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Practice and Principle: Perspectives upon the German ‘Classical’ School of Violin Playing in the Late Nineteenth Century

This article was an invited contribution from volume editor Mine Dogantan-Dack to a special volume of NCMR devoted to aspects of performance theory and theories of aesthetics .The research was funded by a £250,000 AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts Award, undertaken at the University of Leeds in 2006-9. The article argues that nineteenth-century performing practice was not, as has often been depicted, characterised by an absence of aesthetic theory and rigour but rather the application of key performance principles, many of which have deep roots in the eighteenth century. The article examines the issues of tempo, tempo rubato, vibrato, portamento and other related subjects in relation to the performing practices of players for whom there is recorded evidence and who represent a ‘classical’ tradition of late nineteenth-century performing practice (through genealogical/pedagogical links via Joseph Joachim to the ‘Leipzig School’ of musicians, arguably the most classically-oriented strain of nineteenth-century performance aesthetics). The article examines in detail a number of case study examples by the Klingler Quartet and little-known female violinist (and Joachim pupil) Marie Soldat in order to examine the relationship between performance theories on paper (as disseminated by performance treatises) and performance in practice (in recorded performances of these artists made between 1911 and 1935).