A monograph devoted to the unaccompanied sonatas and
partitas for violin by a leading international violinist.
WORKS COVERED
BWV 1001-1006
READERSHIP
Advanced students and performers of Bach's solo violin works.
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
Performance issues related to baroque style and technique and their execution on
both period and modern instruments
chröder’s ‘detailed but informal guide’ (quoted from the
cover) to the performance of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied
violin is the result of his sixty-odd years of involvement with the work and his
continued interest in period instruments and historical performance practices,
for which modern schools of music have, in his opinion, shown little regard.
The first part of the book offers an overview of baroque style and technique,
starting with the development of the violin and the ways in which it was held
through the ages, the recommended choice of instrument for the performance of
baroque music and possible compromises, issues of notation, intonation and
tuning, etc. The main part of the book is devoted to a movement-by-movement
discussion of the six sonatas and partitas with suggestions for the choice of
tempi, bowings, articulation, positions, ornamentation, etc.
By stating that ‘the focus of this study is by no means
musicological’ in the introductory chapter (viii), Schröder defends himself
against the otherwise warranted criticism that his reasoning is at times
one-sided and intuitive, and lacking a scholarly basis. With astonishment
we read his statement ‘I am convinced that Bach’s written slurs are really
bowing marks’ (p.17) – the astonishment coming from the fact that what we have
just read has been long-established.
Contents
Preface
Baroque Style and Technique
Introduction
Baroque Playing: A General Approach
The Right Hand and the Bow Arm
The Left Hand: Positions, Intonation, Tuning, Vibrato,
Ornamentation
Polyphony on the Violin: The Fugues
Manuscript Sources and Editions
The Sonatas and Partitas
Sonata in G minor BWV 1001
Partita in B minor BWV 1002
Sonata in A minor BWV 1003
Partita in D minor BWV 1004
Sonata in C major BWV 1005
Partita in E major BWV 1006
Epilogue
Appendix: Suggested Metronome Markings
Select Bibliography
The cover offers a somewhat misleading statement
regarding the book’s target readership: it labels the book as intended for
‘advanced students and performers’. However, the contents and the prescriptive
approach and tone of the book render it more suited for the developing musician
who is just starting to gain proficiency on the instrument. To the performer,
and even to the advanced student, the explanation of the tierce de Picardie
(p.21), the introduction to elementary acoustics (p.19ff), or the recommendation
to consult the autograph, rather than to rely on editions (p.58) are fairly
superfluous. But it must be said that Schröder himself does not make those
ambitious claims. In fact, he maintains that ‘increasing technical proficiency
should go hand in hand with an understanding of the stylistic characteristics of
successive periods’ (p.9). In other words, the development of the artist’s
stylistic awareness should start from the earliest stages. The prescriptiveness
and what musicologists would consider a lack of scholarly authority, should be
regarded in this light; rather than getting tangled up in the heated debate on
Bach’s tuning and the meaning of ‘well-tempered’, he puts forward the simplistic
assertion that Bach’s system of tuning for the keyboard ‘narrowed all the fifths
just enough to be still acceptable to the ear, yet allowed modulations into any
key’ (p.24).
Schröder believes that a number of dilemmas and challenges
posed by Bach’s Solos can be overcome naturally, by choosing to play them on an
instrument suited to the period in which they were written, as the instrument
itself will dictate certain aspects of technique and style. He observes that,
‘in the twenty-first century it is common to listen to a violin built in the
seventeenth century, set up as a classical instrument in the eighteenth century,
and played with a nineteenth-century bow while subjected to the pressure of
twentieth-century steel strings’ (p.5). The transformations of the instrument
have, understandably, fashioned transformations in technique, and the modern
performer is presented with a new challenge ‘to “unlearn” that part of his or
her technical training that stands in the way of a stylish performance’(p.6).
But, as with the once contentious issue of the performance of Bach’s keyboard
music on the modern piano, Schröder reasons that it would be absurd to exclude
the modern violin from the performance of Bach’s music. He recommends a baroque
bow or a good reproduction ‘capable of biting the gut strings with minimal
effort’(p.9) as a satisfactory compromise. On the point of textual
interpretation, ornamentation in particular, he advocates consultation of
contemporaneous arrangements and transcriptions, particularly those made by Bach
himself, which can offer ready-made suggestions to the player.
It is the wealth of practical advice derived from
Schröder’s life-long exploration of the expressive, interpretive and technical
possibilities of period instruments, and specifically, the baroque violin, that
makes his book a worthwhile read for any violinist seeking to broaden their
performance spectrum. It also represents a laudable venture of a performer,
non-musicologist, to bring closer the sometimes all to separate worlds of
musicology and performance.
Dimension 22.0 x 14.5 x 2.4 cm
