what the Viotti school has achieved and continues
to achieve in this field; the way in which the string player here raises
himself triumphantly over a whole world of sound is the most remarkable
feature in the history of individualization in art (die Allermerkwiirdigste
Zug
derKunst).8
derIndividualisirungsgeschichte
In the same year that Spohr recorded his opinion of Fodor and Tietz
in his journal, the Methode de violon of Baillot, Rode and Kreutzer,
commissioned by the Conservatoire as part of a series of approved
instrumental methods, was published in Paris. Baillot was its chief
author, but there is no reason to doubt that it broadly represented the
approach of all three. Nowhere in the lucid section on bowing in the
1803 Methode is any mention made of springing bowstrokes. Passages
of detached notes were to be played on the string with as long a bow as
possible in the upper half. Neither Kreutzer's Etudes, nor Rode's
Caprices, nor the concertos of either of them contain passages in
which a springing bowing seems to be called for, though there are
places where it could be used, as later editors have discovered. In the
case of Kreutzer's Etudes and Rode's Caprices, the composers'
performance instructions make it clear that no springing bowings are
intended and it seems certain, in view of the advanced and
comprehensive aim of these works, that springing bowings had little
or no place in the technical equipment of these players. Accounts of
their performance style corroborate this. Kreutzer's playing, for
instance, is described in Gerber's Neues Lexikon der Tonkiinstler
(1812-14) in the following terms: 'Viotti's manner of playing is also
his. The same strong tone and long bowstroke also characterize his
allegro.'9 A fuller description of the style is given in a review from
Prague of a performance which Spohr gave there during his concert
tour of 1808. Having observed that Spohr was 'one of the most
outstanding violinists of our epoch', it went on to criticize several
aspects of his performance, remarking about his bowing that
since he takes pains to play the passagework in particular with long-
drawn-out and unbroken bowstrokes, he not infrequently spoils thereby
the character of the allegro, particularly where this is written in a fiery,
brilliant and impetuous manner and consequently ought to be played
accordingly. So much the less is he able, therefore, to allow the many small
nuances of the allegro to appear, and, for all his sterling artistry, one might
well not escape a certain oppressive feeling of monotony if one were to hear
him often - which is also the case with several of the celebrated violinists
of the present Parisian school.1'
sustained tone, long and even bowstrokes, slurred figures, and every
variety which these things permit; he must, however, remind those who
have made this style of playing their own not to neglect in the process the
short, sharp stroke with a half-bouncing bow, which in certain passages
produces such a beautiful distinctness and precision. The reviewer knows
the instrument sufficiently, as he may justly claim, and confesses that the
combination of the two is certainly one of the most difficult of tasks; but it
is by no means impossible.13
Further insight is provided by a review of Viotti's Concerto no. 27 in
1808, which recommended that work because it did not present too
many difficulties for players who had not mastered the finer points of
the new style. The writer commented:
This concerto, which well repays a decent performance, will make a
welcome addition to the repertoire not only for the multitude of concert
violinists whose artistic skill is more closely circumscribed, but also for
those especially who either cannot yet sufficiently master the long, legato,
and manifoldly varied bowstroke (des langen, geschleiften und mit mannigfaltigen
AbwechslungenvermischtenBogenstrichs) that they can yet aspire to a successful
public performance of the concertos of Rode, Kreutzer, Romberg or Spohr;
or have become so accustomed to playing with short, springing bows (der
Spielart mit kurzem und springendenBogen) that they are unable to manage the
legato bowstroke which is necessary for the performance of these pieces. In
the present work, not only are the phrases which are slurred together in a
single bowstroke written in such a way that they can be executed without
undue difficulty, but also the staccato and legato passages alternate so as
to provide a pleasing variety.14
By the end of the decade the newer style was well on the way to
achieving orthodox status in Germany, and the evidence suggests
that, far from incorporating springing bowing into their playing, as
the reviewer of Rode's concerto had suggested, most of the notable
exponents of the new style scorned it and, by their example, caused it
to fall into almost total desuetude for a while. The prestige of the
Viotti school and the importance of the 1803 Conservatoire Me'thode as
a teaching manual on the one hand, and on the other Spohr's growing
reputation and activities as a teacher led to the dominance of this
approach in Germany by the 1820s. Another widely used teaching
manual, Bartolomeo Campagnoli's Metodo(?1797), which was trans-
lated into German in 1824, reinforced the trend, for it, too, omits all
mention of spiccato bowing (though it describes a kind of flying
staccato). Campagnoli (1751-1827) concluded his discussion of de-
tached bowings at various speeds with the comment: 'The more these
bowings are lengthened the greater effect they produce.'" The virtual
disappearance of the springing bowstroke for passagework, in certain
It seems clear, from the way that Guhr describes it, that this style of
bowing was unfamiliar to him when he heard Paganini (1784-1840)
use it; at least, the fact that he felt it worthy of comment indicates that
he considered its use to be unconventional.
Whether Paganini's exploitation of this and other springing
bowings was the key factor in repopularizing them from the 1820s
onwards is a moot point, but it is undoubtedly true that his example,
and the fascination which he exerted, must have acted as a counter-
balance to the influence of the Viotti School and its adherents. In
France, especially, the hegemony of the Viotti style began to be
seriously challenged in the 1820s. Baillot's change of attitude is
interesting and may well have owed something to the influence of
Paganini. In the introduction to his exhaustive treatise L'Art du violon
of 1834 he discussed Paganini with a mixture of admiration and
reservations, concluding with the remark: 'It belongs to genius to
create new effects, to taste to regulate their use, and to time alone to
sanction them';17 and, though Baillot's treatise does not incorporate
the full range of Paganini's technical peculiarities, it presents, as a
whole, a remarkable contrast with the Mithode of 31 years earlier. It
describes many techniques that had no part in the earlier work,
including a range of springing bowings which he calls 'elastique':
ditach6 liger, perle, sautille and staccato a ricochet.The overall impression
given by the bowing section of L'Art du violon is that while the earlier
bowstrokes remain available, a much greater emphasis on lightness
and piquancy of bowing had developed in Paris during the intervening
period.
Rode and Kreutzer were both dead by the time Baillot published
L'Art du violon and for some years before their deaths both had
experienced the chagrin of seeing their popularity decline. Changing
fashion in Paris and their refusal or inability to adapt their style may
well have been a contributory factor in this loss of popularity. Baillot,
however, who had never made quite such a strong impression by his
public performance and who seems to have possessed a particularly
flexible and analytical mind, kept pace with changing fashion and
went on to be the father figure of the younger generation of French
violinists. Francois Habeneck's Mithode of 1840, Delphin Alard's Ecole
de violon of 1844, Charles de Beriot's Mithode of 1858, and other French
treatises add little to Baillot's catalogue of bowings.
In Germany the adoption of the greatly increased range of bowings
which Baillot had discussed in L'Art du violon seems to have been
slower, particularly for the performance of serious German music.
This was partly, perhaps, a result of the characteristic nineteenth-
century German tendency to identify the French with frivolity and
therefore, by extension, to regard these lighter bowings as superficial
and unworthy. A potent factor in this was the tremendous influence of
Spohr. By the time he wrote his monumental Violinschulein 1832, he
was widely regarded not only as Germany's greatest violinist, but also
as its greatest living composer, and during his long life he taught
many younger violinists and directly influenced many others. Spohr's
personality was very strongly marked both in his playing and in his
compositions, and the Violinschulemakes no concessions to Paganini or
to any of the newer French influences. The extensive section on
bowing, containing some 57 different examples, does not mention any
form of springing bowing and it is clear from what is known of Spohr's
opinion on the subject that this is a deliberate omission. According to
hs pupil Alexander Malibran, Spohr was horrified when he heard a
violinist using springing bowings in the chamber music of Haydn,
Mozart or Beethoven, maintaining that it went absolutely against the
performance tradition of these works; only in a few scherzos by
Beethoven, Onslow and Mendelssohn would he concede their admiss-
ibility.18
The reliability of Spohr's claim that springing bowings went against
the Classical tradition in German violin playing is, of course, open to
question, but in this context his years in Vienna and his personal
contact with Beethoven should be borne in mind, though this in itself
cannot be taken to prove that his views were identical with
Beethoven's or that other Viennese violinists during Beethoven's
lifetime would not have employed springing bowings in his music.
Too little is known about the playing of Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776-
1830) and Franz Clement (1780-1842), for instance, to be certain
whether they employed them (though a reviewer in 1805 noted that
Clement's playing was not like that of the Viotti-Rode school). '
Surviving accounts suggest considerable diversity in the styles of early
nineteenth-century Viennese violinists, but by the second decade of
the century the broader style certainly seems to have been in the
ascendant. The highly complimentary reviews of Spohr's perform-
20 Carl Maria von Weber:Writingson Music, ed. John Warrack (Cambridge, 1981), 174.
21 Joseph Joachim, Briefe,ed. Johannes Joachim and Andreas Moser, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1911), i, 3.
etc. from these editions, some of which are still in print, have found
themselves caught at the 'wrong end' of the bow by the editor's
bowing. Newer editions have reversed many of these bowings.
Examples of David's bowings in works by Mendelssohn and
Schubert will illustrate the point. In the first movement of Mendels-
sohn's String Quartet, op. 44 no. 3 (see Figure 1), for instance, David's
bowing (from his own copy of the Mendelssohn quartets, where it is
written in the same blue pencil with which he signed the front cover)
makes it clear that the passages of staccato quavers in this extract are
to be played on the string in the upper half (either ditacheor martele);
the bowings in parentheses are from the Peters Neu revidierteAusgabe
and imply a spiccatofor the quavers, which is how most modern
violinists would play them. Example 2 gives a passage from the first
movement of Schubert's Piano Trio, op. 99, in David's edition (Peters
pl. no. 7127), in which a slurred staccato in the upper half, followed by
a detached bowing near the point, is used for the semiquavers. The
Peters Neu revidierte
Ausgabeindicates a light stroke in the middle of the
bow. Similar examples can easily be found in editions by other
nineteenth-century German editors.
It is clear that attitudes towards bowing styles changed radically
during the nineteenth century. Broadly, it seems that during the late
eighteenth century a light bowing style in which passagework was
T4 ns" p cres4o. --
4,_ b b
,bb
I'- I I I r
- -i" l,,J _I -p .
VP
cres. cresc.
6
41
In any case remember that only the most sparing use of the vibrato is
desirable; the too generous employment of the device defeats the purpose
for which you use it. The excessive vibrato is a habit for which I have no
tolerance, and I always fight against it when I observe it in my pupils -
though often, I must admit, without success. As a rule I forbid my students
using the vibrato at all on notes which are not sustained, and I earnestly
advise them not to abuse it even in the case of sustained notes which
succeed each other in a phrase.25
By the time Auer wrote these remarks, however, the use of continuous
vibrato was well on the way to gaining universal sanction, and among
its most influential exponents were Auer's own pupils, Heifetz, Elman
and Zimbalist.
That Auer's view represented a tradition which had been dominant
throughout the nineteenth century, however, is abundantly clear from
documentary evidence. Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) recognized that his
use of vibrato to provide a more or less continuous colouring to the
sound was of recent origin, observing:
vibrato. Instructions for the artistic use of vibrato are also remarkably
consistent, though some important methods surprisingly fail to
discuss it at all. The Baillot-Rode-Kreutzer Mithodeof 1803, though it
has a considerable amount about tone, style, embellishment and so
on, does not mention the left-hand vibrato, but it describes a vibrato
('ondulation') produced by the bow alone.29 Much later in the century
Alard's Ecole, too, is silent on the matter. Baillot's L'Art du violon,
however, deals with the uses of left-hand vibrato in considerable
detail. He observed:
This undulation, produced more or less slowly by the finger, has an
animated, tender and sometimes pathetic expression; but the rocking of
the finger momentarily alters the purity of intonation of the note. In order
that the ear may not be distressed by this and may immediately be
consoled, the exact pure note should be heard at the beginning and the
end [see Figure 2]. This undulation, introduced with discretion, gives the
sound of the instrument a close analogy with the human voice when it is
strongly touched with emotion. This type of expression is very powerful,
but if frequently used it would have only the dangerous disadvantage of
making the melody unnatural and depriving the style of that precious
naivety which is the greatest charm of art and recalls it to its primitive
simplicity.
After further discussion of specific opportunities for using vibrato
Baillot warned:
Avoid giving the undulation a flabby quality, which would make the
playing seem old-fashioned, or a stiffness which would spoil its charm and
fluency; above all, avoid making a habit of vibrating the hand, which must
be used only when the expression renders it necessary and, furthermore, in
compliance with all that has been indicated in order to prevent its
misuse.3o
Spohr's account of vibrato (called 'tremolo') in his Violinschuleof
1832 differs from Baillot's in that he does not demand the pure note at
the beginning and end of every vibrato note, in that he specifies it for
the intensification of sforzandi and in his description of four different
speeds of vibrato - a fast, a slow, a speeding-up and a slowing-down
vibrato, which he indicates in various musical examples with wavy
lines (see Figure 3). Like Baillot he specified that 'deviation from the
true pitch of the note should be scarcely perceptible to the ear'. He too
warned against abuse of vibrato, saying that the player
29 Baillot-Rode-Kreutzer, Mithodede violon (Paris, 1803), 137. Baillot also discusses the bow
vibrato in L'Art du violon.
30 Baillot, L'Art du violon,138-9.
should guard against using it too often and in improper places .... When
this vibration is observed in the singer, the violinist may also use it: hence
it is employed only in an impassioned style of playing and on strongly
accented notes marked with fz or ~ . Long sustained notes may similarly
be animated and reinforced by it.31
MELODY. MELODIE.
Som,bre aidl dramatic colounring. Nocessariy emn.
of ribrated sounds andfthe portamento in the Couleur sorubre el dramalique.Emploi recessairedesons
plaes indicated.
pl/,no.Int vibrdset des porfs de voix mix endroits indiquis.
Andantino con molto .
espross. .9=
PIA 7
_
dim. 4
IT a' ,
l.E -- , _
more+d
AI I 9
_
Hol-der Fruhb- hng, komm doch wie - der!
P.,;/
f P"% IS I A I
7 i ~lb d
40
Oral communication from Manoug Parikian to the author.
41' Robert Donington, A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music (London, 1973), 87.
42 Robert Donington, The Interpretationof Ear1y Music (rev. edn, London, 1974), 235.
f con anima -- ff
cresc.
0 1 02 4
1 1
f dim. Pi
t= dim.
O
2 40 cresc. V
',
-4
pp pp sempre,ma vibrato
Milestoso. 1004P
Maetos. -_1 --------
1 ---1 ).
3 01 2101 01
p legato
PRESTO I" I L
iIf 3r ad libitum di f I W
Xiolino 2.
II M
-i I
<> cresc.
(amabile)
3 0
r Q Z Li
Pr-._ii'r
- - 2 1 2
---. 0 L12
~l r .l.. - ,
.?..- -.--Ii. i , . I I b
Example 12. Brahms, Violin Sonata, op. 108, first movement: Allegro.
Example 13. Elgar, Violin Sonata, op. 82, first movement: Allegro.
< <> <> <>
V
dolciss.
<>
r2-
%J2A 7? N
mw
frz fr" '
Pr.s de la touchie.
copied this master's joke. Little by little the joke became a fashion, the
fashion (which strangely not merely players but also singers allowed
themselves to be carried away by) became a method with the weaker and
more foolish; and since the number of the latter is endless, so that false
manner became little by little a sort of school from which a fine multitude
of cats has proceeded to pain the ears of the listener, with the intention of
delighting them, through playing and singing in this manner.45
Spohr was the great German exponent of portamento, and probably
derived his predilection for it from Rode; for Reichardt, who had
heard them both, objected to Spohr's portamento in 1805 as 'an
exaggerated copy of Rode's'.46 A number of references to portamento
during the first two decades of the nineteenth century suggest that it
was beginning to be much more prominent with regard to both
frequency and intensity. Reichardt's remark about Spohr already
suggests a more frequent and obtrusive portamento than had been
customary. A critic in Prague three years later was even more explicit,
for after describing Spohr's ravishing performance of an Adagio he
continued:
Yes, one could call him unsurpassed in this genre if he did not often
disturb us in this enjoyment, and sometimes very unpleasantly, by a
mannerism much too frequently employed, that is by sliding up and down
with one and the same finger at all possible intervals, by an artifical miaow
as one might call it if that did not sound teasing.47
He added that Spohr also used the device in allegro.
At about the same time the practice seems to have become
prevalent in Vienna. Kreutzer had visited the city in 1798, Rode in
1812-13, and Spohr was resident there between 1812 and 1815, but
these violinists, though they may have been among its leading
exponents, were certainly far from alone. Beethoven, in the Violin
Sonata, op. 96, written for Rode during his stay in Vienna, seems
clearly to have envisaged some use of portamento; a passage at bar
159 of the last movement could hardly be performed without it in view
of the necessary descent from sixth position to first in a single
bowstroke, and Rode would undoubtedly have introduced a prom-
inent portamento here (see Example 15). Salieri's sarcastic diatribe
against portamento in 1811, from which a section has already been
cited, was apparently ineffective, and in 1815 he published a mani-
festo saying:
cresc. P
or down on a string of their instrument from one note to another with the
same finger; singers, on the other hand, resort to it when, in making leaps
or intervals, they fail to support the voice with grace and genuine artistry,
but instead tug and slide like a wailing child or a miaowing cat. The
strangest thing about this is that the string players and singers who use
this method are under the misconception that they are playing or singing
in a particularly earnest manner, though in fact they achieve the very
opposite effect, for this manner can only be occasionally used as a joke in a
comic turn.48
Perhaps Rossini, too, disliked the habit and intended his cat duet to
be a satire on the increasing frequency and abuse of this mannerism.
All such protests were apparently in vain, for the portamento soon
became firmly established as an essential expressive device. Its
importance on the violin can be gauged by the amount of space which
is given to it in later nineteenth-century violin methods. In most cases
it is discussed at greater length than vibrato. These methods are
revealing of both its mechanical execution and its artistic use. Spohr
lucidly describes the mechanism of upward shifting which is basic to
all the other nineteenth-century accounts. He instructs that the finger
which has played the note in the lower position shall slide to its place
in the higher position and that the finger which stops the note in the
higher position shall fall so rapidly that the 'guide note' is not heard
as a distinct note: thus, as he says, 'the ear [will be] cheated into the
belief that the sliding finger has passed over the whole space from the
lowest to the highest note'.49 He is not explicit about the downward
shift, but by implication it is an exact reversal of the former
procedure. Spohr specifically forbade sliding with the finger which is
to stop the note that is being shifted to, saying that it caused an
'unpleasant whining'. This technique of shifting was shared by all the
other important nineteenth-century violin schools as the method to be
used in the vast majority of cases. Shifting in this manner gives the
effect of increasing speed in the slide and thus parallels exactly the
approved vocal practice as described by Manuel Garcia (1805-1906),
who said that, to avoid a 'cat-like squalling ... the slur of the voice
should be allowed a little more motion in the higher than the lower
part'.5o
AA"i
'htll- Ir I I i L i L-- -L
originaltext
dc~-voix vif':-
Poil-
.
Empno '; dan. les n1olos joh:e, ;Nvfe "I'M Mt,
. lam.-lf-'
Port-de-voix doux:
Port-de--'%oixain- :
ed , d
-
-- (--- -1 - -
qui--IT)Te -i
B.riot
I&
I
t rr-P
Sorrowful. nAceentdouloureux.
Animato
QUINTETTO -
3" ,I
All" disperato. ,
----
--=- _ri en. e dim.
cantabile