Selected Students of Leopold Auer: a Study in Violin Performance-Practice
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SELECTED STUDENTS OF LEOPOLD AUER – A STUDY IN VIOLIN PERFORMANCE-PRACTICE by RUTH ELIZABETH RODRIGUES A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Music School of Humanities The University of Birmingham October 2009 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis investigates the teaching and legacy of Leopold Auer; it addresses, in particular to what extent his promulgation of the ‘German’ School of Violin Playing was instrumental in establishing the ‘Russian’ and ‘American’ Schools. Recent research in late 19th-century violin performance-practice has focused mainly on the ‘German’ and ‘Franco-Belgian’ Schools, and on tracing ‘genealogies’ of violin playing, especially within the ‘German’ school itself. Auer, however, has been little studied, as remarkably is also true for descendents of the German school such as Ossip Schnirlin, Benno Rabinof, and Mischa Weisbord. This research will also briefly examine the authority of Joachim and Auer (who were both native Hungarians) on their students with regards to Hungarian musical gestures and Gypsy performance styles, in an era where violin playing was more uniform and the style hongrois gradually disappearing from Western music altogether. A clearer picture of Auer, his influence and the achievements of his students, allows us to form a more sophisticated image of late 19th-century to early 20th-century violin performance practice, and of the much disputed question of the existence of distinct national schools in this important transitional era. For those who stuck till the very end – Mummy, Clare, Roger & Ken. In memory of Zhuomin Chan (1982-2008) - A gentleman, a scholar, a fine musician, and a friend I didn’t know long enough. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preliminaries Acknowledgements i Fingerings and Notation ii Chapter One: Lineages in Nineteenth-Century Violin Playing 1 The French Violin School – Viotti 9 The Italian Violin School 12 The German Violin School 13 The Russian Violin School 19 The Violin School in the United States 23 Literature Review 24 The Early Recordings 43 Chapter Two: The Violinists Discussed – The Lesser-Known Representatives 46 The Joachim Students 46 The Auer Students 54 Chapter Three: Vibrato 71 Auer’s Russian Students 93 Auer’s Pupils in America 112 Vibrato in Gypsy and Hungarian folk music 117 Chapter Four: Musical Expression and Punctuation – Dynamics, Articulation and 126 Phrasing Dynamic Changes 136 Phrasing and Rhythm 144 Phrasing and Multiple-stops 153 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Four (Con’t.) Articulation 159 Accents 176 Recordings of Joachim’s and Auer’s Students 186 Joachim’s Students 186 Auer’s Students in Russia 192 Auer’s Students in America 217 The Hungarian Violin Works 225 Chapter Five: Fingerings and Portamento 235 Auer’s Students in Russia 274 Auer’s Students in America 298 Chapter Six: Tempo Rubato 310 The Brahms Hungarian Dances 366 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 374 Bibliography 378 Appendices: A: Timeline of Violinists and Significant Events 393 B: CDs Track Listing 394 C: Mischa Weisbord Collection 396 CDs Inside Back Cover Acknowledgements I should like to thank the staff of Birmingham University Music Department for their enduring guidance and encouragement over the past 7 years, especially Dr. Kenneth Hamilton, Professor John Whenham, Dr. Matthew Riley, Dr. Monika Hennemann and Ms. Sue Miles. The staff of Barber Institute of Fine Arts Music Library, especially Greg McKernon and Nick Cull have been instrumental in dealing with rare materials and inter-library loans. Outside Birmingham, Professor Robin Stowell, Professor Bela Katona, Professor Dona Lee Croft, Dr. David Milsom, David Vaisbord (for the use of material on Mischa Weisbord) and Karen Shaeffer (from the Maud Powell Society) have all provided assistance in the course of research for this thesis. I owe a specific debt of gratitude to the Music & Letters Trust, Barber Trust Funds and the Birmingham University School of Humanities for their generous scholarships and travel grants, without which hefty tuition fees and invaluable research trips would not have been possible. Finally, I am grateful beyond measure to family and friends who cheered me on relentlessly, especially Houw Ping Lau, Gerald Lim and David & Claire Calver. Fingerings and Notation Violin fingerings are indicated in the customary manner: 0 = open string 1 = the index-finger and so on. Pitch registers are specified by the Helmholtz system below: Under this system the notes to which the violin is normally tuned are represented as g, d’, a’ and e”. CHAPTER ONE LINEAGES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY VIOLIN PLAYING "IF I HAVE SEEN FURTHER IT IS BY STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS." - ISAAC NEWTON, LETTER TO ROBERT HOOKE, 1676 This thesis investigates connections between the theory and practice of violin playing from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries (ca. 1845-1955), focusing in particular on the legacy of Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) as transmitted through his student Leopold Auer (1844-1930). Auer established the Russian violin school during his residence in St. Petersburg between 1868 and 1917. After his departure from Russia, he became one of the most influential violin pedagogues in America, teaching prodigies like Jascha Heifetz (1901- 87) and Nathan Milstein (1903-92). The following chapters attempt to elucidate to what extent, if at all, Auer’s heritage in the German School of Violin Playing was instrumental in establishing distinctive Russian and American Schools. A second strand of this thesis, resulting from the above, is the exploration of the art of several violinists of great significance in this crucial era of transition, whose contribution to the history of performance has hitherto been largely ignored. The discussion will therefore only tangentially mention the more 1 celebrated of Auer’s students, whose work has already been extensively treated elsewhere. Leopold Auer himself studied with Joseph Joachim in Hanover. He moved to St. Petersburg in 1868, where he taught in the conservatoire for nearly half a century until 1917. During that time he held the position of first violinist to the orchestra of the St. Petersburg Imperial 1 For information on the more celebrated of Auer’s students, refer to A. Agus, Heifetz as I Knew Him (New York: Amadeus Press, 2001); A. Kozinn, Mischa Elman and the Romantic Style (New York: Routledge, 1990); and H. Roth, Violin Virtuosos: From Paganini to the 21st Century (California: California Classics Books, 1997). Theatres. This included the principal venue of the Imperial Ballet and Opera, the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre (until 1886), and later the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, as well as the Imperial Theatres of Peterhof and the Hermitage. For almost all of this period, Auer was entrusted with the majority of the violin solos in performances of the Imperial Ballet. Indeed, many noted ballet composers of the day, such as Cesare Pugni, Ludwig Minkus, Riccardo Drigo, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Alexander Glazunov, wrote the violin solos of their scores especially for his talents. It was also during this time that Auer taught Conservatoire students such as Kathleen Parlow, Alexander Petschnikoff, May Harrison and Myron Polyakin.2 When the Russian Revolution of 1917 swept away the work of a lifetime, Auer was 73 years of age. Nothing daunted, he resolved to begin all over again, and moved to the United States. He settled in New York, where he at once began teaching large classes of pupils who flocked to him from all parts of the world. Notwithstanding his age, he even appeared in recitals in New York, Chicago and other cities, playing, according to reviews, with the fire of youth and the skill of a master.3 Auer eventually settled down as a faculty member at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. The veteran teacher was here the instructor of Mischa Elman, Efrem Zimbalist, Benno Rabinof, Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Weisbord and a host of scarcely less famous violin virtuosi. 2 For sources on Auer’s biography and teaching, refer to L. Auer, Violin Playing as I Teach It (New York: Barnes & Nobles Publishing, 1921); Ibid, My Long Life in Music (London: Duchwith & Co., 1924), Ibid, Violin Master Works and their Interpretation (New York: Carl Fischer, 1925); D. Milsom, Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth Century Violin Performance: an examination of style in performance 1850-1900 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003); F. Martens, Violin Mastery: Interviewsa with Heifetz, Auer, Kreisler and Others (New York: BiblioBazaar, 2007). 3 B. Schwarz, Great Masters of the Violin (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 414. Page | 2 But to contextualise more broadly the discussion of Auer’s legacy that will be found in the ensuing chapters, it might be useful to begin with a general outline of 18th- and 19th-century violin playing, and of the concept of performing ‘schools’ and traditions. The distinctions between the ‘schools’ are not as clear-cut as is often claimed. A ‘School of Violin Playing’ can be thought of as a combination of two elements: the method (technique) of how one plays the violin, and the overall philosophy of making music. The ‘secret’ of a fine school is consistency. Yet we may reasonably ask how unique these schools and lineages could possibly have remained by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when ease of travel and the birth of the recording industry allowed the widespread promulgation of influences from many different traditions.