Bowing Styles, Vibrato and Portamento in Nineteenth-Century Violin Playing

Author(s): Clive Brown

Source: Journal of the Royal Musical Association , 1988, Vol. 113, No. 1 (1988), pp. 97-
128
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Royal Musical Association

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 Bowing Styles, Vibrato and Portamento
in Nineteenth-Century Violin Playing
CLIVE BROWN

There are many aspects of nineteenth-century violin playing

received little attention from scholars. The subject is a
complicated one, far beyond the scope of a short articl
adequately, but there are a number of important areas
problems have not even been recognized, let alone investig
instance, the most substantial recent work on this subj
Stowell's Violin Technique and Performance Practice in the Late Eight
Early Nineteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1985), provides a usefu
what the major violin methods of the period say, but b
mainly confined to these sources, ignoring for the most pa
ism and other contemporary accounts, and because it h
artificial terminal date of 1840, it fails to illuminate major
patterns of continuity and change in nineteenth-century v
ing. It may be valuable, therefore, to put forward a few
suggest a few fruitful lines of enquiry which have until no
largely unconsidered.
Of the three areas of nineteenth-century violin playing
examined here, bowing is by far the most complex, and is
which the greatest number of problems has previously
looked. Among these is the question of whether there wer
differentiated technical and aesthetic approaches to bowin
the period and, if so, where and when one style rather th
was dominant; this has particularly important implication
understanding of what nineteenth-century composers had
when writing for string instruments, and what their b
articulation markings were actually meant to indicate. The
vibrato during the last century is in many ways more straight
since there appears to have been a broad consensus of opin
its use; but an objective assessment of nineteenth-century
and practices in this area has been seriously hindered b
aesthetic preconceptions. For that reason the highly signi
which selective vibrato played in the thinking of nineteent
musicians has been overlooked by modern performers, an
level of expressiveness lost. Many of the considerations re
vibrato are also relevant to portamento, but, in addition, t
question of when and where the systematic use of portame
currency and the technical matter of when and where diff

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 98 CLIVE BROWN

of portamento w
before we can ad
from Beethoven
so, how that por
Much of the stud
necessarily focus
bow; these play
employed and th
teenth century
modern form. In
of bow which g
standard up to th
1800; the chin re
old instruments
that time.
The only important respect in which the nineteenth-century violin
differed from the modern one was its stringing. Apart from the silver-
or copper-wound gut G, all the strings were pure gut and there was
considerable diversity in the thickness of strings employed, ranging
from the maximum possible thickness (and consequently maximum
tension) recommended by Campagnoli and Spohr for a strong tone, to
the thin strings of such virtuosi as Paganini and Ole Bull which
facilitated the performance of artificial harmonics. The particular
style of performance of Paganini and Bull also led them to use an
exceptionally flat bridge; this made multiple stopping easier but
hindered the production of a full tone on the middle two strings. The
metal E did not gain widespread acceptance until after 1920, and gut
A and D were still common for some time after that. On the whole,
though, these methods of stringing have a far less striking effect on
the way violin playing sounds than does performance style.
The involvement of the performer in creating the sound on a bowed
and unfretted string instrument is more direct, and the range of
possibilities wider, perhaps, than on any other musical instrument. It
is well known to violinists that the same instrument can sound utterly
different in the hands of different players, while the same player using
different good-quality instruments, regardless of stringing, can still
produce his own distinctively individual sound. There can be no
doubt that nineteenth-century violinists' technical and aesthetic
approach to performance resulted in a sound and style that differed
substantially from that of modern violinists. Where or when particular
approaches predominated is more difficult to determine, but it is
precisely these questions which are crucial to our understanding of
what composers envisaged when writing for the instrument.

The bow has repeatedly been described as the soul of the violin.
Variety of articulation, dynamic nuance and, until the twentieth-
century advent of continuous vibrato, tone production have been
regarded as almost entirely dependent on its management. Develop-

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 99

ments in bow making during the second half of t

radically affected the bow's capabilities, and t
in bowing techniques undoubtedly had a profou
of the instrument and on the style of perf
hatchet-headed bows, with their stronger, mo
put the hair under considerably greater te
differently from most earlier bows. Earlier eig
head bows, because of the initial 'give' in thei
even if barely audible softness at the beginning
to by Leopold Mozart), produced an articulated
modern spiccato, though somewhat less sharply
on the string with short strokes for a success
The later hatchet-headed bows, whose develop
in the work of Tourte, produced a much more
in the same manner, but a true spiccato - a st
slightly leaves the string between notes - was
increased tension of the hair and elasticity of
the increased tension made possible an incisive
of the bow and led to the development of a range
sforzando effects, for which the older bows were
At some stage or other in the nineteenth ce
technique that the Tourte bow made possibl
were substantial divisions of opinion about
style. Various schools of violin playing were s
and bowing played a large part in distingui
another. One of the most important conflicts o
the question of whether, particularly in pas
tached notes in a moderate to fast tempo, the
should remain firmly on the string. The pass
instance, can quite effectively be played either w
bowing in the middle (which is the bowing m
would use), a broad bowing in the upper half,
the point, or a slurred martel6 (staccato) in the u
Each of these methods of performance produce
effect. Many passages in the music of the peri
be played in several of these ways, and the no
cases, precise enough to indicate whether any
tion was intended by the composer, but there
suggest that a nineteenth-century violinist
would have been dictated largely by when and
what school he belonged.
Evidence suggests that springing bowing in
notes was one of the earliest of the effects offer
be extensively exploited. It was admired for i
iveness, and for a while this style of playing
fashionable in many places. There are cert
recent innovations in bowing style were gainin
1780s and 1790s. An article on deficiencies i

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 100 CLIVE BROWN

Example 1. Beethoven, String Quartet, op. 18 no. 6, first

movement: Allegro con brio.
(a) spiccato, ditachi or marteld

(b) with slurred staccato V

Berlin Opera in Carl Spazier's Berlinis

blamed the poor effect of the strings
which are made necessary by the pres
indeed, this style itself which is so mar
noble style of Franz Benda [1709-86]'
The contrast with Benda's style seem
spiccato bowing, which the article dir
slender bows. Other sources confirm
of a light style of bowing, in which a
was a prominent characteristic. Fr
his Elementi teorico-practici di music
springing bow for passagework when
legato the bow is 'kept in contact with
dance about as in allegro'.' And i
(?1730-1802) in the Allgemeine musika
observed of Lolli's performance in
modern use of the bow where it is believed that effectiveness is to be
found in clipped, hopping strokes (abgestutzen, hiipfenden Strichen) and
where the bow's long, melting stroke (langen, schmelienden Zug), which
counterfeits the beauty of the human voice, is neglected'.3
Wilhelm Cramer (1745-99), one of the most admired violinists of
the 1770s and 1780s, seems to have been the first notable exponent o
this kind of springing bowstroke, executed with short strokes in th
middle of the bow, which was described by Michel Woldemar
(1750-1816) in his Grande methode of 1800 as the 'coup d'archet ' la
Cramer'; and in 1804 an article in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
specifically credited Cramer with its invention. This article is partic-
ularly interesting because it implies not only that the stroke had been
widely imitated, but also that by the early years of the nineteenth
century it had been so much abused that it was to some extent

' Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, ed. Carl Spazier, 1 (1793), 9.

2 Francesco Galeazzi, Elementi teorico-practici di musica, con un saggio sopra / arte di suonare il violino
analizzata, ed a dimostrabili principi ridotta, 2 vols. (Rome, 1791-6), i (pt 2), 201.
' Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1 (1798-9), 579.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 101

becoming discredited. The writer observed tha

ruined their former style of playing, after painst
with the middle of the bow, through too strong
strings. The bow hopped here and there, and
unpleasant, coarse and scratchy.'4
During the first decade of the nineteenth centu
string sound which stressed a singing style, e
strong tone, forceful accents and broad or mar
passagework seems to have been gaining ascend
years of the nineteenth century the novelty of sp
worn off and the style of playing that went wit
clarity, lightness and velocity, was being supe
aesthetic. Springing bowings came to be widely re
and inappropriate to the increasingly admired hi
earnest style of playing. This trend was close
developing Romantic movement in music, and
ments can be seen, for instance, in the change to a
piano playing propounded by Clementi.
The diary which the 19-year-old Louis Spoh
during his journey to St Petersburg in 1803 as a
(1774-?1804) contains two significant commen
bowings. In an entry on the playing of Joseph
(1751-1828) Spohr remarked: 'Also, in the pass
with a perpetually springing bow, which soon bec
is clear from another entry about the playing of
Tietz (?1742-1810) that to Spohr this style of playi
years earlier the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
'modern use of the bow', seemed old-fashioned. A
cantabile Spohr observed: 'The passagework which
old method, he played with a springing bow, ple
Eck had made Spohr buy a Tourte bow in Hambur
in their journey and had, according to Spohr's ow
remodelled his bowing, it is safe to assume that
have been shared by his master, who was a direct heir of the
Mannheim tradition. Eck's own teachers had been his elder brother
Johann Friedrich (1767-1838) and Ferdinand Frdinzl (1767-18
Elsewhere in his diary, however, Spohr referred to Franz Ec
French violinist. Biographical details of Eck's life are scanty, and
significance of this is, therefore, not entirely clear, but it presum
indicates a connection, in Spohr's mind at any rate, with a Fr
school of violin playing. In the circumstances this could only mea
school represented by Giovanni Battista Viotti (1753-1824) an
disciples, among whom the most prominent were Pierre Rode (1
1830), Rudolph Kreutzer (1766-1831) and Pierre Baillot (1771-

4 Ibid., 6 (1803-4), 729.

' Louis Spohr, Lebenserinnerungen, ed. Folker G6thel (Tutzing, 1968), i, 45.
6 Ibid., 43.

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 102 CLIVE BROWN

(Of these only Rod

were strongly infl
springing bowings
with the approach
heim School, but
directly linked wi
greatest importan
esteem.

There can be no doubt about the enormous prestige of th

school of violinists at this time. Viotti was repeatedly
greatest violinist of the day and the founder of a new styl
commented, in the introduction to his 1801 revision
Mozart's Violinschule, after discussing the excellent qualiti
and his successors: 'but it was to be reserved for Viotti to
glory of his predecessors and to become to some extent th
model of a new school'.' And in 1811 Naigeli, discussing t
tance of string instruments, wrote:

Here, as nowhere else, art is brought to life through the power of

indeed, it is astonishing what the Viotti school has achieved an
to achieve in this field; the way in which the string player
himself triumphantly over a whole world of sound is the most
feature in the history of individualization in art (die Allermerkw
der Individualisirungsgeschichte der Kunst).8

In the same year that Spohr recorded his opinion of Fodo

in his journal, the Methode de violon of Baillot, Rode and
commissioned by the Conservatoire as part of a series of
instrumental methods, was published in Paris. Baillot w
author, but there is no reason to doubt that it broadly rep
approach of all three. Nowhere in the lucid section on bo
1803 Methode is any mention made of springing bowstrok
of detached notes were to be played on the string with as lon
possible in the upper half. Neither Kreutzer's Etudes,
Caprices, nor the concertos of either of them contain
which a springing bowing seems to be called for, though
places where it could be used, as later editors have discov
case of Kreutzer's Etudes and Rode's Caprices, the com
performance instructions make it clear that no springing
intended and it seems certain, in view of the advanced and
comprehensive aim of these works, that springing bowings had little
or no place in the technical equipment of these players. Accounts o
their performance style corroborate this. Kreutzer's playing, fo
instance, is described in Gerber's Neues Lexikon der Tonkiinstle
(1812-14) in the following terms: 'Viotti's manner of playing is also

M7 ichel Woldemar, Mithode de violon par L. Mozart redige'e par Woldemar, eleve de Lolli: Nouvelle
edition (Paris, 1801), 1.
8 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 13 (1811), 669.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 103

his. The same strong tone and long bowstroke also char
allegro.'9 A fuller description of the style is given in a
Prague of a performance which Spohr gave there durin
tour of 1808. Having observed that Spohr was 'one
outstanding violinists of our epoch', it went on to crit
aspects of his performance, remarking about his bowing
since he takes pains to play the passagework in particul
drawn-out and unbroken bowstrokes, he not infrequently s
the character of the allegro, particularly where this is writ
brilliant and impetuous manner and consequently ough
accordingly. So much the less is he able, therefore, to allow the
nuances of the allegro to appear, and, for all his sterling artistr
well not escape a certain oppressive feeling of monotony if one
him often - which is also the case with several of the celebrated violinists
of the present Parisian school.1'

Spohr was the most important German representative of this style.

Shortly after returning from St Petersburg in 1804 he had come under
the direct influence of Rode. Having heard Rode play several times in
Brunswick, Spohr worked hard to imitate his style as closely as
possible, and later stated: 'Up to the time when I had by degrees
formed a style of playing of my own, I was the most faithful imitator of
Rode among all the young violinists of the day.'" The accuracy of this
statement is confirmed by J. F. Reichardt (1752-1814), who in 1805,
having heard Rode a short time before, accused Spohr of 'slavish
imitation' of Rode's manner.12
For a while during the first decade of the century two clearly
distinguishable styles of bowing seem to have coexisted in Germany.
Valuable insight into the situation at that time can be gleaned from
the pages of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. A review of the
publication of Rode's Violin Concerto no. 7 in 1803 contains the
following observations:
The reviewer considers the manner in which Rode, Kreutzer, etc. play as a
valuable contribution; for in this method a beautiful strong, sustained,
regularly swelling and diminishing tone, long bowstrokes, figures slurred
together in a single bowstroke, and the very many and charming variations
which these slurrings allow, are introduced more than formerly by the
violinist - or should we say are reintroduced? For, if the reviewer is not
mistaken, this style of playing is by no means new, but is rather the old
method of a Tartini or a Pugnani, which, however, at least in Germany, has
been little cultivated in recent times, and which almost appeared to have
been ousted by the urge to play everything as fast as possible and to shine
with short and sharply articulated staccato passages. The reviewer cannot
sufficiently recommend violinists of his day to practise a beautiful

9 Ernst Ludwig Gerber, Neues Lexikon der Tonkunstler (1812-14), i, 118.

10 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 10 (1807-8), 313-14.
" Spohr, Lebenserinnerungen, i, 66.
12 Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, ed. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, 1 (1805), 95.

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104 CLIVE BROWN

sustained tone, lon

variety which these
have made this style
short, sharp stroke
produces such a beau
the instrument suffi
combination of the tw
is by no means impo

Further insight is
1808, which recom
many difficulties fo
the new style. The w

This concerto, whi

welcome addition to
violinists whose art
those especially who e
and manifoldly varied
Abwechslungen vermis
public performance o
or have become so a
Spielart mit kurzem u
legato bowstroke whi
the present work, n
single bowstroke wr
undue difficulty, bu
to provide a pleasing

By the end of the

achieving orthodo
that, far from inc
the reviewer of Ro
exponents of the n
to fall into almost
Viotti school and th
a teaching manual
reputation and act
approach in Germ
manual, Bartolome
lated into German
mention of spicca
staccato). Campag
tached bowings at
bowings are length
disappearance of th

'3 Allgemeine musikalische Z

14 Ibid., 11 (1808-9), 28-9
15 Bartolomeo Campagnoli
and trans. John Bishop (L

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 105

parts of Germany at least, is implied by Carl Guhr (17

treatise Ueber Paganini's Kunst (1829), where he remarked:

In allegro maestoso he particularly loves a manner of bowin

ially differs in execution and effect from that taught in the
school in allegro maestoso. There it is said you are to give
(gestossenen) note the fullest possible extension and to use
order that the whole string may vibrate properly and the ton
round.... But Paganini allows the bow rather to make a jumping,
whipping (springende, peitschende) movement and uses for that purpose
almost the middle of it and only so much of its length as is necessary to put
the string into vibration - this bowing he employs with a half-strong sound
(halb starken Ton), perhaps just a degree more than mezzo forte, but then it is
of the greatest effect.'6

It seems clear, from the way that Guhr describes it, that this style of
bowing was unfamiliar to him when he heard Paganini (1784-1840)
use it; at least, the fact that he felt it worthy of comment indicates that
he considered its use to be unconventional.
Whether Paganini's exploitation of this and other springing
bowings was the key factor in repopularizing them from the 1820s
onwards is a moot point, but it is undoubtedly true that his example,
and the fascination which he exerted, must have acted as a counter-
balance to the influence of the Viotti School and its adherents. In
France, especially, the hegemony of the Viotti style began t
seriously challenged in the 1820s. Baillot's change of attitude
interesting and may well have owed something to the influence
Paganini. In the introduction to his exhaustive treatise L'Art du v
of 1834 he discussed Paganini with a mixture of admiration a
reservations, concluding with the remark: 'It belongs to geni
create new effects, to taste to regulate their use, and to time alo
sanction them';17 and, though Baillot's treatise does not incorpo
the full range of Paganini's technical peculiarities, it presents,
whole, a remarkable contrast with the Mithode of 31 years earlie
describes many techniques that had no part in the earlier w
including a range of springing bowings which he calls 'elast
ditach6 liger, perle, sautille and staccato a ricochet. The overall impre
given by the bowing section of L'Art du violon is that while the e
bowstrokes remain available, a much greater emphasis on lightn
and piquancy of bowing had developed in Paris during the interve
period.
Rode and Kreutzer were both dead by the time Baillot published
L'Art du violon and for some years before their deaths both had
experienced the chagrin of seeing their popularity decline. Changing
fashion in Paris and their refusal or inability to adapt their style may
well have been a contributory factor in this loss of popularity. Baillot,

16 Carl Guhr, Ueber Paganini's Kunst die Violin zu spielen ... (Mainz, [1829]), 11.
17 Pierre M. F. de Sales Baillot, L'Art du violon: Nouvelle mithode (Paris, 1834), 6.

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 106 CLIVE BROWN

however, who ha
public performan
flexible and anal
went on to be the
violinists. Franco
de violon of 1844,
treatises add little
In Germany the
which Baillot had discussed in L'Art du violon seems to have been
slower, particularly for the performance of serious German mu
This was partly, perhaps, a result of the characteristic nineteent
century German tendency to identify the French with frivolity
therefore, by extension, to regard these lighter bowings as superf
and unworthy. A potent factor in this was the tremendous influence
Spohr. By the time he wrote his monumental Violinschule in 1832
was widely regarded not only as Germany's greatest violinist, but
as its greatest living composer, and during his long life he taugh
many younger violinists and directly influenced many others. Spo
personality was very strongly marked both in his playing and in
compositions, and the Violinschule makes no concessions to Paganin
to any of the newer French influences. The extensive section
bowing, containing some 57 different examples, does not mention
form of springing bowing and it is clear from what is known of Spoh
opinion on the subject that this is a deliberate omission. Accordin
hs pupil Alexander Malibran, Spohr was horrified when he heard
violinist using springing bowings in the chamber music of Hayd
Mozart or Beethoven, maintaining that it went absolutely against
performance tradition of these works; only in a few scherzos
Beethoven, Onslow and Mendelssohn would he concede their admis
ibility.18
The reliability of Spohr's claim that springing bowings went against
the Classical tradition in German violin playing is, of course, open to
question, but in this context his years in Vienna and his personal
contact with Beethoven should be borne in mind, though this in itself
cannot be taken to prove that his views were identical with
Beethoven's or that other Viennese violinists during Beethoven's
lifetime would not have employed springing bowings in his music.
Too little is known about the playing of Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776-
1830) and Franz Clement (1780-1842), for instance, to be certain
whether they employed them (though a reviewer in 1805 noted that
Clement's playing was not like that of the Viotti-Rode school). '
Surviving accounts suggest considerable diversity in the styles of early
nineteenth-century Viennese violinists, but by the second decade of
the century the broader style certainly seems to have been in the
ascendant. The highly complimentary reviews of Spohr's perform-

'8 Alexander Malibran, Louis Spohr (Frankfurt am Main, 1860), 207-8.

19 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 7 (1804-5), 500.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 107

ances in Vienna between 1812 and 1815 make no reference to

anything unfamiliar or controversial in his bowing style
performances of the chamber music of the three great
masters were greatly admired. In fact, it is probably the asce
the style that Spohr represented which explains Weber's com
a review of Clement's performance at Prague in 1816, in whi
praising Clement's technical command, he wrote:
The present writer will say no more about his style and his attitu
works he plays. These are universally familiar and have much t
mend them; and it is moreover unjust to ask an artist to go against h
artistic personality and transfer his allegiance to another school o
playing, when he is a perfect master in his own way.20
Another violinist and influential teacher who arrived in Vienna
about this time was Joseph Boehm (1795-1876), whom Beetho
preferred to Schuppanzigh in the performance of his String Quar
op. 127, and who premiered Schubert's Piano Trio, op. 100, in 18
Boehm studied for a short while with Rode and was noted for his
breadth of tone and thoroughly musical style; it seems likely, the
fore, that during his early years in Vienna, at any rate, he would
been an exponent of the broad bowing style. His Concerto no
dedicated to Kreutzer, which was written in the early 1820s, impl
overwhelmingly, the bowing style of the Paris school. The only t
in the concerto which may go beyond the technical parameters of
school is a passage of apparently ricochet arpeggios in the f
movement, analogous to those which appear in Paganini's Fi
Caprice, and to those which Mendelssohn was to use in the cadenz
his Violin Concerto. However, it is possible that these figures may
have been played with a ricochet bowing, but a staccato or ditach6 art
on the string, as in a similar example from Baillot's L'Art du violo
limited use of ricochet bowing can be found in Kreutzer's Conce
no. 10, according to Baillot, but it is by no means typical.) A
Paganini's visit to Vienna in 1828, Boehm may well have been open
his influence in technical matters and may have encouraged his p
to practice Paganini's compositions. His attitude to the use of
springing bowings in the German Classics, however, is unclear,
though it is probable that he discouraged it.
Among Boehm's pupils was Joseph Joachim (1832-1907), who in a
letter to Boehm from Leipzig in 1844 wrote that he was working hard
on pieces by Spohr and Paganini.21 When the 12-year-old Joachim had
left Vienna for Leipzig the previous year he was clearly still uncertain
about the propriety of using springing bowing in Classical composi-
tions, for he sought Mendelssohn's guidance on the matter and
received the advice: 'Always use it, my boy, where it is suitable, or
where it sounds well.' The terms in which Andreas Moser (1859-

20 Carl Maria von Weber: Writings on Music, ed. John Warrack (Cambridge, 1981), 174.
21 Joseph Joachim, Briefe, ed. Johannes Joachim and Andreas Moser, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1911), i, 3.

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 108 CLIVE BROWN

1925), Joachim's c
interesting; he said
'from certain preju
example, that the
Classical composi
statement adds we
bowstrokes in Classical chamber works was still a controversial matter
quite late into the century. Spohr's prejudice against their use was
certainly a potent factor in this, but despite his enormous authority,
his almost total rejection of springing bowings was not shared for long
by many. It is noteworthy that Henry Holmes (1839-1905), dedicatee
of Spohr's last three violin duets, in his 1878 English edition of
Spohr's Violinschule, supplemented the section on bowing with exer-
cises for practising sautill6 and spiccato, and that Spohr's pupil Ferdi-
nand David (1810-73) included two forms of springing bowing in his
own Violinschule (1864). David's son, Paul, commented about his
father:

It can hardly be said that he perpetuated in his pupils Spohr's method and
style. Entirely differing from his great master in musical temperament
... he represented a more modern phase in German violin-playing and an
eclecticism which has avoided one-sidedness not less in matters of
technique than in musical taste and judgement generally.23

Hermann Schr6der (1843-1909) discussed the full range of fir

springing bowings in his Die Kunst des Violinspiels (1887), and
considering sautille bowing, which he called 'der leichte Bogen
remarked:

The light bow is now an indispensable bowing style for every violinist,
especially those who have been formed by the newer French school.
In the old Italian and particularly in the German school up to L. Spohr,
it was little used. One played passages suited to these bowstrokes on the
whole with short strokes with an on-the-string bowing at the point.24

(Schr6der went on to suggest that the indication leggiero was an

instruction to use a sautill6 bowstroke.) However, the extent to which,
even in the second half of the nineteenth century, springing bowings
in Classical compositions were still considered to be stylistically
inappropriate, in places where they would now generally be preferred,
can be seen from bowed editions by David, Joachim and other German
editors. In these, many passages which would probably now be played
off the string are clearly bowed to be played on the string in the upper
half. How little this accords with the modern violinist's instincts in
many cases will be well known to chamber-music players who, wh
sight reading Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann

22 Andreas Moser, Joseph Joachim, trans. Lilla Durham (London, 1901), 46.
23 Article 'Violin-playing' in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 3rd edn, ed. Henry C
Colles (London, 1929), v, 533.
24 Hermann Schr6der, Die Kunst des Violinspiels (Cologne, 1887), 72.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 109

etc. from these editions, some of which are sti

themselves caught at the 'wrong end' of the
bowing. Newer editions have reversed many of
Examples of David's bowings in works by
Schubert will illustrate the point. In the first m
sohn's String Quartet, op. 44 no. 3 (see Figure 1
bowing (from his own copy of the Mendelssohn
written in the same blue pencil with which he s
makes it clear that the passages of staccato quav
to be played on the string in the upper half (eithe
the bowings in parentheses are from the Peters
and imply a spiccato for the quavers, which
violinists would play them. Example 2 gives a
movement of Schubert's Piano Trio, op. 99, in
pl. no. 7127), in which a slurred staccato in the
a detached bowing near the point, is used for
Peters Neu revidierte Ausgabe indicates a light stro
bow. Similar examples can easily be found
nineteenth-century German editors.
It is clear that attitudes towards bowing styl
during the nineteenth century. Broadly, it seem
eighteenth century a light bowing style in wh

Figure 1. Mendelssohn, String Quartet, op. 44 no. 3, first

movement: Allegro vivace. (Figures 1, 5, 7, 8 and 13 are reproduced by
kind permission of Dr Alan Tyson from a copy once owned by
Ferdinand David containing his own bowings and fingerings. The
bowings in parentheses in Figure 1 show how the passage is bowed in
the Peters Neu revidierte Ausgabe; all other manuscript markings are by
David.)

T4 ns" p cres4o. --

4,_ b ,bb b
- I'- I I I r -i" l,,J _I -p
cres. VP cresc. .

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 110 CLIVE BROWN

Example 2. Schu
moderato.

(a) Peters Edition (P1. no. 7127), as edited by Ferdinand David

41 6

(b) Peters's Neu revidierte Ausgabe V . 1

springing
which bowstroke;
stressed and
sonority this
and style was challenged
expansiveness, in rejected
and largely its turren
theby the

success of Paganini and was replaced in the newer French and

Franco-Belgian schools by one in which greater diversity and a
predilection for a range of lighter, more piquant bowings prevailed. In
Germany, though, the style of Rode, Kreutzer and Spohr had a more
lasting influence and, while the lighter bowings were not entirely
eschewed, their widespread application to Classical works in partic-
ular did not come about until the twentieth century. Much more
archival work remains to be done in the area, and further research will
undoubtedly amplify and clarify this sketch, but the question of what
kind of bowing style was prevalent at any particular time or place
during the period, and, most importantly, what sort of style different
composers had in mind when writing for string instruments, can
probably never be determined with certainty. It is possible, however,
to be fairly positive about the styles of some individual violinists and,
through a proper awareness of their relationship with contemporary
composers, to have a clearer understanding of what may be implied by
those composers' notation. Beethoven was undoubtedly aware of the
characteristics of the violinists he wrote for, and David's style is an
important key to Mendelssohn's intentions, as is Joachim's to
Brahms's.

The history of vibrato in the nineteenth century presents a ver

different picture. Here the story is one of continuity and consensu
rather than change and diversity, for it was only towards the end of th

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 111

century that a radically divergent approach be

Franco-Belgian influence, and not until the twent
new aesthetic attitude to vibrato became established. The continuous
vibrato, which seems fundamental to modern violin playing, where it
is regarded more as an essential element of basic tone production than
as an expressive device, has only gained widespread currency within
living memory. Siegfried Eberhardt's treatise Violin Vibrato of 1910 is
the earliest work to deal at length with the mechanism of vibrato and
clearly to identify the vibrato rather than the bow with the production
of a fine and individual tone quality. The far-reaching nature and
recent acceptance of this change is well illustrated by contrasting the
modern attitude with what Leopold Auer (1845-1930), a pupil of
Joachim and one of the last defenders of the old aesthetic, wrote on
the subject. In his book Violin Playing as I teach it, published in 1921, he
maintained:

Like the portamento the vibrato is primarily a means used to heighten effect,
to embellish and beautify a singing passage or tone. Unfortunately, both
singers and players of string instruments frequently abuse this effect just
as they do the portamento, and by so doing they have called into being a
plague of the most inartistic nature, one to which ninety out of every
hundred vocal and instrumental soloists fall victim.

He went on to criticize players who resort to vibrato 'in an ostrich-like

endeavour to conceal bad tone production and intonation', and then
observed that

those who are convinced that an eternal vibrato is the secret of soulful
playing, of piquancy in performance - are pitifully misguided in their
belief. In some cases, no doubt, they are, perhaps against their own bett
instincts, conscientiously carrying out the instructions of unmusical
teachers. But their own appreciation of musical values ought to tell the
how false is the notion that vibration, whether in good or bad taste, ad
spice and flavour to their playing .... Their musical taste (or what does
service for them in place of it) does not tell them that they can reduce
programme of the most dissimilar pieces to the same dead level
monotony by peppering them all with the tabasco of a continuous vibra
No, the vibrato is an effect, an embellishment; it can lend a touch of divine
pathos to the climax of a phrase or the course of a passage, but only if t
player has cultivated a delicate sense of proportion in the use of it.

After much more in which he sarcastically postulated that continuo

vibrato is an 'actual physical defect' resulting from a 'group of sick
ailing nerves', he concluded:

In any case remember that only the most sparing use of the vibrato is
desirable; the too generous employment of the device defeats the purpo
for which you use it. The excessive vibrato is a habit for which I have n
tolerance, and I always fight against it when I observe it in my pupils
though often, I must admit, without success. As a rule I forbid my students
using the vibrato at all on notes which are not sustained, and I earnestly

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 112 CLIVE BROWN

advise them not to abuse it even in the case of sustained notes which
succeed each other in a phrase.25

By the time Auer wrote these remarks, however, the use of continu
vibrato was well on the way to gaining universal sanction, and am
its most influential exponents were Auer's own pupils, Heifetz, E
and Zimbalist.
That Auer's view represented a tradition which had been domina
throughout the nineteenth century, however, is abundantly clear from
documentary evidence. Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) recognized that
use of vibrato to provide a more or less continuous colouring to t
sound was of recent origin, observing:
Wieniawsky [1835-80] intensified the vibrato and brought it to heigh
never before achieved, so that it became known as the 'French vibrato'.
Vieuxtemps [1820-81] also took it up, and after him Eugene Ysay
[1858-1931], who became its greatest exponent, and I. Joseph Joachim,
instance, disdained it.26

Beauty and nobility of sound were increasingly equated with

continuously vibrant tone, produced by the left hand, whereas bef
they had been equated with a steady and pure tone produced by t
bow. Carl Flesch (1873-1944), discussing the impact of Kreisl
continuous vibrato, succinctly described the radical change in
aesthetics of string sound which had taken place at the beginning
the twentieth century. He wrote:
We must not forget that even in 1880 the great violinists did not yet make
use of a proper vibrato but employed a kind of Bebung, i.e. a finger vibrato
in which the pitch was subjected to only quite imperceptible oscillation
To vibrate on relatively inexpressive notes, not to speak of runs,
regarded as unseemly and inartistic. Basically quicker passages had to
distinguished by a certain dryness from longer and more expressive no
Ysaye was the first to make use of a broader vibrato and already attempted
to give life to passing notes, while Kreisler drew the extreme consequen
from this revelation of vibrato activity; he not only resorted to a st
broader vibrato, but even tried to ennoble faster passages by means of
vibrato which, admittedly, was more latent than manifest.27

Nineteenth-century violin methods give very little instruction about

the mechanics of vibrato. In L'Art du violon, Baillot, for instance,
described it as 'a slight trembling' and merely instructed the pupil
'place one finger on the string, keep the other three fingers raised and
rock the left hand as a unit with a more or less moderate movement, s
that this rocking or shaking of the left hand is conveyed to the finge
on the string'.28 Other nineteenth-century accounts are essential
similar; there are no references to participation of the arm in th

2" Leopold Auer, Violin Playing as I teach it (London 1921), 22-4.

2h Louis Paul Lochner, Fritz Kreisler (London, 1951), 19.
27 Carl Flesch, Mimoires (London, 1957), 120.
2' Baillot, L'Art du violon, 138.

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BOW\ING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO) 113

Figure 2. From Baillot, L'Art du violon (1834).

INDICATION> tLno.
12 2j 2 2 C lintiez du n2 di^ _____

vibrato. Instructions for the artistic use of vibrato are also remarkab
consistent, though some important methods surprisingly fail to
discuss it at all. The Baillot-Rode-Kreutzer Mithode of 1803, though
has a considerable amount about tone, style, embellishment and
on, does not mention the left-hand vibrato, but it describes a vibrat
('ondulation') produced by the bow alone.29 Much later in the centur
Alard's Ecole, too, is silent on the matter. Baillot's L'Art du violon,
however, deals with the uses of left-hand vibrato in considerable
detail. He observed:

This undulation, produced more or less slowly by the finger, ha

animated, tender and sometimes pathetic expression; but the rockin
the finger momentarily alters the purity of intonation of the note. In or
that the ear may not be distressed by this and may immediately be
consoled, the exact pure note should be heard at the beginning and the
end [see Figure 2]. This undulation, introduced with discretion, gives the
sound of the instrument a close analogy with the human voice when it is
strongly touched with emotion. This type of expression is very powerful,
but if frequently used it would have only the dangerous disadvantage of
making the melody unnatural and depriving the style of that precious
naivety which is the greatest charm of art and recalls it to its primitive
simplicity.

After further discussion of specific opportunities for using vibrato

Baillot warned:

Avoid giving the undulation a flabby quality, which would make t

playing seem old-fashioned, or a stiffness which would spoil its charm a
fluency; above all, avoid making a habit of vibrating the hand, which m
be used only when the expression renders it necessary and, furthermore, in
compliance with all that has been indicated in order to prevent it
misuse.3o

Spohr's account of vibrato (called 'tremolo') in his Violinschule of

1832 differs from Baillot's in that he does not demand the pure note at
the beginning and end of every vibrato note, in that he specifies it for
the intensification of sforzandi and in his description of four different
speeds of vibrato - a fast, a slow, a speeding-up and a slowing-down
vibrato, which he indicates in various musical examples with wavy
lines (see Figure 3). Like Baillot he specified that 'deviation from the
true pitch of the note should be scarcely perceptible to the ear'. He too
warned against abuse of vibrato, saying that the player

29 Baillot-Rode-Kreutzer, Mithode de violon (Paris, 1803), 137. Baillot also discusses the bow
vibrato in L'Art du violon.
30 Baillot, L'Art du violon, 138-9.

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114 CLIVE BROWN

Figure 3. Vibrato

should guard aga

this vibration is o
it is employed on
accented notes m
be animated and re

Spohr's pupil Fe
counselled: 'One
ever, one must g
Charles de BWr
Mithode de violon

Vibrato (son vibre)

use it with effec
becomes a fault w
acquired, degener
afterwards be ov
voice of the singer
by this great faul
increased by the
when he appears i
when the artist gi
exceeds the limit o
who is governed b
convulsive movem
ridiculous exagge
dramatic action
having this dange
moderation.33

The musical exam

is indicated by w
device should be
In the Joachim
restraint is given
tions for the use

To arrive at perf
by Spohr is merely
sufficiently warn
A violinist whose
steady tone as th
expression seems t

'3 Louis Spohr, Violins

32 Ferdinand David, Vi
3 Charles de Beriot, M
34 Joseph Joachim and

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 115

Figure 4. From B&riot, Methode de violon (1858).

MELODY. MELODIE.
Som,bre aidl dramatic colounring. Nocessariy emn.

plaes indicated.
pl/,no.Int vibrdssounds
of ribrated et desandfthe
porfs deportamento
voix mix endroits indiquis.
in the Couleur sorubre el dramalique. Emploi recessairedesons
Andantino con molto espross. .9= .

PIA 7 _

L ' z I AFI AL-AL-0

dim. 4

IT a' ,

more+d

An interesting additional comment is made in Part 3 of the

where the opening bars of Joachim's Romance, op. 2, ar
words added to clarify the stresses (see Example 3). The text
observes:

If therefore the player wishes to make use of the vibrato in the first bars of
the Romance (which, however, he should certainly not do), then it must
occur only, like a delicate breath, on the notes under which the syllables
'friih' and 'wie' are placed.35
35 Ibid., iii, 7.

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 116 CLIVE BROWN

Example 3. Joach
Moser, Violinschule
Andantino
dolce assai

A _ I I 9
Hol-der Fruhb - hng, komm doch wie - der!

By the time the Joachim-Moser

current was already running stron
which they were advocates. It was p
the revered high priest of Classi
acceptance of a contrary view. Fl
attributed Kreisler's early lack of a
aesthetic. Joachim's death in 1907 r
acceptance of the new ideal, and th
were fighting a hopeless rearguard
easily. An article in The Strad publi
the year ofJoachim's death, outspok
quoting Spohr, citing Madame N
referring to some pieces which, the w
went on:

But there is a still greater number of pieces and movements whic

very nature and quality call just as loudly for clear, clean, fi
without any vibrato at all; and in such pieces the vibrato is an ef
I do not believe the composer ever intended.36

Ten years later, however, the same periodical published

its articles which clearly reveal a changing climate. In 19
Hodgeson, after remarking that 'the vibrato is principal
brightening outstanding notes', referred to 'the vexed point
use vibrato' and confessed: 'I see no harm in its presence a
the player has such perfect control that he can reduce it at w
a slight movement as to be inconspicuous and emotion
qualified this by adding: 'An enthusiastic and passionate
uneventful moments is as senseless as a recitation of the a
intense emotion would be, and equally nauseous.'37 Th
year in The Strad W. W. Cobbett wrote approvingly o
vibrato, almost imperceptible yet always present in th
phases of a fine violinist's interpretation';38 though anoth
the next volume cautioned: 'Be very sparing in the us
which so soon loses its effect.'39
Some violinists still active after the First World War adhered to the
old view. Lucien Capet (1873-1928) was a notable example; and
36 The Strad, 18 (1907-8), 305.
37 Ibid., 27 (1916-17), 146.
38 Ibid., 28 (1917-18), 128.
39 Ibid., 29 (1918-19), 294.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRILTO AND PORTAMENTO) 117
Manoug Parikian recalled that his teacher in London in the 1930s,
Louis Pecskai (1880-1944), used vibrato only intermittently and kept
his left hand perfectly steady at other times.o0 But the trend was
inexorably towards a more continuous and wider vibrato. Leopold
Auer's vain protestations were among the last manifestations of the
old aesthetic.
Robert Donington, among others, has questioned whether it is true
that nineteenth-century violinists really limited their vibrato to selec
ted notes; he claims to detect in recordings of Joachim made in 1903
more or less continuous vibrato."4 In this his ears undoubtedly deceiv
him, though there is no doubt that Joachim used vibrato rather more
frequently in these recordings than might be inferred from hi
strictures. Donington's hypothesis (presumably influenced by his view
that 'totally vibrato-less string tone sounds dead in any music')42 tha
an unobtrusive vibrato was always present in violin playing, and that
what violinists meant when they wrote about using vibrato on
particular notes was an intensification of vibrato, is clearly mistaken
Concrete evidence of composers' and violinists' intentions and expec
tations that the basic violin sound should be an unvibrated one is to be
found in abundance in fingering indications of the period. The
inclusion of natural harmonics and open strings in cantabile passages
would in most instances make no musical sense at all if the surround-
ing notes were to be played with vibrato. Figure 5 and Examples 4-6
demonstrate the free mixture of stopped and open notes in music of
the period.
The fact that leading nineteenth-century violinists used vibrato
selectively raises the question of how integral this aspect of string
playing was to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century composers'

Figure 5. Mendelssohn, String Quartet, op. 44 no. 2, first

movement: Allegro assai appassionato (with David's markings).

P.,;/

ff P"% IS I A I 77 i ~lb d

40 Oral communication from Manoug Parikian to the author.

41' Robert Donington, A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music (London, 1973), 87.
42 Robert Donington, The Interpretation of Ear1y Music (rev. edn, London, 1974), 235.

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 118 CLIVE BROWN

Example 4. Benne
fermo.

f con anima -- cresc. ff

Example 5. Spohr, Piano Trio, op. 142, first mo

vivace.

02 4
0 1 1 1

cresc. f dim. Pi t= dim.

O V

2 4 0 ',

Example 6. Haydn, String Quartet, op. 76 no. 2, f

Allegro (Peters Edition, ed. Moser).
S 0 I 3 0 2

conceptions of their musi

regarded as coming into th
left to the discretion of t
governing its use were reco
composers specified it on pa
indicated it with a wavy line.
146 and 152 and in the son
Joachim sometimes used a w
vibrato, for instance in th
arrangement of Brahms's
Cesar Franck wrote the wo
part of the first movement
wrote 'ff "vibrato" molto es
(rehearsal no. 86) of his Sec
be redundant if the compo
vibrato.
There was also another sign which was more widely used, but which
has not generally been recognized as implying vibrato, namely the
short crescendo-diminuendo < > placed over a single note. This is
present in Baillot's L'Art du violon together with the wavy line in his
example from Viotti's use of vibrato from that composer's Concerto
no. 19 (see Figure 6). Campagnoli, too, specifically linked the sign
with vibrato in his Metodo. It is also equated explicitly with vibrato in
the Joachim-Moser Violinschule, where one of the examples is of its use

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 BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 119

Example 7. Brahms-Joachim, Hungarian Dance

-4

pp pp sempre, ma vibrato

Figure 6. Viotti, Violin Concerto no. 19, as quoted in Baillot's L'Art

du violon (with vibrato signs).

Milestoso. 1004P
Maetos. -_1 1 ---1 ). --------

on selected semiquavers in Rode's Caprice no. 3 (see Example 8). The

link from Joachim back to Rode via Boehm is a sufficiently direct one
to instil confidence in the reliability of this interpretation of the sign.
The sign is frequently present throughout Rode's Caprices and also
occurs in some of his later violin concertos, for example, no. 13. This
sign is not widely found in the music of other early nineteenth-century
composers, but it is not infrequently used in the music of Mendels-
sohn, Schumann and Brahms. (Mendelssohn's close friend and violin
teacher, Eduard Rietz, for whom he wrote the Octet, had also been a
pupil of Rode.)
The connections between these musicians are so strong that there
can be little doubt that where they used this sign it indicated vibrato
as well as the explicit crescendo-diminuendo. There are certainly
instances where, as in Rode's use of it on short notes, it could hardly,
for technical reasons, mean anything other than vibrato together with
gentle bow pressure. The connection between this form of accent and
vibrato is a particularly strong one, but there can be no doubt that
vibrato and accentuation of all kinds were closely linked in
nineteenth-century violin playing. Of coure, a composer's intention,
as indicated by this sign, that certain notes should be played with
vibrato does not preclude its use elsewhere; it merely means that
those notes must have it. But it is also true that this indication becomes
virtually meaningless if every possible note has vibrato. The use of the
sign in Figures 7-8 and Examples 9-14, from works of Mendelssohn,
Schumann, Brahms and Elgar, is almost certainly a deliberate instruc-
tion to apply vibrato.

Whereas vibrato was much more sparingly used in the nineteenth

century than it is today, portamento was freely employed as an
expressive device. In fact, in nineteenth-century methods, these two
effects were generally considered as of equal importance, and warn-
ings against the abuse of the one were usually extended to the other.
Like the ornamental vibrato, the prominent portamento which was

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 120 CLIVE BROWN

Example 8. Rode
Violinschule.
Comodo

3 01 2101 01
p legato

Figure 7. Mendelssohn, String Quartet, op. 13, third movement:

Allegretto con moto (with David's markings).

Figure 8. Mendelssohn, String Quartet, op. 13, fourth movement:

Presto (with David's markings).

PRESTO I" iI di
f 3r ad libitum I fLW
Xiolino 2.
I

Example 9. Schumann, Violin Sonata, op. 105, first movement: Mit

leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck.
.4 4

M II -i I
<> cresc.

Example 10
Lebhaft.
Im Tempo
3te Saite.. ........................................................................

Example 11. Brahms, Violin Concerto, op. 77, first movement:

Allegro non troppo.

(amabile)
3 0

--
.?..- r ~l .l.. -i Pr-._
-Ii. , .ii'r
-.- Li
I IL12
b -

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 121

Example 12. Brahms, Violin Sonata, op. 108, first move

p sotto voce ma espressivo <> <> <> <>

Example 13. Elgar, Violin Sonata, op.

V < <> <> <>

Example 14. Elgar,

Piacevole (poco andante).
III <>

dolciss.
<>

out of fashion. Where it is still used, it is executed much more

discreetly because it is generally performed with a faster movement of
the left hand and a decrease in bow pressure. (The term portamento,
which was used to mean a number of different things during the
nineteenth century, is being used here to mean only the audible slide
between two notes of different pitches.)
A great increase in the use of prominent portamento seems to have
occurre left hand around the beginning of the nineteenthscentury. Portamento
was clearly known and used before this; it is to some extent an
inescapable consequence of position changing. In 1776 in his treatise
Ueber die Pflichten des Ripien-violinisten, J. F. Reichardt prohibited the
orchestral player from sliding with the same finger from one position
to another, but allowed it to be used by the solo player 'from time to
time'.43 Burney also referred to its expressive effect.44 Eighteenth-
century violin methods, however, were not generally very explicit

43 Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Ueber die Pflichten des Ripien-violinisten (Berlin and Leipzig, 1776),
35.
44 Charles Burney, A General History of Music, 4 vols. (London, 1776-89), ii, 992.

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 122 CLIVE BROWN

about portament
Kreutzer Mithode
those three violin
Viotti. Example
Baillot, given in t
the opportunit
examples can be f
Another violinist resident in Paris from 1786 to 1789 who is known
to have made frequent and prominent use of it in slow movements wa
Niccolo Mestrino (1748-89). Woldemar, in his Grande mithode of 1800
gives an example of Mestrino's use of the portamento, calling it the
'couler 'a Mestrino'; and in his revision and amplification of Leopold
Mozart's Violinschule Woldemar, who had been a pupil of Lolli and
Mestrino, deals with the device at greater length in a section entitled
'Gammes enharmoniques des modernes' without attributing it to any
violinist in particular. However, according to Antonio Salieri (1750-
1825), in a letter published in 1811, it was Lolli who was responsible
for the initiation of the exaggerated practice of portamento. He wrote:

This laughable mannerism on the violin derived from a joke of the

celebrated Lolli. When in his later years he was no longer master of the
ravishing, magical energy through which he had formerly captivated the
public, he sought, in order to gain acclaim for the concerts which he gave
on his journeys, at least to make them laugh; thus, in the last Allegro of his
concerto he imitated now a parrot, now a dog and now a cat. The Ca
Concerto, as he himself called it, was relished by the public, and he
therefore gave it often and to universal applause. Other violinists now

Figure 9. Kreutzer, Concerto in C, Moderato, as quoted in Baillot

L'Art du violon.

luoderato 4 --.-- Doigte' par l 'auteuir.

Figure 10. Rode, Sonata no. 1, Cantante, as quoted in Baillot, L'Art du

violon.

Caniante. Doigie par l'auteur.

2A 7? N r2-

%J fr z fr" ' mw

Figure 11. Baillot, Etude: Allegro non troppo, from

(2eEdition de la treMethode de Violon de Baillot. 50 Etude& sui' 1a gamme. - Ed.Oz

Allegro non troppo. : 126. _ 2ecorde .. . .

Pr.s de la touchie.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBILATO AND PORTAMENTO 123

copied this master's joke. Little by little the joke became a fashi
fashion (which strangely not merely players but also singers
themselves to be carried away by) became a method with the wea
more foolish; and since the number of the latter is endless, so th
manner became little by little a sort of school from which a fine mu
of cats has proceeded to pain the ears of the listener, with the int
delighting them, through playing and singing in this manner.45

Spohr was the great German exponent of portamento, and p

derived his predilection for it from Rode; for Reichardt,
heard them both, objected to Spohr's portamento in 1805
exaggerated copy of Rode's'.46 A number of references to por
during the first two decades of the nineteenth century sugges
was beginning to be much more prominent with regard
frequency and intensity. Reichardt's remark about Spohr
suggests a more frequent and obtrusive portamento than ha
customary. A critic in Prague three years later was even more
for after describing Spohr's ravishing performance of an Ad
continued:

Yes, one could call him unsurpassed in this genre if he did not often
disturb us in this enjoyment, and sometimes very unpleasantly, by a
mannerism much too frequently employed, that is by sliding up and down
with one and the same finger at all possible intervals, by an artifical miaow
as one might call it if that did not sound teasing.47

He added that Spohr also used the device in allegro.

At about the same time the practice seems to have become
prevalent in Vienna. Kreutzer had visited the city in 1798, Rode in
1812-13, and Spohr was resident there between 1812 and 1815, but
these violinists, though they may have been among its leading
exponents, were certainly far from alone. Beethoven, in the Violin
Sonata, op. 96, written for Rode during his stay in Vienna, seems
clearly to have envisaged some use of portamento; a passage at bar
159 of the last movement could hardly be performed without it in view
of the necessary descent from sixth position to first in a single
bowstroke, and Rode would undoubtedly have introduced a prom-
inent portamento here (see Example 15). Salieri's sarcastic diatribe
against portamento in 1811, from which a section has already been
cited, was apparently ineffective, and in 1815 he published a mani-
festo saying:
Discerning teachers of music seek assiduously to banish the false methods
which have for some time been creeping into the practice of singers and
string players, methods which are known by the term maniera languida,
smorfiosa, and which one might fitly call the sickly, grimacing manner.
Violinists, violists and cellists succumb to this manner when they slide up

" Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 13 (1811), 209.

46 Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, ed. Johann Friedrich Reichardt, 1 (1805), 95.
7 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 10 (1807-8), 313.

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 124 CLIVE BROWN

Example 15. Beeth

Adagio. (Joachim's f
the A string.)

cresc. P

or down
same fin
or inter
but ins
strange
this me
in a par
opposite
comic tu

Perhaps
be a sat
All suc
became
import
is given
it is di
revealin
lucidly
all the
which h
in the h
higher
as a dis
belief t
lowest
shift,
procedu
to stop
'unpleas
other im
used in
effect
approv
who sai
should
part'.5o

"48 Eduard Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien (Vienna, 1869), 233, n. 2.
'9 Spohr, Violinschule, 120.
50 Manuel Garcia, A New Treatise on the Art of Singing (London, 1855), 52.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 125

Spohr exemplified various applications and slight mod

portamento technique in his Violinschule in carefully f
bowed studies and pieces with which he gave a detailed
In his painstaking account of how the first moveme
Concerto no. 7 should be performed, for instance, it can
he notated an anticipation of the top note in order to allow a
portamento between notes which are not in the same bow (see
Example 16 - this anticipation is not present in the composer's
original text, nor are a number of other rhythmic and melodic features
which occur in Spohr's version). In the Adagio of the same concerto
Spohr instructed the player to make a portamento on a downward
interval to an open string (see Example 17); he also marked a
descending triad to be played with three successive fourth fingers.
Many other instances can be found in Spohr's own violin composi-
tions, in which he frequently marked expressive fingerings, but an
exhaustive account of his various applications of portamento is
beyond the scope of this article.
Baillot's catalogue of the execution and uses of portamento in L'Art
du violon is somewhat more explicit and systematic than Spohr's. He
described the practice of anticipating the second note and also of
repeating the first note as an appoggiatura before the slide. Like
Spohr he forbade sliding with the finger which is to stop the second
note in rising portamenti, but he recommended that in descending
portamenti, as well as sliding with the finger which has stopped the
top note, one may just brush the semitone above the target note with
the finger which is to be used to stop it.

Example 16. Rode, Violin Concerto no. 7, first movement: Allegro

moderato, as quoted in Spohr, Violinschule.
0

AA" i 'htll- Ir I I i L i L-- -L

original text

Example 17. Rode, Violin Concerto no. 7, second movement: Adagio,

as quoted in Spohr, Violinschule. (The places where Spohr instructs the
player to make a portamento are marked with diagonal lines beneath
the stave.)
=96 3 2 0

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 126 CLIVE BROWN

Charles de B&riot's
three differently s
intensities of portam
music, indicating wh
Figure 12). It is possi
executing ascendin
technique in which
upper note before i
instruction for a po
Concerto no. 7 is not
this type of portamen
half of the century,
Schr6der mentioned
footnote saying:

Particularly in the Fr
many good things in
bow, this perverted m
ourselves absolutely can

In addition to those
is the copious evid

Figure 12. From B6ri

SIGNIES EXPLICATIFS

EMPLOYES DANS LES PAGES

SUIVANTES POUR LES DIVERS

PORTS - DE -VOIX

Poil- dc~-voix vif': -

Empno '; . dan. les n1olos joh:e, ;Nvfe "I'M Mt, . lam.-lf-'

Port-de-voix doux:

Port-de--'%oix ain- :

-- (--- , ed -1 - - - qui--IT)Te d -i

5' Schr6der, Die Kunst des Violinspiels, 33, note.

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BOWING STYLES, VIBRATO AND PORTAMENTO 127

Figure 12. Continued

Examples of violin music corresponding with those Exeumples de musiqutie de

on the preceding page. la page precdente.

Light and rapid. Port-de-voi. vf et e ger.

Allegro.
RONIbO BUSSESE AV

B.riot

TeAder. Erpreoi' aff u e.

A Andante. Tender. e;Expr,,si,,n qly?. it'v'ht e.
9me'XJ VARI9 3V-1 Orol9

Plaintive. *Expression plaintipe.

Adag, o - t
7"'CONCERTO 0 "

I I& t rr-P

Sorrowful. nAceent douloureux.

Animato
QUINTETTO ,I 3" -

All" disperato. ,

twentieth-century violin music, whic

of where its use was considered artis
13 provide a few representative in
particularly interesting because the n
early gramophone recordings. Joachi
Dance in 1903, executes the portament
extract very slowly and with conti
(1884-1956), who recorded a trunc
Concerto in 1916 with the composer
portamento very prominent, increasin
the slow slide of her first finger up the

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 128 CLIVE BROWN

Example 18. Brah

assai.

11T 1 1 51 4 1 P
--=- ---- _ri en. e dim.

Example 19. Elgar, Violin Concerto, op

Andante.
IV - - - ten. - - - - - - - -
ten. sonore

cantabile

Figure 13. Mendelssohn, Strin

movement: Allegro vivace (with David

The portamento and vibrato practi

and early twentieth centuries we
values which were not confined me
reference to vocal performance in
indicates that there was a close connection between violin and voice.
In fact, almost everything that the violin methods said about the
application and effect of these techniques can be paralleled in vocal
methods. Nicola Vaccai (1790-1848), in his Metodo pratico (1832), for
example, gave descriptions of the performance and artistic use of
portamento which are very close to Baillot's; and Manuel Garcia's
New Treatise on the Art of Singing (1855) treated portamento and vibrato
in much the same way as Charles de B&riot (Garcia's brother-in-law)
did in his Mithode.
Notwithstanding all the documentary evidence of bowing tech-
niques, vibrato and portamento in nineteenth-century violin playing,
it is difficult to conceive what a performance by Kreutzer, Rode, Spohr
or Paganini would actually have sounded like. Modern notions of good
taste would probably prevent us from imagining anything remotely
like it, were it not for the fact that the invention of recording has
preserved, albeit partially and imperfectly, the performance styles of
almost a century ago. These fragments cannot necessarily be taken to
represent the practices of an even earlier generation, but they do act
as a powerful reminder that our own musical instincts are not a
reliable guide to what might once have been considered a fine style.

The Queen's College, Oxford

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