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Scan 23
A comparitive study of the development of the left hand technic of the violin, 1913
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1part of the eighteenth century, went to the seventh position; while a passage found in a work of Torquinio Merula (before 1639) proves that they were familiar with the alteration of the first, second and third positions.
3In considering double stops, octaves, and tenths, authorities and investigation again prove that those of a more difficult nature have been in use extensively only during the more recent age, and most of them have been written with the obvious intention of enabling the player to exhibit prodigious ability in that direction. Simple double stops, however, are of particular value to the student for intonation difficulties, while fingered octaves and tenths hinder rather than aid the general technic. Even now it is questionable whether with the slight need we have of them, any chance should be taken of injuring the general technique. Mozart, in the five hundred chosen measures from his Concerto in A Major, uses no octaves or tenths, while Brahms in his Concerto Op. 78 has thirty-one measures, and one passage of seven successive measures of octaves and tenths.
5We cannot, however, speak of a modern violin technique as a purely modern development, because, the development of the technique of any instrument goes hand in hand with the perfecting of its mechanical structure and, as was stated before, the violin has undergone no structural alteration for more than three hundred years. There are but few points of modern technique that some of the old masters did not attempt, but owing to the complicated nature of modern music, it is evident that the execution of great difficulties is more often demanded.
7In the following table of comparison I have taken compositions of Mozart and Brahms, two composers who were not violinists;
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