Violin Improvisation in the Early Nineteenth Century: BetweenPractice and Illusion

"Improvisation is an exceptionally elusive topic for historical investigation, perhapsespecially in the context of the early nineteenth century, when incentives to impro- vise and the types of training that supported it were dwindling. Apart from PierreBaillot’s treatise, which gives detailed guidelines for preluding, none of the violinmethods of the period say much about improvisation. It is thus not surprising thatChristine Hoppe, in her exhaustive study of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst’s compositionaloeuvre, decides to ‘bracket the question of the improvisatory, an undoubtedly centralcomponent of virtuosity considered at the performative level."