My History with Historical Performance

I have been playing the violin officially since I was about four years old; modern violin, that is (although that term has become somewhat new to me).  Since I was about age ten I have been told that I have a real 'feeling' for baroque music.  Unsure of what that actually means, I have mostly just ignored that kind of comment.  I mean, yes,  I do like to play with minimal vibrato, quite a lot of the time actually, just because I prefer a purer sound in which I can really bring out the meaning of every note and not cover it up with lashings of vibrato (similarly I do love to hear the piano played with minimal use of pedal - yes, even in late romantic works).   And I am definitely curious about playing old music in a more historically informed sort of way... but otherwise I really don't know very much at all!

My interest in researching more about historical performance definitely became stronger a few years ago, when I was learning Bach's d minor Partita.  I was lucky enough to study with an amazing teacher who asked me thousands of questions about why I had chosen to play in certain ways, and made me realise how many decisions there were  for me to make; about phrasing, articulation, tempi, chordal playing, repetitions, differences on repetitions.....  I started to question everything! And it was an amazing feeling! Then of course, in order to keep making decisions and to obtain more knowledge, I decided to go to a few baroque lessons with some experts, and read some great books.  Like with, well, everything really, the more you start to delve into the whole subject of historical performance, the more you realise how vast the subject is.  I wanted to write my Bachelor thesis on the d minor Partita, but it would of had to have been in one thousand volumes! So I 'narrowed' it down to the subject of an interpretation of bowings in this partita, and even then there was so much that I could barely touch on.

I realised then that I was definitely fascinated by historical performance/early music/baroque playing/whatever you want to call it.  Because of other things happening in my life, i.e. playing in a string quartet for a year and all the work that comes with that, I have had to put the fascination on hold until NOW.