Mitt projekt har handlat om att ta steget till att bli mer självständig vid instuderingen av nya stycken. Att våga göra saker utan lärarens hjälp och lita på sin egen intuition och kunskap. Jag valde att arbeta med stycket Sonat no. 2 ”Obsession” av Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) eftersom att det är för solo violin vilket innebar att jag inte kunde få någon påverkan ifrån någon annan och att det har varit ett stycke som jag länge har velat lära mig. Jag beskriver hur jag gått tillväga för att lära mig det, om tankar som jag fått från kurslitteraturen och om hur det har känts att inte ha den tryggheten som ens lärare ger. / My project has been about taking the step to become more independent when rehearsing new pieces. Too dare to do things without the help of a teacher and to start trusting your own intuition and knowledge. I chose the piece Sonata no. 2 "Obsession" by Eugène Ysaÿe (1858- 1931) because it is for solo violin witch would minimize the impact from someone else and it`s a piece that I for a long time have wanted to learn. I describe how I proceeded to learn it, thoughts that I received from the literature and how it feels to not have the security that the teacher gives. / <p>Bilaga: 1 CD</p>

Title from accompanying document. / Mary Lyndal Nyberg, violin; S.E. Royall, piano. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Numerous influential composers are associated with the program known as "El Sistema" in Venezuela. Despite a richly prolific output from many of these figures, only a few are known in the United States and throughout the world. Among the most influential is Paul Desenne (b. 1959), whose Sonata for Violin Solo is the subject of this doctoral essay. Throughout his youth and musical education, Desenne was exposed to an eclectic variety of musical styles and idioms. This eclecticism influenced his compositional style from the time of his earliest compositions and is also evident in his more recent works. The Sonata for Violin Solo reflects this cultural interweaving that incorporates music from Desenne’s native Venezuela and utilizes elements from indigenous tribes, Spanish settlers, and African peoples that are combined with global musical elements. This essay explores these elements from a theoretical perspective, as well from the practical viewpoint of the performer.

Johann Paul von Westhoff's (1656-1705) solo violin works, consisting of Suite pour le violon sans basse continue published in 1683 and Six Suites for Violin Solo in 1696, feature extensive use of multiple stops, which represents a German polyphonic style of the seventeenth-century instrumental music. However, the Six Suites had escaped the public's attention for nearly three hundred years until its rediscovery by the musicologist Peter Várnai in the late twentieth century. This project will focus on polyphonic writing featured in the solo violin works by von Westhoff. In order to fully understand the stylistic traits of this less well-known collection, a brief summary of the composer, Johann Paul Westhoff, and an overview of the historical background of his time will be included in this document. I will analyze these works, including a comparison between the works of Westhoff and those of other composers during his time, to prove that Westhoff's solo works establish multiple stops as a central factor of German violin playing of the time, and, thus, to promote Westhoff's works as a complement to the extant repertoire of unaccompanied violin music written in the Baroque era before Johann Sebastian Bach's solo violin works and Georg Philipp Telemann's twelve fantasias for violin solo. Furthermore, this project will help one to better understand the use and function of multiple stops in the German violin repertoire in the seventeenth century.