Recent Publications

Early Sound Recordings: Academic Research and Practice - 1st Edition
routledge.com

David Milsom, ‘Understanding Joseph Joachim’s Style and Practice: Recordings as a Research Tool’, in Eva Moreda Rodriguez & Inja Stanovic (eds.) Early Sound Recordings: Academic Research & Practice (Routledge, London, 2023)

Romantic Violin Performing Practices – A Handbook
Boydell, Woodbridge, 2020

This book discusses key issues (and barriers) of putting into practice nineteenth-century violin performing practices. It deals with a number of well-known problems concerning romantic performance including the widely perceived 'gap' between scholarship and the act of performance.

David Milsom (violin) & Inja Stanovic (piano), Austro-German Revivals – (Re)constructing Acoustic Recordings (Pennine Records, Huddersfield, PR02, 2022) - Pennine Records (hud.ac.uk)

David Milsom (violin), Helena Ruinard (violin), Ellis Thompson (viola), Douglas Badger (cello), Richard Casey (piano), Borealis Chamber Choir and soloists (dir. Stephen Muir), Robert Fürstenthal Der Sonnengesang des Heiligen Franz von Assisi (Toccata Classics, 2022) Robert Fürstenthal: Complete Choral Music, vol. 1 – Borealis (borealis-choir.org)

Future Projects

A book chapter for the AHRC TCHIP project (University of Oxford), reflecting on aspects of historical string sonority and reflecting on the ‘Accordes!’ string orchestra project undertaken in Oxford in August-September 2019 still awaits final editorial completion but should be published in 2025.

David’s forthcoming research outputs (and recordings) are presently linked to The West Riding Ensemble which acts as a hub of activity independent of the Higher Education sector, whilst providing academic content relevant to it.

In January 2025, initially on Youtube but possibly on other platforms as well, will be two recordings of J. S. Bach’s Concerto in D Minor for 2 violins. These are part of a ‘Bach Double’ Project David has undertaken with his student-cum-chamber music partner, Maria Nikolaeva. The first part of this is a modern recording, complete, with pianoforte accompaniment, and featuring the finale cadenza by Joseph Hellmesberger, inspired by the 1928 Czech HMV recording by Arnold and Alma Rose. Piano accompaniment (from the C. F. Peters edition edited by Andreas Moser) is by David’s PhD student, Jonathan Gooing, who at the time of writing is studying late-romantic piano accompaniment and piano chamber music playing. The audio recording is on period instruments: a Broadwood grand of 1897, and the violins strung with thick, unwound gut upper strings, as was common until the 1920s. The performance is rare for its inclusion of the cadenza, and also for introducing a young player (aged 16 when the recording was made in March, 2024) to nineteenth-century period instruments and stylistic practices: an obvious throughput of Milsom’s aspirations set in his 2020 monograph.

The second recording, also initially destined for Youtube, is an acoustic/mechanical recording of the finale of the concerto on 2 10-inch sides, made in August 2024 with Duncan Miller of Vulcan Records, by a process very similar to that of c.1910. The recording includes on the second record the complete Hellmesberger cadenza (and a truncated final tutti), and on the first an abridged version of the pre-cadenza portion of the movement, to fit the side lengths. This is almost certainly the first time a player of Maria Nikolaeva’s age has made an acoustic recording since the mid 1920s: the recordings are the subject of a research paper for the Early Recordings Association, and online and live academic discussion (including a research seminar at the University of Huddersfield on February 12, 2025, in which David is joined by Maria, and his wife, pianist Ruth Milsom, who accompanied the acoustic recording.

The concerto was also performed by David and Maria ‘live’, complete, in the University of Huddersfield’s concert series of 2024-2025, and was destined to be one of the very last concerts in this series before it was discontinued. The performance was accompanied by the student string orchestra, and friends: see: https://www.hud.ac.uk/performance/april/

The finale of the concerto was performed at St John’s Ranmoor, Sheffield in May, 2024 (piano accompaniment, Philip Collin) and in September 2024 at Firth Park Library, Sheffield (piano accompaniment Ruth Milsom) in an outreach event for Classical Sheffield.

In May, 2025, West Riding Ensemble will be making a full professional (sound and video) recording of Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence (David Milsom & Maria Nikolaeva, violins, Ben Kearsley & Charlotte Kenyon, violas, George Kennaway and Douglas Badger, cellos) and Shostakovich String Quartet no. 8 (violin 1 Maria Nikolaeva, violin 2 David Milsom, viola Charlotte Kenyon, cello George Kennaway), for initial Youtube and later CD/digital download release.