Fiddlers and Songbirds: The Fashionable Programming and Performing Traditions of Sydney’s Violin Recitals 1900–1950.

Introduction

In the early twentieth century, Sydney had a booming classical musical scene, audiences flocked to instrumental recitals, mass choir events, smoke concerts and promenade concerts.[1] Thousands attended student recitals at the Town Hall, virtuosi recitals created furores with audiences thronging all around the artist, shouting ‘bravo’, demanding encores, and stamping and hammering upon the floor with sticks.[2] Despite this bustling scene, the performing practices of Australian classical musicians from this time and place are largely unknown today. Recordings of Australian classical musicians from the early twentieth century are rare, and this is a contributing factor to why performers have receded into the periphery of cultural narratives in Australian music history. Rather, text-focused histories dominate the annals of Sydney’s musical past, including studies on composers’ lives, compositional development and cultural infrastructure.[3] In this article, I take a performance-centric approach and use documentary and recorded evidence, as well as creative research methods, to investigate Sydney’s bygone violin recitals.

Adopting a geographical perspective, this discussion examines Sydney’s violin recital scene, and prominent violinists within it, to explore the ways local performing traditions were shaped by transnational exchange, mainstream culture and audience expectations. I will first discuss the ubiquitous violin–voice double bill and how the vocalist was perhaps the ‘spoonful of sugar’ for audiences disinclined towards the ‘classic’ violin recital.[4] I will further outline the programming trends of the era and show how these relate to local predilections as well as wider trends in concert presentation. Finally, I will draw on evidence of the performing styles of early twentieth-century Sydney violinists Cyril Monk (1882–1970) and Patrick Moore MacMahon (1898–1973) to discuss how these individual performers may have sounded in this time and place.

Methods

It has been well documented, especially in recent years, that the performing traditions of early twentieth-century musicians differed substantially from our modern practices. The widely read Early Recordings and Musical Style (1992) by Robert Philip and Timothy Day’s A Century of Recorded Music (2000) are two seminal texts that disseminated this idea and defined various characteristics of early twentieth-century style.[5] In The End Of Early Music, Bruce Haynes identifies the 1930s as the decade in which modern style – the ‘principal performing protocol presently taught in conservatories all over the world’ – became the norm.[6] In Haynes’ discussion of twentieth-century performing styles, his idea of modern style – ‘following written scores quite literally, and being tightfisted with personal expression’ – is defined as a reaction to Romantic Style with its ‘portamentos, fluctuating tempos and unrelenting earnestness’.[7]

While this literature exposits common stylistic conventions of early twentieth-century recordings/performance, the data underpinning these studies is based on European/American documents and recorded evidence. How, then, can Australian practices of this era be understood? My approach to uncovering Sydney’s local performing traditions has made use of a number of methods to address this question. Firstly, the nuances of the recital scene were determined through the close examination of concert paraphernalia. Concert programmes from the era were gathered from the collections of the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW), National Library of Australia (NLA), University of Sydney Archives, Powerhouse Museum, Calloway Centre, local history collections and from community members–either musicians from the era or family members and students who had saved the concert memorabilia. Concert advertisements and concert reviews also provided rich information about the works that were being played and the violinists that were performing regularly.

Secondly, the performing traits of Cyril Monk and Patrick Moore MacMahon were illuminated, through the analysis of recently unearthed historical recordings, editorial markings, performance annotations and through practice-led research, enriching the discussion of the recital scene. Cyril Monk was at one time touted as the ‘best known violinist in the Commonwealth’ – he was a prolific recitalist, orchestral leader and teacher at the NSW Conservatorium between 1916–1955.[8] Patrick Moore MacMahon was famed for his Aerial Concert Tours on which he piloted his own plane the Wings of Song. Known also as ‘The Flying Fiddler’, MacMahon performed frequently in radio broadcasts and recitals throughout the 1920s and 1930s.[9]

One radio broadcast, given by Monk is preserved at the National Film and Sound Archives; however in this project, I have reimagined his personal playing style predominantly through my own playing of his published editions held at the NLA and the SLNSW and his signed and dated personal sheet music at the library of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Monk’s performing parts (dated 1925 and 1935)[10] were richly annotated with his fingerings, bowings and performance markings. Scholarship by David Milsom and Eleanor Stubley, among others, argues the value of historical editions in the reimagining of sonic pasts and performance practices; and in this research I have brought the study of editions into dialogue with related recordings and reenacted the performance markings to achieve an immediate and enhanced avenue for understanding. Sounding this music and performing Monk’s fingerings and bowings revealed a range of portamento styles and timbral nuances, which help to construct a picture of his personal playing style.[11]

A similar approach was used in the investigation of Patrick Moore MacMahon’s playing style in the early twentieth century. I uncovered MacMahon’s personal performing editions in a private collection and these were replete with bowings and fingerings. In addition to this, a set of MacMahon’s published arrangements from ca. 1924 were also included in the study. Highly valuable to this research was my discovery of homemade reel-to-reel recordings produced towards the end of MacMahon’s life.[12] Although these tape recordings were made as late as the 1950s and 1960s and MacMahon was, by this stage, retired from performing professionally; it is likely he sustained the habits of his training and performing career. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson claims that in his study of recordings ‘far more often than not, musicians played in consistent ways throughout their professional careers … musicians for whom we have a lifetime’s output seem to have developed a personal style early in their career and to have stuck with it fairly closely the rest of their lives’.[13] Based on this premise, I employed close listening and spectrogram analysis to generate data on MacMahon’s performing practices, and in this article I provide some examples of performative gestures that are illustrative of his personal style.[14]  These methods of uncovering past performing practices in dialogue with an investigation of the concert presentation of the era provides an insight into forgotten cultures of music making in Sydney.[15]

Musical Sydney

In the years 1900 to 1950, Sydney attracted a parade of international violin virtuosi, which furthered the general public’s interest in string music and the violin. These included Leopold Premyslav (1905), Hugo Heerman (1905), Marie Hall (1907), Jan Kubelik (1908), Alma Moodie (1909), Mischa Elman (1914), Fritz Kreisler (1925), Efrem Zimbalist (1927), Jascha Heifetz (1921, 1927), Josef Szigeti (1932), Yehudi Menuhin (1935), Bronisław Hubermann (1937), among others.[16] In 1921 a writer for the Daily Telegraph suggested ‘the visit of the phenomenal Heifetz comes at a period when our musical growth is moving for the time in the direction of string music. The violin more particularly, is attracting increased attention.’[17] Daily newspapers fanned the celebrity status of these violinists by regularly circulating tales of their exploits.[18] On Elman’s 1914 tour of Australia a reviewer wrote, ‘the waybacks applauded as heartily as the people in the front seats, and they couldn’t all have been charmed by Micha Elman’s reputation merely’.[19] Due to the public stir generated by the visits of these violinists, a great number of concerts were typically given. On Kreisler’s tour of Australia in 1925 he gave 14 concerts in Sydney alone, and in many cases, tickets were sold out in advance.[20] In a letter to Patrick Moore MacMahon, Joseph Szigeti wrote in 1932:

I believe Tokyo, Sydney and Melbourne are the only places in the world where an artist plays as a matter of course from five to eight or nine concerts. I think this is so beneficial for both parties concerned: for the player: giving out in one big continuous effort so much of his personality and for the audience: getting to know that personality so much more intimately than if those five to eight programmes were spread over three or five or six seasons![21]

Recitals by Sydney-based violinists were also frequent, and violin solos were additionally included in many large-scale concerts and in the programmes of smoke concerts and other popular entertainments.[22] Cyril Monk, Patrick Moore MacMahon, Phyllis McDonald, William Coad, Henry Staell, Rivers Allpress and Nora Williamson, among others, were all considered popular Sydney violin recitalists around this time.

The Violin and Voice Double Bill

Historical advertisements, reviews and concert programmes show that violin recitals were regularly held in venues across Sydney such as the Town Hall, St James Hall, Kings Hall, Centenary Hall, Sydney YMCA Hall, and Conservatorium Hall as well as other smaller venues like the Aeolian Hall, Forum Club and the Apollo Club. While advertised as violin recitals, these concerts frequently included a vocalist in the programme, a feature that was common in contemporaneous string quartet, orchestral concerts and other instrumental recitals.[23]

Both local and international artists programmed vocal works at this time; in 1908 Jan Kubelik included vocalist Erna Mueller in his Sydney concert and in 1914 Mischa Elman included vocalist Eva Gauthier.[24] In 1907 A. Lorenz explained in The Lone Hand, ‘of the great musical artists who have visited us, few have given unassisted recitals’[25] and Anne-Marie Forbes writes that ‘the combination of singer and violinist was still a winning formula in the 1920s, citing the recitals of violin vocal duos: Stella Power and Donald McBeath, Charles Hackett and M. Bratza and Lenghi Cellini and Michael Zacharewitsch’.[26]

In addition to performing several items in the concert, it was also common for the vocalist to perform a piece together with the violinist. Such arrangements were advertised – and also published – as songs with a violin obligato part. Famous recorded examples of this style of performance include Nellie Melba and Jan Kubelik’s 1913 recording of ‘Ave Maria’, Geraldine Farrar and Fritz Kreisler’s 1915 ‘Connais tu le Pays’ and Frances Alda and Misha Elman’s ‘Angel’s Serenade’.[27] In Sydney, the violin obligato appeared frequently in the programmes of touring and local violinists. Sydney violinists such as Raimund Pechotsch, Henry Staell, Cyril Monk, Patrick Moore MacMahon and William Coad all played violin obligato periodically.[28] An all-female trio comprised of violinist Phyllis McDonald, contralto Alice Prowse and pianist Marjorie Hesse performed programmes across Australia for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1936–37 which included solos and numbers with violin obligato.[29] Being fashionable, the violin obligato also appeared in new compositions by Australian composers, for example, Sydney F. Hoben’s ‘Ave Maria’, May Summerbelle’s ‘Ave Maria’ and Alfred Hill’s ‘An Old Remembered Song’ and ‘My Garden’.[30]

While violin and vocalists were seen together on concert programmes beyond Sydney, this formula remained the status quo in Sydney for many years, and those who strayed from this were seen as exceptions to that rule. The Sydney violinist William Coad was singled out in the press for his pure violin recitals in 1907. Coad, perhaps influenced by recent European studies with Otakar Ševčík in Vienna and César Thomson in Brussels, gave many recitals without a vocalist. In The Lone Hand, Lorenz frames this lack of vocalist as both unusual and educational; he writes ‘that a local artist should attempt a classic violin recital is evidence of his idealism and courage’ and ‘such programs, fitly rendered, are of a high value to a public so lacking in musical education as our own’.[31] Henri Verbrugghen, the Belgian violinist and first director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium also favoured a ‘classic’ recital format in Sydney, with a programme of substantial works. One example of this is the 1917 performances that he and pianist Edward Goll gave of the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas over a series of three concerts.[32] Vocal items were also conspicuously absent from the Verbrugghen String Quartet’s Sydney programmes in contrast to their forerunners the Austral Quartet, who frequently programmed a singer, and the Conservatorium Quartet, who superseded the Verbrugghen Quartet after Verbrugghen’s departure in 1922.[33]

The presence of a vocalist in many violin recitals in Sydney in those early decades of the century may be viewed as responsive to the general public’s interests and levels of musical education. Neville Cardus, the Sydney Morning Herald’s music critic, bemoaned in 1948 ‘so far, a concert here has largely been regarded as “entertainment”’.[34] The perceived need to raise the public’s appreciation and understanding of classical music can be recognized in Verbrugghen’s efforts, in the years 1916–1922, to deliver pre-concert lectures, suburban and regional concerts and community music classes.[35] During Verbrugghen’s years at the helm of the NSW State Orchestra (1916–1922) pure orchestral concerts were given, but so too were popular concerts which involved singers and lighter numbers (and violin solos), hinting at the relationship between the vocalists and broad public appeal.[36]

In the 1930s, educational aims were furthered through ‘Music Week’; a joint venture of the Musical Association of NSW, Sydney Conservatorium, Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and the Music Advancement Guild.[37] Music Week, ‘designed to stimulate the public interest in the educative and inspiring influences of music’, offered midday and evening concerts, a school children’s programme of concerts and a student essay competition.[38] The ABC itself was chartered to educate and enlighten, and to cultivate a national public desire for music and other interests.[39] These examples of institutional efforts to deliver musically educational programmes and events to the general public substantiates the recurring theme in local press that in Sydney – ‘a Philistine city’[40] – audiences were lacking in musical education. This may be a contributing factor to violin recitals, which relied on a degree of profitability, taking a more populist approach.[41] When violinist Cyril Monk, who had spent two years studying in London, was asked to comment in The Lone Hand on the difference between Sydney audiences and London audiences, Monk explained that in Sydney when performing chamber music, while some were appreciative there were ‘usually one or two persons in the audience that are to be found asleep or nearly so. In London among a refined audience the same music well played may be greeted with cheers and roars of applause.’ He further explained: ‘Sydney is the mecca of the ballad singer who is nearly always well received.’[42]

Programming

Publicity for Sydney violin recitals, as well as promoting the vocal items, advertised the well-known and attractive violin works of the day. For seasoned audiences in these years, one such work was Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. When Verbrugghen performed the whole cycle of Beethoven sonatas in one week in 1917 a writer for The Triad wrote ‘the last concert programme included the “Kreutzer” Sonata, which sufficed, of course, to draw an audience larger even than those which had attended the earlier recitals’.[43] A 1925 report in the Daily Telegraph highlighted Sydney’s enduring affection for the work, ‘Kreisler, the violinist, who has captured musical Sydney, has been overwhelmed with requests for particular numbers in his succeeding programmes. There have been so many pleadings for Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata that the master has decided to play this great number tonight’.[44] A stalwart of violin recital programmes, Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata was performed in Sydney by notable violinists from Sydney and abroad (Table 1).

Year	Violinists performing Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata
1900	Henri Staell
1906	Cyril Monk
1907	Marie Hall
1908	Jan Kubelik, Albert Wentzel, Cyril Monk
1910	Cyril Monk
1914	Mischa Elman
1915	Henri Verbrugghen, Cyril Monk
1917	Henri Verbrugghen
1918	William Coad
1919	Henri Verbrugghen
1922	Toscha Seidel
1923	Daisy Richards
1924	Gerald Walenn, Michael Zacharewitsch
1925	Fritz Kreisler
1927	Jascha Heifetz
1929	Erina Morini
1931	Patrick Moore MacMahon
1932	Joseph Szigeti
1933	Tossy Spivakovsky
1935	Yehudi Menuhin
1936	Leopold Premyslav
1937	Bronisław Huberman
1939	Guilia Bustabo, Grisha Goluboff

Table 1 Sample of performances of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata in Sydney, 1900–1940.

The Concerto for Two Violins in D minor by Bach was described in 1923 as ‘the medium of an exchange of courtesies between visiting and resident artists for more than twenty years’.[45] This famous double concerto was performed in Sydney by Maud MacCarthy and Rivers Allpress in 1900, Leopold Premyslav and Frank Mowat Carter in 1907, Anton Tschaikov and Cyril Monk in 1910, Henri Verbrugghen and Elias Breeskin in 1920, Mischa Dobrinksi and Cyril Monk in 1923, Phyllis McDonald and Nora Williamson in 1934, and Szymon Goldberg and Robert Pikler in 1946.[46]

Another regular favourite was César Franck’s Sonata for Violin and Piano which was performed by Henri Verbrugghen (1916), Kreisler (1925), Daisy Kennedy (1920), Andre Skalski in (1922), Erica Morini in (1929), Ethel Holden (1924), Jascha Heifetz (1927), Ernest Llewellyn (1932) and Phyllis Macdonald (1934). In addition to these mainstays, an offering of shorter concert works and violin arrangements of well-known songs were other defining features of violin recitals of the era. Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ was performed frequently by local artists in Sydney but also by famous violinists touring here like Leopold Premyslav (1907), Marie Hall (1907) and Elman (1914). Antonin Dvořák’s ‘Humoresque’ is another example of a popular short work which featured widely in Sydney perhaps further popularized by the programmes of Hall (1907), Premyslav (1907), Kreisler (1925) and Efrem Zimbalist (1927). Kreisler’s crowd-drawing tour in 1925 also impacted programming. Forbes explains that the popular press painted Kreisler as ‘hero or even saviour come to redeem the Antipodean public from mediocrity and raise the standard of musical taste’ and for years after his tour, a steady stream of his pieces were performed in Sydney by local violinists.[47]

At this time, it was not unusual for recitalists to play many short works in a single concert alongside more substantial works. Recitals tended to be highly varied in repertoire with performers expected to deliver both virtuosic fireworks and deeply moving offerings.[48] The regularity of varied and virtuosic programmes in Sydney can be realized through the press commentary which highlighted exceptions to the rule. William Coad’s recitals, which centred around classic repertoire, were noted for their singularity and met with indifference according to a 1916 article: ‘for years past in Sydney Mr William J. Coad has urged a fine crusade against local indifference towards the great classic masters of the violin. Often repulsed he remains undaunted.’[49]

This miscellaneous recital programming did begin to fall out of fashion in the 1940s, by which time those who appreciated ‘good music’ – a term which became increasingly synonymous with high-class classical music – were attracted to the works of the ‘master musicians’.[50] Dümling notes that ‘by 1940 … changes in Australia’s concert life were becoming more apparent as Jewish refugees from Europe flocked to the concert halls. Their great love of the “sacred art” of music meant higher standards’.[51] An ABC inter-office memo from 1940 which describes a violin concert in which the second half ‘consisted almost entirely of trifles’, further highlights the attitudes which spurred a general shift away from light, popular show pieces.[52] Neville Cardus, in a review of Lyndall Hendrickson’s 1945 recital wrote, ‘Lyndall Hendrickson was handicapped by a programme of music which jerked us and herself from style to style with little connection of mood-Vivaldi and Schumann, then Bloch followed by Debussy, with Manuel de Falla on their heels, followed by the elusive Delius of the best-known of his three sonatas for violin and piano. It is not good to be miscellaneous in the arts’.[53]

The miscellaneous concert programme in Europe, Weber argues, predated ‘a fundamental change in European musical culture: the rise of separate spheres of classical and popular music’. Weber explains that from 1900 what began to govern programmes was a principle of homogeneity; ‘a growing separation of vocal from instrumental music, the reduction in the number of works and the exclusion of “light” music from “serious” programs’.[54] This same shift can be seen in Sydney violin concerts, but with a staggered approach, some trailblazers in the ‘new’ style of programming were certainly Verbrugghen and later Phyllis McDonald among others, but seemingly Monk, MacMahon and many local players, alongside touring virtuosi, maintained the more widely accessible and varied programmes.[55]

Performing Practices

The sounding of Sydney violinist Cyril Monk’s editions (published ca. 1910–1955) and MacMahon’s editions (published ca. 1924) in addition to their personal annotated performing parts, provides clues about individual performing styles in Sydney in the early twentieth century. In addition to describing the performances that took place, in this section I reimagine sound world of these recitals of mixed programmes and vocal items. The musical scores of Monk and MacMahon reveal Romantic performing traits which include frequent and varied portamenti and tempo modification. In the following section I will outline just a few of the specific expressive effects that I discovered when playing through the scores, adhering to the fingering, bowing, and tempo markings. Of the many nuances observable in MacMahon’s tape recordings, I will select some prominent examples of portamento-use, tempo modification and rhythmic alteration which all hint at a performance style which leans towards Hayne’s definition of Romantic performance.[56]

Monk’s annotated music and his published scores provide detailed fingerings that suggest frequent and varied portamento effects. As well as fingerings that show he connected notes in different positions on one string under a slur – necessarily producing a slide – often he connected notes under a slur, sliding with the same finger, resulting in a highly prominent slide. Monk’s transcription of Schubert’s ‘Die Nebesonnen’ provides multiple examples of this portamento effect (Figure 1). The opening four bars of the violin part could be played all in the one hand position on the G string. There is no pragmatic reason for the violinist to change hand positions, however Monk marks four same-finger shifts implying four entirely expressive slides. The numbers in red have been included by me to show the finger number to be used, as implied by the printed finger markings. This recording of me performing the passage shows what the effects the fingerings might be, LISTEN HERE.

In MacMahon’s published arrangement of the Pergolesi Arioso, same-finger portamenti are implied in bars 28, 30 and 32 (Figure 2).

In general, MacMahon’s scores and tapes show that he used a high frequency of portamenti, especially in cantabile passages and slow movements/works. One example that highlights this is his recording of the Andante tranquillo from Brahms’ Sonata in A major. In bars 1–15 MacMahon employs 20 portamenti, which are marked here in red LISTEN HERE (Figure 3).

Monk, MacMahon and contemporaries such as S. Vost Janssen include fingerings in their editions which indicate for the second of two consecutive notes of the same pitch to be played by a lower finger number (see Figure 4).[57] This fingering, when enacted, results in a lower pitch scoop to the second note and similar fingerings can be seen in the editions of nineteenth-century violinists Ferdinand David and Guido Papini.[58] A similar scooping aberration can be heard in vocal recordings from the era and has the effect of a singer nuancing the text in a repetition of the same pitch. Examples of this occur in Nellie Melba’s 1907 recording of ‘Ah, Fors’ è Lui’, and in Nellie Melba and Ada Crossley’s 1907 recording of ‘Caro Mio Ben’.[59] Brown explains that the constant reference to vocal performance in nineteenth-century violin methods shows the close connection between the violin and voice at this time.[60] The popularity of singers in the concert landscape of early twentieth-century Sydney may also have seen violinists borrow or emphasize performance techniques imitative of vocal effects. The ‘lower pitch scoop’ fingering can be seen in Monk’s annotated copy of ‘Dusk’ by Alfred Hill and in Cavatina by Joachim Raff, and arranged by Vost Janssen (Figure 4).[61]

As well as vocal-like slides, the historical scores of Monk, MacMahon and others, reveal many fingerings that suggest uses of the violin’s natural harmonics, which became less common later in the century – Mark Katz summarizes that ‘from the 1960s the majority of violinists use none [harmonics]’.[62] This type of fingering which was common in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century editions and was a feature of Heifetz’s playing style among others[63] is observable in Australian composer Carl Sauer’s ‘Gondoliers’ Song’ from Australian Violin Solos which includes many harmonic fingerings, as does Vost Janssen’s, Melodie in G.[64] In Monk’s arrangement of Robert Schumann’s ‘Schlummerlied’, harmonics feature strongly in the opening theme (Figure 5).

In a copy of Monk’s English Airs which has also been additionally annotated by Monk, he suggests a same finger shift both to and away from the harmonic note in bar 14 (Fig. 6) which may have sounded like this LISTEN HERE.

There is evidence in the personal scores of both Monk and MacMahon that they each executed sliding effects down the fingerboard to an open string. This type of slide was a deliberate expressive gesture and one that was generally eschewed in pedagogical advice to violinists at the time.[65] It is an interesting feature of these historical violin scores as it shows just how vital the sliding effects were to performance, especially as they were used even when there was no destination, as such, for the finger. In Monk’s annotated copy of Schubert’s Serenade (Figure 7) in bar 14 there is a marking suggesting a slide from a stopped D₅ in third position down to an open A string.

While there are no recorded examples of Monk performing this type of slide, MacMahon can be heard enacting this in his 1956 recording of Schumann’s Sonata in A minor, Appassionato, e con espressione, LISTEN HERE.[66] This notated example is taken from MacMahon’s personal score, and I have added the red line to show where the portamento can be heard (Figure 8).

In Monk’s published arrangements and transcriptions, he includes many tempo modifications, which differ from the original versions; this hints at the fundamental presence of tempo modification in his playing style. In his transcription of ‘Widmung’ Monk adds directions for rit and rallentando that are not found in Robert Schumann’s first edition for pianoforte (Table 2).[67] While similar modifications may have been found in contemporaneous editions, Monk’s editorial markings still give a picture of his personal interpretations, regardless of how they were influenced.[68]

Robert Schumann, ‘Widmung’, (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel) 1879–1912 (original key A-flat major)		Cyril Monk’s arrangement (Sydney: Nicholson & Co.) ca. 1920 (F major)
Bar 9		Bar 11
Bar 12		Bar 13

Table 2 Comparison between Schumann’s ‘Widmung’ and Monk’s arrangement ca. 1920.

Rhythmic alteration and tempo modification is evident throughout MacMahon’s recordings. His performance of the opening bars of Brahms’ Violin Sonata no. 3 in D minor alone, speaks to the pervading elasticity of rhythm evident in recordings of MacMahon’s playing. In the Figure 9, the three quavers at the end of bars 2 and 6 are rhythmically condensed, arriving later than notated, and are played with haste and rhythmic inequality. They are faster than the piano’s quavers and do not align with the quaver movement in the piano part. In bar 10, the rhythm sounds tripletized and MacMahon plays the last quaver in bar 8 much longer than the identical bar 7 LISTEN HERE (Figure 9).

In the same movement MacMahon begins the upward run at bar 61 early, creating asynchrony between violin and piano and ultimately arriving early at bar 62 LISTEN HERE (Figure 10).

Beyond Monk and MacMahon, Albert Cazabon – described as ‘one of the most accomplished fiddlers Sydney has heard’ – is also noted for his tendency to ‘speed up the tempo unduly in some places’.[69]

An exception to this flexible approach to tempo can be seen in Ashton’s review of Bronisław Huberman’s Sydney performances in 1937. Ashton calls attention to Huberman’s more precise approach to the performance of the score, hinting at the scarcity of his approach: ‘Here is a violinist who treats the classics with a respect they demand, who follows the directions on the score because those directions, at least, are part of the music, and whose interpretative powers do not demand that he shall do something that the composer, probably, never dreamed of’.[70]

These examples of Monk and MacMahon offer just a snapshot of the expressive performing characteristics evident in their editions, performing parts and recordings. While the playing styles of famous recorded violinists of the same era has been well documented, the exploration of Sydney violinist’s playing styles brings some light to what vignettes of local performance might have sounded like. Monk and MacMahon remained popular performers through the 1930s, but they had reduced their solo performing by the 1940s as their playing styles went out of fashion. Monk announced his final public recital in 1927 but was still heard in Sydney beyond this time. In 1932 Monk was graded as amongst the five highest paid violinists at the ABC but by the late 1930s he was withdrawn from broadcasts.[71] MacMahon, a once celebrated performer, was described in 1945 by Cardus in the Sydney Morning Herald as an ‘amateur talent’.[72] In the time that Monk and MacMahon did take the stage (and airwaves), Romantic style performance characteristics such as portamenti, harmonic fingerings, tempo fluctuations, rhythmic alteration and asynchrony were practiced in Sydney.

Elsewhere, these characteristics certainly lingered, but were being rejected by a new style of violinist.[73] Australian violin virtuoso Alma Moodie, at this time based in Europe, renounced ‘unbearable glissandi’ to her former teacher Carl Flesch in a 1928 letter, after attending a performance by violinist Adolf Busch:

I was bitterly disappointed notwithstanding the regard I have for his playing on the whole. Qualitatively his tone has made great strides and is moreover astonishingly big, but I never heard, from a first-class violinist, so many unbearable glissandi and, more serious this arbitrary way of playing, for which there was no discernible reason, was incomprehensible to me. If he interprets in this way, one has to reject him.[74]

Similarly, Viennese violist Richard Goldner, later to become the founder of the Sydney Musica Viva, described in his unpublished memoirs an experience of playing with the Rosé Quartet in Vienna in 1934: ‘Here I was confronted and surrounded by three relics of a past age … all three members of the philharmonic orchestra doing everything I was trained not to do, for example, portamento slides for expression in lieu of vibrato and fingerings that made my hair stand on end’.[75]

The effects of war, modernity and broadcasting all played a role in the gradual decline of the older styles of performance, however the evidence discovered in this project offers a unique insight into players preceding (and on the cusp of) these changes in Sydney.[76] My performances of the annotations and directions in Monk’s scores in addition to the discovery, digitization, and analysis of MacMahon’s forgotten tapes has enabled fragments of Sydney’s past musical landscape to be reimagined in the present. This investigation is important, not just in the uncovering of performing traditions which have been hitherto unknown, but in its demonstration of styles of both programming and playing that we might find it hard to imagine today. This work illuminates musical activity in which transnational links were strong, Romantic performance traits endured, and public tastes had a robust influence on the musical fare. While these styles of performance did not endure, they shaped the booming musical culture and contributed to music’s ‘great hold on the people of Sydney’.[77] The performance style of Monk and MacMahon, in dialogue with concert programmes and reviews, illustrates a musical world barely recognizable to a modern-day recital enthusiast. The violin recitals of Sydney’s yesteryear, with their variety, songs and sweeping portamento, were for some a sublime escape from the everyday and for others simply entertainment.

Endnotes

[1]‘The World of Music’, Sunday Times (Sydney), 21 December 1919, 18, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article123220236, accessed 6 December 2024. Fiona Fraser, ‘Orchestrating the Metropolis the Creation of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as a Modern Cultural Institution’, History Australia 11/2 (2014), 196–221, at 201. Smoke concerts or ‘smokers’ were a popular entertainment where audience members could sit and drink whisky and enjoy their pipe. They were popular in Sydney in the late nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century and many were organized around what were then male-dominated activities; see Arundel Orchard, The Distant View (Sydney: Currawong, 1943), 91, and ‘Smoke Concert’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 1894, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28259971, accessed 8 December 2024.

[2]‘Kretschmann Concert’, The Australian Star (Sydney), 13 November 1907, 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229508439, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘A Furore’, The Sun (Sydney), 9 July, 1931, 22, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224723828, accessed 17 April 2024.

[3] Examples of this are Roger Covell, Australia’s Music: Themes of a New Society, 2nd edn (Melbourne: Lyrebird Press, 2016); Rhoderick McNeill, The Australian Symphony from Federation to 1960 (London: Routledge, 2016); Larry Sitsky, Australian Chamber Music with Piano (Canberra: ANU Press, 2011); Stephen Pleskun, A Chronological History of Australian Composers and Their Compositions (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2012); Martin Buzacott, The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC Music Making (Sydney: ABC Books for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2007); Philip Sametz and Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Play On! 60 Years of Music-Making with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (Sydney: ABC Enterprises, 1992), Charles Buttrose and Australian Broadcasting Commission, Playing for Australia: A Story About ABC Orchestras and Music in Australia (Sydney: Macmillan, 1982); Diane Collins, Sounds from the Stables: The Story of Sydney’s Conservatorium (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2001); Peter McCallum and Julie Simonds, The Centenary of the Con: A History of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music 1915–2015 (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2015); Rita Crews, A Centenary Celebration: The Australian Music Examinations Board, 1918 to 2018 (Melbourne: AMEB, 2018.); Frances Elliot and Jane Southcott, ‘Examinations in the Life of Studio Music Teachers in Australia Prior to 1920’, Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, 42/2 (2021), 139–58, among others.

[4] The ‘classic’ violin recital was seen as an unassisted recital featuring high class music, see for example ‘A Review of Some Recent Recitals’, The Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 July 1914, 94, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-412172515.

[5] Robert Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance, 1900–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Timothy Day, A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). See also Clive Brown, Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Neal Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); David Milson, Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth-Century Violin Performance: An Examination of Style in Performance, 1850–1900 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).

[6] Bruce Haynes, The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music for the 21st Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 49.

[7] Haynes, The End of Early Music, 32–33.

[8] Julia Russoniello, ‘A History in Blue Pencil: Cyril Monk’s Performance Annotations and a Bygone Musical Style’, Musicology Australia, 44/1 (2022), 79–103.

[9] MacMahon Scrapbook Vertical File, Georges River Libraries; Margaret Murphy, ‘Memories of Hurstville’, interview Edward MacMahon, 23 March 1994, Georges River Council Local Studies, National Archives of Australia, Notes from ABC Federal Auditions Sydney, Music – First ABC Artists Auditions [box 57], SP1558/2, 853, p. 100.

[10] See Frederick Delius, Sonata no. 1 for Violin and Piano (London: Forsythe, ca.1917), annotated by Cyril Monk, University of Sydney Library, (OOcLC)22168415; Arthur Benjamin, Sonatina for Violin and Piano (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), annotated by Cyril Monk, University of Sydney Library, (OCoLC) ocn224413226; Russoniello, ‘A History in Blue Pencil’.

[11] Eleanor V. Stubley, ‘The Performer, the Score, the Work: Musical Performance and Transactional Reading’, Journal of Aesthetic Education, 29/3 (1995), 55–69; F.J. Schuiling and Emily Payne, ‘The Textility of Marking: Performer’s Annotations as Indicators of the Creative Process in Music’, Music & Letters, 98/3 (2017), 438–64; Cook, Beyond the Score; John Haines, The Calligraphy of Medieval Music (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); David Milsom, ‘Editions as Evidence’, in Romantic Violin Performing Practices: A Handbook, ed. by David Milsom (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020), 159–74; Robin Stowell, ‘The Evidence’, in The Cambridge History of Musical Performance, ed. by Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 63–104. See also Michael Musgrave and Bernard D. Sherman, Performing Brahms: Early Evidence of Performance Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 99.

[12] These were discovered in the MacMahon family’s private collection and were digitized for this study. Some tapes reveal recordings of his personal practice and others are performances of works by Brahms, Kreisler, Vincent, Mozart and Schumann accompanied by pianist Alan Jenkins and also MacMahon’s second wife, Edna MacMahon.

[13] Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ‘Recordings and Histories of Performance Style’, in The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music, ed. by Nicholas Cook, John Rink, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson and Eric Clarke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 250.

[14] A detailed discussion of individual playing styles of Patrick Moore MacMahon and Cyril Monk can be found in Julia Russoniello, Looking Forward, Listening Back: The Sonic History of Three Early-Twentieth Century Australian Violinists (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2024), https://hdl.handle.net/2123/33338, accessed 8 December 2024. For a discussion and exemplars of the usefulness of studying recordings see Nicholas Cook, ‘Methods for Analysing Recordings’, in The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music, ed. by Nicholas Cook, John Rink, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson and Eric Clarke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style, 51; Eric Clarke, Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 54; Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to Studying Recorded Musical Performance (London: CHARM, 2009), https://charm.rhul.ac.uk/studies/chapters/chap1.html, accessed 20 April 2024.

[15] Julia Russoniello and Josie Ryan, ‘Fiddlers and Songbirds: the forgotten traditions of Sydney’s violin recitals 1900-1940’ (Conference Paper, Reimagining Musical Programming, University of Sydney, 25^th November 2022). At the 2022 Reimagining Musical Programming Conference, Julia Russoniello and Josie Ryan presented a paper on forgotten cultures of music making in Sydney and performed, in the style of the early twentieth-century violin recitals, Gaetano Braga’s Angel’s Serenade.

[16] See also Anne-Marie Forbes, ‘The Local Impact of an International Celebrity: Fritz Kreisler in Australasia’, Musicology Australia 31/1 (2009), 1–16.

[17] ‘Music’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 7 May 1921, 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article239741246, accessed 17 April 2024.

[18] See ‘Russian Poker’ Evening News (Sydney) 8 January 1913, 12 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113780037, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Kubelik Bankrupt’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April 1932, 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16852462, accessed 17 April 2024.

[19] ‘Sundry Shows’, The Bulletin (Sydney), 11 June 1914, 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-66051198.

[20] Anne-Marie Forbes, ‘Holding an Island Captive: Fritz Kreisler’s Australian Tour of 1925’, in Musical Islands: Exploring Connections Between Music, Place and Research, ed. Elizabeth Mackinlay, Brydie-Leigh Bartleet and Katelyn Barney (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2009), 189–205, here 192.

[21] Joseph Szigeti, letter to Patrick Moore-MacMahon, 2 October 1932, Powerhouse Museum Archives, Ultimo, NSW, A8213–132/12/1.

[22] ‘Town Hall Concert’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February 1908, 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1494766, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Sydney Liedertafel’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 1901, 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14419453, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Scottish Concert’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 January 1931, 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16742996, accessed 17 April 2024.

[23] The Zerbini Quartet, Sydney Quintet Society, Pleyel Classical Concerts, Orpheus Concert Club and Austral Quartet all frequently included a vocalist in the programme. See for example, Austral String Quartet programme book for Tuesday 27 June 1911 at St James Hall (private collection of Victoria Monk) which included an aria from Haydn’s The Seasons and songs by Brahms and Robert Schumann sung by Leonore Gotsch. Singers were common in orchestral concerts also, see ‘Symphony Orchestra’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 October 1915, 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15620980, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Orchestral Matinee by the Conservatorium Orchestra 29 May 1919’ programme book, Sydney University Archives, G75/24 (646) 1911–1920.

[24] See Forbes, ‘The Local Impact of an International Celebrity’, 2, and also Perth, Calloway Centre Archive, ‘Kubelik Programme, Town Hall Adelaide, July 13th 1908’.

[25]‘A Review of Some Recent Recitals’, The Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 July 1914, 94, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-412172515.

[26] Forbes, ‘The Local Impact of an International Celebrity’, 7.

[27] J.S. Bach, Charles Gounod, ‘Ave Maria’, Nellie Melba, Jan Kubelik (Victrola, 1913), available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVIJ22sy7Vc; Ambroise Thomas, ‘Connais tu le Pays’, Geraldine Farrar, Fritz Kreisler (Victrola, 1915), available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2CH68y7yxw; Gaetano Braga, ‘Angel’s Serenade’ Frances Alda, Mischa Elman (Victrola, 1915), www.youtube.com/watch?v=aowVhAbWyRQ.

[28] See for example: ‘Violin Recital’, The Sun (Sydney), 2 June 1929, 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223962926, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Archdiocesan News’, The Catholic Press (Sydney), 30 August 1902, 26, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article104420456, accessed 17 April 2024.

[29] Concert Schedules and Artist Itineraries from the Symphony Australia Tours of 1936, National Library of Australia, Bib ID 5465075; various Sydney string quartets also sometimes included a work with violin obligato see ‘Conservatorium Quartet’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August 1925, 11 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16236640, accessed 17 April 2024. The Austral Quartet commonly a programmed a vocalist as well as vocal items with a string obligato part. See ‘Austral String Quartet Program Book’, 30 April 1912, St James Hall, private collection of Victoria Monk and State Library of New South Wales, Monk Family Papers 1892–1983, MLMSS 4299.

[30] Other examples include Raimund Pechotsch, For Thee: Song with Violin Obligato (Sydney: Nash’s Limited, 1916); L. Bayer, Federation Serenade: The Moon Shines Bright & Weep With Me, for Voice and Piano with Violin Obligato (Melbourne: Troedel & Co., ca. 1870); Frederick Hall, In a Garden of Lillies (Melbourne: Stanley Mullen, ca. 1920).

[31] ‘A Review of Some Recent Recitals’, The Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 July 1914, 94, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-412172515.

[32] ‘Goll-Verbrugghen Recitals’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 October 1917, 14, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15757953.

[33] For Austral Quartet programmes see Monk Family Papers 1892–1983, MLMSS 4299. See also ‘Verbrugghen Quartet’, The Sun (Sydney), 21 March 1916, 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article221360541; ‘Conservatorium, Quartet Concert’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 August 1928, 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16487152.

[34] Neville Cardus, ‘Music in Australia’, Tempo 7 (1948), 8–11.

[35] Diane Collins, ‘Henri Verbrugghen’s Auditory Utopianism: Sound, Reform, Modernity and Nation in Australia, 1915–1922’, History Australia 6.2 (2009), 36.1–36.18.

[36] See for example the vocal items sung by Madame Goossens Viceroy in the programme book for ‘First Popular Concert by the Conservatorium Orchestra, Kings Cross Theatre’, Conservatorium 1921–1935, Sydney University Archives, G75/24 and Popular Concert Programs in State Library of New South Wales, NSW State Conservatorium of Music Programmes of Concerts, Plays, Operas 1920–1921, ML Q780. 739911A2. At the same time in England, local orchestras ‘almost always included vocal or instrumental pieces in the programs.’  See Simon McVeigh and William Weber, ‘From the Benefit Concert to the Solo Song Recital in London, 1870–1914’, in German Song Onstage, ed. by Natasha Loges and Laura Tunbridge (Indiana University Press, 2020), pp. 179–202, (189).

[37] Sarah Kirby, ‘“Primitive, Antique, and Modern”: An Exhibition of Music in Interwar Sydney and the “Australian” Music Question’, Cultural and Social History 20.4 (2023), 551–72, here 555.

[38] ‘Music Week’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 August 1930, 17, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16704971.

[39] Kenneth Morgan, ‘The Creation of the ABC Studio Orchestras, 1935–1945’, Musicology Australia 44.1 (2022), 1–2.

[40] ‘Music In Sydney’, The Triad (Sydney), 10 December 1915, 49.

[41] ‘A Review of Some Recent Recitals’, The Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 July 1914, 94.

[42] ‘A Review of Last Month’s Recitals’, The Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 December 1914, 243, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-413285844.

[43] ‘Beethoven Recitals’, The Triad, 10 November 1917, 51, State Library of New South Wales, Henri Verbrugghen Papers, MLMSS 7965.

[44] ‘Kreisler’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 12 May 1925, 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245230990, accessed 17 April 2024.

[45] ‘Realm of Music’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 10 November 1923, 13, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article246003457, accessed 17 April 2024.

[46] ‘Realm of Music’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 10 November 1923, 13, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article246003457, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Miss Maud MacCarthy’s Concert’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 1900, 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14290457, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Black Premyslav Concerts’, Evening News (Sydney), 1 May 1907, 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115232095; ‘Other Shows’, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), 27 July 1910, 51 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263719448, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Orchestral Concert’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 1934, 15, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28021378, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Art Meets Art’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 13 September 1920, 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article239691630, accessed 17 April 2024; ‘Orchestra’s Fine Playing’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 28 September 1946, 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248577692, accessed 17 April 2024.

[47] Forbes, ‘The Local Impact of an International Celebrity’, 10–11.

[48] This miscellaneous programming was common of vocal concerts in London in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See McVeigh and Weber, ‘From the Benefit Concert to the Solo Song Recital in London’, pp. 179–202.

[49] See ‘William Coad and his Violin Recitals’, The Triad (Sydney), 10 November 1916, 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1245956125.

[50] ‘Good music’ was a term used in the 1940s media to denote, high class or ‘better class’ music, see ‘Music for Sydney’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 September 1944, 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17919324; ‘Good Music’, Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong), 5 June 1945, 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article132645978.

[51] Albrecht Dümling The Vanished Musicians: Jewish Refugees in Australia, trans. by Diana K. Weekes (Oxford: Peter Lang AG, 2016), 326; see also ‘Sydney’s Concert Boom. New Musical Influences’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 July 1943, 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17856079.

[52] ‘Julius S Ujhelyi Violinist’ [box 30], National Archives of Australia, SP173/1, p. 17.

[53] ‘Recital by Violinist, Jerky Programme’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 May 1945, 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27935090.

[54] William Weber, ‘From Miscellany to Homogeneity in Concert Programming’, Poetics 29 (2001), 129–30.

[55] McDonald’s first concert on her return to Sydney from study in London in 1933 had the variety common to Sydney violin recitals of the 1930s, but her subsequent recitals featured predominantly sonatas for violin and piano, see for example ‘Sonata Evening’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1935, 12 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17221736, and ‘Sonata Recital’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 1937, 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17397577.

[56] Haynes, The End of Early Music, 51–55.

[57] See G.B. Pergolesi, ‘Arioso’, arr. Patrick Moore-MacMahon (Sydney: W. H. Paling & Co., c.1924), Joachim Raff, Cavatina, op. 85, no. 3, arr. Cyril Monk (Sydney: Nicholson’s, ca.1930), Michael William Balfe, Killarney, arranged by Cyril Monk (Sydney: W. H. Paling & Co., ca. 1920).

[58] See Guido Papini, 3 Trascrizioni di ‘Tannhäuser’, Romance (Ricordi n.d.), bars 74–75 and Figure 3.26 in Emma Williams, The Singing Violin: Portamento use in Franz Schubert’s Violin Music (Masters diss., Royal Conservatory of The Hague, 2019), www.researchcatalogue.net/view/561381/561388, accessed 23/04/2024.

[59] See Giuseppe Verdi, ‘Ah, Fors’ è Lui’, Nellie Melba (Victor, 1907), Tommaso Giordani, ‘Caro Mio Ben’, Ada Crossley (Victor 1905), Henri Duparc, ‘L’invitation Au Voyage’, Claire Croiza (Columbia, 1928). In MacMahon’s Arioso, an arrangement of the aria ‘Tre giorni son che Nina’ by G.B. Pergolesi, this fingering type appears three times, amongst other expressive fingerings.

[60] Clive Brown, ‘Bowing Styles, Vibrato and Portamento in Nineteenth-Century Violin Playing’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 113/1 (1988), 128.

[61] Alfred Hill, Dusk (The Musical Association of NSW, ca. 1927), University of Sydney Library, (OCoLC) 220461934.

[62] Mark Katz, ‘Beethoven in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: The Violin Concerto on Record’, Beethoven Forum 10/1 (2003), 52, as quoted in Dario Sarlo, The Performance Style of Jascha Heifetz (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 126.

[63] For harmonics in Heifetz’s performing style see Sarlo, The Performance Style of Jascha Heifetz, 126. For further examples of harmonics in recordings and editions see Enrico Toselli, Serenade, Erica Morini (Victrola 1923); Ludwig van Beethoven, Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 12, ed. William Speidel (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1887); Ludwig van Beethoven, Violin Sonata No. 1 Op. 12, ed. Arthur Seybold (Hamburg: Benjamin, 1919); Guido Papini, 6 Characteristic Pieces Op. 100 (London: Ashdown, n.d.).

[64] S. Vost-Janssen, Melodie in G, for Violin and Piano (Sydney: W. H. Paling and Co., 1910), Carl Sauer, Gondoliers’ Song, (Sydney: W. H. Paling and Co., 1929), Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Chant Sans Paroles, arr. Cyril Monk (Sydney: W. H. Paling & Co., ca. 1910). See also Joseph Francois Gossec, Gavotte, arr. Patrick Moore MacMahon (Sydney: W. H. Paling & Co., ca.1930).

[65] Hans Wessely, A Practical Guide to Violin Playing, 87. Milsom finds that slides to and from open strings in Romantic violin performance were generally ‘disallowed as tasteless and artificial’ however there were exceptions that continued into the twentieth century, see David Milsom, Romantic Violin Performing Practices: A Handbook (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020), 91.

[66] Edna and Patrick Moore MacMahon playing Schumann’s Sonata Op. 105, A minor, first movement, unpublished reel-to-reel tape recording, 2 September 1956, private collection.

[67] Robert Schumann, Widmung (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879–1912); Robert Schumann, Widmung, arr. Cyril Monk (Sydney: Nicholson & Co., ca. 1920).

[68] For more examples of Cyril Monk’s tempo marking additions see Russoniello, ‘A History in Blue Pencil’.

[69] ‘Cazabon As Violin Soloist’, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 1 July 1931, 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article246717491.

[70] ‘Music Notes’, The Sun (Sydney), 27 June 1937, 13, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229404516.

[71] National Archives of Australia, ‘Cyril Monk Music Teacher’ [box 19], SP173/1, 8.

[72] Neville Cardus, ‘Violin Recital Was Premature’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 1945, 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27935806. MacMahon was also named amongst the five highest paid BC violinists in 1932, see First ABC Artists Auditions [box 57], SP1558/2, 853, p. 100.

[73] For new style of violin vibrato in the twentieth century see Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style, 116–18.

[74] Carl Flesch, The Memoirs of Carl Flesch, trans. by H. Keller (London: Rockliff, 1957), 182–83, cited in Tully Potter, Adolf Busch: The Life of an Honest Musician, vol. 1, 1891–1939 (London: Toccata Press, 2010), 406; and Tatjana Goldberg’s Pioneer Violin Virtuose in the Early Twentieth Century. Maud Powell, Marie Hall, and Alma Moodie: A Gendered Re-Evaluation (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), 136. See also Goldberg’s discussion of Moodie’s rejection of ‘schmaltzy’ violin playing in ibid. 135–37.

[75] Richard Goldner, Musica Viva Birth and Early Years, unpublished autobiography, private collection, 59.

[76] See Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ‘Early Recorded Violin Playing: Evidence for What?’, Spielpraxis der Saiteninstrumente in der Romantik: Bericht des Symposiums in Bern, November 2006 (Schliengen: Edition Argus, 2011), 21–22.

[77] ‘Great Singers’, Sunday Times (Sydney), 17 January 1926, 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128120484.