An Introduction to Baroque Interpretation for the Modern String Player

Authors

Molly Cowley, Brigham Young University
Alexander Woods, Brigham Young University

Keywords

Baroque, modern string player, music, string instruments

College

Fine Arts and Communications

Department

Music

Abstract

Historically informed performance, or playing music how we think it would have sounded within the era that it was written, is becoming increasingly popular. Because recordings are not available for anything played in the 17th or 18th century, we rely on books and treatises of that era to determine style (phrasing, tempi, pitch, articulations, etc.) Although many scholars have published on the subject of Baroque Era playing, I have discovered that these, often large, books can be intimidating to the average music student. Watching students avoiding the texts and attempting to learn the style from mere imitation has motivated me to compile an abridged version of these treatises and add very simple exercises that will hopefully ease the transition to “Baroque playing.” I limited my audience to stringed instruments.

Recommended Citation

Cowley, Molly and Woods, Alexander (2016) "An Introduction to Baroque Interpretation for the Modern String Player," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2016: Iss. 1, Article 108.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2016/iss1/108