CHASE

II: Andante

In the first three bars [p.11, s.4] David refined the original dynamic scheme with < and > in bb.1-2 and pp in b.3. He also marked two portamentos: the first with the printed fingering in bar 1 and the second through an added fingering in bar 3; from a musical point of view it seems clear that the first portamento was expected to be more prominent than the one in b.3.

The sliding fingering at bar 11 [p.11, s.5, b.5] helps to intensify the climax of the phrase, where an ornamental vibrato is probably intended on the f''.

The dynamic markings < and > in pencil in bars 13-14 [p.11, s.6, bb.2-3] move the emphasis in the phrase from the c''' in bar 14 to the b♭' two notes earlier. Pencilled dynamics at bar 19 [p.11, s.7, b.3] and bar 21 [p.11, s.8, b.1] produce a substantial dynamic contrast, and the deletion of the blue crayon hairpins in bars 21-2 [p.11, s.8, bb.1-2] sustains the low dynamic level until the printed crescendo in bar 23, where division of a long slur into three enables a more powerful increase in volume.

Fingering changes in bars 26-7 [p.11, s.9, bb.2-3] are essentially technical in nature.

The pencil < in bar 28, before the fermatas, probably represents what David would have done in any case in the lead up to the expected cadenza. As at the end of the Larghetto of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in his personal copy (British Library), David sketched his cadenza into the bottom margin of the paper. He also added several notes to the end of the cadenza in the margin at the end of bar 29 [p.11, s.9, b.5], allowing more time for an effective diminuendo to the p, changed to pp in pencil, at the beginning of the next stave. His fingering change at this point allows the more veiled tone of the A string to be maintained until the end of the second bar, rather than crossing to the brighter E string at the beginning of the printed crescendo hairpin.

David’s printed horizontal lines under the slur at bar 37 [p.11, s.10, b.7] imply a broader and weightier style of bowing than if there had been dots under the slur. At bar 38 [p.11, s.11, b.1] he changes the straightforward slurred staccato/portato to a series of cross-beat slurs in a single bowstroke. The down-bow staccato/portato marked in bars 39-40 are to be executed less sharply than might have been implied by an up-bow, as Spohr explains in his Violinschule.

III: Andante Grazioso (Theme and Variations)

David’s crayon dynamics on the first bar [p.12] elicit a more sharply characterised delivery than the printed ones. His bowing change ensures that the weight is laid on the second and fourth beats, with the notes on the metrically strong beats being delivered lightly at the point of the bow. David has also emphasised this by changing Mozart’s 1/4-notes on the strong beats to 1/8-notes.

David’s added dynamics in Variation III [p.12] mirror those in the Theme.

At the beginning of the second half of Variation V [p.13] David’s added fingering produces an expressive portamento and also retains the tone of the A string until after the beginning of the crescendo. At the end of this Variation David has added an instruction to introduce a ritard, but only on the repeat.

The bowing change at the beginning of the Allegretto [p.13] may be to elicit a lighter execution of the final 1/8-note in the figure.

At bar 202 [p.13, s.10, b.2] the c''' was perhaps originally envisaged as being taken by an extended 4th finger, but David’s added fingering makes the position-changes, with concomitant portamenti (which could hardly have been avoided in these figures in Mozart’s time), explicit.

In the last two bars of the Allegretto [p.13, s.11] David prefers security of intonation in the double-stops over retention of Mozart’s f’ to f’’ in both bars, keeping the hand in fourth position, thus avoiding the awkward position change. He makes similar alterations elsewhere, for instance removing the lower note of double-stopped octaves on pages 4 (bottom stave) and 5 (top stave) in his personal manuscript copy of Schubert’s Quartettsatz D. 703.

In the last eight bars of the piece [p.13] David evidently considered using a succession of up-bows, undoubtedly in the upper half of the bow, but later deleted his crayon alterations in the 2nd-time bar and the three following bars. He pursued the idea, however, in the next three bars, bringing the bow to the heel for the final forte chords. 

C2 b) Crayon, Pencil & Ink Markings in the Violin Part (David Milsom)

NOTE: It is intended that the reader will refer, for illustrations, to the downloadable pdf copies of Ferdinand David's performing parts available through the CHASE website [view]. Hyperlinks within the text lead to an online view that includes, pop-up annotations via clickable boxes. References to these copies are given in the form [p.1, s.1, b.1] (i.e. page 1, stave 1, bar 1).

Of the three different viola parts in the Uppingham Collection edition, the part from Set 1 [pages 15-24 of the CHASE pdfs] contains the most markings. Set 3 [pages 50-59 of the CHASE pdfs] does not contain any annotations. In the additional Set 2 viola part [pages 26-35 of the CHASE pdfs] the slow movement of K. 423 contains a few markings which replicate those in the Set 1 part; there is, however, an additional 'pizz.' instruction in Set 2 at bar 40; crescendo and diminuendo signs at 42-3 have been crossed out, and a p marking inserted at 46 which indicates a slightly different idea. The performance accompanying this article replicates the markings in Set 1, but the variability of David's approach to this section of the slow movement should be noted.

G Major Duo K. 423 (Set 1 viola part)

In the viola part to K. 423 there are no markings in the Finale (although the copy is heavily marked in a more recent hand) and all other markings are adaptations to the dynamic scheme except a pizzicato instruction added at bar 44 of the slow movement, and presumably applicable to bars 44-5 [p.4, s.9, bb.1-2]. These dynamic markings serve to intensify the expressive parameters of the dynamic scheme – such as the change from the printed p marking at bar 40 to pp, which creates an echo effect not explicitly indicated by the printed markings, but which arises as a natural and unscripted consequence of the repetition of the figure in bar 39. David’s interpolation of the arco bow scheme in the 2nd movement with pizzicato (bars 44-45, with an additional marking at bar 40 in the Set 2 part as described above) implies that he wanted to create further texture variation here – this further suggests that David’s markings were designed to transmit a more detailed (and maybe vivid) understanding of the work in performance.

B-flat Major Duo K. 434 (Set 1 viola part)

The B-flat Major Duo contains rather more information for the viola, indicated in David’s customary thick blue crayon. There are also some pencilled annotations that appear to be in David's hand, such as the NB marking at bar 40 of the 1st movement (probably to encourage the player to tarry a little for the sake of ensemble co-ordination with the violin, with its wide-spaced leaps in this passage – something we incorporate, by means of exaggerated rests, in the recorded performances in Part D below). Another pencilled change (which aligns, as will be discussed, with the kinds of notation changes David practised) is the addition of g' and e'' to form a triple-stop chord in bar 8 of the 1st movement [p.7, s.3, b.1].

Bowing

In this movement bow direction indications make the score more explicit in this regard and, as in numerous instances in the violin part, these include crayon re-enforcement of printed markings, as at bar 48. The most interesting of these occurs at the end of the movement, where David indicates an up-bow for the penultimate chord rather than the more usual practice of re-taking down-bows [p.9, s.6, b.8]. This creates a probable difference between the two parts, since the violin has a triple-stopped chord here which is most likely to be executed (in modern and indeed historical practice) on a down-bow. Evidence that David would have taken this approach is suggested by the crayon up-bow in the viola part on the triple-stop chord at bar 8 (assuming that the pencilled chord is in David’s hand) which implies that such an up-bow for a triple-stop chord is the exception rather than the rule [p.7, s.3, b.1]. The opening of David's edition of Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata, op. 47, gives an example of his propensity for taking triple- or quadruple-stop chords on down-bows, with 'retake' bows included in his printed scheme, and with the up-beat chord in bar 3 marked with an up-bow as the exception.

David’s hand-written bowings sometimes indicate actual changes to the printed notation (such as mvt.I, bar 30 [p.7, s.5, b.7]), as well as a number of changes to and/or explanations of slurred staccato (bars 62-5 [p.7, s.9, bb.7-10] and the equivalent place in the recapitulation). Similar bowing traits to those observed above characterise the Finale.

Fingering

Fingerings indicated in the B-flat Duo viola part are, for the most part, simply procedural, although, as one might expect in this performance tradition, they do not eschew the portamento (that is to say, they give rise naturally to the effect and do not appear to seek avoidance of it). This said, David’s decision to take bar 48 of the first movement in second position does preclude the device, which would not be the case if the other probable fingering pattern – beginning in first position and shifting with a 3rd finger on the f'' – had been indicated. As with bowings, these crayon fingerings sometimes re-enforce what is printed, as at bars 95 and 96 in the first movement where markings imply the existence of portamenti, albeit probably quite discreetly in this context. The Finale has fewer such additional or re-enforcing markings, and only three instances of fingerings added to those printed: at bars 80, 83-4, and 117. The marking in bar 80 [last line of Var. IV] simply indicates a position change (which must occur at some point in this figure). Bars 83-4 [beginning of Var. V] are more interesting: rather than remaining in first position, David keep the passage on the D-string (for tonal reasons), beginning with a characteristic harmonic and leading to an implied portamento in 84. Similarly, the addition of two 1st-finger markings at 117 [p.11, s.10, b.5] keeps the passage on the same string and includes a portamento – characteristic traits of David’s aesthetic.

With the exception of hand-written additions for simple practical reasons (for example, writing out the first few bars of the development section of the 1st movement to facilitate a page turn; the word ‘bleiben’ being added at bar 119 to confirm remaining in position; highlighting the beginnings and endings of repeat sections in the Finale, etc.), the remainder of the annotations (apart from David’s substantial/compositional changes, which will be discussed below) are dynamic indications, aligning with the violin part, and which appear (as in K. 423) to create a more dramatic or vivid performance style – intensifying softer dynamics by increasing their meaning – as in changing the p to pp in bar 210, and pp to ppp at bar 216 (first movement).

The most striking feature of the viola part, of course, is David’s re-composed pizzicato slow movement, in which Mozart’s original (predominantly double-stop) viola part is simultaneously thinned out (by means of the pizzicato sonority) and thickened (by means of the richer chromatic harmonies of the predominantly triple- and double-stopped chords as at bars 6-8 in particular). Here, the pasted sheet has itself been edited in David’s blue crayon – changing the dynamic markings in places and (as seen in the crossed-out messa-di-voce in bars 21-22 [Andante, 3rd stave]) clearly experimenting with such effects in performance. Comparison of the ink dynamic markings and crayon markings show that these are in the same hand, graphological differences being small enough to be explained by the different writing media. Such ‘re-composition’ is found again on a smaller scale in additional notes to accompanying chords (pencilled in bar 8 of the first movement [p.7, s.3, b.1], and in crayon at bars 211, and 214-219 [p.9, s.6]); these testify to David’s endemic confidence in adapting, revising and changing Mozart’s text (as indicated, at least, by the 1792 Artaria edition) – an attitude to the notation of such music rather unfamiliar to performers of recent times.

C3. Recording from the ‘Uppingham’ Collection: Practical Considerations, Problems, Difficulties & Decisions – Personal Perspectives of the Performers (David Milsom & Clive Brown)

The gap between score and sound is always a large one, entailing a complex web of practical, stylistic and technical decisions which go far beyond the possibilities of even the most detailed score notation. These limitations also apply to this project, despite the fact that David’s markings (and in particular, the crayon annotations) deliver a richer vein of score evidence than is customary, even in respect of 19th-century editions which generally contain more detail than equivalent documents in earlier musical epochs. We have attempted to interpret the annotations in Ferdinand David’s editions and personal copies in the light of the knowledge and experience gained from practical experiments, which have been informed throughout by our own and other scholars' work on historical performing practices.

The evidence that underlies the present practical experiment falls into two distinct categories: that which is embodied in David’s editorial markings; and that which is understood to be inherent in the notation. The former is reflected in our execution of dynamics, position changes with varying degrees of portamento, sparing, ornamental use of vibrato (which is, in many cases, exemplified in David’s use of open strings and harmonics), and the realisation of various types of bowing; the latter is evident in our employment of the kinds of tempo and rhythmic flexibilities that we believe to have characterised that school and period. The aspects of our performance that were suggested by David’s markings in the parts, as well as those that derive from external evidence, draw upon not only documentary sources but also early recordings by heirs of the classical German tradition (Joseph Joachim, Leopold Auer, Marie Soldat, and Karl Klingler and his quartet).

The practical and philosophical basis of our research is articulated in detail in our publications and informed by the experience gained from Milsom’s AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts (2006-9), which is articulated in the project’s scholarly and practical outcomes. More recently, we have continued to experiment with the practical implications of 19th-century performance annotations, as well as the relationship between notation and performance more generally, in numerous research-based performances by the Ferdinand David Ensemble. Much of the intellectual infrastructure that informs our approach is to be found in Brown’s Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900 [Brown, 1999] and Milsom’s Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century Violin Performance 1850-1900 [Milsom, 2003], while some of the outcomes of our practice-led research are also reflected in other, recent publications by the authors, including:

Brown, C: ‘Performing Classical repertoire: the unbridgeable gulf between contemporary practice and historical reality.’ Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis XXX 2006 (Winterthur, Amadeus Verlag, 2008), pp. 31-44

Brown, C: ‘Singing and string playing in comparison: instructions for the technical and artistic employment of portamento and vibrato in Charles de Bériot’s Méthode de violon’ in Zwischen schöpferischer Individualität und künstlerischer Selbstverleugnung ed. Claudio Bacciagaluppi, Roman Brotbeck & Anselm Gerhard  (Schliengen, Argus, 2009)

Brown, C: ‘Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule and the performance of W. A. Mozart’s violin music’ in Cordes et claviers au temps de Mozart / Strings and Keyboard in the Age of Mozart ed. Thomas Steiner (Lausanne, Peter Lang, 2010)

Brown, C: ‘Reading between the Lines: the Notation and Performance of Mozart’s Chamber Music with Keyboard’ in Mozart’s Chamber Music with Keyboard, ed. M. Harlow (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 

Milsom, D: ‘The Performance of Mendelssohn’s Chamber and Solo Music for Violin’, ed. S. Reichwald Mendelssohn Performance Studies (Indiana University Press, 2008)

Milsom, D: ‘Joseph Joachim: Evoking his Style and Practice in Historically-Informed Performance in M. Callela & C. Glanz (eds) Anklaenge 2008 – Wiener Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft (Vienna: Mille tre Verlag, 2008)

Milsom, D: ‘Practice and Principle: Perspectives upon the German ‘Classical’ School of Violin Playing in the Late Nineteenth Century’ in Nineteenth Century Music Review, Vol. 9, Issue 1, June, 2012 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)

Milsom, D: ‘Expressiveness in historical performance – 19th-century ideals and practices (on paper and in sound), book chapter co-authored with Neal Peres Da Costa, in D. Fabian, E. Schubert & R. Timmers (eds) Expressiveness in Music Performance: Empirical Approaches Across Styles and Cultures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)

C3 a) Performance Perspectives with Regard to the Violin Part (Clive Brown)

NOTE: It is intended that the reader will refer, for illustrations, to the downloadable pdf copies of Ferdinand David's performing parts available through the CHASE website [view]. Hyperlinks within the text lead to an online view that includes, pop-up annotations via clickable boxes. References to these copies are given in the form [p.1, s.1, b.1] (i.e. page 1, stave 1, bar 1).
[In this section, some repetition of ideas and information that have already been presented elsewhere in my published work will be inevitable, but for clarity it will be convenient to reiterate them here.]

General Observations

Our recordings of Mozart's Duos for Violin and Viola here are not to be seen in any sense as finished artistic products, nor, despite the scholarly credentials of the performers, are they to be regarded as authoritative recreations of a historical style, in other words, performances of these works as they might really have sounded in the hands of two of David's faithful, if not always technically reliable, students. It goes without saying that any trained string players of David's time would have expressed themselves musically in a language of performance about which we can know much, but by no means everything. 

These recordings are not even to be seen as a summation of the fruits of our scholarly research. They are part of a process, analogous in many ways to the scientific method of subjecting theories to experiments, on the basis of which knowledge may be incrementally advanced by validating some aspects of the hypothesis and raising doubts about others. Further experiments, taking account of the findings of the earlier ones, may subsequently refine the theory and even, perhaps, lead to a genuine breakthrough in understanding that has the potential to make a transformative impact beyond the academic world. Thus, an investigation through practice, of the kind we have undertaken here, may help to produce real advances within the related disciplines of scholarship and performance. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to articulate the parameters of our experiment, as I see them, and to evaluate the results.

Perhaps surprisingly, since the most obvious purpose of the research is to estimate the aural implications of Ferdinand David's markings in this remarkable source, I want to start with what he did not mark in the music. The experiment cannot be meaningfully conducted at all if we try merely to interpret David's performance annotations in relation to his known practices, while responding to other aspects of the notation in a fundamentally modern manner; that is to say, if we play the notes with 20th/21st-century attitudes towards rhythmic precision, and with the kind of phrasing, rubato and ensemble we learned during our training and earlier experience. The types of portamento, vibrato and bowing styles implied by David's markings would then simply be superimposed upon an otherwise modern performance style, creating an effect rather like a modern building incongruously embellished with 19th-century cornices, pediments and pillars.

In addition to understanding David’s markings, therefore, we must try as far as possible to understand how mid-19th-century approaches to phrasing, rubato and ensemble, which undoubtedly retained elements of 18th-century practice [see Brown, 2008a, 2010a, and 2012], differed from our own; we must try also to evaluate the extent to which particular practices were felt by 19th-century composers and performers to be inherent in the notation. For this purpose early recordings are of key importance, especially those of David's violin pupil Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) and the pianist Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) who partnered David in many chamber music concerts at the Leipzig Gewandhaus between 1860 and David's death in 1873. Reinecke's Mozart recordings are of particular importance for our experiment in this respect, because he was widely acknowledged by contemporaries as guardian and exponent of a genuine tradition of Mozart performance. 

Alongside these recordings of leading mid-19th-century musicians, we may also draw upon the recordings of two of Joachim's leading students, Marie Soldat (1863-1955) and Karl Klingler (1879-1971) in whose playing many of the conservative traits observable in the older musicians' recordings are apparent. 

The recordings of all these artists trained in the 19th century exhibit a degree of freedom with regard to written note lengths, but at the same time a strong tendency to keep these rhythmic freedoms within a fundamentally regular pulse. This is entirely untypical of modern playing, but undoubtedly closer to 18th-century practice, at a generic level if not in its specific application.

Inequality

Prominent in the Mozart recordings of Reinecke, Soldat and Klingler (Joachim did not record any Mozart) [see Part F: List of References] is a propensity to lengthen strong beats and proportionately shorten weak ones. This is particularly the case in slurred figures especially pairs (reflecting Leopold Mozart's instructions [see Brown, 2010a]). They also demonstrate an elastic approach to ornamental figurations, taking time and hurrying in more asymmetrical ways. These practices have consequences for ensemble, which is often much less regimented than in modern performance. This can be observed to an extraordinary degree in Reinecke's piano playing, in which the right and left hands often seem remarkably independent of one another.

We have therefore attempted to emulate such practices alongside our realisation of David's markings. In our experimental performances during the last four or five years I have tried to internalise this approach to rhythm and apply it spontaneously and unselfconsciously, as the musicians of that time must have done. Listening back to the recordings I find that many of these rhythmic and tempo nuances convincingly reflect the early recorded sources and seem musically persuasive, even when they result in dislocation between a melodic part and an accompaniment; but others seem less convincing, occasionally stilted and clumsy, sometimes producing a type of disruption in the ensemble, which I suspect David would have considered faulty.

Dotted rhythms 

It is clear from a wealth of evidence that rhythmic figures in which there is a 3:1 proportion, such as dotted-1/4-note:1/8-note, were seldom expected to be executed as strictly as they generally are in modern performance. They will frequently have been over-dotted, or, in other contexts, assimilated to triplets. Instances of over-dotting can be heard frequently in our recording, in fact we rarely play such figures as written. There are no instances in the Duos where the triplet execution would be appropriate.

One distinctive interpretation of the reverse dotted (Lombardic or Scotch-snap) figure in the violin part occurs in the Rondo of K. 423 at bars 181-2 [p.7, s.9, bb.2-3]. In the recording I tried to execute them with a very short initial note, almost like an acciaccatura, thus placing the accent on the longer note, emulating the distinctive manner in which Karl Klingler performed these figures in the Trio of the Menuetto of K. 421 on the Klingler Quartet's 1912 recording. His execution of the figure, probably learned from Joachim, accords with instructions by some 18th-century theorists [see Brown, 1999: p.35f].

Left-hand techniques

The execution of David's fingering is in many ways much more straightforward. In the violin part I observed all David's fingerings, giving preference to his handwritten changes where these replaced printed fingering. Since his fingering in the violin part is comprehensive, there were very few occasions on which it was necessary to supplement it. I took the view, amply justified by 19th-century sources, that where a change of position occurred within a bowstroke, this would be audible to a greater or lesser extent. The only partial exception to this is where a single finger moves relatively rapidly by a semitones or sometimes a tone, where the shift might be barely or not at all noticeable. 

I attempted to make portamento effects appropriate to the musical context. As explained in section C1 above, it is clear that David took great care to locate position changes that were necessary for technical reasons in places where he believed they would be most effective musically. In circumstances where a passage could perfectly well be played without shifting the hand, he often contrived a position change to produce a purely expressive slide and in such cases I tended to make the portamento more prominent in the recorded performances.

Many of David’s portamento effects are connected with a desire to retain the colour of a particular string in the manner of Rode, Spohr and many other early 19th-century players; but David’s position changes in such cases seem almost always to be carefully selected to enhance expression. In this respect his printed fingering is generally less expressive than his handwritten alterations and additions, suggesting that David adopted a more conservative attitude when supplying fingering for the users of his edition than he was inclined to employ in his own performances. 

There are a few noteworthy fingerings, the intentions of which are not always clear. In K. 424 at bars 55-6 of the first movement [p.9, s.1, bb.5-6] there is a succession of 1st fingers followed immediately by a 4th-finger portamento. I tried making the passage as smooth as possible without actually making it a slow glissando, and also, on the first time through the exposition, introduced some rhythmic inequality. 

In some cases a portamento between bow strokes (carrying up the note with the end of one stroke and connecting it with the next by a seamless bow change) was undoubtedly employed by 19th-century violinists. There are few instances of this in the Mozart Duos, but some of the places where a delicate portamento connection of this kind can be heard in the recording in the violin part of K. 424, for instance in the very first bar of the opening Adagio between the first and second notes, in bar 7 of the Andante from the c'' to the f♯'' [p.11, s.5, b.1] and from the d'' to the a''' in bar 24 [p.11, s.8, b.4]. I am convinced that in later repertory David would often have introduced such effects more frequently and probably executed them in a more prominent manner.

In almost all cases of portamento in the violin part I believe that the speed of the shifts and the degree of bow pressure I applied has produced effects that would have been familiar to David, though in particular cases he would doubtless have had suggestions for improving their effectiveness. Finer nuances, of course, would have differed from violinist to violinist and performance to performance.

For David and his contemporaries, it seems clear that portamento was a more important expressive resource than vibrato. Abundant evidence demonstrates that David was quite sparing in his use of vibrato and I believe that he would have regarded the range of vibrato effects used in the recording as fundamentally tasteful even if, as a teacher, he might have quibbled over some particular instances. In accordance with Spohr's and David’s instructions I applied vibrato with varying degrees of speed and intensity at the high points of a musical phrase and on accents, or to vary the quality of sustained notes. On the fermata at the beginning of David's interpolated cadenza in the Andante of K. 424 [pasted manuscript at the bottom of p.11]  I attempted a vibrato of the type described by Leopold Mozart and also illustrated by Spohr, which begins slowly and increases in speed. 

Bowing

Seamless legato was a fundamental feature of 19th-century performance, in which smoothness of bow-change was cultivated to a high degree. I aimed to sustain and connect notes whenever an articulation was not specifically indicated by a rest; in a few cases the most imperceptible bow change possible was required, for instance in the sustained g' in bar 31 of the K. 423 Adagio [p.4, s.12, b.2]. I did not necessarily regard staccato marks as indicating a significant separation between notes [see Brown, 1999: 168] and generally made no pronounced break. There is much documentary and circumstantial evidence to support the view that David would have understood the notation in this manner. His insertion of printed rests at the beginning of the Rondo in K. 423 and at the beginning of the last movement of K. 424, strongly suggests that he felt that by default the notes would have been given greater length. The use of rests rather than staccato marks to specify separation can be seen in the notational practices of many mid-19th-century composers, including Mendelssohn [see Brown, 2008b].

In choosing bowstrokes for more rapid figures I was guided by the instructions in David's Violinschule. We performed the majority of unslurred rapid notes with various lengths of détaché (David's liegender Bogen / on the string) or martelé (David's fester Strich an der Spitze / firm stroke at the point). Where notes marked with staccato dots or horizontal lines occurred under slurs, I employed various gradations of slurred staccato near the point or longer portato strokes depending on context. David indicated no hopping or springing bowstrokes in these Duos, and we did not use any.

Dynamics

On listening to the recording it was clear to me that, although we made many of the dynamic nuances indicated by his printed or handwritten annotations effective, we did not do full justice to David's dynamic scheme. Greater contrast between the extremes was sometimes needed; I think we often failed to achieve a genuine pianissimo.

Technique in general 

Until the end of 2011 my posture and technique were essentially modern. Since then I have been experimenting intensively with handling the instrument in a manner that accords more closely with known 19th-century practices (see my article ‘Physical parameters of 19th and early 20th-century violin playing’). This meant adopting the low right elbow position, much maligned by modern violinists, and the old German bow grip. It also involved a radical rethinking of the way in which I hold the violin and use my left hand. I play without a shoulder rest, using only a very thin (less than a centimetre) foam pad under my shirt to prevent bruising to the collar bone when I play in shirt sleeves (David recommended ‘a cloth or a small cushion’ [David, 1863: i, 5]. I have changed my modern, fairly substantial chin rest for a small and very low late-19th-century one. David, however, as far as we can tell, did not use a chin rest at all, despite Spohr having introduced one before David studied with him. Consequently, if one is to hold the instrument horizontally, as instructed in all the major 19th-century methods, it must be supported continuously by the left hand.

For the most part this means that the neck rests between the top joint of the thumb and the third joint of the index finger. In modern playing the base of the index finger is generally kept clear of the neck as much as possible to facilitate vibrato, while for David it is only removed from the neck if the player wants to introduce an ornamental vibrato. 

When changing position, the hand can easily advance to third position without disturbing the location of the violin, since it is being pressed against the neck. In descending, however, I make the thumb precede the rest of the hand into a lower position as instructed by David and Joachim; this is a technique I did not previously use, having moved the whole hand in a more or less constantly maintained shape at least as high as fifth position.

As yet I have been unable to find more detailed information about the movement of the left thumb, but I am coming increasingly to the conclusion that David and his colleagues, relying on the left hand rather than the chin to support the instrument in its playing position, must have employed the thumb much more as a pivot than is done in modern violin playing. This is strongly suggested by some of the fingering patterns that occur in 19th-century sources, particularly when upward and downward portamento shifts occur in rapid succession. To date I have not encountered sufficiently explicit documentary evidence to confirm the details of such procedures, but circumstantial evidence convinces me that the violinists of that period must have employed the thumb in something like this manner. When, for instance, there is a change from third to fifth positions followed shortly by a return to third, I have experimented with adopting a thumb location somewhat more advanced towards the body of the violin than usual in third position, and retaining that placement of the thumb while the rest of the hand moves to fifth position and then returns to third. One instance in our Duo recordings occurs at bars 55-6 of the Bb-Major Duo first movement [p.9, s.1, bb.5-7]; during these successive 1st fingers I kept the thumb in the same place on the neck throughout.

I do not yet feel entirely secure with these left-hand experiments, and this sometimes shows in unreliable intonation, but I am becoming increasingly comfortable with them, and find that they are particularly conducive to producing controlled portamento.

C3 b) Performance Perspectives – Viola Part (David Milsom)

NOTE: It is intended that the reader will refer, for illustrations, to the downloadable pdf copies of Ferdinand David's performing parts available through the CHASE website [view]. Hyperlinks within the text lead to an online view that includes, pop-up annotations via clickable boxes. References to these copies are given in the form [p.1, s.1, b.1] (i.e. page 1, stave 1, bar 1).

General Observations

Whilst the purpose of the experimental recordings made as part of this project is to illustrate, in as much as the evidence allows, how Ferdinand David might have performed these Duos in Leipzig in the 19th century, we acknowledge fully the ultimately unrealisable nature of this goal. This is underlined by looking at the viola parts of these duos, which raise at least as many questions as they answer. David, as observed above, marked up the violin parts in considerable detail, but this level of detail is not reflected in the viola parts. The G-Major Duo in particular has few markings, and none in the rondo Finale. The B-flat Duo is rather better in this regard (and of course, there is the fascinating and potentially important intelligence of the pasted-in pizzicato version of the slow movement), but in numerous places performance information is relatively scant. In respect of bowing and fingering – parameters that naturally give rise to a degree of ‘personalisation’ by performers in order to bring about an effective and individually-practicable performance – decisions need to be made, and the bases of these decisions engender an amount of (informed) guesswork. It is never clear, with printed bowings, for example, whether or not a scheme is intended to be comprehensive, or whether the bow indications that are given are simply indicative. Fingerings come into the same category, and where markings are absent, one must reasonably assume that something other than staying in one position might be practised. In the first movement of K. 423, for example, the first printed fingering occurs in bar 32 [p.2, s.5, b.6]; whilst it is possible that all of the movement up to this point (approximately two-thirds of the exposition) is taken in the first position, it seems (to me at least) relatively unlikely that a player of David’s calibre would restrict himself to such elementary solutions. This gives rise to the fingerings I employ at bars 5, 26, and 30, for example, all of which (and the sliding 4th finger to a harmonic in bar 5 in particular) are meant to reflect the fingering systems associated with David and this performance tradition.

The purpose of our recorded performance is, on one level, to put into practice the content of the printed edition and, where evident, the hand-written markings by David, the latter taking precedence where a disparity opened up. On another level, an attempt was made to present a creative response to the score, contextualised by our scholarship into the practices of this ‘school’. Obviously, there is much that can be learnt only from recorded sound and, to adapt a well-known saying, ‘a recorded note is worth more than a thousand words’ in this respect. Ferdinand David did not live long enough to make recordings, of course, and the absence of actual aural evidence (particularly one considers the gap between theory and practice, as I have done in respect of recording artists [see my AHRC Fellowship project] severely limits any claims of verisimilitude we may make. Having said this, we have tried to reflect a context of scholarship regarding all available surviving documents including, crucially, early recordings.

As some have argued, the attempt to project stylistic traits ‘backwards’ can be methodologically flawed, since it is impossible to quantify the extent and nature of changes over time [see, for example, Bowen, 1996]. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson argues that numerous tiny changes to style and reception can be cumulative [see Leech-Wilkinson, 2010). Nonetheless, I have always argued that, if the artists in question are selected with care and the observed features treated with all due circumspection, this approach has so much to offer our understanding that it would be perverse to discount it. As a consequence, the sound world (especially as regards two of the most obvious traits – vibrato and portamento) interfaces not only with the paper evidence of the period, but also with sound recordings made by relevant violinists who are likely to have retained at least something of the architecture of David’s sound, albeit filtered through subsequent stylistic changes and indeed personal preferences. In this respect, recordings by Joseph Joachim and his evidentially-faithful pupil, Marie Soldat are invaluable, even when transmitted via the murky portal of acoustic recording. (Joachim’s complete recordings of 1903 for the Gramophone & Typewriter company have been re-issued on OPALCD 9851; Soldat’s complete recordings of c.1920-1926 on the Union A label were re-issued some decades ago in James Creighton’s LP Masters of the Bow series, MB1019). In more general matters of musicianship – what one might term generically ‘phrasing’ and ‘tempo flexibility’ – these recordings can be supplemented by a significant further body of evidence, including the Welte-Mignon and Hupfeld piano rolls made in c.1905-1907 by Leipzig-based pianist (and colleague of Ferdinand David) Carl Reinecke (1824-1910). These are analysed and discussed extensively in Peres Da Costa, 2012.

My approach to playing the viola parts is clear from listening to the performances whilst following David’s performing parts, but it is perhaps useful to outline some examples of performance decisions I took in the recording sessions.

Style and Approach – Viola as Accompaniment or Duo Partnership?

A generic problem with attempting historically-motivated performance is that it is all too easy to read historical evidence (or indeed, listen to it) with the eyes and ears of the present. This much is obvious, but some of the limitations can be easily overlooked. A guiding principle in appraising 19th-century performance style from today's viewpoint, is that many aspects of taste have changed so much in the intervening period that what was considered 'good' then is often now deemed to be ‘bad’. For example, informality of rhythms, tempo flexibility (especially when this includes ‘rushing’),departures from the musical text, portamento slides, etc. are not generally embraced by present-day performers – at least, not to the extent perceived through early recordings. Epitomising this change of attitude, one might consider Joachim and Moser's criticism of Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881) for his inability to 'read between the lines' – a charge that implies an expectation of interpretational freedom from the performer [Brown, 2003].

Trying to meet the past on its own terms is an established philosophy in many facets of HIP. Despite this, there is still a degree of reticence to practice style traits that are (for reasons that strike me as unaccountable) deemed ‘dangerous’ (the portamento in particular [see Brown, 2010: 480]). Furthermore, modern players involved in HIP often still fail to question a number of principles in performance that have been arrived at mimetically through the pedagogic agency of the 20th century. These include:

1. Precision of intonation (usually ‘equal temperament’ or received notions of Casals’ ‘expressive intonation’)
   
2. Precision of ensemble
   
3. In chamber music, a democratic ideal of music making with ‘give and take’ between the players, allowing melodic material to be always in the foreground with accompanimental material keeping time with it in the background.
   

In contention with point 3, however, it is clear from descriptions of tempo rubato in respect of accompanimental figures (which should maintain strict time) and melodies (which might be free) that synchrony was not necessarily the aim of the 18th- and 19th-century chamber musician. Indeed, melodies might ‘follow’ accompaniments rather than the other way round, making for a very different balance of ensemble priorities. Such matters are well accounted for in the surviving literature; for example, Spohr’s description of concerto playing and orchestral playing in his Violinschule assigns a lower status to orchestral players, who must avoid the solo embellishments (including tempo rubato) that he describes as ‘fine style':

The division of each part of a bar, according to the value of its time, must in Orchestral playing be strictly observed. The tempo rubato (a slight delay on single or more notes)…[DM – this in itself is an interesting definition of the tempo rubato]…in the Solo of great effect cannot here be tolerated.’  [Spohr, 1843: 231]

The recorded evidence of ensemble practices of, say, the Klingler Quartet [see Brown, 2006: 41-42], or the independence of left and right hands heard on piano rolls made by Reinecke [a particularly revealing example is discussed ibidem: 37] further supports this view. The implications of ‘rank’ (given the more hierarchical structure of past societies) also impinge here in a way that is conspicuously at variance with modern ideals.

As regards Ferdinand David himself, his high standing in Leipzig, as well as some less-than-complimentary accounts of his performance style, testify at the very least to a strong artistic personality who may have dominated the texture of Duos such as these. Thus, he was criticised for his ‘virtuoso’ approach to quartet leading which might imply that, for him at least, the role was imbued with greater liberties than for the others, as Otto Jahn in Der Grenzbote felt in 1855:

Unfortunately he developed an ever-forced manner, which is opposed to the self-effacement which is indispensable in Quartet playing. Moreover, he introduced all sorts of cheap (effects) to give piquancy to the works of Haydn and Mozart. The manner in which Herr David coquets especially in Haydn quartets, as if he wanted to show what he can make out of a Haydn quartet how […] for instance, he plays accompaniment figures, as if he wanted to say ‘Thus accompanies the first violin’ is boastful and in bad taste. [Milsom, 2003: 19]

Jahn’s criticism suggests that David was out of step with contemporary ideals of performance taste – one might assume that the reviewer subscribed to the current notion of good chamber playing in which such exposure of the first violin is deemed inappropriate, although, of course, such qualitative judgements are comparative and to suggest that Jahn agreed with modern practice is perhaps disingenuous. More than twenty years earlier, however, David’s teacher, Louis Spohr, indicated that chamber music playing embodied characteristics familiar to present-day estimations of good practice: 

The delivery of the regular Quartett [sic] demands a very different treatment. In such a composition it is not intended that one instrument should exclusively predominate, but that each should enter into the spirit of the Composer and delineate it accordingly.

The power of tone of the first violin and the manner of playing must be in keeping with the rest, and where it is not the principal it should remain subordinate. As the style of delivery should always proceed from the idea and spirit of the composition, it is required of the Solo player, in the Quartett to lay aside his peculiar manner of Solo playing, and accommodate himself to the character of the Music. Until he be capable of this, he cannot discern the character of the separate parts of the Quartett and give proper effect to the variety of style displayed in classical compositions. [Spohr, 1843: 230.]

Whether or not Spohr and Jahn are in implicit agreement is unquantifiable. Perhaps it is simply David’s embellishments that Jahn dislikes. Whether or not David’s re-scoring of the viola part of the B-flat Duo's second movement comes into this category is open for debate – whilst such an act would perhaps be unthinkable to today’s musicians, it must be noted that the reviewer of the 1870 Leipzig performance made particular mention of its enthusiastic reception. What all of this does imply (perhaps not surprisingly) is that David had a strong soloistic personality even when playing chamber music. As a consequence, and knowing that David performed the viola part in these Duos, it seems plausible to assert that the viola part is at least rendered equal to the violin part here. This allows for a slightly more ‘embellished’ approach to the viola part in terms of performance style (tone colouration, expressive fingerings, bowings, dynamic balance, tempo and rhythm flexibility, etc.) than might be implied by the scant markings in the viola part. This, of course, necessitates adding to David’s markings (especially in the case of K. 423), by a combination of reflecting the style and nature of the markings David made in the violin part as well as practising traits of style learned from previous academic and experiential scholarship.

Accompaniment figures

A striking feature of the performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 5 (first movement) by Marie Soldat [Soldat, 192?] is the inequality granted to running 1/16-note figures, which is corroborated by other early aural evidence by the first generation of players to make records. The relevance of this to the Duo project here is obvious: Soldat’s performance (in the absence of such repertoire being recorded by Joachim) gives us a valuable glimpse of how a musician trained in the stylistic approach of the late-19th-century ‘German school' might approach the material. Marie Soldat's genealogical connections to the 'classical German school' (and to Brahms and Joachim in particular) are discussed in Milsom, 2012: 31-52. As Clive Brown has argued, this has much in common with 18th-century ideals of inequality with which Mozart would have been familiar [see Brown, 2006: especially 34-41]. This approach is endemic in early recordings. Reinecke’s piano rolls are full of such inequality of parts, as well as manipulations of equal note values to favour harmonically-or metrically-significant notes, as in his performances of Field’s Nocturne no. 4 [Reinecke, c.1905-7, viewable on Youtube] or his own Ballade, op. 20 [Reinecke, c.1905-7, viewable on Youtube], for example. I have tried to reflect such matters in relevant passages in the Duo recordings; for instance, bars 114 and 118-119 of K. 423 mvt I, bar 2 of K. 423 mvt II, and bar 51 of K. 424 mvt I, as well as numerous other places. More generally, I attempted to perform with a degree of rhythmic informality: ‘swinging’ rhythms in a manner that is prevalent in Reinecke’s piano rolls, and varying the performance of dotted figures commensurately (as in Variation 1 of the K. 434 Finale).

Pizzicato 2nd Movement – Bb-Major Duo

The pizzicato movement presented a number of challenges. David’s re-scoring is technically very awkward, and the span of some of the quadruple-stopped chords (particularly in bar 8) attests to the flexibility of his hands. I decided to adopt Louis Spohr’s advice to place the viola in a ‘banjo position’ (under the right arm), given that the entire movement is pizzicato:

If only a few tones are to be played pizzicato, and the coll’arco following quickly after it, the Violin is to remain in its ordinary position. The bow then is taken in the full hand, and held at the nut by the three last fingers of the right hand; but the thumb is placed with the ball of the hand against the lower edge of the fingerboard, when the string is pulled with the point of the first finger.

But if the pizzicato continues for a time, or if a pause precedes the coll’arco, it is better to take the Violin down. It is then placed with its back against the right side of the body and supported with the right back arm. The bow is to be held in the above stated manner; in lieu of the thumb, however, the first finger is placed against the fingerboard (yet a little distance from the edge,) and the string pulled with the thumb.

This method, in long passages, is preferable, as the pizzicato with the thumb produces a fuller and clearer sound than with the first finger.’  [Spohr, 1843: 154]

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TITLE PAGE, Abstract, Acknowledgements, Citation 
Part A: INTRODUCTION (David Milsom & Clive Brown)
Part B: FERDINAND DAVID’S EDITION IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT (David Milsom) 
Part C: PERFORMING FERDINAND DAVID’S REALISATION OF THE MOZART VIOLIN & VIOLA DUOS (David Milsom & Clive Brown) 
Part D: EXPERIMENTAL RECORDINGS (Clive Brown – violin; David Milsom – viola) 
Part E: CONCLUSIONS (David Milsom) 
Part F: LIST OF REFERENCES