This treatise is intended to examine the phenomenon of musical borrowing in the contemporary violin literature. In this treatise, I will examine various pieces in the violin repertoire in which musical borrowing is a primary compositional element. Following a detailed survey of musical borrowing throughout history, I will present analytical and historical information about a selection of works for solo violin and for ensembles of various sizes that features musical borrowing.
Although musical borrowing was a favorite compositional technique in many different periods, the twentieth century saw a particular development in the extent of this phenomenon. After World War I (1914-1918), there was a change in the musical conception of many European musicians as a reaction against the war and the excesses of Romanticism. Composers desired to return to an ideal of pure and rational music as in the Baroque and Classical periods. This aesthetic movement is known as Neo-Classicism. In this period, music was both radical and conservative in different ways. Composers such as Sergey Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky explored progressive musical styles but mixed these with musical elements from the past, extracting musical elements from the music of earlier periods and reinterpreting them in a variety of ways. This incorporation of old and new music represents a significant musical concept for this time period.
In the years following the Second World War, many composers regained an interest in musical borrowing, but in a new way. Composers such as Luciano Berio, Mauricio Kagel and George Rochberg wrote music that depended on collage-based approaches or other methods to achieve a post-modern effect. The music of particular composers was often spotlighted; for instance, Lukas Foss and Sofia Gubaidulina borrowed not just the style but recognizable themes or entire movements from J. S. Bach in works to be discussed in this treatise. Many living composers, such as George Crumb and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, still make music with elements from the past. An awareness of the origin of a piece‟s borrowed elements and how the composer reused these elements can help a performer convey the musical ideas to listeners.
