The Short

VIBRATO 529
mention vibrato at all. Löhlein, whose Anweisung zum Violinspielen was also aimed primarily at the orchestral player,
having warned fiercely against using it too often, did mention a few circumstances in which it could be introduced in
his practice pieces. The statement, later in the book, that he had paved the way just up to the borderline between
orchestral and solo playing suggests, perhaps, that he may have envisaged its occasional use in the orchestra if it was
confined to such places. 993 (The possible employment of orchestral vibrato as a particular effect in the music of Gluck
and some of his contemporaries is considered below, but it may be remarked at this point that, notwithstanding the
arguments of Erich Schenk, 994 it seems improbable that a left-hand vibrato was envisaged.)
In the nineteenth century, contrary to current notions of what is appropriate to the performance of so-called Romantic
music, it seems very likely that vibrato occurred somewhat less frequently in vocal and instrumental performance than
in the middle of the previous century; or rather, perhaps, that it was introduced more for its expressive qualities than as
one among a host of ornaments with which an individual note could be enlivened. (This is not to deny that early to
mid-eighteenth-century musicians sometimes linked vibrato and other ornaments with affective performance; but it
seems chiefly to have been the view articulated by Leopold Mozart, that vibrato ‘must be employed only in such places
where Nature herself would produce it’, 995 that pointed the way to later attitudes, rather than Geminiani's more stylized
notion that it could represent affliction, fear, dignity, majesty, etc.)
Despite the comment about Viotti's vibrato in 1798 and the relative frequency of his use of it suggested by the
examples in Baillot's 1834 treatise, 996 his pupil Rode and disciples Kreutzer and Baillot almost certainly employed the
device quite sparingly. Michel Woldemar, whose admiration for Viotti is obvious alongside his veneration of Lolli and
Mestrino, interestingly omitted all mention of vibrato from his 1801 version of Leopold Mozart's violin school, despite
the extensive consideration of it in the original, and it is also absent from his slightly earlier Grande méthode. The
Conservatoire Méthode of 1803, overseen by Rode, Kreutzer, and Baillot, deals with tone, style, and embellishment in
considerable detail, but makes no mention of left-hand vibrato, though it describes a vibrato (ondulation) produced by
the bow alone. 997 In his 1834 treatise Baillot demanded the greatest discretion in the use of left-hand vibrato. He noted
that it
993
See Clive Brown, ‘String Playing Practices in the Classical Orchestra’, Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis, 17 (1993), 44–5.
994
‘Zur Aufführungspraxis des Tremolo bei Gluck’, in Joseph Schmidt-Görg, ed., Anthony von Hoboken: Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag (Mainz, 1962), 137–45.
995
Versuch, V,§4.
996
L'Art du violon, 138–9 (for copies of these examples see Stowell, Violin Technique, 209–10).
997 Baillot et al., Méthode de violon, 137.