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David Milsom, Romantic Violin Performance Practices: A Handbook (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2020). xv + 319 pp. £65.00.
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David Milsom, Romantic Violin Performance Practices: A Handbook (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2020). xv + 319 pp. £65.00.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2021
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- Type
- Book Review
- Information
- Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 19 , Special Issue 2: French Criticism , August 2022 , pp. 334 - 340
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Milsom, David, Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century Violin Performance, 1850–1900 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)Google Scholar. He is also the author of an important reference work, A–Z of Solo String Players (London: Naxos, 2014), a compendium with over three hundred biographies, recordings and stylistic analyses, accompanied by a 4-CD companion set that provide useful information on a range of performers from the dawn of the recordings age to the present day.
2 Although this important applied musicology project led by Clive Brown certainly originated and was based at the University of Leeds (c. 2000–2016), it bears clarifying that it is no longer supported by the institution.
3 In addition to the aforementioned treatises of German origin, Milsom also references important contributions from the leading pedagogues of the Paris Conservatoire (Kreutzer, Rode, de Bériot, Baillot), as well as some by lesser-known names, such as Eberhardt, Fleming, Grimson & Forsyth, Schnirlin (unfinished), and Thistleton, among others.
4 There is also an argument to be made for certain nineteenth-century publishers and editors suggesting fingerings that, for example, favour open strings, harmonics and avoid even-numbered positions in a marketing effort to cater to an ever-growing number of amateurs, dilettantes and students, rather than fully formed artists.
5 The relationship between score and performance is never rigid, so it is naive to assume that a performer's own markings directly correlate to their interpretation in performance. This said, much can be learned from annotations, even when attribution is difficult. A fascinating case study is Ferdinand David's own copy of his seminal anthology Die Hohe Schule des Violinspiels (http://mhm.hud.ac.uk/chase/view/work/506/), as it includes many simplified bowings, fingerings, and markings, as well as crossed out cadenzas and a general aversion to repeats.
6 The CHASE (Collected Historical Annotated String Editions) project website (http://mhm.hud.ac.uk/chase) contains hundreds of published editions, mainly of nineteenth century compositions. As Milsom shows throughout the text, historical editions are of great importance. A better organization and availability of this evidence would enhance the scholarly infrastructure.
7 Joseph Joachim, Romance in C, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeVFYA0Duss There is an interesting modern-day reenactment companion by the Swiss National Science Foundation project led by Kai Köpp at the Bern University of the Arts; see www.youtube.com/watch?v=19_bwbDZAhU .
8 Romantic Violin Performing Practices, supplementary website, Boydell and Brewer Music, https://boydellandbrewermusic.com/romantic-violin-performing-practices/ .
9 Dubbed the “female Joachim” in her time, Marie Soldat (1863–1955) is widely considered the closest recorded exponent of her mentor's performance style. Her c. 1920 recorded rendition of the first movement of Mozart's Fifth Concerto (K219) follows Joachim's edition and includes his cadenza; see www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3G9QxmonP4 .
10 David Milsom, Bach Violin Project, http://bachviolinproject.com.
11 The Baroque performance resources by Ritchie, Stanley in Before the Chinrest – A Violinist's Guide to the Mysteries of Pre-Chinrest Technique and Style (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012)Google Scholar, and in Reiter, Walter S., The Baroque Violin & Viola, Vols. 1 and 2: A Fifty-Lesson Course (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)Google Scholar come to mind.