Regional and Transnational Traditions of Violin Playing

This chapter argues that an appreciation of both regional and transnational violin-playing styles is needed for a profound understanding of the Sibelius violin concerto. Sibelius’s musical ideas and performers’ interpretations of the violin concerto are shaped by different violin-playing traditions. This argument also offers perspectives on how pedagogy shapes musical transmission and performance style by focusing on Leopold Auer’s influence on the violin playing of the twentieth century. Leading into the main concerns of the fifth chapter, the argument concludes by noting that Auer’s teaching practice coincided with women’s emerging political voices. He accepted many women violinists into his class in the St. Petersburg Conservatory, women who went on to forge careers as virtuoso violinists and to champion Sibelius’s violin concerto internationally.