Johannes Gebauer wrote:
Actually, Kolisch is one of my idols. And he comes very close to historical performance in some respect.
Kolisch is the perfect counter-example to one of the critiques (by Taruskin, among others) of historical performance practice, that in the focus on the prehistory of a repertoire, too little attention is given to aspects of performance practice that survive in subsequent practice. Kolisch was, at once a musician with clear roots in the Viennese tradition, but also a scholar willing to consider evidence of changes in that tradition (the MusikKonzepte volume with his study of performance practice in Beethoven is very useful), and a progressive, committed to performing new music, He was also was of the few left-handed violinists. Due to injury, he restrung his violin and switched hands. While it made orchestral playing awkward (due to bow crossings when sharing a desk), it was useful for both quartet playing and teaching. By all accounts he was an excellent teacher, and something of a counterweight to the Russian violin style which dominated US conservatory teaching after the war.
Daniel Wolf _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
