JAVS Spring 2011

the bracing strength of a good handshake, we create a firm bow hold and avoid pressing or weak ness. Our middle fingers connect us into the string, helped by imag ining the “sucking” points of an octopus that stick the fingers to the frog. Placing the thumb oppo site to these fingers gives balance to the hand. We condense the sound and bow at the start of a slur, con tinue it with a swinging flexibility, and end it with a natural motion of the end of a curve. We experi ment playing without all the fin gers, doing each stroke in different parts of the bow. The Baroque bow’s unique response teaches us to use the lower half and to have a more vertical approach to articula tion and sound production. After this fundamentally novel approach has been mastered, there are some techniques violists can further develop. The C string is more ringing and live when played with a wave in the arm rather than when played straight. When two notes are slurred together, experi ment by adding waves in the arm, in order to keep momentum from one note to the next.

For a slur encompassing many notes, concentrate the bow during the first few notes, especially in order to propel forward. After the single note, two-note slur, and multi-note slur, musical context is needed. Source manuscripts are of fundamental importance: examine the Magdalena and Kellner manu scripts for Bach, the clarinet ver sion of Brahms’s sonatas, and the most accurate urtext versions for other works as a starting point for interpretation of note groupings and bowings. It could be that an editor or copyist has changed a composer’s original intent. A dramatic example of the slurring problem is found in the fourth cello suite of J. S. Bach. After holding the dissonant fermata, a series of fast, chromatic sixteenth notes follow. Kellner connects them with three squiggly, loose lines to distinguish the notes from the separate broken chordal struc ture of the movement and to signi fy that they are to be played as one unit (ex. 1). “Source C” simply uses one long slur marking (ex. 2). It is nearly impossible to physically play the three bars in one bow, and

each editor may find a different solution to this technical limita tion. However, once the performer knows that this slur was intended, he or she is able to create the impression of a long, unbroken line through a range of possible bowings. We encounter a similar problem with phrasing markings in the two clarinet sonatas of Brahms. Performers often abandon an origi nal phrase marking in favor of practicable bowings. These bow ings should not interfere with the musical intent of the original phrase marking. But one must dis cover which is which—limitations to how long our bow can last, a composer’s laissez-faire, or their trust in the performer’s stylistic knowledge can create the lack of distinction between a bowing and phrasing marking. The following examples, from Brahms’s Sonata in F Minor, show three possible approaches to solv ing the expression of phrase mark ings. Some players may be able to use the original phrase marking (ex. 3) as a bowing, by condensing bow use; others may choose the bowings in ex. 4, wherein one of the small slurs is imperceptibly detached from the rest for a fuller sound. Many students take out the slur altogether, as in ex. 5, which could ostensibly work. However, if each grouping is accented from

Example 1. J. S. Bach, Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010, Prelude; mm. 49–51 (Kellner manuscript).

Example 2. J. S. Bach, Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010, Prelude; mm. 49–51(Source C manuscript).

clumsy bowing technique, Brahms’s original phrasing is

destroyed, and the larger grouping of notes is lost. It is up to the per former and teacher to discover true

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