The Developing Violin

Author(s): Jaap Schröder, Christopher Hogwood and Clare Almond

Source: Early Music, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Apr., 1979), pp. 155-165
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3126334
Accessed: 15-05-2020 23:23 UTC

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.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Early Music

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ed : : ... ::

JAAP SCHRODER in conversation with

edited by Clare Almond

In the BBC series 'The Complete Music Mast

discussed with various eminent specialists on ea
problems attendant on the search for authentic
sion with Jaap Schroder, the Dutch baroque
Radio 3 on 29 July 1977. It opened with a recor
of Boccherini's Quartet op. 32 no. 6 in A major,

CHRISTOPHER HOGWOOD: Although the sound o

become relatively familiar nowadays, I think
18th-century string quartet is comparatively u
was played by the Quartetto Esterhazy, which
well-known baroque violinist. It would be as
distinction between types of violin, rather tha
musical history.
JAAP SCHRODER: I tend to hate the expression
actually playing classical music in the Quartett
baroque violin? In fact the baroque violin devel
violin and
Two violins from Clare Almond's collection. was first constructed in approximat
Above:
century,
violin by Tomasso Carcassi (1786), as we
now restored to know from a fresco in northern

the
baroque condition. Below: violin violin
byJohannes has an uninterrupted history of t
Antonius Gedler (1762)--originally a baroque
another. The history of the bow is also very co
instrument but now 'modernized'. Compare
different patterns that it is difficult to put th
particularly the difference in length, shape and
angle of the necks and the lengthalmost
of the impossible to put dates on types of bow
fingerboards. (Photos by courtesythat the bow gains in weight as it develops and
of Sotheby's)

155

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

sound produced by the same violin?
Js: I have here two different early bows. One is even concave [outcurved at
playing tension] and it may be from around 1700. (Demonstration of a bow
similar to illus. 1.) The other bow is from the middle of the 18th century and
1, 2
Leti: 'Baroque' bow, made byJuhan Clark after
Tononi (ft 1700-10), with an outcurved fluted
stick and head, reeded from handhold to button. It
has iree hair channels in thefrog; the material is a
variet.y o/snmakewood
Right:Julian Clark's copy of an English bow,
c1790, with incurved round stick developedfrom
octagon in rear third. With channels as in (1), the
material is pernambuco.
Each bow 'head'is in scale with its own 'tail'
156
This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
ments of the music. Our experience is showing that each type of bow
belongs to a type of violin.
CH: How much difference, though, would a change of bow make to the
is still of the baroque type. I even use it for Mozart-you can see it in an
illustration of Leopold Mozart playing with his son.3 (Demonstration of an
original bow c1760.) Even through the microphone you can hear it has more
crispness.
CH: Also the Italian and French styles of bowing will partially change the
sound of the instrument and the effect of the music.
Js: Actually, I played that minuet in the French style. The Italians were
more-one could say-careless; they just bowed up and down.
The Italian style4
S V - V V " V V V MV " IV V" V
T h e ,I sI ' I'M10
The French style
v "
p,,,= =' R E"
I 1 " "V"
op I I I l 11 I" I I 11
CH: The French style definitely suggests much more lift
dance like the Loure, then, is perhaps the epitome of this
js: The Loure is of Spanish origin and must have a ver
tion. The Loure we are thinking of, probably, is in th
Bach. Nineteenth-century developments in violin pl
tunately made it a kind of 'Romance' with long lines
whereas I am convinced it should have much more rhyth
(Here Jaap Schroder played the opening of the Loure from B
B WV 1006.)
But of course with an old bow this accentuation is much
than with a modern bow. One of the fundamental exercises in modern
violin study is to change bows at the point without actually hearing it an
that's exactly the opposite to playing older music where all the notes
much more articulated.
CH: So in fact there is always a dying-away of any note as you approach the
point of the bow.
js: More or less. It can be irritating if you do it too much on each note but
even Leopold Mozart says that each note starts with a crescendo and ends
with a diminuendo,5 so the note is never quite 'horizontal' in sound.
(Demonstration of the messa di voce.)
CH: It's very noticeable, I think, that one of the failings of' modern
orchestras when playing 18th-century music is that if you cut into a bar of
music on a weak beat, you wouldn't know for quite a long time which beat
you were on because one is taught as a virtue to accentuate everything
equally.
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Jaap Schr6der (photo by courtesy of Decca Records)
This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
As well as the effect on ensemble playing of the bowing styles you
demonstrated and the dying on each note, there was the increase in
technical exploitation of the violin from the 17th to the 18th century which
accounts also for the varying advice one gets on styles of ornamentation
and decoration.
Js: It is very important to realize that styles of ornamentation were very
different in the 17th and 18th centuries. When the violin came out of the
Renaissance, ornamentation was more like variation and diminution than
what we call embellishment. There is an old German book with fiddle
music by Wolf Gerhard which dates from 16136 and this, of course, w
when violinists wanted to play around and discover the possibilities of th
instruments. Just a short example of this-Gerhard takes an old Germ
song and then there is a slight variation or diminution:
'Gleich wie ein Fisch'
diminution
" IG=i! '.. .t-.--..- "
Of course the violinist had to break free fr
which was tuned differently, in fourths-the v
viol principally made fast scales, but there wer
chords which were much easier on the viol
ornamentation just plays around and fills up l
up into shorter notes. If I may demonstrate t
and 18th centuries. Take a cadence like V-I in C. There are a lot of 17th-
century manuals indicating how it should be done, breaking the long note
up into shorter ones.
A 4 0,- 'M I
In the 18th century when expre
played:
05k IIL.
... which gives the character of that period and a more heart-felt melodic
expression. There were certain ornaments, especially the trills, which had
all kinds of different names in the 17th century-groppo, trillo, tremolo.
course it is also a question of knowing what they meant by these wor
they later acquired different meanings. I have read that Monteverdi reco
mended a singer because he had such a beautiful tremolo (meaning th
repeated note in a cadence), and on the violin this is what happens wh
you move...
V__ _______________
which in the 18th
century would
r-
have been...
157
 which is quite different of course.
CH: I think a good example of this might be a complete work by Uccellini.
Js: Yes. Not long ago I transcribed the Second Sonata from his opus 4; it
gives a good example of this first period of virtuoso violin playing when the
fingerboard was 'discovered'. Uccellini was a famous virtuoso himself and
in his time he was quite exceptional. This Sonata is a good example of his
exuberant, fresh way of approaching violin technique. (Performance by both
musicians of Uccellini's Sonata in Bflat major op. 4 no. 2.)
CH: That was a good demonstration of the use of affetti, particularly the
repeated-note trillo. As we move on through Italian writings it is quite
obvious that the style of ornamentation that was either recommended or
approved by Corelli meant that the player had to have a good grasp of the
harmony that was implicit in any piece.
js: Yes, exactly. The Italian way of embellishing was later called in German
'willkdrliche Manieren', which meant that they were improvised; the
'wesentliche Manieren', the essential ornaments characteristic of the
French style, were noted down. Couperin was very severe about this and
wanted to have his compositions played exactly as they were, with the
ornaments he wrote down. In Italy the slower movements were meant to be
embellished, and it is important to know how far you want to go because
the Corelli generation embellished in a way which was certainly suited to
that period [i.e. fairly simply-not filling out the melody with many extra
notes]. If we go further on into the century with Geminiani, who was one
generation later, and then move into the later 18th century with Nardini we
see how the ornamentation becomes more crowded and finally degenerates
into a kind of variation where you don't recognize the melody. (The
melody is not worth being recognized perhaps!)
CH : I think we should play a small fragment of Corelli in its basic form with
these ornaments in sequence.
js: Yes. Take the Sonata in A major just with the notes as they are in the first
edition-so, without any embellishment:

Corelli: Sonata op. 5 no. 9

A .4

r I I I I I S f
Now we actually have different embellished versions of
tion later, Geminiani8 edited the Corelli sonatas and not
them but in some instances even made a paraphrase. Th
Geminiani version is like this:

A ?i ? - b s
ho"s
a :P
a pilr? ISO F
A&A M

I P dw
gm I - M- I 't
M .J iL
I
I W Of --hub 9
,001

We possess also a version by the famous violinist Dubourg,9 who played

under Handel, already more crowded:

A Ar &
j-1 at-

and going in the dir

not all the notes are

158

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 way Tartini embellishes these bars, because there is one thing that I think is
typically Tartini at the end-the way he handles this little appogiatura.
Especially this-coming back on the upper note, with the triplet ending.

a LT R IA I : a J 1 F=

And so we could g
preserved in English
again is fairly crow
putting in as many n

Ir 0"

Leopold Mozart playing the violin under his chin

(Versuch einer Grindlichen Violinschule, CH: Obvio
Fig. II) slow mov
movemen
Js: No. In
much spa
poser-ha
perhaps, t
and then

Corelli: So
Giga Allegro

Geminiani -

6 6 6
5

A g 4+
2

159

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 1* i

A iii I . j - do

- - 6 7 7

~ I S 7 O

low

8 w Nil 1I
I,, -. 5

There are certain laws of ornamentation and one is that it should add to

the expressiveness of the melody, and also it has to add a sense of climax.
CH: It's almost as difficult, I think, for us to see through an ornamented
version of music to its basic form, as it is for us to take a simple form such
as Corelli offers and ornament it. I think much Bach suffers in perform-
ance from this blindness to the basic structure because he gave us what we
are always asking for-a complete set of embellishments. Is it possible t
reveal the skeleton plan underneath?
Js: Yes. You are' probably thinking of the adagios at the beginning of the
solo sonatas which are simply slow movements in Italian style. You can
bring them back to a skeleton of essential notes:

Bach BWV 1001: skeletal Adagio theme

prl
01
IL . Li-
?t N
.-. . r-'
-/-,
, - - ,
I

This could p
now play the
notes are me
harmony, an
Schroder playe
CH: It's quite
more consc
harmonic rat
Js: Yes. Essen
much more
SO the low
the lower note has more resonance.

160

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Bach BWV 1001: Adagio

....., /r O g' I
I.. I I ' I I I I j , ; I
EP -AL

CH: It lasts long enough to provide t

js: Yes. In modern playing of cours
and two-with the stress on the high
CH: It's curious, isn't it, that so shor
tutor of 1756, which is taken as t
Geminiani's 'he Art of Playing the Vi
real epitome of the baroque tradition
js: Well, in a certain sense they ha
coincidence that they appeared at th
meant to instruct students who wan
the earlier tutors are for the amateu
Frontispiece to the Parisian edition of Geminiani'
in playing the violin.
treatlise (1752,) CH: Also the idea of emotionalism in
.. . .... . .. .. .. . and people wanted it explained to
dii ? business of being passionate. But o
js: On the technical side we have to
like this with a contemporary me
poor. Without any doubt Leopol
. I
book-by the second page you are a
.ar. W time he used violin duets, as in ot
slightly later. That's a very fine way
learn about intonation problems mu
CH: Then in the case of Gerniniani,
of Playing the Violin as a guide to play
Js: No. You can see in his exercises t
of bowing, of different small bow st
course rhythm has much more to do
and in this respect I also think of'Tar
great number of very difficult bow
his theme one of'the gavottes from
161

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Corelli: Sonata op. 5 no. 10

Geminiani just uses a series of non-important notes:

The Art .. . ex. 9

.) . 4L I -'--
Below and opposite:Jfront views ofICarcassi and
Gedler violins shown on p. 15 5. Notice the absence
and then he writes a great number of'variations. In fact there is a continuo
in the baroque violin of E-string tuner, covered
bass written underneath, which Geminiani and others did at that time. I
strings, mute and chin rest
will play.just a few to give you an idea:

---)I I -- I -I I

i1 w F Wlloop

' -- - ' -- --- ' " - I

m lL -
If 191 -- w
r,- i -
- : : L Y . , I L ' a I - " 6
;.," ~ ~ ~ -da -,--- --moo" ' ,_

... not too difficult in comparison with

bowing."
CH: These are more or less the half-way stage between divisions on a tune,
of which I suppose Tartini's are an extension, and exercises on a theme. HAe
[Geminianil calls them merely examples.
js: At the end of the tutor you will find a number of separate movements
which have some musical value and which you can make into a sonata.if
you wish.
CH: With expression very carefully marked too.
js: Yes, and he's not the only one. In the Preface to his Sonatas op. 2
Veracini indicates the uses of' all kinds of signs for decrescendo and
crescendo.' Of course dynamics become more important in the course of
the century, but they were not always notated and the differences were not
as great as now.
CH: I think a lot of the rules as applied by Quantz to expressive playing on
the flute can be transferred to the violin.
js: Yes, Quantz's is only in part a flute tutor. It's more a compendium of
playing style for all instruments.'3 When, for instance, I think of a late tutor
162

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 like Cambini's,'4 I see a definite difference in taste. He takes a simple
melody from a Haydn quartet and goes into high positions, with glissandi
even, and implies that this is the real art of making music.
CH: What evidence do we have for methods of shifting into higher
positions-thinking particularly of things like the chin rest? How much
difference does this make to where and how you can shift in 18th-century
music?

js: The chin rest did not appear until the 19th century-with Ludwig
Spohr-and then it was only a small piece of ebony attached to the tail-
piece. In the 18th century the violin lay on the collar bone and gradually, in
the course of the century, there was some pressure from the chin on the
tailpiece, first of all on the right-hand side. The tutors all describe this very
differently. But shifting without a chin rest is a problem, of course. It's not
at all like modern technique. Shifting up is not so difficult but coming
down is more complicated. The left hand does not have the same position
as in modern playing, it's more in contact with the whole violin, supports
it, and has to crawl back into first position when it has been in a higher
position. But certainly the fact that there is no chin rest influences the
choice of fingering. It's not just a historical curiosity that I am not using a
chin rest; it helps a lot in finding the right articulation. First of all in
coming down you have to shift between bow strokes so that you don't hear
the shift. That's very essential.

shift here (silently)

shift here (silently)

In the later legato style of playing there were longer bow strokes, so the
problem was to shift without too much noise. In this series of notes in one
bow stroke you hear a big shift:

s e y 0

shift here (very audibly)

so they developed a system

jumps used in earlier music.

2 2
2 ?j

) i0
shift here (silently)

CH: But that implies a syst

fingering.
js: Indeed, articulation was much more worked-out than in later music..
Baroque music was more like speech; it had a more rhetorical quality.
CH: One of the basic difficulties is that one has become used to the idea that
all articulation is indicated by the composer. Nowadays an unmarked line
is assumed to be legato, as we said before, whereas in the 18th century they
would have assumed it to be non legato, as you explained with the system
of shifting.
js: Essentially non legato. If, for instance, you look at an early string
163

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 quartet by Haydn in the first e
music, with almost no slurs or d
century edition of the same quar
added. Visually it makes a big dif
CH: But also implicit in the syste
.~i~tc~:V. IIV.m the shift while there's a legato lin
not part of modern violin playing
Js: That's because of our steel E

c7: :VeE which has a harsh, shrill soun

melody is on the E string. The gu
fewer problems in using that str
was a connection between diff
positions, using open strings a
??

vibrato.'" Vibrato was consid

applied and in some instances ind
CH: It's noticeable too that the
use vibrato only for tender and
Holding of the bow, in Leopold Mozart
js: Of course we can apply vi
Violinschule. Fig. IV shows the correct way
indicated. You have to see vibr
bringing more tension to it; th
question of taste.
CH: The timbre of' the 18th-ce
style mean that you get a much
sonatas for example.
js: Absolutely. The fortepiano its
and high registers.
CH: Do you think that the indica
ance are applicable to all music at
to his son's music, or was ther
playing style?
js: Well it's certainly valuable to apply thisto a great deal of'what Wolfgang
Mozart has written. For his late music you may think of' a slightly more
aggressive style of playing. A bow [as in illus. 2, p. 1561 ofa slightly different
type to Leopold Mozart's might be used to get some more dramatic effect.
CH: What difference do you find the use of' 18th-century instruments makes
in ensemble since you have recorded quartets and concertos on authentic
instruments?

js: Well the first striking thing is that there is more transparence-each
instrument comes through more clearly. There is no real problem of
balance, probably because the dynamic range of the instrument was much
narrower than in modern instruments. We find articulation makes up for
this, and also the dynamic was not an independent means of expression as
it became in the 19th century.
CH: IS there any help in Leopold's treatise for the solo violinist in
Wolfgang's concertos-for example, about embellishing and cadenzas?
js: I think the most important aid is to look at Mozart's own cadenzas for
Shis piano concertos. They're the exact parallel and if you stick to those
principles you will have the ideal way of making cadenzas.
CH: When you recorded the concertos did you find original sources for the
cadenzas or were they your own?
Js: Entirely my own. I used the material of the movement of course, which
164

This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Frontispiece to Michel Corrette's L'Ecole
d'Orph&e
1 An edited and annotated version of his
conversation with the Belgian violist Wieland in the section concerning the French manner Quantz mentions a vibrato that 'is not too
Kuijken was published in Early Music, 6/1
(January 1978), pp. 4-11.
2 This fresco in the church of S. Maria dei
This content downloaded from 178.166.81.120 on Fri, 15 May 2020 23:23:08 UTC
you have to do but I tried to stay as much as possible, in matters of length
and style, in the spirit of the movement.
The programme ended with Jaap Schrdder playing his own cadenza to the first
movement of the Mozart Concerto in D major, K21 1, in a performance recorded on the
Philips SEON label (6775 012).
Miracoli, Saronno, is by Gaudenzio Ferrari 7 Uccellini, Sonata op. 4 no. 2 detta La
(1535/6). An even earlier representation of a Luciminia Contenta (Antwerp, c 1639-45). A
true violin, Garofalo's painting (1505/8) in copy is preserved in Durham Cathedral
the Palazzo di Ludovico il Moro, Ferrara, is Library.
reproduced in Mary Remnant, Musical 8 London, c 1740.
Instruments of the West (London, 1978), illus. 9 London, c 1750.
45 (p. 58). 10 Giuseppe Tartini, L'Arte del Arco. First
3 Louis Carmontelle's portrait of the Mozart printed 'from a manuscript of the author' in
family in 1763-father, son and daughter- Cartier, L'Art du Violon (Paris, 1798). Each
is in the Mozarteum, Salzburg. Another variation covers an aspect of virtuoso bowing
portrait by him, showing only father and technique, neither is left-hand technique
son, is probably the original on which this ignored.
was based. " Geminiani, op cit, gives an exercise (ex.
4 The minuet example is taken from Georg 24) which can begin with an up- or a down-
Muffat, Florilegium secundum (Passau, 1698; bow. The same principle could be applied to
modern edition, Denkmdler der Tonkunst in any of the examples here but there is no
Osterreich, 4) but the bowing in both cases is practice intended for slurred bowings. For
Jaap Schr6der's. this see exx. 16, 17, 21, and ex. 8 on p. 4 of
5 'Begin the down stroke or up stroke with a the Preface for 'this wretched rule of down
pleasant softness; increase the tone by means bow'.
of an imperceptible increase of pressure; let 12 Veracini, Sonati Accademiche, dedicated to
the greatest volume of tone occur in the August III of Polonia and Saxony (Florence
middle of the bar, after which, moderate it and London, 1744). Examples are: * note
by degrees by relaxing the pressure of the starts p grows tofand diminishes to p (messa
bow until at the end of the bow the tone dies di voce), A note startsfand diminishes to p,
completely away.' Versuch einer griindlicher v note starts p and increases tof.
Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756); trans. E. 13 Of relevance to this discussion are the
Knocker, A Treatise on the Fundamental sections on expressive playing in Quantz,
Principles of Violin Playing (London, 2/1951), Versuch ... (Berlin, 1752; trans. E. R. Reilly,
p. 97. On playing theflute, New York and London,
There is remarkable unanimity amongst 1966), chapters 11, 12 and 14.
18th-century writers on the subject of the 14 Cambini, Violin School (Paris, 1803).
inessa di voce : 15 Leopold Mozart calls vibrato 'tremolo',
Compare Geminiani's comments: 'In 'tremulant' or 'tremoleto' and abhors its use
playing all long notes the sound should be on any but long notes: 'Therefore a closing
begun soft, and gradually swelled till the note or any other sustained note may be
middle, then gradually softened to the end.' decorated with a tremolo (tremoleto)' (op cit,
The Art of Playing on the Violin (London, 1751), p. 204). He also describes both a fast and a
facsimile ed. David Boyden (London, n.d.), slow vibrato and a third type where the rate
is increased from slow to fast.
Preface p. 2.
L'Abb? le Fils exhorts:'... il faut le Geminiani also describes both fast and slow
commencer foiblement, l'enfler par degre, vibrato, calls it the 'close shake' and
... et ensuite l'addoucir ... par dgr&.' [Youadvocates its use on long and short notes: 'it
must start it (the sound) quietly, increase it should be made use of as often as possible'
gradually and then soften it gradually.] (op cit, Preface p. 8). Compare his comments
Principes de violon (Paris, 1772; R Geneva, with Robert Bremner, Some Thoughts on the
1976), p. 1. Performance of Concert Music, Preface to
as does Michel Corrette: '... il faut Schetky, Six Quartettos Op. VI (London,
commencer le coup d'Archet avec douceur le1777) as annotated in Neal Zaslaw, 'The
fortifier atr milieu et le finir en mourant.' Compleat Orchestral Musician', EM 7/1
[You must start the bow stroke with (January 1979), pp. 46-57.
gentleness, strengthen it in the middle and L'Abbe le Fils, op cit, makes no mention of
finish it dying away.] L'Ecole d'Orphie (Paris, vibrato, and Corrette in L'Art de se
1738; R Geneva, 1972), p. 34 in the section Perfectionner dans le Violon (Paris, 1782; R
concerning playing in the Italian manner. Geneva, 1976) only refers to its application
The messa di voce is not specifically mentionedto long notes (p. 5).
but p. 34 is cross-referred to. fast' and proposes this as a way of avoiding
6 A copy with this date is preserved in poor intonation (!) op cit, chap. 17, sec. 2,
Nuremrnberg. 932.
165
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms