Violin playing in an era of change: violin construction and technique in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

Abstract

The second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century witnessed a period of significant change in violin and bow construction. The bow was completely remodelled at this time and various fittings of the violin were adjusted, resulting overall in more powerful instruments better suited to the larger performing venues used and the larger orchestras that appeared around the turn of the century. Violin technique was also developing. Theorists started to discuss such issues as playing in positions higher than the seventh (enabled by the longer fingerboards that were coming into use) and to innumerate the various bow strokes (including thrown/bounced bowings) facilitated by the new-model bows. This study of the evidence of the developments in violin construction, technique and performance practice during the period of transition is divided into three parts. In the first part, three important Italian sources on violin making, by Giovanni Antonio Marchi (his manuscript treatise of 1786), Antonio Bagatella (Regole per la costruzione de' violini, 1786) and Count Cozio di Salabue (his notes on violin construction, 1804 - 1816), are considered for the evidence they provide on the nature and dating of developments in instrument design. A brief account of developments in the bow is given. Next, revised editions of three of the major violin treatises of the era - those of Leopold Mozart (Violinschule, Augsburg, 1756), Francesco Galeazzi (Elementi, Rome. 1791) and Baillot, Rode and Kreutzer (Méthode de violin, Paris, 1803) are considered. The discussion centres on the extent to which the revisions reflect the changes in instrument construction, technique and aesthetics during this time. Finally, select examples from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century violin repertoire (concertos and études) are investigated, looking at the ways in which composers responded to the developments in the violin. Contemporary sources reveal that the changes in the violin took place over an extensive period of transition, and at different rates in different locations. Older model bows and instruments coexisted along side remodelled versions well into the nineteenth century. So too in the continually developing area of violin technique, older ideas persisted alongside the new throughout this era.