CHASE

Marginal markings for the engraver to alter the plates.

The / here, which is not connected with a marginal mark, seems clearly to indicate portamento. The immediately preceding and following occurrences of this figure all involve a position change up the same string during the slur; here it would be possible to play it cleanly, but David reminds himself to place the first finger behind the nut on the A-string so that he can produce a similar portamento. Such slides to and from open strings are described in the pedagogical literature of the time, for instance at the beginning of the Adagio of Rode's A minor Violin Concerto in Spohr's Violinschule.

The date 29 Oct. 1870 presumably refers to a performance by David for which he required a page turner (Umwender), for whom the instruction 'das erste Th[eil] / gerade durch - den 2t wiederholt' (the first part straight through - the 2nd repeated) was intended.

This is almost certainly an indication for vibrato.