| Abstract [eng] |
The contemporary cultural life boasts a huge variety of concerts and other musi- cal events where a performer of music faces a variety of professional challenges: being a good instrumentalist is not enough. In the past, a widespread approach to an interpreting musician as a mediator between composer and audience has presently been significantly changing: upon developing technical skills and forming an individual sense of style, a player of string instruments manoeuvres between different positions of a musician (playing solo or in chamber ensembles and orchestras) and performs compositions of different genres and periods; moreover, next to the performance practice, they are engaged in other activities (management, promotion, dissemination, etc.). Carrying out purely technical and interpretive tasks no longer suffices; other abilities of the violinist are also important. Currently, a successful violinist is one whose musical activities are not one-sided. The inspiration behind the present artistic research paper is the fact that playing the violin solo is quite different from playing in ensembles and orches- tras. Depending on the composition of the ensemble and the position of the violinist (e.g., in a string quartet), a musician must exploit different aspects of violin playing, taking into account the psychology of ensemble music making. It is important for the performer to know what objectives are to be set when playing in a string quartet or in a larger ensemble, or in the composition of an orchestra, and how the violinist’s position in the role of the leader or a follower changes. We can attribute the technical choices and decisions of a violin solo- ist in one way or another to their individual style and the pursuit of virtuosity. Meanwhile, when the same violinist performs as a member of the ensemble, her individuality becomes one of the constituent parts of the ensemble. In the performance practice and education, a situation is observed where violinists are trained and encouraged to pursue a solo career; however, in the contemporary reality, a violinist is lucky to get at best a stable job in the orchestra. Playing in the orchestra may seem less technically complicated as compared to playing solo, however, it requires a special ability to harmoniously join the common orchestral texture. Moreover, there are quite a few examples in the orchestral practice where the performance of compositions for orchestra is technically no easier than of the works for violin solo. The topicality and novelty of the research topic is predetermined by a rela- tively small amount of works dealing with the variety, importance, and specifi- city of the violinist’s roles. The professional and personal qualities required of a violinist playing in different positions have received little research attention either in scientific literature or in other sources. The issues of the violinist roles in various positions have been explored only fragmentarily. In the Lithuanian context, those are the works by Rūta Lipinaitytė: her article Changes in the Concertmaster Roles: Cases of Orchestra with and without Conductor (2014a) and doctoral dissertation Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica: Principles of Orchestral Music Making, Programme Preparation, and the Choice of Repertoire (2008) analysed the variety, significance, and the role of the functions performed by the concertmaster in an orchestra; another research to be mentioned was the BA thesis Patterns of Interactions between String Quartet Members (2013) by Rasa Aukštuolytė. On an international scale, the most noteworthy works include Herter Norton’s study The Art of String Quartet Playing: Practice, Technique and Interpretation (1963), Robin Stowell’s The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (2003) and The Cambridge Companion to the Violin (1992), and David Blum’s book The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri Quartet in Conversation with David Blum (1987). Not all violinists are pursuing a soloist career. Various ensembles and or- chestras become the most important activity and a career for them as well as a space for their self-realisation as musicians, therefore, based on the author’s professional experience, scientific literature, and interviews with Lithuanian violinists who combine the activities of playing solo and in ensembles, the at- tention is focused on the changes in violinist’s functions when playing solo or in an ensemble, which is also the object of the paper. Due to the intertwining of artistic practice and music performance studies with the aspects and research methods of the science of sociology, the present paper represents an example of interdisciplinary artistic research. In addition to interpretive aspects of a performer’s profession, a very im- portant and increasingly popular area of research into music performance is communication between musicians, i.e. the members of an ensemble. That predetermined the aim of the research: to explore the technical, social, and performative characteristics of the professional activity of a violin soloist and an ensemble violinist and to substantiate the necessity of violinist’s polyfunc- tionality and of certain psychological knowledge that influence the outcomes of the artistic activity. To achieve the aim, the following objectives have been formulated: 1. To analyse scientific and methodological literature on the fundamental features of the violinist’s artistic activity. 2. To reveal the characteristics of the roles of violinist as a virtuoso soloist and a chamber music performer. 3. To overview the concepts of leader, follower, and shared leadership and to evaluate their importance in ensemble music making. 4. To analyse and compare different specifics of the performance of violin soloist and violinist as an ensemble member, with special focus on the aspects of the violin playing technique.5. To highlight the violinist’s functions when playing in an ensemble or an orchestra, based on the psychology of ensemble music making and the types of the concept of leadership. 6. To investigate different characteristics of violin solo and ensemble music making activities and the specificity of performance during rehearsals and concerts. The research methods used in the present paper include an analysis of scientific literature and other sources, historical, descriptive, and comparative research methods, and unstructured interviews with violinists who combine solo and ensemble music making. Review of literature and sources. As the topic of the present artistic re- search paper covers aspects of different disciplines (musicology, psychology, and sociology), with the aim of its comprehensive unfolding, literature of different scientific areas has been employed. In Lithuanian musicology or artistic research, a similar topic dealing with changes in the violinist functions has not yet been analysed, therefore the major part of the literature used in the present research paper consists of scientific theoretical works on the art of violin playing as well as solo and ensemble music making by authoritative international authors: Peck- ham 1995; Palmer 1997; Baron 1998; Radice 2012; Timmers, Endo, Wing 2013; Johnson 2004; Baillot 1835; Fink, Merriell 1985; Keller 2011; Loft 1992; Norton 1963; Sachs 1982; Waterman 2003; and Koury 1981. The following literature was used to study the characteristics of the violinist activity: Galamian 1985; Blanche 1996; Waterman 2003; Fischer 2013; Flesch 1924; Thistleton 1924; Bronstein 1981; Cuffman 2016; Gricius 2008; Menuhin, Primrose 1978. Solutions to the violinist communication objectives have been analysed, based on material dealing with psychological and sociological issues: Davidson, Correia 2002; Fransen 2014; Northouse 2013; Murnighan, Conlon 1991; Allport 1937; Adair 1997; Bales 1950; Belbin 2010; Ford, Davidson 2003; Harris 2010; Seddon, Biasutti 2009; Biassuti, Concina, Wasley, Williamon 2013; Young, Col- man 1979; King 2006. Some material relevant to the research was found in articles and reviews related to the performance practices of violinists and published in the Lithuanian press and online (Lipinaitytė 2014b; Kunca 2011; Navickaitė-Martinelli 2018). Structure of the research paper. The research paper consists of an introduc- tion, three chapters, conclusions, a list of references, and three appendices. Chap- ter 1, based on the historical descriptive method, presents works of Lithuanian, Western European and US authors on the issues of virtuoso solo and chamber music making and substantiates the topicality of the issue. Section 1.1, devoted to the dichotomy of solo and ensemble music making, deals with the emergence and evolution of the concept of virtuoso soloist in contemporary culture. Section 1.2 reveals the significance of chamber music making and notes the specificity of music making spaces. Section 1.3 analyses the psychology of ensemble music making, explores the concepts of leadership, followership, and shared leadership as well as their application to, and significance for, ensemble music making. Chapter 2 deals with the technical aspects of violin playing either solo or in ensembles, based on the comparative analysis of scientific literature and the author’s professional experience. Sections 2.1 to 2.4 identify the aspects of the technique: intonation, the importance of rhythm, the choice of tempo, balance (timbre and dynamics of sound, vibrato, fingering), and articulation and present an analysis of the ways these aspects of the technique change when playing solo or in ensembles. Section 2.5 discusses the standing and sitting positions of the violinist as an element of violin playing, affecting the quality of performance. Chapter 3 explores case studies, i.e. solutions to different technical, inter- pretive, and communicative tasks that a violinist faces in different contexts. In order to reveal the characteristics of a violinist’s functions and their changes, the author’s own practice of playing in chamber ensembles, the experience of working as the concertmaster at the Vilnius City Municipality St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra, C/O and Baltic Sea Philharmonic Symphony Orchestras, and taking a tutti position at the MusicAeterna orchestra has been used. The research paper is supplemented with Appendices, containing interviews with Lithuanian violinists Dalia Kuznecovaitė and Rusnė Mataitytė who suc- cessfully combine solo and ensemble violin playing practices as well as the C/O orchestra rehearsal schedule. |
