The Short

166 ARTICULATION AND PHRASING
the performer with any such guidance he chose one of his few contemporary examples, a melody by Joachim. Here the
nature of late nineteenth-century practice is shown not so much by the one caesura that Moser marked as by those that
he failed to indicate; the implication of his example is that the violinist would have been expected to execute all other
changes of bow with the seamless legato that Moser had earlier referred to as ‘a violinistic virtue that cannot be highly
enough praised’ (Ex. 4.42.) 301 Moser, and Joachim himself, would presumably have accomplished all the other phrasing
in Joachim's melody by means of dynamic nuance and accent; such an approach is verified by Joachim's own 1903
recording of his Romance in C, 302 where, although it is exquisitely phrased, there are remarkably few perceptible breaks
in the sound. It is otherwise, however, in Joachim's recordings of two of the Brahms Hungarian dances, where the
nature of the piece requires a much more sharply articulated performance.
Ex. 4.42. Joachim and Moser, Violinschule, iii. 15
Moser followed this example with a reference to occasions where a cadence-like passage lead back into a theme, as in
the finale of Beethoven's Violin Concerto (Ex. 4.43,) which required a ‘tension rest’ (Spannungs-pause). He
Ex. 4.43. Joachim and Moser, Violinschule, iii. 15
conceded, however, that there were many instances where ‘musical instinct’ did not suffice to decide on the phrase
divisions, citing Beethoven's late quartets as especially difficult in this respect. In such circumstances, he suggested,
‘only a basic insight into the rules of phrase structure and the formation of melody’ could provide clarification.
301
Ibid. 13.
302
Issued on CD by Pavilion Records on Opal CD 9851 (see Ch. 12, Ex. 12.12.)