Violin Master Works and Their Interpretation

By Leopold Auer and Frederick H. Martens

A renowned violinist and teacher discusses the interpretation of violin repertoire standards, drawing upon 360 musical illustrations and excerpts as well as a lifetime of artistic experience. Suitable for players at all levels, Leopold Auer's dissertation offers suggestions for performance of works by the great composers as well as observations on the techniques of Paganini, Wieniawski, Joachim, and other virtuosos. Helpful hints illuminate the technical minutia of performance, including special bowings, mood and tempo variants, and artistic effects.
Auer begins by introducing the outstanding works of the older Italian violin composers such as Tartini, Corelli, and Vivaldi. He examines Bach's contributions to the repertoire, in addition to works by Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven; innovations by latter-day artists such as Spohr, Vieuxtemps, and Ernst; and the Bruch concertos. Other featured composers include Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Franck, and Sarasate. This classic guide concludes with valuable insights into transcriptions and musical memory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Oct 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9780486321103

Book preview

CHAPTER I.

OUTSTANDING WORKS OF THE OLDER ITALIAN VIOLIN COMPOSERS.

With regard to the older Italian composers it might be said that during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth century, many of their compositions, written in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have been discovered in various German and Italian libraries by treasure-seekers duly qualified (or the reverse), and have been edited and published by them. Among these works, now and again, we find one by some more important older Italian composer, works which for all they may not be on quite the level of those already known to us, closely approximate them in musical value.

The great majority of these exhumed compositions with which the market has been flooded, however, are decidedly uninteresting, monotonous and dry as regards invention, and once more prove that even celebrated masters cannot turn out sonatas by the hundred with impunity. Still less are their unworthy imitators able to do so; real, genuine music is something which must be experienced, felt, divined—and then created! It can be imitated only as regards its externals.

Even geniuses like Corelli, Veracini and Giuseppe Tartini, upon whom Veracini exercised so great an influence, are not free from this reproach of overproduction at the expense of quality, and it must be confessed that the reissue of such compositions often seems to have no other justification than the mistaken piety of the discoverer or a purely commercial reason.

I cannot help feeling that when in their own day such masters as Mendelssohn and Ferdinand David, after a thorough examination of the manuscripts to be found in the state libraries of Berlin, Dresden and Leipsic, completed their selection, they made generally available all that was most important, all that deserved wider recognition. None among the works discovered (?) toward the end of the past or at the beginning of the present century compare as regards imaginative and creative importance with such works as Tartini’s two sonatas in G minor (including the Devil’s Trill Sonata); Corelli’s Follia d’Espagna; the two Sonatas by Locatelli edited by Julius Röntgen, in Amsterdam; the D major Sonata and E minor Concerto by Nardini; and Vitali’s Ciaconna.*

In the works just mentioned we find, aside from musical invention, dramatic conception and perfection of form. They rank among the most significant compositions included in the entire range of violin literature, And their spontaneity is not merely a mental, an intellectual originality, an originality of clever calculation, as is the case with the majority of newly-discovered works by distinguished masters, whose very names are full of promise; but they have their origin in those deep founts from which genius alone draws inspiration.

Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata **(Il Trillo del Diavolo)—Tartini was a bit of a mystic—came to him in a dream,*** and if it really was inspired by the devil, proves that whatever his other faults, His Satanic Majesty is a musician of the first order.

The First Movement of the Devil’s Trill Sonata, a Larghetto affetuoso, begins in lyric style, yet ever and anon takes a profoundly sorrowful inflection as, for instance, in the fourth measure after letter A:

and where the same phrase is repeated a third lower:

at the end of the first movement, which closes very quietly on a long trill. I should like to mention that Larghetto is not synonomous with Largo; in other words, the movement should not be dragged as it sometimes is when heard on the concert platform, since dragging detracts from its effect.

The Second Movement, in contrast to its predecessor, begins very energetically and is followed by short, ironic little trills—I say short because care must be taken that they are not extended so that their length interferes with the flow of the melody. I advise my pupils not to put the rhythmic accent on the trill itself, but to make it after the trill, that is, to stress the note on which the trill is based, as for example:

Expression marks and dynamic signs must be strictly observed if the movement is to produce the desired effect.

The Grave which follows (Third Movement) had best be taken in 8/8 time, that is to say, with great breadth. It leads over into the Allegro assai in 2/4 time, which contains the Devil’s Trill. The latter begins very piano and by means of a tremendous crescendo leads over into the Grave (played as before) which follows, with the difference that this time the latter occurs on the dominant, in D minor. In order to secure the greatest clearness and rhythmic pregnancy I advise the following rhythmic division of the trill-sequence:

After a repetition of the Grave and the Allegro assai, this time on the tonic, we have the Cadenza, which is founded on the Initial Theme of the Sonata, the Larghetto, and should be played in that tempo. Then, after a chain of trills, very broadly played, we have an allusion to the preceding Allegro, and the composition ends with a long, preparatory ritenuto and a tremendous working-up of tone that carries us to the final Adagio.

It stands to reason that Tartini must have composed a large number of sonatas (as a matter of fact his published compositions alone include some forty sonatas and eighteen concertos) when we consider that both his two best-known and most deservedly popular works—the Devil’s Trill Sonata and the Sonata in G minor—are written in the same key. The Sonata in G minor* goes beyond Corelli and Vivaldi as regards development of form and musical content. Tartini is said to have been in the habit of reading one of Petrarch’s sonnets before beginning to compose, and in view of the poetic beauty of the Sonata in G minor one is inclined to think he hit upon an especially fine sonnet by the Italian poet before he wrote this work.

The First Movement, Adagio, in 8/8 time, demands a warm, lovely quality of tone in order adequately to convey the sorrowful character of its music, whose plaintiveness is notably emphasized in the second measure from the beginning by the use of the augmented second E flat and F sharp. This mood dominates the entire sonata, although now and again a modulation leading into B flat establishes a mood more quiet and consolatory. I must here repeat that quite aside from the beauty inherent in this music itself, it calls for the needful variations of tonal color in order to express the details of that beauty. For instance, in the second measure after letter C:

the greatest serenity and equality is demanded while playing the eight sixteenth notes, which repeat through several measures and move to the climax:

in a continuous piano with a preceding working-up of the tonal volume. Five measures before the end of the movement we have a similar passage which, however, ends with a piano.

A passionate and tempestuous urgency rages throughout the entire second movement of the sonata, the Non troppo presto. Here too, in most cases, the observance of the accents which fall on the majority of the notes beginning the measure with a mordent:

and also at letter A:

is is of the greatest importance in order to bring out the special character of the music. In the places where a piano is indicated, at letter B and D, the two notes marked staccato should be played as flying staccati with a light bow. The concluding five measures, marked Più lento, should be taken very broadly, the trill:

should be decidedly long sustained, and the final note played strongly, without any diminuendo!

The third movement, Largo, must be played with great breadth, as an introduction to the Allegro commodo, and the Allegro commodo itself should be taken in a tempo approximating a Moderato. I am not of the opinion that this movement should be played in too slow a tempo; the tempo is very exactly indicated and in view of this fact (i.e., that too broad and extended a tempo is uncalled for) at letter C:

I have marked the eighth-notes with a leggiero in order to avoid monotony in phrasing. The second part of the movement begins with the same light spiccato and, in part, staccato bowings:

for the reason already given. All the other notes are to be taken with a détaché stroke, and the whole movement should be played with a somewhat melancholy tonal color. The Più lenti in the second and in the last movement should be observed only when indicated, and then only the second time, that is, when the section in question is repeated.

Archangelo Corelli (1853-1713) whose contemporaries called him Prince of Music and Master of Masters, aside from his Concerti grossi wrote some sixty sonatas; and his compositions, though centuries have passed, still remain classics. From the standpoint of the violin repertoire of the present day, the sixth sonata of his group of Sonate a Violino e Violone o Cembalo (Rome, 1700) cannot be overlooked. For the fifth movement of this sonata is the famous Follia with sixteen variations.

The Follia or Folies d’Espagne: this group of violin variations with figured bass is one of the most important of the works of the old Italian school. As a modern repertoire number it has existed since Ferdinand David edited it after the original edition with a very adequate piano accompaniment. Since then it often has been included in the recital programmes of the greatest virtuosos as well as used in the studios of most teachers, by whom it is regarded as essential study material for the aspiring violinist.

The numerous variations of the Corelli Follia are in some sort a compilation of the technical problems of bowing and at the same time supply highly instructive left-hand studies. In my own edition* I have not touched the piano accompaniment, but only have indicated changes in the solo violin part where such changes seemed