Selected students of Leopold Auer: a study in violin performance-practice

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