School of Music

11.00 Onwards

Registration (School of Music, Foyer, Concert Hall)

12.30-13.30

Buffet Lunch (Aberdare Hall)

14.00

Welcome: Opening Address (Concert Hall, School of Music)

14.15

Chair: tba

Nancy November (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
Beethoven’s Middle Period String Quartets through Early Recordings

This paper discusses and analyses the rich repository of Beethoven string quartet recordings in the British Library Sound Archive. A particular focal point will be recordings of Beethoven’s middle-period string quartets, works far less studied than those of his late period. I will explore the early 20th-century approaches taken by players trained in the German tradition (represented by Joachim, and heard in the recordings of the Rosé, Bohemian, and Budapest String Quartets), and those from a Franco-Belgian tradition, arguing that these traditions are not nearly so clear cut as has often been assumed, and that the links of these performers’ approaches to players of Beethoven’s day such as A. Kraft, J. Lincke, P. Bridgetower, and L. Spohr, are tenuous at best. A detailed analysis of a 1927 recording of Op. 59 by the Spencer Dyke String Quartet will provide a fascinating case study in the highly flexible interpretation of the musical score in this era, a practice that was fast disappearing. Yet more generally I argue against the traditional view found in literature on historical sound recordings, the claim that recordings are becoming more homogenous and uniform, and that professional performers are becoming increasingly less adventurous with respect to interpretation. Beethoven’s string quartets are a particularly relevant case study here, since the string quartet repertoire in general, and his quartets in particular, have attracted arguably the strongest ideology of ‘purity’ in performance. Hence one might expect the trends towards uniformity and homogeneity to be particularly apparent in recordings of these works across the twentieth century. I present qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate that, in fact, the reverse is true. A focal point here will be the debates over Beethoven’s tempi, which are particularly relevant here in light of his celebrated metronome marking for his quartets up to Op. 95.

14.45 – 17.00 (with 15-minute break for refreshments at c.15.45)

Chair: tba

Neil Heyde, George Zacharias, Oliver Gledhill & Peter Sheppard Skaerved (Royal Academy of Music, London)

Choreographing expression in performance (Papers on W. H. Squire, Gabriel Fauré and Nikos Skalkottas joined with a series of observations demonstrated on Joseph Joachim’s long-pattern Stradivari).

In order to understand the expressive dimension of specific technical approaches to string instruments we need to understand the act of performance as a kind of choreography. The group of papers here aims to explore the performer’s role in translating and decoding the physical ramifications of indications in a variety of musical texts: simply ‘realizing’ the instructions on the page does not adequately provide a translation and communication of their expressive connotations. Each of the sessions here aims to set a context for the understanding of a close relationship between physical means and musical ends to reveal how this can shape performance. We might expect to find an expressive understanding of the activity of performance evinced most strongly in works by performers themselves and the presentations on W.H. Squire and Skalkottas aim to reveal the extraordinary breadth such approaches may take. [Oliver Gledhill; George Zacharias]

Reading performer’s choreography: Fauré and Dallapiccola [Neil Heyde]

Although not a cellist Fauré’s understanding of and feeling for the cello is arguably as great as any of the cellist composers of the last two centuries. Perhaps because each piece was written for a different cellist Fauré’s cumulative sense of the capabilities of the instrument – and more particularly for the way in which the use of the bow contributes to shaping and expression – is documented in the manuscripts and first editions of his pieces. Drawing on the recent critical editions by Roy Howat and corrected proofs of the 1917 sonata this session aims to demonstrate a keenly focused physical aesthetic for the performance of his music, largely obscured in many cases by poor early editions. To set Fauré’s ‘second-hand’ physical engagement with the cello in contrast this paper will conclude with a discussion of Dallapiccola’s Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio, written in close collaboration with Gaspar Cassado. A close examination of a number of fingering and bowing ‘solutions’ in the light of Cassado’s commentary will raise vital questions about our understanding of the physical dimension of performance, and in particular about the composer-performer relationship in respect to an understanding of choreographic expression.

17.00

Chair: tba

Keynote address: Robert Pascall (University of Nottingham)

Brahms’s expectations and ideals for notation and performance

The study will consider, with particular focus on string writing, Brahms’s practice and fastidiousness in respect of performance signs, his discussion of bowing and expression marks with Joseph Joachim and others, his intention that there should be divergence in such marks between scores and parts, how close we can come to understanding what performance practices these signs embody, and to how Brahms hoped musicians would interpret his scores. Among works considered will be the Violin Concerto (including Joachim’s performing edition of it in his Violinschule), Symphonies 1 and 4, and the Second String Quintet. The impact of these issues on the Neue Brahms Gesamtausgabe will be outlined and discussed.

19.30

20.00

Pre-dinner drinks (Aberdare Hall)

Conference Dinner (Aberdare Hall)

9.15

Chair: tba

David Milsom (University of Huddersfield)
Leopold Auer, Ossip Schnirlin and Editions of the Brahms Violin Sonatas

It seems ironic that Joseph Joachim, a prolific editor of string music (often in collaboration with his former pupil, Andreas Moser) did not edit much of the music of his close artistic colleague, Johannes Brahms. This means that the student of nineteenth-century performing practice, whilst provided with a Joachim edition of the violin concerto, must rely upon a process of investigation to look for texts that reflect something of Joachim’s likely practices in the violin sonatas. This paper will evaluate editions by two of Joachim’s pupils. Leopold Auer (1845-1930), just 14 years Joachim’s junior, had been his pupil in the 1860s and by many is regarded not only as a valuable glimpse of earlier stylistic practices but also as a powerful agent in the development of the twentieth century virtuoso phenomenon. After his emigration from revolutionary Russia, Auer settled in New York where he became an industrious teacher. During this late part of his life he made a large number of editions of standard repertoire, including the Brahms sonatas, edited for Fischer in 1916-7. Ossip Schnirlin (c.1874-c.1939) is a more elusive figure, and relatively little reliable evidence can be found detailing his life and experiences. He did, however, edit a large amount of music for Brahms’ publisher, Simrock, including the violin sonatas in 1926-7. What can be discerned about him suggests persuasively that he was a loyal former pupil who, rather in the manner of Karl Klingler, sought to preserve Joachim’s approach and certainly, his editions, in spite of their late date (some two decades after Joachim’s death) suggest a powerful debt to Joachim’s manner of playing. This paper will discuss and compare these two editions, illustrated by live performance.

9.45

Robin Stowell (Cardiff University)
Mozart’s "Viennese" Keyboard/Violin Sonatas according to Ferdinand David

Sources such as the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and Felix Mendelssohn’s own correspondence record that Mendelssohn performed a number of Mozart’s sonatas for keyboard and violin with Spohr’s pupil Ferdinand David in Leipzig in the early 1840s. David later produced an edition of Mozart’s works in the genre, published by Breitkopf und Härtel. This chapter focuses on David’s edition of the sonatas that Mozart composed in Vienna between 1781 and 1788 (i.e from the B flat major Sonata K.378 onwards), examining some of its implications principally for violin performance practice. While these editions are substantially faithful and accurate with regard to note-durations and pitches (although David does introduce, for example, some ossia passages), there are numerous examples where matters of phrasing, articulation and expression (indications of tempo variation and other interpretative detail as well as dynamic markings) differ substantially from the most authoritative textual sources. David’s fingering annotations will give rise to a discussion of his approaches to shifting, including his use of portamento as an aesthetic resource, the cultivation of una corda playing for timbral effect, and the incidence of natural harmonics and/or open strings to assist the position change (which in turn has implications for his vibrato usage). David’s approach to right-hand technique will also be explored, including his predilection for on-the-string bowings and a range of détaché strokes (and in what would appear to modern violinists to be in an unorthodox part of the bow), his use of slurred staccato, the range and meaning of his various other bowing indications (e.g. dots, strokes and other markings) and his evident overall aim to cultivate a legato, singing style. A style of performance far removed from that of Mozart’s time will be revealed.

10.15

Clive Brown (University of Leeds)
Editions with Ferdinand David’s manuscript performance markings

Until now few copies of music were known that contained manuscript performance markings by Ferdinand David, the most prolific nineteenth-century German editor of violin music. The Bodelian Library possesses David’s marked up copy of Mendelssohn’s String quartets, acquired from Alan Tyson’s bequest, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has David’s marked up parts of Mendelssohn’s String Quintet op. 18 as well as another copy of the quartets with many fewer markings than the Bodleian copy. I recently identified a further copy of the quartets in the Bodleian as containing some of David’s markings, and a copy of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in the British Library, also from Tyson’s estate, which, although not signed by him, contains detailed markings evidently in his hand. More recently, a substantial number of annotated copies of music signed by Ferdinand David or bearing his stamped initials, has come to light in the music department of Uppingham School, where David’s son Paul was music master for more than 40 years from 1865. These editions and the information they can contribute towards our understanding of nineteenth-century string performance will be the subject of this lecture.

10.45

Refreshments

11.00

Chair: tba

Elena Artamonova (Goldsmiths College, London)
The birth of modern viola out of the spirit of Russian music: why the viola?

Russia has always shown a great scope for artistic talents. The beginning of the 20th century is regarded as the Silver Era of Russian culture owing to the emergence of a highly gifted generation of musicians, writers and painters. Working at the archives and libraries in Moscow I was fortunate to find a number of unknown and unpublished compositions for the viola. What made Russian composers to write for an instrument that occupied a subservient position to the violin and other members of the string family up to the second half of the 19th century? This special interest in the viola is explicable. The ‘Silver Age’ aesthetics was preoccupied with symbolism, mysticism and images of death. Viola, with its strange ‘hermaphrodite’-like timbre, has become a very suitable bearer of many symbolic ideas, always typical for Russian music. It was often seen as the instrument, or the voice of Death. This image, which perhaps originates in Berlioz’s ‘Harold in Italy’, was developed in many works, including Roslavets’ Sonatas, Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata and Schnittke’s Viola Concerto. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of Russian composers, including Nikolai Roslavets and Sergey Vasilenko, in the enhancement of the viola as a solo instrument at the beginning of the 20th century. Were they at risk of repeating an old cliché that the viola was inferior to the violin or cello? Did they adjust and modify their language according to the requirements of the new musical era? How far did they go in their experimentation? The analysis and discussion in this paper relies heavily on the unpublished and little researched materials from the archives in Moscow.

11.30

Peter Collyer (University of Leeds)
Friedrich Hermann and Ferdinand David: Defining the Leipzig School of String Playing through the Study of the Printed Chamber Music Editions

The string instrumentalists who worked as editors for the publishing houses in Leipzig between 1840 and 1930 have not, before now, been grouped together and subjected to comparative studies that show how developments in technique and style can be mapped through their work. Within the wider scope of the Leeds/Cardiff research project the Leipzig editors represent a substantial body of work that illustrates the way that string playing evolved, from the post Beethoven period of early romanticism in Germany, through the major years of chamber music composition in the nineteenth century to the post Kreisler ‘modern’ style (encompassing diverse nationalistic trends) between the World Wars in the twentieth century [See Milsom (2000), pp.14-27].

Within the research period that begins with Mendelssohn’s Leipzig and ends with the pre-communist era of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Leipzig Conservatorium, Ferdinand David (1810-1873) and Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) figure most prominently as leading string players affiliated with the Leipzig School whose legacy is expressed through their work as editors of printed music. However, while David and Joachim are generally considered as being amongst the most influential string players of the long nineteenth century, other musicians who did not establish such prominent profiles were equally prolific as editors of music printed in Leipzig. Most notable amongst these is Friedrich Hermann (1828-1907).

Hermann came to Leipzig in 1843 to become one of David’s first pupils at the Conservatorium. He remained at the forefront of the musical life of the city for the rest of his life, as the principal viola player with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, violist with the Gewandhaus quartet and teacher at the Conservatorium, while also being active as a composer, arranger and editor. Having studied with David, he went on to become a close colleague in both his teaching and playing capacities.

The concept of a Leipzig School of string playing that can be illustrated by printed material is dependent on research conclusions that show the foundations of the School in the work of Ferdinand David, and the subsequent development of the School in the work of his successors in Leipzig. To this end, this paper will examine the printed editions of Haydn’s quartet Op.76 No.1 by David (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1868) and Hermann (C. F. Peters, c.1880), placing a study of the performance markings contained in these editions alongside the analysis of their pedagogic material to establish the principal stylistic traits that unite the School and the contrasting elements in the markings that show the individual musical signatures of the two men.

12.00

Marie Sumner Lott
The Invisible Audience of the Nineteenth Century: Chamber Music Publication and Consumption, 1830-1880

During the nineteenth century, chamber music touched the lives of musicians and audiences from all walks of life. Whether they were newly composed works by up-and-coming composers, familiar favourites by the Classical masters, or medleys of popular opera tunes, works for three to eight players were accessible to a large population of amateur string players gathering at home and in other private spaces. Unfortunately, the participants in these performances have left practically no traces in the historical record (unlike public concert and opera audiences), rendering them “invisible” to modern researchers. Archival research on the publication of chamber music, however, can provide some much-needed insight into the lives of music enthusiasts in the nineteenth century by illuminating the process of making music available to consumers in a variety of economic and artistic circumstances. By studying the business records and correspondence of publishers active in the production of chamber music, we can rediscover the goals and ideals, the aesthetics and aims, of those invisible audiences. Based on archival research in Leipzig and Frankfurt, this paper presents recently discovered documentation concerning the creation and dissemination of string chamber music between 1830 and 1880. These records include correspondence between publishers and composers and between publishers and music sellers that explains decisions such as whether and when to publish or reprint certain works. These letters also provide a clearer understanding of the collaborations that fuelled developments in musical style. Additionally, business records document the economic reality of creating music in a rapidly evolving industry. From the commissions paid to composers, to copyists’ and engravers’ fees, to the total profits expected from reprinting popular works, documentation of publisher’s business practices can lead us to a clearer understanding of the mechanisms behind changes in musical style and practice in the Romantic era.

12.30

Buffet Lunch (Aberdare Hall)

13.30

Chair: tba

LUCHIP Ensemble Workshop and (c.14.15) Round Table discussion

14.30

Chair: tba

Bonnie Jane Smart
Robert Lindley’s Cello Accompaniment Practices through Biography and the Press

The use of the cello alone as an instrument for harmonic accompaniment is well documented, in both instrumental and operatic contexts. Increasing attention has been given, by a number of authors, to this practice as it occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century. The realisation of figured bass lines by a cello and double bass (particularly in the performance of recitative) has been found to be a standard practice in major European centres for opera during the first four decades of the nineteenth century. In some places, this practice was carried into the second half of the nineteenth century. The most widely lauded exponent of the practice within England was Robert Lindley (1776-1855). Lindley was the foremost English cellist of his generation (as was reflected by the leading roles which he played in London musical life over the course of more than 50 years) and he is mentioned in a number of contexts. Thus many facts about his life are accessible. The most elusive element of his career concerns his improvisatory practices. How, exactly, did he render the accompaniment to the various recitatives which he performed? Lindley’s ‘Handbook’ for beginning cellists does not advise the student in the particulars of this art; neither do the scores which I have examined bear written traces of the chords and the musical quotations which he (sometimes recklessly) inserted. However, we do possess a number of press reports which describe (occasionally in somewhat flowery terms) Lindley in flight – and the effect this had on the listener. This paper will examine the invaluable press reports which, when considered alongside biographical material, provide evidence of lost practices.

15.00

George Kennaway (University of Leeds)
Mendelssohn’s cello sonatas – editions by Grützmacher, Cossmann and Popper

In the later 19th century Mendelssohn’s cello sonatas were more often performed (and sometimes more highly rated as compositions) than those by Beethoven. This popularity is confirmed by the number of performing editions prepared by cellists. No other cello repertoire from this period can boast three performing editions (by contrast, Beethoven’s violin sonatas almost run into double figures in this respect), produced within a period of less than three decades. Friedrich Grützmacher’s edition is particularly interesting, since it claims to be in accordance with ‘the tradition of the composer’, and is the most detailed of the three, particularly concerning portamento. The editions by Cossmann and Popper overlap with Grützmacher’s practice in various ways, suggesting that some of Grützmacher’s ideas which seem unusual to modern ears were not merely idiosyncratic. This paper will be illustrated by demonstration by the speaker.

15.30

Ilias Devetzoglou (University of Leeds)
César Franck's Violin Sonata: editions and performance style

This paper focuses on early editions of Franck’s Violin Sonata and the performing style of the period and the place the piece was written. That style emerged in France and Belgium in the middle of the nineteenth century, climaxed during the end of the nineteenth century, declined in the 1930s and it is perceived to have had a Francophone identity. Influential players of that period produced their own editions of the work and some of them lived long enough to see the dawn of the recording era bequeathing us their performances. The notation of those editions may carry codified information on practices and techniques, the exposition and understanding of which may impose a radical reassessment of the way we perceive Franck’s Violin Sonata and generally late Romantic French repertoire nowadays, as both performers and audience. Thus, that alternative view of that work may be possible by drawing upon historical elements that were lost during the second half of the twentieth century (i.e. the role of portamento, sound colour, phrasing etc).

More specifically, this paper investigates notational issues of early editions of Franck’s Violin Sonata and their relation to various performing practices such as portamento, tempo and bow speed. These editions include the first edition and those edited by Lichtenberg, Jacobsen, Busch and Menuhin. For this purpose, a comparison of those editions is carried out, as well as tracing of related performing practice elements in early recordings. This paper also focuses on editions of some of the works recorded by key players of the period in question. Its ultimate aim is to present ways of exploration of the editions which will lead to a better understanding of the performing style the composer might have envisaged for his work and to a historically-aware performance of repertoire from that period in general.

16.00

Refreshments and Conference End.