Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Historical performance in context
- 2 The repertory and principal sources
- 3 Equipment
- 4 Technique
- 5 The language of musical style
- 6 Historical awareness in practice 1 – three eighteenth-century case studies: Corelli, Bach and Haydn
- 7 Historical awareness in practice 2 – three nineteenth-century case studies: Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms
- 8 Related family members
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Historical performance in context
- 2 The repertory and principal sources
- 3 Equipment
- 4 Technique
- 5 The language of musical style
- 6 Historical awareness in practice 1 – three eighteenth-century case studies: Corelli, Bach and Haydn
- 7 Historical awareness in practice 2 – three nineteenth-century case studies: Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Brahms
- 8 Related family members
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
This handbook is intended for all devotees of the violin and viola who are interested in historical performance, whether as period-instrument players or performers on modern instruments, as professional musicians, students or enthusiastic amateurs, as discerning concert-goers, or as avid listeners to recordings. It aims to survey and offer some solutions to the numerous problems posed by the performer's desire to recreate a performance as close and as faithful as possible to the composer's original conception. This desire is by no means of recent origin; Johann Mattheson, for example, wrote (1739):
The greatest difficulty associated with the performance of someone else's work is probably the fact that keen discernment is necessary in order to understand the real sense and meaning of unfamiliar thoughts. For those who have never discovered how the composer himself wished to have the work performed will hardly be able to play it well. Indeed, he will often rob the thing of its true vigour and grace, so much so, in fact, that the composer, should he himself be among the listeners, would find it difficult to recognise his own work.
This handbook thus aims to introduce readers to the principal issues that require comprehension and ‘keen discernment’ in contemplating historical performance on the violin and viola. It surveys the most significant source materials, examines the issues of performance practice, technique and style which combine to forge well-grounded period interpretations and demonstrates how these may be applied to six case studies from a cross-section of the repertory.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Early Violin and ViolaA Practical Guide, pp. xiii - xviPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001