Felipe Libón, the first travelling Spanish Virtuoso and his Violin Concerto No.6 (1812). A Performance Practice case study: I. Poco Allegro

Saya Ikenoya

One of the first Spanish virtuoso violinists to achieve international recognition, Felipe Libón enjoyed a successful performing and composing career. He worked and performed alongside other celebrated violinists: Rode, Kreutzer, and Baillot, who were founders of the so-called "19th Century French Violin School". We will experiment with applying the extensive indications of the treatises (Baillot, Campagnoli, Woldemar, Spohr, Cartier, and Libón himself) to build a performance practice case study.

Chapter 3.5.4: Historically Informed Performance Case Study

Ornamentation

Vibrato

This element represents the hallmark of the Romantic violin, but it was not such according to sources such as Campagnoli1. How and when to use of this expressive tool varied a lot according to the region and the individual, but it seems like it was only discreetly used to emphasise special moments, such as long sustained, or long ending notes.

The unsupported violin setup did not allow freedom of the arm to make a wide upper arm vibrato, as one would have to hold the violin with the thumb. In addition, excessive vibrato on gut strings produces an undesirable effect on the sound. Hence, as Stowell summarises2, the aim would be to acquire a variety of vibrato of different speeds and intensities to suit and add up to fulfill the many expressive requirements of the music.

Baillot indicates that sometimes this was indicated explicitly with the sign ⟿, but we cannot find this in Libón's music. Nevertheless, as Spohr suggest, this could be applied especially with fz, accents, or diminuendo markings3.

Trills

Baillot notes that the trills should be played from the upper notes in an example of Viotti’s Concerto.

He notes that the cadence should be terminate at the same speed as the trill.

Exceptions to this rule are found in the final cadences of an Adagio:

Cadenzas

Baillot explains in detail what types of cadences, and gives several examples of how to build one4. In our case, the one that fits into this context is the tenth one: "Returing to the theme without interruption and being linked to it by what is called a re-entry".

This example would be illustrative for this purpose:

BAILLOT, Pierre (1834). L'art du violon, Paris: Mayence, Les fils de B. Schott , p. 177

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Saya Ikenoya - Felipe Libón, the first travelling Spanish Virtuoso and his Violin Concerto No.6 (1812). A Performance Practice case study: I. Poco Allegro - 2023