Producing Excellence

Izabela Wagner

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780813575339
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Children's Studies in Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Driven by a passion for music, for excellence, and for fame, violin soloists are immersed from early childhood in high-pressure competitions, regular public appearances, and arduous daily practice. An in-depth study of nearly one hundred such children, Producing Excellence illuminates the process these young violinists undergo to become elite international soloists.
 
A musician and a parent of a young violinist, sociologist Izabela Wagner offers an inside look at how her young subjects set out on the long road to becoming a soloist. The remarkable research she conducted—at rehearsals, lessons, and in other educational settings—enabled her to gain deep insight into what distinguishes these talented prodigies and their training. She notes, for instance, the importance of a family culture steeped in the values of the musical world. Indeed, more than half of these students come from a family of professional musicians and were raised in an atmosphere marked by the importance of instrumental practice, the vitality of music as a vocation, and especially the veneration of famous artists. Wagner also highlights the highly structured, rigorous training system of identifying, nurturing, and rewarding talent, even as she underscores the social, economic, and cultural factors that make success in this system possible.
 
Offering an intimate portrait of the students, their parents, and their instructors, Producing Excellence sheds new light on the development of exceptional musical talent, as well as draw much larger conclusions as to “producing prodigy” in other competition-prone areas, such as sports, sciences, the professions, and other arts. Wagner’s insights make this book valuable for academics interested in the study of occupations, and her clear, lively writing is perfect for general readers curious about the ins and outs of training to be a violin soloist.

Chapter 1

A Short History of the Violin Virtuoso Profession

To understand the socialization process of the virtuoso we must first examine the history of the profession. This history plays a crucial role in the education of virtuosos, who are nourished daily on the biographies of famous musicians during their training. This history is an integral part of the virtuoso’s professional knowledge. Some of its elements are transmitted orally from teacher to student, along with the violin lessons, the secrets of instrumental technique and interpretation. This chapter describes that history and what it means to people working in the soloist world; in part this is a story of the origin and the development of a profession—the violinist interpreter.

The musicologist Alberto Cantu has highlighted the ephemeral character of the interpreter’s fame (Cantu 1997: 180). The names engraved permanently in the collective memory of generations of musicians are usually the composers and performers—the great masters of the violin. To trace their history I mainly employed Boris Schwarz’s 1983 Dictionary of Performers and Musical Interpretation in the Twentieth Century, filling in late-century data with the Dictionnaire des interprètes (A. Paris 1995). The second important publication about violin virtuosos is Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Classical Musicians, by the famous musicologist, pianist, and composer Nicolas Slonimsky (1997). Schwarz himself was a virtuoso and teacher, and the author’s lack of distance from the biographies he describes can be felt. While the book is very informative, its portrayal of professional violists is sometimes romanticized. Schwarz, who was Russian-trained, spent his life in the soloist milieu, which may explain his lack of distance or critical viewpoint, and a tendency to line up with the profession’s ideology. I use virtuosos biographies here in order to supplement Schwarz and filter his professional myth-making.

We find the first traces of the violin in Italy and Poland in the sixteenth century, represented in paintings and contemporary texts. In the seventeenth century, France and Germany followed. In the eighteenth century, musicians typically played several instruments and performed their own compositions on violin. Two centuries later, virtuoso musicians focused on a single instrument and dedicated their lives mainly to the works of others. Changes in the violin’s place in music can be divided into four periods.

The first period features the musicians who preceded Niccolò Paganini, whose life was a turning point in the history of music (we could compare this change to the paradigm shift as presented by Kuhn 1960). The second part is the career of Niccolò Paganini and his imitators. The third part features the “new type of virtuosos.” The great twentieth-century performers are the subject of the last part. No clear dividing line exists between the second and third period, or between the third and fourth. The current stage of the history of the soloist begins with the first years of twenty-first century, in which virtuoso teachers work around the world.

Versatile Musicians, Multi-Instrumentalists, and Composers

Initially, violins were used to accompany the human voice. The oldest preserved scores for violin date to 1582. During the period of development of baroque music, through 1750, the violin was used as a part of an ensemble. During this early period, violinists played several instruments: viola, cello, and harpsichord. They were musicians and composers whose knowledge and musical practice always included composition. Musicians at that time were always teachers, and some led musical ensembles such as orchestras and choirs. Musical performances were mainly held in churches and aristocratic residences; musicians were employed by ecclesiastical institutions or private patrons. Versatility was a requirement of the profession. J. S. Bach’s activities—playing several instruments, singing, directing, teaching, composing—were typical of musicians at the time. Perhaps the first famous violinist and teacher was the Italian Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713). “During his lifetime,” writes Schwarz, “he was called ‘master of masters.’ On each anniversary of his death, his students and admirers gathered at his burial place in the Roman Pantheon to perform his concerti grossi, a ceremony that continued as long as his students were alive. His reputation spanned Europe, from Rome to Paris and London” (Schwarz 1983: 29).

Corelli was also the first violin teacher to win international recognition, and it is possible that the practice of venerating violin teachers was born with him. That phenomenon continues today, a testimony to the crucial role of teachers in the socialization of the virtuoso and in all activities in the soloist world. Since the time of Corelli, certain traditions for the soloist’s classes have crystallized; for example, the assignation of a high-level student with the sobriquet “student of X.” Music historians note that these designations establish the virtuoso’s pedigree and maintain genealogical trees—“student of X, who was a student of Y.”1 In the world of musicians this classification is also practiced by musicologists, who use the term “school” to refer to “teacher to student” lineages (Travers R-C. in Parîs 1995: 20). There are several ways to play the violin, and violinists recognize the influence of each “school” in the way the violin and bow are used. In the history of the violin, we can distinguish several schools (named according to their geographical origin), and these schools are sometimes linked.

Among the other famous early violinists—who were all polyvalent musicians and whose names remain in history mostly because of their activity as composers—are Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770), and Giovanni Battista Viotti (1753–1824). Their works constitute part of the repertoire of soloist class students. Tartini’s student Pietro Locatelli is considered the “father of violin virtuosity” (Schwarz 1983: 92). Outside Italy other composers developed the violin repertoire during this era: Johann Sebastian Bach, Leopold Mozart, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were all violinists. In the life of Mozart two major changes occurred that would affect the careers of musicians: the release of the artist from the exclusive authority of the patron (the musician became independent) and the popularization of the phenomenon of “child prodigy.”2 The figure of the born-genius musician became desirable for a beginner in a virtuoso career pattern. The course of many violinists inscribed in music history begins with a period as a “child prodigy.” Parallel to this phenomenon, the growing interest in education through a master pushed students to follow a great teacher. Gradually, soloist classes were organized around the best performers and most famous violin teachers.

In France, Jean-Marie Leclair (called the “French Corelli”) is considered the founder of the French school of violin. G. B. Viotti was an important figure of the Italian school, which influenced the French school. The career of Niccolò Paganini arose within this landscape of national schools (Italian and French), each seeking famous violin teachers, at a time of growing interest in classical music among the bourgeois and aristocratic public. Paganini revolutionized violin technique and modernized the occupation of the musician-performer, in the process becoming the embodiment of virtuosity.

Paganini and Other Virtuosos

“Paganini (1782–1840) was a phenomenal virtuoso. He invented a new style of spectacular violin playing, which he employed in his own compositions. He also had the good fortune to begin his career in an excellent historical period, and was the first virtuoso to take advantage of these excellent conditions for performing” (Muchenberg 1991: 33, part 2).

The technical innovations introduced by Paganini influenced the style of music writing at his time, adding emphasis to dozens for virtuoso playing. This influence remains visible in artistic performances to this day.3 Paganini’s romantic personality gave birth to myths that Paganini himself carefully spread and maintained.4 He knew how to work the publicity specialists and concert agents of his time and was the first instrumentalist to follow the path of opera singers by hiring an impresario. These elements were fundamental to the development of Paganini’s career and gave him a singularity compared to his virtuoso contemporaries. His career then became a model for other virtuosos to follow—violinists but also other instrumentalists, such as pianists, for example, Liszt. Starting with Paganini, instrumentalist virtuosos could become “stars,” a pinnacle perceived by musicians themselves as the highest professional achievement. The public loved Paganini and other romantic virtuosos, who become celebrities and heroes.5

If Paganini was the first of romantic virtuosos, he was the last to gain equal fame as a composer. This was so because his followers gave priority to their performing careers, although not a few of them remain known to posterity as composers of violin music. These individuals include Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1814–1865), Charles-Auguste de Bériot (1802–1870), and Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–1881).

The impact of Paganini’s career on the education of the generations of violinists who performed after him is astonishing. To be known as “the Paganini of . . .” was the highest accolade—thus Ole Bull, “Paganini of the North” or Henry Lipinski, “the Polish Paganini.” Other “reincarnations” of Paganini included Jan Kubelik, August Wilhelmj, Willy Burmester, and Jascha Heifetz. Jan Kubelic was called the “second Paganini” as were the Pole Henryk Wieniawski and the Spanish performer Pablo Sarasate. Wieniawski developed the virtuoso technique further and passed into history as a founder of the Russian school of violin. He was a “child prodigy,” then a virtuoso performer and composer. His pieces are as difficult as those of Paganini. As a composer, Wieniawski is considered a member of the Polish national school for violin in the way that Chopin was for the piano.

In the nineteenth century, some violinists scorned the model of the romantic virtuoso and reproached Paganini and his imitators as “charlatans” (Schwarz 1983: 243). A generation of Vienna-educated Austrian violinists including Louis Spohr and Joseph Joachim created a countercurrent to Paganini, focusing on the quality of their sound and the beauty of their melodies rather than on acrobatic passages. Joachim was the first performer to devote his public performances to the music of other composers. In addition to his soloist activity he was a famous professor and violin master, teaching many European soloists while working in Hanover and Berlin (1867–1907).

“The New Style of Virtuoso”

Technical advances by Paganini and Wieniawski, along with research on interpretations done by Joseph Joachim (1831–1907) modernized the violin vocabulary and allowed the emergence of what Schwarz calls a “new style of virtuosos” (1983: 279), musicians with excellent technique and great musical and creative talents, combining intellect and instinctive sensitivity. The main representatives of this type are the Belgian virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931) and the Austrian Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962). Although these two violinists helped define the new virtuoso style, their personalities, careers, and style of play could not have been more different. Kreisler had a slow start finding a place on the European scene, which at the time was dominated by a “titanic force”—Ysaÿe. The romantic journey of the latter, a son of musicians and “child prodigy” with an explosive and unpredictable personality, contrasted sharply with Kreisler, an elegant, beloved virtuoso always referred to as a “gentleman.”

Similar oppositions occur throughout the long history of musical interpreters. George Kulenkampf (1898–1948) the “less German” German violinist, had a playing style influenced by Slavic and French schools of interpretation. His opposite was Adolf Busch (1891–1952), an “ideal type” German violinist. In Berlin, the Hungarian Carl Flesch (1873–1944) led an influential class of soloists starting in the early twentieth century. Flesch, who switched to teaching after the failure of his own virtuoso career, was the prototype of the twentieth-century master. He taught first in Bucharest, then in Amsterdam before taking a position in Berlin. During World War I, the Germans interned Flesch because of his Hungarian citizenship, and in 1923 he left for the United States, where he taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Five years later, he returned to Europe to teach again in Berlin and Baden-Baden, with sporadic teaching stints in London and Lucerne. Flesch developed a new method that was opposed to the teachings of the Parisian Conservatory, which he called “mummified, and limiting the repertoire of violinists” (B. Schwarz 1983: 332). He wrote several books on his violin technique, which differed from other teachers because of the position of the right hand and the bowing technique: Flesch’s students could be recognized by the upward position of their elbows while playing. They included Henryk Szeryng, Ida Haendel, and many other violinists, including the students of teachers influenced by his teaching, such as Dorothy DeLay. Flesch also established a model of internationalism: his students came from all over the world, especially Eastern Europe, and the diversity of his class is exemplary of later periods in the soloist culture as a whole. Writes Schwarz,

After World War I, Berlin became a Mecca for the arts, especially for modernism and experimentation. There was a considerable immigration from Eastern Europe. Particularly noticeable was an influx of gifted young Polish violinists, most of whom were poor and needed scholarships. Their idol was their compatriot Huberman, who recommended Flesch as a teacher, and so they wound up in Flesch’s studio in Berlin. Initially, the climate in Berlin was not ideally suited for those young Poles: they had to contend with a foreign language, a sophisticated culture, German haughtiness, and latent anti-Semitism. As for Flesch, his intellectual approach to the violin was diametrically opposed to their “gutsy” concept of fiddling. But they survived and learned; they became remarkably well acclimatized to the Germanic surroundings; and most of them prospered during years of the Weimar Republic. All dispersed when Nazis came to power in 1933. The young Polish group in Flesch’s studio included Szymon Goldberg, Stefan Frenkel, Bronislaw Gimpel, Roman Totenberg, Henryk Szeryng, and Ida Hendel. All had played the violin since early childhood and had concertized as prodigies; some studied in Warsaw with Michalowicz, a fine teacher. But by Flesch’s standards, all had to be reschooled, and retrained. Not every remodelling process went smoothly, there were personality clashes between teacher and student, but on the whole Flesch’s iron discipline was beneficial. (B. Schwarz 1983: 343–344)

The combination of the following elements: coexistence of different cultures (Slavonic, Hungarian, German), an experienced teacher with a strong reputation in the training of young virtuosos, and a specific geo-historical context (Berlin in 1920–1933) allowed many young violinists to launch international careers.6 Berlin before 1933 was the world center for classical music, but there were other places for violinist training: Hanover, Munich, Vienna, Prague (the Bohemian school with Otkar Sevcik, Jan Kubelik, Vasa Prihoda and Josef Suk), Budapest (the Hungarian school represented by Otkar Sevcik, Jan Kubelik,7 Vasa Prihoda, and Josef Szigeti), and Warsaw (Michalowicz).

After World War II, France lost her dominant position in the field of violin playing: “After Ysaÿe left the concert stage, Thibaud alone remained to uphold French fame, though he was past his prime” (B. Schwarz 1983: 356). Jacques Thibaud became the most important violinist of French school, a status that accompanied him through life. There is a facetious anecdote told by the Russian American violinist Elman: “Twenty years ago I came to Paris and I asked, ‘Who is the greatest French violinist?’ The answer was ‘Thibaud.’ Now I come back, I ask again, and the answer is still ‘Thibaud!’ What happened to France?” (B. Schwarz 1983: 374).

Another famous violinist and composer based in Paris at the time was George Enesco, who was of Romanian origin but considered both a universal artist and a representative of the French school (Pâris 1995: 383). A new wave of virtuosos emanating from the French school included Zino Francescatti, Ginette Neveu, Arthur Grumiaux, and Christian Ferras. According to Schwarz, they were good musicians but “not designated to achieve the summit of celebrity” (1983: 374). French musicologist Roger-Claude Travers, however, believes the violinists of the French-Belgian school were the leading violin performers in the world at that time.8

Nevertheless, it is clear that Russian musicians occupied the top places of the virtuoso violin world in the twentieth century. Schwarz attributes this leadership position to the strong centers of virtuoso training and music lovers’ preference for the Russian style of performing classical music. “The French style of violin playing, with its elegance, refinement, and charm, was being displaced in public favour by the Russian style, stressing sweep, brilliance, and sensuality,” Schwarz writes. “Heifetz became king, and every newcomer was measured by his towering standards. Milstein fitted into this framework, and later Oistrakh. The first Ysaÿe competition of 1937 was swept by Soviet violinists” (B. Schwarz 1983: 374).

Great Performers of the Twentieth-Century Russian School of Violin

The Russian School is the most important twentieth-century tradition of teaching and interpretation of the violin repertoire. In fact the school should properly be divided, because of political changes provoked by the 1917 Revolution, into two working schools: the Russian and the Soviet. The development of the Russian school began with the activity of four masters: Auer, Stolyarski, Yampolsky, and Yankelevich. Although teaching was done mainly in St. Petersburg, Odessa, and Moscow, students were recruited largely from the Russian Jewish community. This culturally homogeneous recruitment is a significant topic of discussion in the soloist world: on many occasions I heard violinists speak of the relationship between career development and cultural origins. A specific profile was seen as the key to becoming a virtuoso: “You must be born a Jew in Eastern Europe, and become a student of a great teacher representing the Russian school.” This widespread belief, especially among students and soloists of Eastern European origin, is discussed by Schwarz, though he warns against oversimplification: “The initial success of the Russian school was not entirely due to the teaching of one man but the result of a variety of favourable circumstances, such as a vast reservoir of native talent (especially among the Jewish population), unified teaching methods, generous public support of the arts, and an unbroken tradition of excellence and high standards” (1983: 409).

These factors certainly did come together to create mas...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Prelude—Scandal on the Stage
• Chapter 1. A Short History of the Violin Virtuoso Profession
• Chapter 2. Before Entering the Soloist Class: Early Socialization of Soloist Students
• Chapter 3. Triad Collaboration—Teacher, Parents, and Child: The First Stage of Soloist Education
• Chapter 4. Crisis and Career Coupling: The Second Stage of Soloist Education
• Chapter 5. Entrance into Adult Careers: The Third Stage of Soloist Education
• Chapter 6. The Soloist Class Students’ Careers
• Conclusion: Career Coupling and Nothing New in the Soloist World
• Appendix: Difficulties and Limits: Some Methodological Aspects about Attachment and Distance within Ethnographic Work
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Author