Musings on National Violin Day

David Sariti is Associate Professor of Violin in the Department of Music at the University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He is Director of the Baroque Orchestra and has appeared widely as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber collaborator on both modern and period instruments.

In honor of National Violin Day on December 13th, I'd like to offer some personal reflections. As a student, I was drawn to a unique sub-culture in the world of Classical music performance: Early Music, or more properly Historically Informed Performance (HIP). Some assume it to indicate one with an affinity for music of the Baroque period (roughly 1600-1750), but that is at best an oversimplification, for HIP is not a repertoire but rather a philosophy. It was born in the second half of the twentieth century as a pushback against "mainstream" musical culture, in which programming (still today) draws heavily from a limited number of works, largely from the nineteenth century - the so-called "canon". This reinforces listeners' expectations, and paired with an equally anodyne performance style creates what might be termed a "musical echo chamber". While it's romantic to imagine that today's instruments, performance conventions, and attitudes about music have come to us in an unbroken tradition, you may be shocked to learn how much that is not the case.

The study of HIP rests on what I think of as a three-legged stool:

1. We should play worthy music both familiar and unfamiliar, particularly that which has been unjustly neglected. By nature much of this comes from before 1800. Historical text sources are used whenever possible.
2. We should use the instruments of the period in which the music was written.
3. We should apply the Performance Practices known to musicians of the time.

Let's briefly unpack these concepts. First, there exists more wonderful music from every period than any musician can learn in a lifetime. Even if we limit ourselves to a narrow period, e.g. 1700-1750, to say that we love this music when we only know a handful of popular works by J. S. Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi is like saying that we love the ocean when we have only seen the shore. A world of wonder awaits our discovery.

Second, all musical instruments have evolved over time, and the violin is a fine example. It was developed around the turn of the seventeenth century in Italy, in the form that we now call the "Baroque violin". All of the old instruments we treasure (Amati, Guarneri, Stradivari, etc.) started out life this way. They were under relatively low tension, with gut strings and generally low pitch. Starting around 1800 the instruments were cut apart, with new necks grafted in and internal bracing strengthened, putting the instrument under increased tension in the quest for greater volume. Heavier bows were used, pitch levels were raised, and eventually conveniences such as the chinrest and synthetic strings were added. While these things give the modern violin undeniable advantages including ease of playability, they have also taken away some of its original characteristics.

The third leg is the most important - and the least understood by those outside HIP circles. Musical notation is, in fact, quite imprecise. The conventions that performers rely on (mostly unconsciously) to realize those symbols, more-or-less cohesively, are known as Performance Practice. Have you ever heard an old recording of a person speaking and noted how speech patterns have changed in fifty or one-hundred years? Imagine, then, how much Performance Practice has changed in three- or four-hundred! So much, in fact, as to be unrecognizable today. HIP musicians therefore, not having the advantage of recordings, rely on a corpus of historical treatises which, taken together, paint a reasonably clear picture of what it meant in centuries past to employ good musicianship.

"What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition. Any passage can be so radically changed by modifying its performance that it will be scarcely recognizable." C. P. E. Bach, 1759

This approach is equally relevant to nineteenth-century music. Beethoven specified metronome markings which, in modern performances, are often disregarded. Berlioz, in his Symphonie Fantastique, called for an ophicleide, an historic instrument which is usually now replaced by the entirely dissimilar tuba. Brahms, in his Horn Trio, wrote for the natural horn, even though he knew the valved (modern) one - yet we usually hear it played on the latter. One has only to listen to the piano music of Chopin or Debussy played on a period instrument to realize that the music and its instruments are inseparable.

HIP musicians go to this trouble not out of pedantry, or merely because we like a good challenge, but because we believe it allows the music to speak more directly and powerfully. The historic treatises are in unequivocal agreement that music is not merely an artful assemblage of beautiful sounds, a pleasant sonic backdrop of sorts, but in every way a language, a form of communication.

"Every effort must be made… to penetrate the souls of the listeners and to excite their emotions." Leopold Mozart, 1756

Music was a more precious commodity in the days before recordings and portable technology made possible its casual accompaniment to our jog or latte. This technology, while opening a world of music to us in an unprecedented way, can paradoxically cheapen its impact on our lives. In closing, I'd urge the reader to consider that all music, when written, was new music. As such it stretched conventions, broke new ground, and challenged us to listen in new ways. Good music deserves our fullest attention, so let's sit down, unplug, and listen. Our lives will be greatly the richer for it.