The Rise and Fall of the Composing Violinist: Composition and Interpretation in Recital

Abstract

On a program for a classical music recital today you will typically find the names of the performers, as well as the names of the various composers who wrote the music. At first, this seems perfectly ordinary, until we consider that there was a time when such a distinction between performer and composer was not always so ordinary. Today, musical composition and performance are seen as separate practices. Looking at the works that dominate the modern repertoire of today’s recitals, a disproportionate number of them are written by composers who also performed those very works themselves. This investigation has traced the history of the composing violinist back to the beginnings of the French Violin School of the 19th century. The composing violinist underwent a transformation into the interpreting and performance-oriented violinist in the latter half of the 19th century as a result of a growth in historical and interpretive performance practices popularized by the Hungarian violinist, composer, and pedagogue, Joseph Joachim. Composing violinists have contributed greatly to the modern violin repertoire and their works comprise a significant portion of essential learning materials for the consummate violinist. This dissertation explores such works, through scholarly examination and performance, composed by Niccolò Paganini, Eugène Ysayë, and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst. These are complemented by works written by composers associated with the rise of the interpreting violinist, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Finally, the program is completed with three original works composed by myself as a composing violinist.