53 files changed, 28878 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/15535-0.txt b/15535-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..084829b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6500 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Violin Mastery
+       Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
+
+Author: Frederick H. Martens
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15535]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+          [Illustration: EUGÈNE YSAYE, with hand-written note]
+
+
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+               _TALKS WITH MASTER VIOLINISTS AND TEACHERS_
+
+
+               COMPRISING INTERVIEWS WITH YSAYE, KREISLER,
+                ELMAN, AUER, THIBAUD, HEIFETZ, HARTMANN,
+                        MAUD POWELL AND OTHERS
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          FREDERICK H. MARTENS
+
+                         WITH SIXTEEN PORTRAITS
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                      FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+                               PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+                       _Copyright, 1919, by_
+                    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+        _All rights reserved, including that of translation
+                     into foreign languages_
+
+
+
+
+                               FOREWORD
+
+
+The appreciation accorded Miss Harriette Brower's admirable books on
+PIANO MASTERY has prompted the present volume of intimate _Talks with
+Master Violinists and Teachers_, in which a number of famous artists and
+instructors discuss esthetic and technical phases of the art of violin
+playing in detail, their concept of what Violin Mastery means, and how
+it may be acquired. Only limitation of space has prevented the inclusion
+of numerous other deserving artists and teachers, yet practically all of
+the greatest masters of the violin now in this country are represented.
+That the lessons of their artistry and experience will be of direct
+benefit and value to every violin student and every lover of violin
+music may be accepted as a foregone conclusion.
+
+                                      FREDERICK H. MARTENS.
+    171 Orient Way,
+      Rutherford N.J.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+                                                                   PAGE
+    FOREWORD                                                         v
+
+    EUGÈNE YSAYE         The Tools of Violin Mastery                 1
+
+    LEOPOLD AUER         A Method without Secrets                   14
+
+    EDDY BROWN           Hubay and Auer: Technic: Hints
+                           to the Student                           25
+
+    MISCHA ELMAN         Life and Color in Interpretation.
+                           Technical Phases                         38
+
+    SAMUEL GARDNER       Technic and Musicianship                   54
+
+    ARTHUR HARTMANN      The Problem of Technic                     66
+
+    JASCHA HEIFETZ       The Danger of Practicing Too
+                           Much. Technical Mastery and
+                           Temperament                              78
+
+    DAVID HOCHSTEIN      The Violin as a Means of Expression
+                           and Expressive Playing                   91
+
+    FRITZ KREISLER       Personality in Art                         99
+
+    FRANZ KNEISEL        The Perfect String Ensemble               110
+
+    ADOLFO BETTI         The Technic of the Modern Quartet         127
+
+    HANS LETZ            The Technic of Bowing                     140
+
+    DAVID MANNES         The Philosophy of Violin Teaching         146
+
+    TIVADAR NACHÉZ       Joachim and Léonard as Teachers           160
+
+    MAXIMILIAN PILZER    The Singing Tone and the Vibrato          177
+
+    MAUD POWELL          Technical Difficulties: Some Hints
+                           for the Concert Player                  183
+
+    LEON SAMETINI        Harmonics                                 198
+
+    ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY  What the Teacher Can and Cannot Do        210
+
+    TOSCHA SEIDEL        How to Study                              219
+
+    EDMUND SEVERN        The Joachim Bowing and Others:
+                           The Left Hand                           227
+
+    ALBERT SPALDING      The Most Important Factor in the
+                           Development of an Artist                240
+
+    THEODORE SPIERING    The Application of Bow Exercises
+                           to the Study of Kreutzer                247
+
+    JACQUES THIBAUD      The Ideal Program                         259
+
+    GUSTAV SAENGER       The Editor as a Factor in "Violin
+                           Mastery"                                277
+
+
+
+
+                                ILLUSTRATIONS
+       Eugène Ysaye                                   _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                           FACING
+                                                            PAGE
+       Leopold Auer                                          14
+
+       Mischa Elman                                          38
+
+       Arthur Hartmann                                       66
+
+       Jascha Heifetz                                        78
+
+       Fritz Kreisler                                       100
+
+       Franz Kneisel                                        110
+
+       Adolfo Betti                                         128
+
+       David Mannes                                         146
+
+       Tivadar Nachéz                                       160
+
+       Maud Powell                                          184
+
+       Toscha Seidel                                        220
+
+       Albert Spalding                                      240
+
+       Theodore Spiering                                    248
+
+       Jacques Thibaud                                      260
+
+       Gustav Saenger                                       278
+
+
+
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+                               EUGÈNE YSAYE
+
+                        THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+Who is there among contemporary masters of the violin whose name stands
+for more at the present time than that of the great Belgian artist, his
+"extraordinary temperamental power as an interpreter" enhanced by a
+hundred and one special gifts of tone and technic, gifts often alluded
+to by his admiring colleagues? For Ysaye is the greatest exponent of
+that wonderful Belgian school of violin playing which is rooted in his
+teachers Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, and which as Ysaye himself says,
+"during a period covering seventy years reigned supreme at the
+_Conservatoire_ in Paris in the persons of Massart, Remi, Marsick, and
+others of its great interpreters."
+
+What most impresses one who meets Ysaye and talks with him for the
+first time is the mental breadth and vision of the man; his kindness and
+amiability; his utter lack of small vanity. When the writer first called
+on him in New York with a note of introductio from his friend and
+admirer Adolfo Betti, and later at Scarsdale where, in company with his
+friend Thibaud, he was dividing his time between music and tennis, Ysaye
+made him entirely at home, and willingly talked of his art and its
+ideals. In reply to some questions anent his own study years, he said:
+
+"Strange to say, my father was my very first teacher--it is not often
+the case. I studied with him until I went to the Liège Conservatory in
+1867, where I won a second prize, sharing it with Ovide Musin, for
+playing Viotti's 22d Concerto. Then I had lessons from Wieniawski in
+Brussels and studied two years with Vieuxtemps in Paris. Vieuxtemps was
+a paralytic when I came to him; yet a wonderful teacher, though he could
+no longer play. And I was already a concertizing artist when I met him.
+He was a very great man, the grandeur of whose tradition lives in the
+whole 'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at his seven
+concertos--of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the
+virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up!
+How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far
+more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only
+Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, did not
+play it as it is now played. In wealth of technical development, in true
+musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof is the fact that
+his works have endured forty to fifty years, a long life for
+compositions.
+
+"Joachim, Léonard, Sivori, Wieniawski--all admired Vieuxtemps. In
+Paganini's and Locatelli's works the effect, comparatively speaking,
+lies in the mechanics; but Vieuxtemps is the great artist who made the
+instrument take the road of romanticism which Hugo, Balzac and Gauthier
+trod in literature. And before all the violin was made to charm, to
+move, and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like Rubinstein, he held that the artist
+must first of all have ideas, emotional power--his technic must be so
+perfected that he does not have to think of it! Incidentally, speaking
+of schools of violin playing, I find that there is a great tendency to
+confuse the Belgian and French. This should not be. They are distinct,
+though the latter has undoubtedly been formed and influenced by the
+former. Many of the great violin names, in fact,--Vieuxtemps, Léonard*,
+Marsick, Remi, Parent, de Broux, Musin, Thomson,--are all Belgian."
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Leonard".
+
+
+                           YSAYE'S REPERTORY
+
+Ysaye spoke of Vieuxtemps's repertory--only he did not call it that: he
+spoke of the Vieuxtemps compositions and of Vieuxtemps himself.
+"Vieuxtemps wrote in the grand style; his music is always rich and
+sonorous. If his violin is really to sound, the violinist must play
+Vieuxtemps, just as the 'cellist plays Servais. You know, in the
+Catholic Church, at Vespers, whenever God's name is spoken, we bow the
+head. And Wieniawski would always bow his head when he said: 'Vieuxtemps
+is the master of us all!'
+
+"I have often played his _Fifth Concerto_, so warm, brilliant and
+replete with temperament, always full-sounding, rich in an almost
+unbounded strength. Of course, since Vieuxtemps wrote his concertos, a
+great variety of fine modern works has appeared, the appreciation of
+chamber-music has grown and developed, and with it that of the sonata.
+And the modern violin sonata is also a vehicle for violin virtuosity in
+the very best meaning of the word. The sonatas of César Franck, d'Indy,
+Théodore Dubois, Lekeu, Vierne, Ropartz, Lazarri--they are all highly
+expressive, yet at the same time virtuose. The violin parts develop a
+lovely song line, yet their technic is far from simple. Take Lekeu's
+splendid Sonata in G major; rugged and massive, making decided technical
+demands--it yet has a wonderful breadth of melody, a great expressive
+quality of song."
+
+These works--those who have heard the Master play the beautiful Lazarri
+sonata this season will not soon forget it--are all dedicated to Ysaye.
+And this holds good, too, of the César Franck sonata. As Ysaye says:
+"Performances of these great sonatas call for _two_ artists--for their
+piano parts are sometimes very elaborate. César Franck sent me his
+sonata on September 26, 1886, my wedding day--it was his wedding
+present! I cannot complain as regards the number of works, really
+important works, inscribed to me. There are so many--by Chausson (his
+symphony), Ropartz, Dubois (his sonata--one of the best after Franck),
+d'Indy (the _Istar_ variations and other works), Gabriel Fauré (the
+Quintet), Debussy (the Quartet)! There are more than I can recall at
+the moment--violin sonatas, symphonic music, chamber-music, choral
+works, compositions of every kind!
+
+"Debussy, as you know, wrote practically nothing originally for the
+violin and piano--with the exception, perhaps, of a work published by
+Durand during his last illness. Yet he came very near writing something
+for me. Fifteen years ago he told me he was composing a 'Nocturne' for
+me. I went off on a concert tour and was away a long time. When I
+returned to Paris I wrote to Debussy to find out what had become of my
+'Nocturne.' And he replied that, somehow, it had shaped itself up for
+orchestra instead of a violin solo. It is one of the _Trois Nocturnes_
+for orchestra. Perhaps one reason why so much has been inscribed to me
+is the fact that as an interpreting artist, I have never cultivated a
+'specialty.' I have played everything from Bach to Debussy, for real art
+should be international!"
+
+Ysaye himself has an almost marvelous right-arm and fingerboard control,
+which enables him to produce at will the finest and most subtle tonal
+nuances in all bowings. Then, too, he overcomes the most intricate
+mechanical problems with seemingly effortless ease. And his tone has
+well been called "golden." His own definition of tone is worth
+recording. He says it should be "In music what the heart suggests, and
+the soul expresses!"
+
+
+                      THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"With regard to mechanism," Ysaye continued, "at the present day the
+tools of violin mastery, of expression, technic, mechanism, are far more
+necessary than in days gone by. In fact they are indispensable, if the
+spirit is to express itself without restraint. And the greater
+mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that
+suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more
+than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often
+said: _Pas de trait pour le trait--chantez, chantez_! (Not runs for the
+sake of runs--sing, sing!)
+
+"Too many of the technicians of the present day no longer sing. Their
+difficulties--they surmount them more or less happily; but the effect is
+too apparent, and though, at times, the listener may be astonished, he
+can never be charmed. Agile fingers, sure of themselves, and a perfect
+bow stroke are essentials; and they must be supremely able to carry
+along the rhythm and poetic action the artist desires. Mechanism
+becomes, if anything, more accessible in proportion as its domain is
+enriched by new formulas. The violinist of to-day commands far greater
+technical resources than did his predecessors. Paganini is accessible to
+nearly all players: Vieuxtemps no longer offers the difficulties he did
+thirty years ago. Yet the wood-wind, brass and even the string
+instruments subsist in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the
+masters of the past. I often feel that violin teaching to-day endeavors
+to develop the esthetic sense at too early a stage. And in devoting
+itself to the _head_ it forgets the _hands_, with the result that the
+young soldiers of the violinistic army, full of ardor and courage, are
+ill equipped for the great battle of art.
+
+"In this connection there exists an excellent set of _Études-Caprices_
+by E. Chaumont, which offer the advanced student new elements and
+formulas of development. Though in some of them 'the frame is too large
+for the picture,' and though difficult from a violinistic point of view,
+'they lie admirably well up the neck,' to use one of Vieuxtemps's
+expressions, and I take pleasure in calling attention to them.
+
+"When I said that the string instruments, including the violin, subsist
+in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the masters of the past, I
+spoke with special regard to technic. Since Vieuxtemps there has been
+hardly one new passage written for the violin; and this has retarded the
+development of its technic. In the case of the piano, men like Godowsky
+have created a new technic for their instrument; but although
+Saint-Saëns, Bruch, Lalo and others have in their works endowed the
+violin with much beautiful music, music itself was their first concern,
+and not music for the violin. There are no more concertos written for
+the solo flute, trombone, etc.--as a result there is no new technical
+material added to the resources of these instruments.
+
+"In a way the same holds good of the violin--new works conceived only
+from the musical point of view bring about the stagnation of technical
+discovery, the invention of new passages, of novel harmonic wealth of
+combination is not encouraged. And a violinist owes it to himself to
+exploit the great possibilities of his own instrument. I have tried to
+find new technical ways and means of expression in my own compositions.
+For example, I have written a _Divertiment_ for violin and orchestra in
+which I believe I have embodied new thoughts and ideas, and have
+attempted to give violin technic a broader scope of life and vigor.
+
+"In the days of Viotti and Rode the harmonic possibilities were more
+limited--they had only a few chords, and hardly any chords of the ninth.
+But now harmonic material for the development of a new violin technic is
+there: I have some violin studies, in ms., which I may publish some day,
+devoted to that end. I am always somewhat hesitant about
+publishing--there are many things I might publish, but I have seen so
+much brought out that was banal, poor, unworthy, that I have always been
+inclined to mistrust the value of my own creations rather than fall into
+the same error. We have the scale of Debussy and his successors to draw
+upon, their new chords and successions of fourths and fifths--for new
+technical formulas are always evolved out of and follow after new
+harmonic discoveries--though there is as yet no violin method which
+gives a fingering for the whole-tone scale. Perhaps we will have to wait
+until Kreisler or I will have written one which makes plain the new
+flowering of technical beauty and esthetic development which it brings
+the violin.
+
+"As to teaching violin, I have never taught violin in the generally
+accepted sense of the phrase. But at Godinne, where I usually spent my
+summers when in Europe, I gave a kind of traditional course in the works
+of Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and other masters to some forty or fifty
+artist-students who would gather there--the same course I look forward
+to giving in Cincinnati, to a master class of very advanced pupils. This
+was and will be a labor of love, for the compositions of Vieuxtemps and
+Wieniawski especially are so inspiring and yet, as a rule, they are so
+badly played--without grandeur or beauty, with no thought of the
+traditional interpretation--that they seem the piecework of technic
+factories!
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"When I take the whole history of the violin into account I feel that
+the true inwardness of 'Violin Mastery' is best expressed by a kind of
+threefold group of great artists. First, in the order of romantic
+expression, we have a trinity made up of Corelli, Viotti and Vieuxtemps.
+Then there is a trinity of mechanical perfection, composed of Locatelli,
+Tartini and Paganini or, a more modern equivalent, César Thomson,
+Kubelik and Burmeister. And, finally, what I might call in the order of
+lyric expression, a quartet comprising Ysaye, Thibaud, Mischa Elman and
+Sametini of Chicago, the last-named a wonderfully fine artist of the
+lyric or singing type. Of course there are qualifications to be made.
+Locatelli was not altogether an exponent of technic. And many other fine
+artists besides those mentioned share the characteristics of those in
+the various groups. Yet, speaking in a general way, I believe that these
+groups of attainment might be said to sum up what 'Violin Mastery'
+really is. And a violin master? He must be a violinist, a thinker, a
+poet, a human being, he must have known hope, love, passion and despair,
+he must have run the gamut of the emotions in order to express them all
+in his playing. He must play his violin as Pan played his flute!"
+
+In conclusion Ysaye sounded a note of warning for the too ambitious
+young student and player. "If Art is to progress, the technical and
+mechanical element must not, of course, be neglected. But a boy of
+eighteen cannot expect to express that to which the serious student of
+thirty, the man who has actually lived, can give voice. If the
+violinist's art is truly a great art, it cannot come to fruition in the
+artist's 'teens. His accomplishment then is no more than a promise--a
+promise which finds its realization in and by life itself. Yet Americans
+have the brains as well as the spiritual endowment necessary to
+understand and appreciate beauty in a high degree. They can already
+point with pride to violinists who emphatically deserve to be called
+artists, and another quarter-century of artistic striving may well bring
+them into the front rank of violinistic achievement!"
+
+
+
+
+                                    II
+
+
+                               LEOPOLD AUER
+
+                         A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS
+
+
+When that celebrated laboratory of budding musical genius, the Petrograd
+Conservatory, closed its doors indefinitely owing to the disturbed
+political conditions of Russia, the famous violinist and teacher
+Professor Leopold Auer decided to pay the visit to the United States
+which had so repeatedly been urged on him by his friends and pupils. His
+fame, owing to such heralds as Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Kathleen
+Parlow, Eddy Brown, Francis MacMillan, and more recently Sascha Heifetz,
+Toscha Seidel, and Max Rosen, had long since preceded him; and the
+reception accorded him in this country, as a soloist and one of the
+greatest exponents and teachers of his instrument, has been one justly
+due to his authority and preëminence.
+
+It was not easy to have a heart-to-heart talk with the Master anent his
+art, since every minute of his time was precious. Yet ushered into
+his presence, the writer discovered that he had laid aside for the
+moment other preoccupations, and was amiably responsive to all
+questions, once their object had been disclosed. Naturally, the first
+and burning question in the case of so celebrated a pedagogue was: "How
+do you form such wonderful artists? What is the secret of your method?"
+
+           [Illustration: LEOPOLD AUER, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                         A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS
+
+"I know," said Professor Auer, "that there is a theory somewhat to the
+effect that I make a few magic passes with the bow by way of
+illustration and--_presto_--you have a Zimbalist or a Heifetz! But the
+truth is I have no method--unless you want to call purely natural lines
+of development, based on natural principles, a method--and so, of
+course, there is no secret about my teaching. The one great point I lay
+stress on in teaching is never to kill the individuality of my various
+pupils. Each pupil has his own inborn aptitudes, his own personal
+qualities as regards tone and interpretation. I always have made an
+individual study of each pupil, and given each pupil individual
+treatment. And always, always I have encouraged them to develop freely
+in their own way as regards inspiration and ideals, so long as this was
+not contrary to esthetic principles and those of my art. My idea has
+always been to help bring out what nature has already given, rather than
+to use dogma to force a student's natural inclinations into channels I
+myself might prefer. And another great principle in my teaching, one
+which is productive of results, is to demand as much as possible of the
+pupil. Then he will give you something!
+
+"Of course the whole subject of violin teaching is one that I look at
+from the standpoint of the teacher who tries to make what is already
+excellent perfect from the musical and artistic standpoint. I insist on
+a perfected technical development in every pupil who comes to me. Art
+begins where technic ends. There can be no real art development before
+one's technic is firmly established. And a great deal of technical work
+has to be done before the great works of violin literature, the sonatas
+and concertos, may be approached. In Petrograd my own assistants, who
+were familiar with my ideas, prepared my pupils for me. And in my own
+experience I have found that one cannot teach by word, by the spoken
+explanation, alone. If I have a point to make I explain it; but if my
+explanation fails to explain I take my violin and bow, and clear up the
+matter beyond any doubt. The word lives, it is true, but often the word
+must be materialized by action so that its meaning is clear. There are
+always things which the pupil must be shown literally, though
+explanation should always supplement illustration. I studied with
+Joachim as a boy of sixteen--it was before 1866, when there was still a
+kingdom of Hanover in existence--and Joachim always illustrated his
+meaning with bow and fiddle. But he never explained the technical side
+of what he illustrated. Those more advanced understood without verbal
+comment; yet there were some who did not.
+
+"As regards the theory that you can tell who a violinist's teacher is by
+the way in which he plays, I do not believe in it. I do not believe that
+you can tell an Auer pupil by the manner in which he plays. And I am
+proud of it since it shows that my pupils have profited by my
+encouragement of individual development, and that they become genuine
+artists, each with a personality of his own, instead of violinistic
+automats, all bearing a marked family resemblance."
+
+Questioned as to how his various pupils reflected different phases of
+his teaching ideals, Professor Auer mentioned that he had long since
+given over passing final decisions on his pupils. "I could express no
+such opinions without unconsciously implying comparisons. And so few
+comparisons really compare! Then, too, mine would be merely an
+individual opinion. Therefore, as has been my custom for years, I will
+continue to leave any ultimate decisions regarding my pupils' playing to
+the public and the press."
+
+
+                            HOURS OF PRACTICE
+
+"How long should the advanced pupil practice?" Professor Auer was asked.
+"The right kind of practice is not a matter of hours," he replied.
+"Practice should represent the utmost concentration of brain. It is
+better to play with concentration for two hours than to practice eight
+without. I should say that four hours would be a good maximum practice
+time--I never ask more of my pupils--and that during each minute of the
+time the brain be as active as the fingers.
+
+
+                NATIONALITY VERSUS THE CONSERVATORY SYSTEM
+
+"I think there is more value in the idea of a national conservatory than
+in the idea of nationality as regards violin playing. No matter what his
+birthplace, there is only one way in which a student can become an
+artist--and that is to have a teacher who can teach! In Europe the best
+teachers are to be found in the great national conservatories. Thibaud,
+Ysaye--artists of the highest type--are products of the conservatory
+system, with its splendid teachers. So is Kreisler, one of the greatest
+artists, who studied in Vienna and Paris. Eddy Brown, the brilliant
+American violinist, finished at the Budapest Conservatory. In the Paris
+Conservatory the number of pupils in a class is strictly limited; and
+from these pupils each professor chooses the very best--who may not be
+able to pay for their course--for free instruction. At the Petrograd
+Conservatory, where Wieniawski preceded me, there were hundreds of free
+scholarships available. If a really big talent came along he always had
+his opportunity. We took and taught those less talented at the
+Conservatory in order to be able to give scholarships to the deserving
+of limited means. In this way no real violinistic genius, whom poverty
+might otherwise have kept from ever realizing his dreams, was deprived
+of his chance in life. Among the pupils there in my class, having
+scholarships, were Kathleen Parlow, Elman, Zimbalist, Heifetz and
+Seidel.
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery? To me it represents the sum total of accomplishment on
+the part of those who live in the history of the Art. All those who may
+have died long since, yet the memory of whose work and whose creations
+still lives, are the true masters of the violin, and its mastery is the
+record of their accomplishment. As a child I remember the well-known
+composers of the day were Marschner, Hiller, Nicolai and others--yet
+most of what they have written has been forgotten. On the other hand
+there are Tartini, Nardini, Paganini, Kreutzer, Dont and Rode--they
+still live; and so do Ernst, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski.
+Joachim (incidentally the only great German violinist of whom I
+know--and he was a Hungarian!), though he had but few great pupils, and
+composed but little, will always be remembered because he, together with
+David, gave violin virtuosity a nobler trend, and introduced a higher
+ideal in the music played for violin. It is men such as these who always
+will remain violin 'masters,' just as 'violin mastery' is defined by
+what they have done."
+
+
+            THE BACH VIOLIN SONATAS AND OTHER COMPOSITIONS
+
+Replying to a question as to the value of the Bach violin sonatas,
+Professor Auer said: "My pupils always have to play Bach. I have
+published my own revision of them with a New York house. The most
+impressive thing about these Bach solo sonatas is they do not need an
+accompaniment: one feels it would be superfluous. Bach composed so
+rapidly, he wrote with such ease, that it would have been no trouble for
+him to supply one had he felt it necessary. But he did not, and he was
+right. And they still must be played as he has written them. We have the
+'modern' orchestra, the 'modern' piano, but, thank heaven, no 'modern'
+violin! Such indications as I have made in my edition with regard to
+bowing, fingering, _nuances_ of expression, are more or less in accord
+with the spirit of the times; but not a single note that Bach has
+written has been changed. The sonatas are technically among the most
+difficult things written for the violin, excepting Ernst and Paganini.
+Not that they are hard in a modern way: Bach knew nothing of harmonics,
+_pizzicati_, scales in octaves and tenths. But his counterpoint, his
+fugues--to play them well when the principal theme is sometimes in the
+outer voices, sometimes in the inner voices, or moving from one to the
+other--is supremely difficult! In the last sonatas there is a larger
+number of small movements--- but this does not make them any easier to
+play.
+
+"I have also edited the Beethoven sonatas together with Rudolph Ganz. He
+worked at the piano parts in New York, while I studied and revised the
+violin parts in Petrograd and Norway, where I spent my summers during
+the war. There was not so much to do," said Professor Auer modestly, "a
+little fingering, some bowing indications and not much else. No reviser
+needs to put any indications for _nuance_ and shading in Beethoven. He
+was quite able to attend to all that himself. There is no composer who
+shows such refinement of _nuance_. You need only to take his quartets
+or these same sonatas to convince yourself of the fact. In my Brahms
+revisions I have supplied really needed fingerings, bowings, and other
+indications! Important compositions on which I am now at work include
+Ernst's fine Concerto, Op. 23, the Mozart violin concertos, and
+Tartini's _Trille du diable_, with a special cadenza for my pupil,
+Toscha Seidel.
+
+
+                          AS REGARDS "PRODIGIES"
+
+"Prodigies?" said Professor Auer. "The word 'prodigy' when applied to
+some youthful artist is always used with an accent of reproach. Public
+and critics are inclined to regard them with suspicion. Why? After all,
+the important thing is not their youth, but their artistry. Examine the
+history of music--you will discover that any number of great masters,
+great in the maturity of their genius, were great in its infancy as
+well. There are Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Rubinstein, d'Albert, Hofmann,
+Scriabine, Wieniawski--they were all 'infant prodigies,' and certainly
+not in any objectionable sense. Not that I wish to claim that every
+_prodigy_ necessarily becomes a great master. That does not always
+follow. But I believe that a musical prodigy, instead of being regarded
+with suspicion, has a right to be looked upon as a striking example of a
+pronounced natural predisposition for musical art. Of course, full
+mental development of artistic power must come as a result of the
+maturing processes of life itself. But I firmly believe that every
+prodigy represents a valuable musical phenomenon, one deserving of the
+keenest interest and encouragement. It does not seem right to me that
+when the art of the prodigy is incontestably great, that the mere fact
+of his youth should serve as an excuse to look upon him with prejudice,
+and even with a certain degree of distrust."
+
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+
+                                EDDY BROWN
+
+                         HUBAY AND AUER: TECHNIC:
+                           HINTS TO THE STUDENT
+
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that Eddy Brown was born in Chicago, Ill., and
+that he is so great a favorite with concert audiences in the land of his
+birth, the gifted violinist hesitates to qualify himself as a strictly
+"American" violinist. As he expresses it: "Musically I was altogether
+educated in Europe--I never studied here, because I left this country at
+the age of seven, and only returned a few years ago. So I would not like
+to be placed in the position of claiming anything under false pretenses!
+
+
+                    HUBAY AND AUER: SOME COMPARISONS
+
+"With whom did I study? With two famous masters; by a strange
+coincidence both Hungarians. First with Jenö Hubay, at the National
+Academy of Music in Budapest, later with Leopold Auer in Petrograd.
+Hubay had been a pupil of Vieuxtemps in Brussels, and is a justly
+celebrated teacher, very thorough and painstaking in explaining to his
+pupils how to do things; but the great difference between Hubay and Auer
+is that while Hubay tells a student how to do things, Auer, a
+temperamental teacher, literally drags out of him whatever there is in
+him, awakening latent powers he never knew he possessed. Hubay is a
+splendid builder of virtuosity, and has a fine sense for phrasing. For a
+year and a half I worked at nothing but studies with him, giving special
+attention to technic. He did not believe in giving too much time to left
+hand development, when without adequate bow technic finger facility is
+useless. Here he was in accord with Auer, in fact with every teacher
+seriously deserving of the name. Hubay was a first-class pedagog, and
+under his instruction one could not help becoming a well-balanced and
+musicianly player. But there is a higher ideal in violin playing than
+mere correctness, and Auer is an inspiring teacher. Hubay has written
+some admirable studies, notably twelve studies for the right hand,
+though he never stressed technic too greatly. On the other hand, Auer's
+most notable contributions to violin literature are his revisions of
+such works as the Bach sonatas, the Tschaikovsky Concerto, etc. In a way
+it points the difference in their mental attitude: Hubay more concerned
+with the technical educational means, one which cannot be overlooked;
+Auer more interested in the interpretative, artistic educational end,
+which has always claimed his attention. Hubay personally was a _grand
+seigneur_, a multi-millionaire, and married to an Hungarian countess. He
+had a fine ear for phrasing, could improvise most interesting violin
+accompaniments to whatever his pupils played, and beside Rode, Kreutzer
+and Fiorillo I studied the concertos and other repertory works with him.
+Then there were the conservatory lessons! Attendance at a European
+conservatory is very broadening musically. Not only does the individual
+violin pupil, for example, profit by listening to his colleagues play in
+class: he also studies theory, musical history, the piano, _ensemble_
+playing, chamber-music and orchestra. I was concertmaster of the
+conservatory orchestra while studying with Hubay. There should be a
+national conservatory of music in this country; music in general would
+advance more rapidly. And it would help teach American students to
+approach the art of violin playing from the right point of view. As it
+is, too many want to study abroad under some renowned teacher not,
+primarily, with the idea of becoming great artists; but in the hope of
+drawing great future commercial dividends from an initial financial
+investment. In Art the financial should always be a secondary
+consideration.
+
+"It stands to reason that no matter how great a student's gifts may be,
+he can profit by study with a great teacher. This, I think, applies to
+all. After I had already appeared in concert at Albert Hall, London, in
+1909, where I played the Beethoven Concerto with orchestra, I decided to
+study with Auer. When I first came to him he wanted to know why I did
+so, and after hearing me play, told me that I did not need any lessons
+from him. But I knew that there was a certain 'something' which I wished
+to add to my violinistic make-up, and instinctively felt that he alone
+could give me what I wanted. I soon found that in many essentials his
+ideas coincided with those of Hubay. But I also discovered that Auer
+made me develop my individuality unconsciously, placing no undue
+restrictions whatsoever upon my manner of expression, barring, of
+course, unmusicianly tendencies. When he has a really talented pupil the
+Professor gives him of his best. I never gave a thought to technic while
+I studied with him--the great things were a singing tone, bowing,
+interpretation! I studied Brahms and Beethoven, and though Hubay always
+finished with the Bach sonatas, I studied them again carefully with
+Auer.
+
+
+                     TECHNIC: SOME HINTS TO THE STUDENT
+
+"At the bottom of all technic lies the scale. And scale practice is the
+ladder by means of which all must climb to higher proficiency. Scales,
+in single tones and intervals, thirds, sixths, octaves, tenths, with the
+incidental changes of position, are the foundation of technic. They
+should be practiced slowly, always with the development of tone in mind,
+and not too long a time at any one session. No one can lay claim to a
+perfected technic who has not mastered the scale. Better a good tone,
+even though a hundred mistakes be made in producing it, than a tone that
+is poor, thin and without quality. I find the Singer _Fingerübungen_ are
+excellent for muscular development in scale work, for imparting the
+great strength which is necessary for the fingers to have; and the
+Kreutzer _études_ are indispensable. To secure an absolute _legato_
+tone, a true singing tone on the violin, one should play scales with a
+perfectly well sustained and steady bow, in whole notes, slowly and
+_mezzo-forte_, taking care that each note is clear and pure, and that
+its volume does not vary during the stroke. The quality of tone must be
+equalized, and each whole note should be 'sung' with a single bowing.
+The change from up-bow to down-bow and _vice versa_ should be made
+without a break, exclusively through skillful manipulation of the wrist.
+To accomplish this unbroken change of bow one should cultivate a loose
+wrist, and do special work at the extreme ends, nut and tip.
+
+"The _vibrato_ is a great tone beautifier. Too rapid or too slow a
+_vibrato_ defeats the object desired. There is a happy medium of
+_tempo_, rather faster than slower, which gives the best results. Carl
+Flesch has some interesting theories about vibration which are worth
+investigating. A slow and a moderately rapid _vibrato, from the wrist_,
+is best for practice, and the underlying idea while working must be
+tone, and not fingerwork.
+
+_Staccato_ is one of the less important branches of bow technic. There
+is a knack in doing it, and it is purely pyrotechnical. _Staccato_
+passages in quantity are only to be found in solos of the virtuoso type.
+One never meets with extended _staccato_ passages in Beethoven, Brahms,
+Bruch or Lalo. And the Saint-Saëns's violin concerto, if I remember
+rightly, contains but a single _staccato_ passage.
+
+"_Spiccato_ is a very different matter from _staccato_: violinists as a
+rule use the middle of the bow for _spiccato_: I use the upper third of
+the bow, and thus get most satisfactory results, in no matter what
+_tempo_. This question as to what portion of the bow to use for
+_spiccato_ each violinist must decide for himself, however, through
+experiment. I have tried both ways and find that by the last mentioned
+use of the bow I secure quicker, cleaner results. Students while
+practicing this bowing should take care that the wrist, and never the
+arm, be used. Hubay has written some very excellent studies for this
+form of 'springing bow.'
+
+"The trill, when it rolls quickly and evenly, is a trill indeed! I never
+had any difficulty in acquiring it, and can keep on trilling
+indefinitely without the slightest unevenness or slackening of speed.
+Auer himself has assured me that I have a trill that runs on and on
+without a sign of fatigue or uncertainty. The trill has to be practiced
+very slowly at first, later with increasing rapidity, and always with a
+firm pressure of the fingers. It is a very beautiful embellishment, and
+one much used; one finds it in Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, etc.
+
+"Double notes never seemed hard to me, but harmonics are not as easily
+acquired as some of the other violin effects. I advise pressing down the
+first finger on the strings _inordinately_, especially in the higher
+positions, when playing artificial harmonics. The higher the fingers
+ascend on the strings, the more firmly they should press them, otherwise
+the harmonics are apt to grow shrill and lose in clearness. The majority
+of students have trouble with their harmonics, because they do not
+practice them in this way. Of course the quality of the harmonics
+produced varies with the quality of the strings that produce them. First
+class strings are an absolute necessity for the production of pure
+harmonics. Yet in the case of the artist, he himself is held
+responsible, and not his strings.
+
+"Octaves? Occasionally, as in Auer's transcript of Beethoven's _Dance of
+the Dervishes_, or in the closing section of the Ernst Concerto, when
+they are used to obtain a certain weird effect, they sound well. But
+ordinarily, if cleanly played, they sound like one-note successions. In
+the examples mentioned, the so-called 'fingered octaves,' which are very
+difficult, are employed. Ordinary octaves are not so troublesome. After
+all, in octave playing we simply double the notes for the purpose of
+making them more powerful.
+
+"As regards the playing of tenths, it seems to me that the interval
+always sounds constrained, and hardly ever euphonious enough to justify
+its difficulty, especially in rapid passages. Yet Paganini used this
+awkward interval very freely in his compositions, and one of his
+'Caprices' is a variation in tenths, which should be played more often
+than it is, as it is very effective. In this connection change of
+position, which I have already touched on with regard to scale playing,
+should be so smooth that it escapes notice. Among special effects the
+_glissando_ is really beautiful when properly done. And this calls for
+judgment. It might be added, though, that the _glissando_ is an effect
+which should not be overdone. The _portamento_--gliding from one note to
+another--is also a lovely effect. Its proper and timely application
+calls for good judgment and sound musical taste.
+
+
+                            A SPANISH VIOLIN
+
+"I usually play a 'Strad,' but very often turn to my beautiful
+'Guillami,'" said Mr. Brown when asked about his violins. "It is an old
+Spanish violin, made in Barcelona, in 1728, with a tone that has a
+distinct Stradivarius character. In appearance it closely resembles a
+Guadagnini, and has often been taken for one. When the dealer of whom I
+bought it first showed it to me it was complete--but in four distinct
+pieces! Kubelik, who was in Budapest at the time, heard of it and wanted
+to buy it; but the dealer, as was only right, did not forget that my
+offer represented a prior claim, and so I secured it. The Guadagnini,
+which I have played in all my concerts here, I am very fond of--it has a
+Stradivarius tone rather than the one we usually associate with the
+make." Mr. Brown showed the writer his Grancino, a beautiful little
+instrument about to be sent to the repair shop, since exposure to the
+damp atmosphere of the sea-shore had opened its seams--and the rare and
+valuable Simon bow, now his, which had once been the property of
+Sivori. Mr. Brown has used a wire E ever since he broke six gut strings
+in one hour while at Seal Harbor, Maine. "A wire string, I find, is not
+only easier to play, but it has a more brilliant quality of tone than a
+gut string; and I am now so accustomed to using a wire E, that I would
+feel ill at ease if I did not have one on my instrument. Contrary to
+general belief, it does not sound 'metallic,' unless the string itself
+is of very poor quality.
+
+
+PROGRAMS
+
+"In making up a recital program I try to arrange it so that the first
+half, approximately, may appeal to the more specifically musical part of
+my audience, and to the critics. In the second half I endeavor to
+remember the general public; at the same time being careful to include
+nothing which is not really _musical_. This (Mr. Brown found one of his
+recent programs on his desk and handed it to me) represents a logical
+compromise between the strictly artistic and the more general taste:"
+
+
+                                 PROGRAM
+
+      I. Beethoven .  .  .  .  . Sonata Op. 47 (dedicated to Kreutzer)
+
+     II. Bruch .  .  .  .  .  .  Concerto (G minor)
+
+     III. (a) Beethoven . .  .  . Romance (in G major)
+          (b) Beethoven-Auer  . . Chorus of the Dervishes
+          (c) Brown .  .  .  .  . Rondino (on a Cramer theme)
+          (d) Arbos .  .  .  .  . Tango
+
+     IV. (a) Kreisler  .  .  .  . La Gitana
+         (Arabo-Spanish Gipsy Dance of the 18th Century)
+         (b) Cui .  .  .  .  .  . Orientale
+         (c) Bazzini.  .  .  .  . La Ronde des Lutins
+
+
+"As you see there are two extended serious works, followed by two
+smaller 'groups' of pieces. And these have also been chosen with a view
+to contrast. The _finale_ of the Bruch concerto is an _allegro
+energico_: I follow it with a Beethoven _Romance_, a slow movement. The
+second group begins with a taking Kreisler novelty, which is succeeded
+by another slow number; but one very effective in its working-up; and I
+end my program with a brilliant virtuoso number.
+
+
+                               VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"My own personal conception of violin mastery," concluded Mr. Brown,
+"might be defined as follows: 'An individual tone production, or rather
+tone quality, consummate musicianship in phrasing and interpretation,
+ability to rise above all mechanical and intellectual effort, and
+finally the power to express that which is dictated by one's imagination
+and emotion, with the same natural simplicity and spontaneity with which
+the thought of a really great orator is expressed in the easy,
+unconstrained flow of his language.'"
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+                              MISCHA ELMAN
+
+                    LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION.
+                             TECHNICAL PHASES
+
+
+To hear Mischa Elman on the concert platform, to listen to him play,
+"with all that wealth of tone, emotion and impulse which places him in
+the very foremost rank of living violinists," should be joy enough for
+any music lover. To talk with him in his own home, however, gives one a
+deeper insight into his art as an interpreter; and in the pleasant
+intimacy of familiar conversation the writer learned much that the
+serious student of the violin will be interested in knowing.
+
+
+          [Illustration: MISCHA ELMAN, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                          MANNERISMS IN PLAYING
+
+We all know that Elman, when he plays in public, moves his head, moves
+his body, sways in time to the music; in a word there are certain
+mannerisms associated with his playing which critics have on occasion
+mentioned with grave suspicion, as evidences of sensationalism. Half
+fearing to insult him by asking whether he was "sincere," or whether his
+motions were "stage business" carefully rehearsed, as had been implied,
+I still ventured the question. He laughed boyishly and was evidently
+much amused.
+
+"No, no," he said. "I do not study up any 'stage business' to help out
+my playing! I do not know whether I ought to compare myself to a dancer,
+but the appeal of the dance is in all musical movement. Certain rhythms
+and musical combinations affect me subconsciously. I suppose the direct
+influence of the music on me is such that there is a sort of emotional
+reflex: I move with the music in an unconscious translation of it into
+gesture. It is all so individual. The French violinists as a rule play
+very correctly in public, keeping their eye on finger and bow. And this
+appeals to me strongly in theory. In practice I seem to get away from
+it. It is a matter of temperament I presume. I am willing to believe I'm
+not graceful, but then--I do not know whether I move or do not move!
+Some of my friends have spoken of it to me at various times, so I
+suppose I do move, and sway and all the rest; but any movements of the
+sort must be unconscious, for I myself know nothing of them. And the
+idea that they are 'prepared' as 'stage effects' is delightful!" And
+again Elman laughed.
+
+
+                    LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION
+
+"For that matter," he continued, "every real artist has some mannerisms
+when playing, I imagine. Yet more than mannerisms are needed to impress
+an American audience. Life and color in interpretation are the true
+secrets of great art. And beauty of interpretation depends, first of
+all, on variety of color. Technic is, after all, only secondary. No
+matter how well played a composition be, its performance must have
+color, _nuance_, movement, life! Each emotional mood of the moment must
+be fully expressed, and if it is its appeal is sure. I remember when I
+once played for Don Manuel, the young ex-king of Portugal, in London, I
+had an illustration of the fact. He was just a pathetic boy, very
+democratic, and personally very likable. He was somewhat neglected at
+the time, for it is well known and not altogether unnatural, that
+royalty securely established finds 'kings in exile' a bit embarrassing.
+Don Manuel was a music-lover, and especially fond of Bach. I had had
+long talks with the young king at various times, and my sympathies had
+been aroused in his behalf. On the evening of which I speak I played a
+Chopin _Nocturne_, and I know that into my playing there went some of my
+feeling for the pathos of the situation of this young stranger in a
+strange land, of my own age, eating the bitter bread of exile. When I
+had finished, the Marchioness of Ripon touched my arm: 'Look at the
+King!' she whispered. Don Manuel had been moved to tears.
+
+"Of course the purely mechanical must always be dominated by the
+artistic personality of the player. Yet technic is also an important
+part of interpretation: knowing exactly how long to hold a bow, the most
+delicate inflections of its pressure on the strings. There must be
+perfect sympathy also with the composer's thought; his spirit must stand
+behind the personality of the artist. In the case of certain famous
+compositions, like the Beethoven concerto, for instance, this is so well
+established that the artist, and never the composer, is held responsible
+if it is not well played. But too rigorous an adherence to 'tradition'
+in playing is also an extreme. I once played privately for Joachim in
+Berlin: it was the Bach _Chaconne_. Now the edition I used was a
+standard one: and Joachim was extremely reverential as regards
+traditions. Yet he did not hesitate to indicate some changes which he
+thought should be made in the version of an authoritative edition,
+because 'they sounded better.' And 'How does it sound?' is really the
+true test of all interpretation."
+
+
+               ABSOLUTE PITCH THE FIRST ESSENTIAL OF A
+                           PERFECTED TECHNIC
+
+"What is the fundamental of a perfected violin technic?" was a natural
+question at this point. "Absolute pitch, first of all," replied Elman
+promptly. "Many a violinist plays a difficult passage, sounding every
+note; and yet it sounds out of tune. The first and second movements of
+the Beethoven concerto have no double-stops; yet they are extremely
+difficult to play. Why? Because they call for absolute pitch: they must
+be played in perfect tune so that each tone stands out in all its
+fullness and clarity like a rock in the sea. And without a fundamental
+control of pitch such a master work will always be beyond the
+violinist's reach. Many a player has the facility; but without perfect
+intonation he can never attain the highest perfection. On the other
+hand, any one who can play a single phrase in absolute pitch has the
+first and great essential. Few artists, not barring some of the
+greatest, play with perfect intonation. Its control depends first of all
+on the ear. And a sensitive ear finds differences and shading; it bids
+the violinist play a trifle sharper, a trifle flatter, according to the
+general harmonic color of the accompaniment; it leads him to observe a
+difference, when the harmonic atmosphere demands it, between a C sharp
+in the key of E major and a D flat in the same key.
+
+
+                            TECHNICAL PHASES
+
+"Every player finds some phases of technic easy and others difficult.
+For instance, I have never had to work hard for quality of tone--when I
+wish to get certain color effects they come: I have no difficulty in
+expressing my feelings, my emotions in tone. And in a technical way
+_spiccato_ bowing, which many find so hard, has always been easy to me.
+I have never had to work for it. Double-stops, on the contrary, cost me
+hours of intensive work before I played them with ease and facility.
+What did I practice? Scales in double-stops--they give color and variety
+to tone. And I gave up a certain portion of my regular practice time to
+passages from concertos and sonatas. There is wonderful work in
+double-stops in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini _Études_, for
+instance. With octaves and tenths I have never had any trouble: I have a
+broad hand and a wide stretch, which accounts for it, I suppose.
+
+"Then there are harmonics, flageolets--I, have never been able to
+understand why they should be considered so difficult! They should not
+be white, colorless; but call for just as much color as any other tones
+(and any one who has heard Mischa Elman play harmonics knows that this
+is no mere theory on his part). I never think of harmonics as
+'harmonics,' but try to give them just as much expressive quality as the
+notes of any other register. The mental attitude should influence their
+production--too many violinists think of them only as incidental to
+pyrotechnical display.
+
+"And fingering? Fingering in general seems to me to be an individual
+matter. A concert artist may use a certain fingering for a certain
+passage which no pupil should use, and be entirely justified if he can
+thus secure a certain effect.
+
+"I do not--speaking out of my own experience--believe much in methods:
+and never to the extent that they be allowed to kill the student's
+individuality. A clear, clean tone should always be the ideal of his
+striving. And to that end he must see that the up and down bows in a
+passage like the following from the Bach sonata in A minor (and Mr.
+Elman hastily jotted down the subjoined) are absolutely
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+even, and of the same length, played with the same strength and length
+of bow, otherwise the notes are swallowed. In light _spiccato_ and
+_staccato_ the detached notes should be played always with a single
+stroke of the bow. Some players, strange to say, find _staccato_ notes
+more difficult to play at a moderate tempo than fast. I believe it to be
+altogether a matter of control--if proper control be there the tempo
+makes no difference. Wieniawski, I have read, could only play his
+_staccati_ at a high rate of speed. _Spiccato_ is generally held to be
+more difficult than _staccato_; yet I myself find it easier.
+
+
+                        PROPORTION IN PRACTICE
+
+"To influence a clear, singing tone with the left hand, to phrase it
+properly with the bow hand, is most important. And it is a matter of
+proportion. Good phrasing is spoiled by an ugly tone: a beautiful
+singing tone loses meaning if improperly phrased. When the student has
+reached a certain point of technical development, technic must be a
+secondary--yet not neglected--consideration, and he should devote
+himself to the production of a good tone. Many violinists have missed
+their career by exaggerated attention to either bow or violin hand. Both
+hands must be watched at the same time. And the question of proportion
+should always be kept in mind in practicing studies and passages:
+pressure of fingers and pressure of bow must be equalized, coordinated.
+The teacher can only do a certain amount: the pupil must do the rest.
+
+
+                           AUER AS A TEACHER
+
+"Take Auer for example. I may call myself the first real exponent of his
+school, in the sense of making his name widely known. Auer is a great
+teacher, and leaves much to the individuality of his pupils. He first
+heard me play at the Imperial Music School in Odessa, and took me to
+Petrograd to study with him, which I did for a year and four months. And
+he could accomplish wonders! That one year he had a little group of four
+pupils each one better than the other--a very stimulating situation for
+all of them. There was a magnetism about him: he literally hypnotized
+his pupils into doing better than their best--though in some cases it
+was evident that once the support of his magnetic personality was
+withdrawn, the pupil fell back into the level from which he had been
+raised for the time being.
+
+"Yet Auer respected the fact that temperamentally I was not responsive
+to this form of appeal. He gave me of his best. I never practiced more
+than two or three hours a day--just enough to keep fresh. Often I came
+to my lesson unprepared, and he would have me play things--sonatas,
+concertos--which I had not touched for a year or more. He was a severe
+critic, but always a just one.
+
+"I can recall how proud I was when he sent me to beautiful music-loving
+Helsingfors, in Finland--where all seems to be bloodshed and confusion
+now--to play a recital in his own stead on one occasion, and how proud
+he was of my success. Yet Auer had his little peculiarities. I have read
+somewhere that the great fencing-masters of the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries were very jealous of the secrets of their famous
+feints and _ripostes_, and only confided them to favorite pupils who
+promised not to reveal them. Auer had his little secrets, too, with
+which he was loth to part. When I was to make my _début_ in Berlin, I
+remember, he was naturally enough interested--since I was his pupil--in
+my scoring a triumph. And he decided to part with some of his treasured
+technical thrusts and parries. And when I was going over the
+Tschaikovsky _D minor concerto_ (which I was to play), he would select a
+passage and say: 'Now I'll play this for you. If you catch it, well and
+good; if not it is your own fault!' I am happy to say that I did not
+fail to 'catch' his meaning on any occasion. Auer really has a wonderful
+intellect, and some secrets well worth knowing. That he is so great an
+artist himself on the instrument is the more remarkable, since
+physically he was not exceptionally favored. Often, when he saw me, he'd
+say with a sigh: 'Ah, if I only had your hand!'
+
+"Auer was a great virtuoso player. He held a unique place in the
+Imperial Ballet. You know in many of the celebrated ballets,
+Tschaikovsky's for instance, there occur beautiful and difficult solos
+for the violin. They call for an artist of the first rank, and Auer was
+accustomed to play them in Petrograd. In Russia it was considered a
+decided honor to be called upon to play one of those ballet solos; but
+in London it was looked on as something quite incidental. I remember
+when Diaghilev presented Tschaikovsky's _Lac des Cygnes_ in London, the
+Grand-Duke Andrew Vladimirev (who had heard me play), an amiable young
+boy, and a patron of the arts, requested me--and at that time the
+request of a Romanov was still equivalent to a command--to play the
+violin solos which accompany the love scenes. It was not exactly easy,
+since I had to play and watch dancers and conductor at the same time.
+Yet it was a novelty for London, however; everybody was pleased and the
+Grand-Duke presented me with a handsome diamond pin as an
+acknowledgment.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"You ask me what I understand by 'Violin Mastery'? Well, it seems to me
+that the artist who can present anything he plays as a distinct
+picture, in every detail, framing the composer's idea in the perfect
+beauty of his plastic rendering, with absolute truth of color and
+proportion--he is the artist who deserves to be called a master!
+
+"Of course, the instrument the artist uses is an important factor in
+making it possible for him to do his best. My violin? It is an authentic
+Strad--dated 1722. I bought it of Willy Burmester in London. You see he
+did not care much for it. The German style of playing is not calculated
+to bring out the tone beauty, the quality of the old Italian fiddles. I
+think Burmester had forced the tone, and it took me some time to make it
+mellow and truly responsive again, but now...." Mr. Elman beamed. It was
+evident he was satisfied with his instrument. "As to strings," he
+continued, "I never use wire strings--they have no color, no quality!
+
+
+                         WHAT TO STUDY AND HOW
+
+"For the advanced student there is a wealth of study material. No one
+ever wrote more beautiful violin music than Haendel, so rich in
+invention, in harmonic fullness. In Beethoven there are more ideas than
+tone--but such ideas! Schubert--all genuine, spontaneous! Bach is so
+gigantic that the violin often seems inadequate to express him. That is
+one reason why I do not play more Bach in public.
+
+"The study of a sonata or concerto should entirely absorb the attention
+of the student to such a degree that, as he is able to play it, it has
+become a part of him. He should be able to play it as though it were an
+improvisation--of course without doing violence to the composer's idea.
+If he masters the composition in the way it should be mastered it
+becomes a portion of himself. Before I even take up my violin I study a
+piece thoroughly in score. I read and reread it until I am at home with
+the composer's thought, and its musical balance and proportion. Then,
+when I begin to play it, its salient points are already memorized, and
+the practicing gives me a kind of photographic reflex of detail. After I
+have not played a number for a long time it fades from my memory--like
+an old negative--but I need only go over it once or twice to have a
+clear mnemonic picture of it once more.
+
+"Yes, I believe in transcriptions for the violin--with certain
+provisos," said Mr. Elman, in reply to another question. "First of all
+the music to be transcribed must lend itself naturally to the
+instrument. Almost any really good melodic line, especially a
+_cantilena_, will sound with a fitting harmonic development. Violinists
+of former days like Spohr, Rode and Paganini were more intent on
+composing music _out of the violin_! The modern idea lays stress first
+of all on the _idea_ in music. In transcribing I try to forget I am a
+violinist, in order to form a perfect picture of the musical idea--its
+violinistic development must be a natural, subconscious working-out. If
+you will look at some of my recent transcripts--the Albaniz _Tango_, the
+negro melody _Deep River_ and Amani's fine _Orientale_--you will see
+what I mean. They are conceived as pictures--I have not tried to analyze
+too much--and while so conceiving them their free harmonic background
+shapes itself for me without strain or effort.
+
+
+                       A REMINISCENCE OF COLONNE
+
+"Conductors with whom I have played? There are many: Hans Richter, who
+was a master of the baton; Nikisch, one of the greatest in conducting
+the orchestral accompaniment to a violin solo number; Colonne of Paris,
+and many others. I had an amusing experience with Colonne once. He
+brought his orchestra to Russia while I was with Auer, and was giving a
+concert at Pavlovsk, a summer resort near Petrograd. Colonne had a
+perfect horror of 'infant prodigies,' and Auer had arranged for me to
+play with his orchestra without telling him my age--I was eleven at the
+time. When Colonne saw me, violin in hand, ready to step on the stage,
+he drew himself up and said with emphasis: 'I play with a prodigy!
+Never!' Nothing could move him, and I had to play to a piano
+accompaniment. After he had heard me play, though, he came over to me
+and said: 'The best apology I can make for what I said is to ask you to
+do me the honor of playing with the _Orchestre Colonne_ in Paris.' He
+was as good as his word. Four months later I went to Paris and played
+the Mendelssohn concerto for him with great success."
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+                             SAMUEL GARDNER
+
+                        TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP
+
+
+Samuel Gardner, though born in Jelisavetgrad, Cherson province, in
+Southern Russia, in 1891, is to all intents and purposes an American,
+since his family, fleeing the tyranny of an Imperialistic regime of
+"pogroms" and "Black Hundreds," brought him to this country when a mere
+child; and here in the United States he has become, to quote Richard
+Aldrich, "the serious and accomplished artist," whose work on the
+concert stage has given such pleasure to lovers of violin music at its
+best. The young violinist, who in the course of the same week had just
+won two prizes in composition--the Pulitzer Prize (Columbia) for a
+string quartet, and the Loeb Prize for a symphonic poem--was amiably
+willing to talk of his study experience for the benefit of other
+students.
+
+
+       CHARLES MARTIN LOEFFLER AND FELIX WINTERNITZ AS TEACHERS
+
+"I took up the study of the violin at the age of seven, and when I was
+nine I went to Charles Martin Loeffler and really began to work
+seriously. Loeffler was a very strict teacher and very exacting, but he
+achieved results, for he had a most original way of making his points
+clear to the student. He started off with the Sevčik studies, laying
+great stress on the proper finger articulation. And he taught me
+absolute smoothness in change of position when crossing the strings. For
+instance, in the second book of Sevčik's 'Technical Exercises,' in the
+third exercise, the bow crosses from G to A, and from D to E, leaving a
+string between in each crossing. Well, I simply could not manage to get
+to the second string to be played without the string in between
+sounding! Loeffler showed me what every good fiddler _must_ learn to do:
+to leap from the end of the down-bow to the up-bow and _vice versa_ and
+then hesitate the fraction of a moment, thus securing a smooth,
+clean-cut tone, without any vibration of the intermediate string.
+Loeffler never gave a pupil any rest until he came up to his
+requirements. I know when I played the seventh and eighth Kreutzer
+studies for him--they are trill studies--he said: 'You trill like an
+electric bell, but not fast enough!' And he kept at me to speed up my
+tempo without loss of clearness or tone-volume, until I could do justice
+to a rapid trill. It is a great quality in a teacher to be literally
+able to _enforce_ the pupil's progress in certain directions; for though
+the latter may not appreciate it at the time, later on he is sure to do
+so. I remember once when he was trying to explain the perfect
+_crescendo_ to me, fire-engine bells began to ring in the distance, the
+sound gradually drawing nearer the house in Charles Street where I was
+taking my lesson. 'There you have it!' Loeffler cried: 'There's your
+ideal _crescendo_! Play it like that and I will be satisfied!' I
+remained with Loeffler a year and a half, and when he went to Paris
+began to study with Felix Winternitz.
+
+"Felix Winternitz was a teacher who allowed his pupils to develop
+individuality. 'I care nothing for theories,' he used to say, 'so long
+as I can see something original in your work!' He attached little
+importance to the theory of technic, but a great deal to technical
+development along individual lines. And he always encouraged me to
+express myself freely, within my limitations, stressing the musical side
+of my work. With him I played through the concertos which, after a time,
+I used for technical material, since every phase of technic and bowing
+is covered in these great works. I was only fifteen when I left
+Winternitz and still played by instinct rather than intellectually. I
+still used my bow arm somewhat stiffly, and did not think much about
+phrasing. I instinctively phrased whatever the music itself made clear
+to me, and what I did not understand I merely played.
+
+
+                       KNEISEL'S TEACHING METHODS
+
+"But when I came to Franz Kneisel, my last teacher, I began to work with
+my mind. Kneisel showed me that I had to think when I played. At first I
+did not realize why he kept at me so insistently about phrasing,
+interpretation, the exact observance of expression marks; but eventually
+it dawned on me that he was teaching me to read a soul into each
+composition I studied.
+
+"I practiced hard, from four to five hours a day. Fortunately, as
+regards technical equipment, I was ready for Kneisel's instruction. The
+first thing he gave me to study was, not a brilliant virtuoso piece, but
+the Bach concerto in E major, and then the Viotti concerto. In the
+beginning, until Kneisel showed me, I did not know what to do with them.
+This was music whose notes in themselves were easy, and whose
+difficulties were all of an individual order. But intellectual analysis,
+interpretation, are Kneisel's great points. A strict teacher, I worked
+with him for five years, the most remarkable years of all my violin
+study.
+
+"Kneisel knows how to develop technical perfection without using
+technical exercises. I had already played the Mendelssohn, Bruch and
+Lalo concertos with Winternitz, and these I now restudied with Kneisel.
+In interpretation he makes clear every phrase in its relation to every
+other phrase and the movement as a whole. And he insists on his pupils
+studying theory and composition--something I had formerly not been
+inclined to take seriously.
+
+"Some teachers are satisfied if the student plays his _notes_ correctly,
+in a general way. With Kneisel the very least detail, a trill, a scale,
+has to be given its proper tone-color and dynamic shading in absolute
+proportion with the balancing harmonies. This trill, in the first
+movement of the Beethoven concerto--(and Mr. Gardner jotted it down)
+
+                    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Kneisel kept me at during the entire lesson, till I was able to adjust
+its tone-color and _nuances_ to the accompanying harmony. Then, though
+many teachers do not know it, it is a tradition in the orchestra to make
+a _diminuendo_ in the sixth measure, before the change of key to C
+major, and this _diminuendo_ should, of course, be observed by the solo
+instrument as well. Yet you will hear well-known artists play the trill
+throughout with a loud, brilliant tone and no dynamic change!
+
+"Kneisel makes it a point to have all his pupils play chamber music
+because of its truly broadening influence. And he is unexcelled in
+taking apart structurally the Beethoven, Brahms, Tschaikovsky and other
+quartets, in analyzing and explaining the wonderful planning and
+building up of each movement. I had the honor of playing second violin
+in the Kneisel Quartet from September to February (1914-1915), at the
+outbreak of the war, a most interesting experience. The musicianship
+Kneisel had given me; I was used to his style and at home with his
+ideas, and am happy to think that he was satisfied. A year later as
+assistant concertmaster in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I had a
+chance to become practically acquainted with the orchestral works of
+Strauss, d'Indy and other moderns, and enjoy the Beethoven, Brahms and
+Tschaikovsky symphonies as a performer.
+
+
+                        TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP
+
+"How do I regard technic now? I think of it in the terms of the music
+itself. Music should dictate the technical means to be used. The
+composition and its phrases should determine bowing and the tone quality
+employed. One should not think of down-bows or up-bows. In the Brahms
+concerto you can find many long phrases: they cannot be played with one
+bow; yet there must be no apparent change of bow. If the player does not
+know what the phrase means; how to interpret it, how will he be able to
+bow it correctly?
+
+"And there are so many different _nuances_, especially in _legato_. It
+is as a rule produced by a slurred bow; yet it may also be produced by
+other bowings. To secure a good _legato_ tone watch the singer. The
+singer can establish the perfect smoothness that _legato_ calls for to
+perfection. To secure a like effect the violinist should convey the
+impression that there is no point, no frog, that the bow he uses is of
+indefinite length. And the violinist should never think: 'I must play
+this up-bow or down-bow.' Artists of the German school are more apt to
+begin a phrase with a down-bow; the French start playing a good deal at
+the point. Up or down, both are secondary to finding out, first of all,
+what quality, what balance of tone the phrase demands. The conductor of
+a symphonic orchestra does not care how, technically, certain effects
+are produced by the violins, whether they use an up-bow or a down-bow.
+He merely says: 'That's too heavy: give me less tone!' The result to be
+achieved is always more important than the manner of achievement.
+
+"All phases of technical accomplishment, if rightly acquired, tend to
+become second nature to the player in the course of time: _staccato_, a
+brilliant trick; _spiccato_, the reiteration of notes played from the
+wrist, etc. The _martellato_, a _nuance_ of _spiccato_, should be played
+with a firm bowing at the point. In a very broad _spiccato_, the arm
+may be brought into play; but otherwise not, since it makes rapid
+playing impossible. Too many amateurs try to play _spiccato_ from the
+arm. And too many teachers are contented with a trill that is merely
+brilliant. Kneisel insists on what he calls a 'musical trill,' of which
+Kreisler's beautiful trill is a perfect example. The trill of some
+violinists is _invariably_ brilliant, whether brilliancy is appropriate
+or not. Brilliant trills in Bach always seem out of place to me; while
+in Paganini and in Wieniawski's _Carnaval de Venise_ a high brilliant
+trill is very effective.
+
+"As to double-stops--Edison once said that violin music should be
+written only in double-stops--I practice them playing first the single
+notes and then the two together, and can recommend this mode of practice
+from personal experience. Harmonics, where clarity is the most important
+thing, are mainly a matter of bowing, of a sure attack and sustaining by
+the bow. Of course the harmonics themselves are made by the fingers; but
+their tone quality rests altogether with the bow.
+
+
+                          EDISON AND OCTAVES
+
+"The best thing I've ever heard said of octaves was Edison's remark to
+me that 'They are merely a nuisance and should not be played!' I was
+making some records for him during the experimental stage of the disk
+record, when he was trying to get an absolutely smooth _legato_ tone,
+one that conformed to Loeffler's definition of it as 'no breaks' in the
+tone. He had had Schubert's _Ave Maria_ recorded by Flesch, MacMillan
+and others, and wanted me to play it for him. The records were all
+played for me, and whenever he came to the octave passages Edison would
+say: 'Listen to them! How badly they sound!' Yet the octaves were
+absolutely in tune! 'Why do they sound so badly?' I inquired.
+
+"Then Edison explained to me that according to the scientific theory of
+vibration, the vibrations of the higher tone of the octaves should be
+exactly twice those of the lower note. 'But here,' he continued, 'the
+vibrations of the notes all vary.' 'Yet how can the player control his
+fingers in the _vibrato_ beyond playing his octaves in perfect tune?' I
+asked. 'Well, if he cannot do so,' said Edison, 'octaves are merely a
+nuisance, and should not be played at all.' I experimented and found
+that by simply pressing down the fingers and playing without any
+_vibrato_, I could come pretty near securing the exact relation between
+the vibrations of the upper and lower notes but--they sounded dreadful!
+Of course, octaves sound well in _ensemble_, especially in the
+orchestra, because each player plays but a single note. And tenths sound
+even better than octaves when two people play them.
+
+
+                          WIRE AND GUT STRINGS
+
+"You ask about my violin? It belonged to the famous Hawley collection,
+and is a Giovanni Baptista Guadignini, made in 1780, in Turin. The back
+is a single piece of maple-wood, having a broadish figure extending
+across its breadth. The maple-wood sides match the back. The top is
+formed of a very choice piece of spruce, and it is varnished a deep
+golden-red. It has a remarkably fine tone, very vibrant and with great
+carrying power, a tone that has all that I can ask for as regards volume
+and quality.
+
+"I think that wire strings are largely used now-a-days because gut
+strings are hard to obtain--not because they are better. I do not use
+wire strings. I have tried them and find them thin in tone, or so
+brilliant that their tone is too piercing. Then, too, I find that the
+use of a wire E reduces the volume of tone of the other strings. No
+wire string has the quality of a fine gut string; and I regard them only
+as a substitute in the case of some people, and a convenience for lazy
+ones.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? Off-hand I might say the phrase stands for a life-time
+of effort with its highest aims unattained. As I see it the achievement
+of violin mastery represents a combination of 90 per cent. of toil and
+10 per cent. of talent or inspiration. Goetschius, with whom I studied
+composition, once said to me: 'I do not congratulate you on having
+talent. That is a gift. But I do congratulate you on being able to work
+hard!' The same thing applies to the fiddle. It seems to me that only by
+keeping everlastingly at it can one become a master of the instrument."
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+                            ARTHUR HARTMANN
+
+                        THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC
+
+
+Arthur Hartmann is distinctly and unmistakably a personality. He stands
+out even in that circle of distinguished contemporary violinists which
+is so largely made up of personalities. He is a composer--not only of
+violin pieces, but of symphonic and choral works, chamber music, songs
+and piano numbers. His critical analysis of Bach's _Chaconne_,
+translated into well-nigh every tongue, is probably the most complete
+and exhaustive study of "that triumph of genius over matter" written.
+And besides being a master of his own instrument he plays the _viola
+d'amore_, that sweet-toned survival, with sympathetic strings, of the
+17th century viol family, and the Hungarian _czimbalom_. Nor is his
+mastery of the last-named instrument "out of drawing," for we must
+remember that Mr. Hartmann was born in Maté Szalka, in Southern Hungary.
+Then, too, Mr. Hartmann is a genial and original thinker, a
+_littérateur_ of no mean ability, a bibliophile, the intimate of the
+late Claude Debussy, and of many of the great men of musical Europe. Yet
+from the reader's standpoint the interest he inspires is, no doubt,
+mainly due to the fact that not only is he a great interpreting
+artist--but a great artist doubled by a great teacher, an unusual
+combination.
+
+     [Illustration: _Photo by E.F. Foley, N.Y._ ARTHUR HARTMANN,
+                        with hand-written note]
+
+Characteristic of Mr. Hartmann's hospitality (the writer had passed a
+pleasant hour with him some years before, but had not seen him since),
+was the fact that he insisted in brewing Turkish coffee, and making his
+caller feel quite at home before even allowing him to broach the subject
+of his visit. And when he learned that its purpose was to draw on his
+knowledge and experience for information which would be of value to the
+serious student and lover of his art, he did not refuse to respond.
+
+
+                     WHAT VIOLIN PLAYING REALLY IS
+
+"Violin playing is really no abstract mystery. It's as clear as
+geography in a way: one might say the whole art is bounded on the South
+by the G string, on the North by the E string, on the West by the
+string hand--and that's about as far as the comparison may be carried
+out. The point is, there are definite boundaries, whose technical and
+esthetic limits may be extended, and territorial annexations made
+through brain power, mental control. To me 'Violin Mastery' means taking
+this little fiddle-box in hand [and Mr. Hartmann suited action to word
+by raising the lid of his violin-case and drawing forth his beautiful
+1711 Strad], and doing just what I want with it. And that means having
+the right finger on the right place at the right time--but don't forget
+that to be able to do this you must have forgotten to think of your
+fingers as fingers. They should be simply unconscious slaves of the
+artist's psychic expression, absolutely subservient to his ideal. Too
+many people reverse the process and become slaves to their fingers.
+
+
+                         THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC
+
+"Technic, for instance, in its mechanical sense, is a much exaggerated
+microbe of _Materia musica_. All technic must conform to its
+instrument.[A] The violin was made to suit the hand, not the hand to
+suit the violin, hence its technic must be based on a natural logic of
+hand movement. The whole problem of technical control is encountered in
+the first change of position on the violin. If we violinists could play
+in but one position there would be no technical problem. The solution of
+this problem means, speaking broadly, the ability to play the
+violin--for there is only one way of playing it--with a real, full,
+singing 'violin' tone. It's not a question of a method, but just a
+process based on pure reason, the working out of rational principles.
+
+[Footnote A: This is the idea which underlies my system for ear-training
+and absolute pitch, "Arthur Hartmann's System," as I call it, which I
+have published. A.H.]
+
+"What is the secret of this singing tone? Well, you may call it a
+secret, for many of my pupils have no inkling of it when they first come
+here, though it seems very much of an 'open secret' to me. The finished
+beauty of the violin 'voice' is a round, sustained, absolutely smooth
+_cantabile_ tone. Now [Mr. Hartmann took up his Strad], I'll play you
+the scale of G as the average violin student plays it. You see--each
+slide from one tone to the next, a break--a rosary of lurches! How can
+there be a round, harmonious tone when the fingers progress by jerks?
+Shifting position must not be a continuous movement of effort, but a
+continuous movement in which effort and relaxation--that of dead
+weight--alternate. As an illustration, when we walk we do not
+consciously set down one foot, and then swing forward the other foot and
+leg with a jerk. The forward movement is smooth, unconscious,
+coordinated: in putting the foot forward it carries the weight of the
+entire body, the movement becomes a matter of instinct. And the same
+applies to the progression of the fingers in shifting the position of
+the hand. Now, playing the scale as I now do--only two fingers should be
+used--
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+I prepare every shift. Absolute accuracy of intonation and a singing
+legato is the result. These guiding notes indicated are merely a test to
+prove the scientific spacing of the violin; they are not sounded once
+control of the hand has been obtained. _They serve only to accustom the
+fingers to keep moving in the direction in which they are going_.
+
+"The tone is produced by the left hand, by the weight of the fingers
+plus an undercurrent of sustained effort. Now, you see, _if in the
+moment of sliding you prepare the bow for the next string, the slide
+itself is lost in the crossing of the bow_. To carry out consistently
+this idea of effort and relaxation in the downward progression of the
+scale, you will find that when you are in the third position, the
+position of the hand is practically the same as in the first position.
+Hence, in order to go down from third to first position with the hand in
+what might be called a 'block' position, another movement is called for
+to bridge over this space (between third and first position), and this
+movement is the function of the thumb. The thumb, preceding the hand,
+relaxes the wrist and helps draw the hand back to first position. But
+great care must be taken that the thumb is not moved until the first
+finger will have been played; otherwise there will be a tendency to
+flatten. In the illustration the indication for the thumb is placed
+after the note played by the first finger.
+
+"The inviolable law of beautiful playing is that there must be no
+angles. As I have shown you, right and left hand coördinate. The fiddle
+hand is preparing the change of position, while the change of strings is
+prepared by the right hand. And always the slides in the left hand are
+prepared by the last played finger--_the last played finger is the true
+guide to smooth progression_--just as the bow hand prepares the slides
+in the last played bowing. There should be no such thing as jumping and
+trusting in Providence to land right, and a curse ought to be laid on
+those who let their fingers leave the fingerboard. None who develop this
+fundamental aspect of all good playing lose the perfect control of
+position.
+
+"Of course there are a hundred _nuances_ of technic (into which the
+quality of good taste enters largely) that one could talk of at length:
+phrasing, and the subtle things happening in the bow arm that influence
+it; _spiccato_, whose whole secret is finding the right point of balance
+in the bow and, with light finger control, never allowing it to leave
+the string. I've never been able to see the virtue of octaves or the
+logic of double-stops. Like tenths, one plays or does not play them. But
+do they add one iota of beauty to violin music? I doubt it! And, after
+all, it is the poetry of playing that counts. All violin playing in its
+essence is the quest for color; its perfection, that subtle art which
+hides art, and which is so rarely understood."
+
+"Could you give me a few guiding rules, a few Beatitudes, as it were,
+for the serious student to follow?" I asked Mr. Hartmann. Though the
+artist smiled at the idea of Beatitudes for the violinist, yet he was
+finally amiable enough to give me the following, telling me I would have
+to take them for what they were worth:
+
+
+                   NINE BEATITUDES FOR VIOLINISTS
+
+"Blessed are they who early in life approach Bach, for their love and
+veneration for music will multiply with the years.
+
+"Blessed are they who remember their own early struggles, for their
+merciful criticism will help others to a greater achievement and
+furtherance of the Divine Art.
+
+"Blessed are they who know their own limitations, for they shall have
+joy in the accomplishment of others.
+
+"Blessed are they who revere the teachers--their own or those of
+others--and who remember them with credit.
+
+"Blessed are they who, revering the old masters, seek out the newer ones
+and do not begrudge them a hearing or two.
+
+"Blessed are they who work in obscurity, nor sound the trumpet, for Art
+has ever been for the few, and shuns the vulgar blare of ignorance.
+
+"Blessed are they whom men revile as futurists and modernists, for Art
+can evolve only through the medium of iconoclastic spirits.
+
+"Blessed are they who unflinchingly serve their Art, for thus only is
+their happiness to be gained.
+
+"Blessed are they who have many enemies, for square pegs will never fit
+into round holes."
+
+
+                      ARRANGING VERSUS TRANSCRIBING
+
+Arthur Hartmann, like Kreisler, Elman, Maud Powell and others of his
+colleagues, has enriched the literature of the violin with some notably
+fine transcriptions. And it is a subject on which he has well-defined
+opinions and regarding which he makes certain distinctions: "An
+'arrangement,'" he said, "as a rule, is a purely commercial affair, into
+which neither art nor æsthetics enter. It usually consists in writing
+off the melody of a song--in other words, playing the 'tune' on an
+instrument instead of hearing it sung with words--or in the case of a
+piano composition, in writing off the upper voice, leaving the rest
+intact, regardless of sonority, tone-color or even effectiveness, and,
+furthermore, without consideration of the idiomatic principles of the
+instrument to which the adaptation was meant to fit.
+
+"A 'transcription,' on the other hand, can be raised to the dignity of
+an art-work. Indeed, at times it may even surpass the original, in the
+quality of thought brought into the work, the delicate and sympathetic
+treatment and by the many subtleties* which an artist can introduce to
+make it thoroughly a _re-creation_ of his chosen instrument.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "subleties".
+
+"It is the transcriber's privilege--providing he be sufficiently the
+artist to approach the personality of another artist with reverence--to
+donate his own gifts of ingenuity, and to exercise his judgment in
+either adding, omitting, harmonically or otherwise embellishing the work
+(_while preserving the original idea and characteristics_), so as to
+thoroughly _re-create_ it, so completely destroying the very sensing of
+the original _timbre_ that one involuntarily exclaims, 'Truly, this
+never was anything but a violin piece!' It is this, the blending and
+fusion of two personalities in the achievement of an art-ideal, that is
+the result of a true adaptation.
+
+"Among the transcriptions I have most enjoyed making were those of
+Debussy's _Il pleure dans mon cœur_, and _La Fille aux cheveaux de
+lin_. Debussy was my cherished friend, and they represent a labor of
+love. Though Debussy was not, generally speaking, an advocate of
+transcriptions, he liked these, and I remember when I first played _La
+Fille aux cheveaux de lin_ for him, and came to a bit of counterpoint I
+had introduced in the violin melody, whistling the harmonics, he nodded
+approvingly with a '_pas bête ça!_' (Not stupid, that!)
+
+
+                      DEBUSSY'S POÈME FOR VIOLIN
+
+"Debussy came near writing a violin piece for me once!" continued Mr.
+Hartmann, and brought out a folio containing letters the great
+impressionist had written him. They were a delightful revelation of the
+human side of Debussy's character, and Mr. Hartmann kindly consented to
+the quotation of one bearing on the _Poème_ for violin which Debussy had
+promised to write for him, and which, alas, owing to his illness and
+other reasons, never actually came to be written:
+
+     "Dear Friend:
+
+     "Of course I am working a great deal now, because I feel
+     the need of writing music, and would find it difficult
+     to build an aeroplane; yet at times Music is ill-natured,
+     even toward those who love her most! Then I take my
+     little daughter and my hat and go walking in the Bois de
+     Boulogne, where one meets people who have come from afar
+     to bore themselves in Paris.
+
+     "I think of you, I might even say I am in need of you
+     (assume an air of exaltation and bow, if you please!) As
+     to the _Poème_ for violin, you may rest assured that I
+     will write it. Only at the present moment I am so
+     preoccupied with the 'Fall of the House of Usher!' They
+     talk too much to me about it. I'll have to put an end to
+     all that or I will go mad. Once more I want to write it,
+     and above all _on your account_. And I believe you will
+     be the only one to play the _Poème_. Others will attempt
+     it, and then quickly return to the Mendelssohn Concerto!
+
+     "Believe me always your sincere friend,
+
+                                         "CLAUDE DEBUSSY."
+
+"He never did write it," said Mr. Hartmann, "but it was not for want of
+good will. As to other transcriptions, I have never done any that I did
+not feel instinctively would make good fiddle pieces, such as
+MacDowell's _To a Wild Rose_ and others of his compositions. And
+recently I have transcribed some fine Russian things--Gretchaninoff's
+_Chant d'Automne_, Karagitscheff's _Exaltation_, Tschaikovsky's
+_Humoresque_, Balakirew's _Chant du Pechêur_, and Poldini's little
+_Poupée valsante_, which Maud Powell plays so delightfully on all her
+programs."
+
+
+
+
+                                   VII
+
+
+                              JASCHA HEIFETZ
+
+                    THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH.
+                          TECHNICAL MASTERY AND
+                               TEMPERAMENT
+
+
+Mature in virtuosity--the modern virtuosity which goes so far beyond the
+mere technical mastery that once made the term a reproach--though young
+in years, Jascha Heifetz, when one makes his acquaintance "off-stage,"
+seems singularly modest about the great gifts which have brought him
+international fame. He is amiable, unassuming and--the best proof,
+perhaps, that his talent is a thing genuine and inborn, not the result
+of a forcing process--he has that broad interest in art and in life
+going far beyond his own particular medium, the violin, without which no
+artist may become truly great. For Jascha Heifetz, with his wonderful
+record of accomplishment achieved, and with triumphs still to come
+before him, does not believe in "all work and no play."
+
+        [Illustration: JASCHA HEIFETZ, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                    THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH
+
+He laughed when I put forward the theory that he worked many hours a
+day, perhaps as many as six or eight? "No," he said, "I do not think I
+could ever have made any progress if I had practiced six hours a day. In
+the first place I have never believed in practicing too much--it is just
+as bad as practicing too little! And then there are so many other things
+I like to do. I am fond of reading and I like sport: tennis, golf,
+bicycle riding, boating, swimming, etc. Often when I am supposed to be
+practicing hard I am out with my camera, taking pictures; for I have
+become what is known as a 'camera fiend.' And just now I have a new car,
+which I have learned to drive, and which takes up a good deal of my
+time. I have never believed in grinding. In fact I think that if one has
+to work very hard to get his piece, it will show in the execution. To
+interpret music properly, it is necessary to eliminate mechanical
+difficulty; the audience should not feel the struggle of the artist with
+what are considered hard passages. I hardly ever practice more than
+three hours a day on an average, and besides, I keep my Sunday when I
+do not play at all, and sometimes I make an extra holiday. As to six or
+seven hours a day, I would not have been able to stand it at all."
+
+I implied that what Mr. Heifetz said might shock thousands of aspiring
+young violinists for whom he pointed a moral: "Of course," his answer
+was, "you must not take me too literally. Please do not think because I
+do not favor overdoing practicing that one can do without it. I'm quite
+frank to say I could not myself. But there is a happy medium. I suppose
+that when I play in public it looks easy, but before I ever came on the
+concert stage I worked very hard. And I do yet--but always putting the
+two things together, mental work and physical work. And when a certain
+point of effort is reached in practice, as in everything else, there
+must be relaxation.
+
+
+                  THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUOSE TECHNIC
+
+"Have I what is called a 'natural' technic? It is hard for me to say,
+perhaps so. But if such is the case I had to develop it, to assure it,
+to perfect it. If you start playing at three, as I did, with a little
+violin one-quarter of the regular size, I suppose violin playing becomes
+second nature in the course of time. I was able to find my way about in
+all seven positions within a year's time, and could play the Kayser
+_études_; but that does not mean to say I was a virtuoso by any means.
+
+"My first teacher? My first teacher was my father, a good violinist and
+concertmaster of the Vilna Symphony Orchestra. My first appearance in
+public took place in an overcrowded auditorium of the Imperial Music
+School in Vilna, Russia, when I was not quite five. I played the
+_Fantaisie Pastorale_ with piano accompaniment. Later, at the age of
+six, I played the Mendelssohn concerto in Kovno to a full house.
+Stage-fright? No, I cannot say I have ever had it. Of course, something
+may happen to upset one before a concert, and one does not feel quite at
+ease when first stepping on the stage; but then I hope that is not
+stage-fright!
+
+"At the Imperial Music School in Vilna, and before, I worked at all the
+things every violinist studies--I think that I played almost everything.
+I did not work too hard, but I worked hard enough. In Vilna my teacher
+was Malkin, a pupil of Professor Auer, and when I had graduated from the
+Vilna school I went to Auer. Did I go directly to his classes? Well,
+no, but I had only a very short time to wait before I joined the
+classes conducted by Auer personally.
+
+
+                       PROFESSOR AUER AS A TEACHER
+
+"Yes, he is a wonderful and an incomparable teacher; I do not believe
+there is one in the world who can possibly approach him. Do not ask me
+just how he does it, for I would not know how to tell you. But he is
+different with each pupil--perhaps that is one reason he is so great a
+teacher. I think I was with Professor Auer about six years, and I had
+both class lessons and private lessons of him, though toward the end my
+lessons were not so regular. I never played exercises or technical works
+of any kind for the Professor, but outside of the big things--the
+concertos and sonatas, and the shorter pieces which he would let me
+prepare--I often chose what I wanted.
+
+"Professor Auer was a very active and energetic teacher. He was never
+satisfied with a mere explanation, unless certain it was understood. He
+could always show you himself with his bow and violin. The Professor's
+pupils were supposed to have been sufficiently advanced in the technic
+necessary for them to profit by his wonderful lessons in
+interpretation. Yet there were all sorts of technical _finesses_ which
+he had up his sleeve, any number of fine, subtle points in playing as
+well as interpretation which he would disclose to his pupils. And the
+more interest and ability the pupil showed, the more the Professor gave
+him of himself! He is a very great teacher! Bowing, the true art of
+bowing, is one of the greatest things in Professor Auer's teaching. I
+know when I first came to the Professor, he showed me things in bowing I
+had never learned in Vilna. It is hard to describe in words (Mr. Heifetz
+illustrated with some of those natural, unstrained movements of arm and
+wrist which his concert appearances have made so familiar), but bowing
+as Professor Auer teaches it is a very special thing; the movements of
+the bow become more easy, graceful, less stiff.
+
+"In class there were usually from twenty-five to thirty pupils. Aside
+from what we each gained individually from the Professor's criticism and
+correction, it was interesting to hear the others who played before
+one's turn came, because one could get all kinds of hints from what
+Professor Auer told them. I know I always enjoyed listening to Poliakin,
+a very talented violinist, and Cécile Hansen, who attended the classes
+at the same time I did. The Professor was a stern and very exacting, but
+a sympathetic, teacher. If our playing was not just what it should be he
+always had a fund of kindly humor upon which to draw. He would
+anticipate our stock excuses and say: 'Well, I suppose you have just had
+your bow rehaired!' or 'These new strings are very trying,' or 'It's the
+weather that is against you again, is it not?' or something of the kind.
+Examinations were not so easy: we had to show that we were not only
+soloists, but also sight readers of difficult music.
+
+
+                          A DIFFICULTY OVERCOME
+
+"The greatest technical difficulty I had when I was studying?" Jascha
+Heifetz tried to recollect, which was natural, seeing that it must have
+been one long since overcome. Then he remembered, and smiled:
+"_Staccato_ playing. To get a good _staccato_, when I first tried seemed
+very hard to me. When I was younger, really, at one time I had a very
+poor _staccato_!" [I assured the young artist that any one who heard him
+play here would find it hard to believe this.] "Yes, I did," he
+insisted, "but one morning, I do not know just how it was--I was
+playing the _cadenza_ in the first movement of Wieniawski's F♯ minor
+concerto,--it is full of _staccatos_ and double stops--the right way of
+playing _staccato_ came to me quite suddenly, especially after Professor
+Auer had shown me his method.
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? To me it means the ability to make the violin a
+perfectly controlled instrument guided by the skill and intelligence of
+the artist, to compel it to respond in movement to his every wish. The
+artist must always be superior to his instrument, it must be his
+servant, one that he can do with what he will.
+
+
+                    TECHNICAL MASTERY AND TEMPERAMENT
+
+"It appears to me that mastery of the technic of the violin is not so
+much of a mechanical accomplishment as it is of mental nature. It may be
+that scientists can tell us how through persistency the brain succeeds
+in making the fingers and the arms produce results through the infinite
+variety of inexplicable vibrations. The sweetness of tone, its
+melodiousness, its _legatos_, octaves, trills and harmonics all bear
+the mark of the individual who uses his strings like his vocal chords.
+When an artist is working over his harmonics, he must not be impatient
+and force purity, pitch, or the right intonation. He must coax the tone,
+try it again and again, seek for improvements in his fingering as well
+as in his bowing at the same time, and sometimes he may be surprised
+how, quite suddenly, at the time when he least expects it, the result
+has come. More than one road leads to Rome! The fact is that when you
+get it, you have it, that's all! I am perfectly willing to disclose to
+the musical profession all the secrets of the mastery of violin technic;
+but are there any secrets in the sense that some of the uninitiated take
+them? If an artist happens to excel in some particular, he is at once
+suspected of knowing some secret means of so doing. However, that may
+not be the case. He does it just because it is in him, and as a rule he
+accomplishes this through his mental faculties more than through his
+mechanical abilities. I do not intend to minimize the value of great
+teachers who prove to be important factors in the life of a musician;
+but think of the vast army of pupils that a master teacher brings
+forth, and listen to the infinite variety of their _spiccatos_,
+octaves, _legatos_, and trills! For the successful mastery of violin
+technic let each artist study carefully his own individuality, let him
+concentrate his mental energy on the quality of pitch he intends to
+produce, and sooner or later he will find his way of expressing himself.
+Music is not only in the fingers or in the elbow. It is in that
+mysterious EGO of the man, it is his soul; and his body is like his
+violin, nothing but a tool. Of course, the great master must have the
+tools that suit him best, and it is the happy combination that makes for
+success.
+
+"By the vibrations and modulations of the notes one may recognize the
+violinist as easily as we recognize the singer by his voice. Who can
+explain how the artist harmonizes the trilling of his fingers with the
+emotions of his soul?
+
+"An artist will never become great through mere imitation, and never
+will he be able to attain the best results only by methods adopted by
+others. He must have his own initiative, although he will surely profit
+by the experience of others. Of course there are standard ways of
+approaching the study of violin technic; but these are too well known to
+dwell upon them: as to the niceties of the art, they must come from
+within. You can make a musician but not an artist!
+
+
+                          REPERTORY AND PROGRAMS
+
+"Which of the master works do I like best? Well, that is rather hard to
+answer. Each master work has its own beauties. Naturally one likes best
+what one understands best, I prefer to play the classics like Brahms,
+Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, etc. However, I played Bruch's G
+minor in 1913 at the Leipzig Gewandhouse with Nikisch, where I was told
+that Joachim was the only other violinist as young as myself to appear
+there as soloist with orchestra; there is the Tschaikovsky concerto
+which I played in Berlin in 1912, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
+with Nikisch. Alsa Bruch's D minor and many more. I played the
+Mendelssohn concerto in 1914, in Vienna, with Safonoff as conductor.
+Last season in Chicago I played the Brahms concerto with a fine and very
+elaborate _cadenza_ by Professor Auer. I think the Brahms concerto for
+violin is like Chopin's music for piano, in a way, because it stands
+technically and musically for something quite different and distinct
+from other violin music, just as Chopin does from other piano music. The
+Brahms concerto is not technically as hard as, say, Paganini--but in
+interpretation!... And in the Beethoven concerto, too, there is a
+simplicity, a kind of clear beauty which makes it far harder to play
+than many other things technically more advanced. The slightest flaw,
+the least difference in pitch, in intonation, and its beauty suffers.
+
+"Yes, there are other Russian concertos besides the Tschaikovsky. There
+is the Glazounov concerto and others. I understand that Zimbalist was
+the first to introduce it in this country, and I expect to play it here
+next season.
+
+"Of course one cannot always play concertos, and one cannot always play
+Bach and Beethoven. And that makes it hard to select programs. The
+artist can always enjoy the great music of his instrument; but an
+audience wants variety. At the same time an artist cannot play only just
+what the majority of the audience wants. I have been asked to play
+Schubert's _Ave Maria_, or Beethoven's _Chorus of Dervishes_ at every
+one of my concerts, but I simply cannot play them all the time. I am
+afraid if program making were left altogether to audiences the programs
+would become far too popular in character; though audiences are just as
+different as individuals. I try hard to balance my programs, so that
+every one can find something to understand and enjoy. I expect to
+prepare some American compositions for next season. Oh, no, not as a
+matter of courtesy, but because they are really fine, especially some
+smaller pieces by Spalding, Cecil Burleigh and Grasse!"
+
+On concluding our interview Mr. Heifetz made a remark which is worth
+repeating, and which many a music lover who is _plus royaliste que le
+roi_ might do well to remember: "After all," he said, "much as I love
+music, I cannot help feeling that music is not the only thing in life. I
+really cannot imagine anything more terrible than always to hear, think
+and make music! There is so much else to know and appreciate; and I feel
+that the more I learn and know of other things the better artist I will
+be!"
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+                            DAVID HOCHSTEIN
+
+                 THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION
+                        AND EXPRESSIVE PLAYING
+
+
+The writer talked with Lieutenant David Hochstein, whose death in the
+battle of the Argonne Forest was only reported toward the end of
+January, while the distinguished young violinist, then only a sergeant,
+was on the eve of departure to France with his regiment and, as he
+modestly said, his "thoughts on music were rather scattered." Yet he
+spoke with keen insight and authority on various phases of his art, and
+much of what he said gains point from his own splendid work as a concert
+violinist; for Lieutenant Hochstein (whose standing has been established
+in numerous European as well as American recitals) could play what he
+preached.
+
+
+                SEVČIK AND AUER: A CONTRAST IN TEACHING
+
+Knowing that in the regimental band he was, quite appropriately, a
+clarinetist, "the clarinet in the military band being the equivalent of
+the violin in the orchestra"--and a scholarship pupil of the Vienna
+_Meisterschule_, it seemed natural to ask him concerning his teachers.
+And the interesting fact developed that he had studied with the
+celebrated Bohemian pedagog Sevčik and with Leopold Auer as well, two
+teachers whose ideas and methods differ materially. "I studied with
+Sevčik for two years," said the young violinist. "It was in 1909, when a
+class of ten pupils was formed for him in the _Meisterschule_, at
+Vienna, that I went to him. Sevčik was in many ways a wonderful teacher,
+yet inclined to overemphasize the mechanical side of the art. He
+literally _taught_ his pupils how to practice, how to develop technical
+control by the most slow and painstaking study. In addition to his own
+fine method and exercises, he also used Gavinies, Dont, Rode, Kreutzer,
+applying in their studies ideas of his own.
+
+"Auer as a teacher I found altogether different. Where Sevčik taught his
+pupils the technic of their art by means of a system elaborately worked
+out, Auer demonstrated his ideas through sheer personality, mainly from
+the interpretative point of view. Any ambitious student could learn much
+of value from either; yet in a general way one might express the
+difference between them by saying that Sevčik could take a pupil of
+medium talent and--at least from the mechanical standpoint--make an
+excellent violinist of him. But Auer is an ideal teacher for the greatly
+gifted. And he is especially skilled in taking some student of the
+violin while his mind is still plastic and susceptible and molding
+it--supplying it with lofty concepts of interpretation and expression.
+Of course Auer (I studied with him in Petrograd and Dresden) has been
+especially fortunate as regards his pupils, too, because active in a
+land like Russia, where musical genius has almost become a commonplace.
+
+"Sevčik, though an admirable teacher, personally is of a reserved and
+reflective type, quite different from Auer, who is open and expansive. I
+might recall a little instance which shows Sevčik's cautious nature, the
+care he takes not to commit himself too unreservedly. When I took leave
+of him--it was after I had graduated and won my prize--I naturally (like
+all his pupils) asked him for his photo. Several other pupils of his
+were in the room at the time. He took up his pen (I was looking over
+his shoulder), commenced to write _Meinem best_.... And then he stopped,
+glanced at the other pupils in the room, and wrote over the _best_ ...
+he had already written, the word _liebsten_. But though I would, of
+course, have preferred the first inscription, had Sevčik completed it, I
+can still console myself that the other, even though I value it, was an
+afterthought. But it was a characteristic thing for him to do!
+
+
+                   THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION
+
+"What is my idea of the violin as a medium of expression? It seems to me
+that it is that of any other valid artistic medium. It is not so much a
+question of the violin as of the violinist. A great interpreter reveals
+his inner-most soul through his instrument, whatever it may be. Most
+people think the violin is more expressive than any other instrument,
+but this is open to question. It may be that most people respond more
+readily to the appeal made by the violin. But genuine expression,
+expressive playing, depends on the message the player has to deliver far
+more than on the instrument he uses as a means. I have been as much
+moved by some piano playing I have heard as by the violin playing of
+some of the greatest violinists.
+
+"And variety, _nuance_ in expressive playing, is largely a matter of the
+player's mental attitude. Bach's _Chaconne_ or _Sicilienne_ calls for a
+certain humility on the part of the artist. When I play Bach I do it
+reverentially; a definite spiritual quality in my tone and expression is
+the result. And to select a composer who in many ways is Bach's exact
+opposite, Wieniawski, a certain audacious brilliancy cannot help but
+make itself felt tonally, if this music is to be played in character.
+The mental and spiritual attitude directly influences its own mechanical
+transmission. No one artist should criticize another for differences in
+interpretation, in expression, so long as they are justified by larger
+concepts of art. Individuality is one of the artist's most precious
+possessions, and there are always a number of different angles from
+which the interpretation of an art work may be approached.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery? There have been only three violinists within my own
+recollection, whom I would call masters of the violin. These are
+Kubelik (when at his best), Franz von Vecsey, Hubay's pupil, whom I
+heard abroad, and Heifetz, with his cameo-like perfection of technic.
+These I would call masters of the violin, as an instrument, since they
+have mastered every intricacy of the instrument. But I could name
+several others who are greater musicians, and whose playing and
+interpretation, to say nothing of tone, I prefer.
+
+
+                       TONE PRODUCTION: RHYTHM
+
+"In one sense true violin mastery is a question of tone production and
+rhythm. And I believe that tone production depends principally upon the
+imaginative ear of the player. This statement may seem somewhat
+ambiguous, and one might ask, 'What is an imaginative ear?' My ear, for
+instance, demands of my violin a certain quality of tone, which varies
+according to the music I am playing. But before I think of playing the
+music, I already know from reading it what I want it to sound like: that
+is to say, the quality of the tone I wish to secure in each principal
+phrase. Rhythm is perhaps the greatest factor in interpretation. Every
+good musician has a 'good sense of rhythm' (that much abused phrase).
+But it is only the _great_ musician who makes so striking and
+individual an application of rhythm that his playing may be easily
+distinguished by his use of it.
+
+"There is not much to tell you as regards my method of work. I usually
+work directly upon a program which has been previously mapped out. If I
+have been away from my violin for more than a week or two I begin by
+practicing scales, but ordinarily I find my technical work in the
+programs I am preparing."
+
+Asked about his band experiences at Camp Upton, Sergeant Hochstein was
+enthusiastic. "No violinist could help but gain much from work with a
+military band at one of the camps," he said. "For instance, I had a more
+or less theoretical knowledge of wind instruments before I went to Camp
+Upton. Now I have a practical working knowledge of them. I have already
+scored a little violin composition of mine, a 'Minuet in Olden Style'
+for full band, and have found it possible by the right manipulation to
+preserve its original dainty and graceful character, in spite of the
+fact that it is played by more than forty military bandsmen.
+
+"Then, too," he said in conclusion, "I have organized a real orchestra
+of twenty-one players, strings, brass, wood-wind, etc., which I hope is
+going to be of real use on the other side during our training period in
+France. You see, 'over there' the soldier boys' chances for leave are
+limited and we will have to depend a good deal on our own selves for
+amusement and recreation. I hope and believe my orchestra is not only
+going to take its place as one of the most enjoyable features of our
+army life; but also that it will make propaganda of the right sort for
+the best music in a broad, catholic sense of the word!"
+
+It is interesting to know that this patriotic young officer found
+opportunities in camp and in the towns of France of carrying out his
+wish to "make propaganda of the right sort for the best music" before he
+gave his life to further the greater purpose which had called him
+overseas.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+                             FRITZ KREISLER
+
+                           PERSONALITY IN ART
+
+
+The influence of the artist's personality in his art finds a most
+striking exemplification in the case of Fritz Kreisler. Some time before
+the writer called on the famous violinist to get at first hand some of
+his opinions with regard to his art, he had already met him under
+particularly interesting circumstances. The question had come up of
+writing text-poems for two song-adaptations of Viennese folk-themes,
+airs not unattractive in themselves; but which Kreisler's personal
+touch, his individual gift of harmonization had lifted from a lower
+plane to the level of the art song. Together with the mss. of his own
+beautiful transcript, Mr. Kreisler in the one instance had given me the
+printed original which suggested it--frankly a "popular" song, clumsily
+harmonized in a "four-square" manner (though written in 3/4 time) with
+nothing to indicate its latent possibilities. I compared it with his
+mss. and, lo, it had been transformed! Gone was the clumsiness, the
+vulgar and obvious harmonic treatment of the melody--Kreisler had kept
+the melodic outline, but etherealized, spiritualized it, given it new
+rhythmic _contours_, a deeper and more expressive meaning. And his rich
+and subtle harmonization had lent it a quality of distinction that
+justified a comparison between the grub and the butterfly. In a small
+way it was an illuminating glimpse of how the personality of a true
+artist can metamorphose what at first glance might seem something quite
+negligible, and create beauty where its possibilities alone had existed
+before.
+
+It is this personal, this individual, note in all that Fritz Kreisler
+does--when he plays, when he composes, when he transcribes--that gives
+his art-effort so great and unique a quality of appeal.
+
+Talking to him in his comfortable sitting-room in the Hotel
+Wellington--Homer and Juvenal (in the original) ranked on the piano-top
+beside De Vere Stackpole novels and other contemporary literature called
+to mind that though Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos are among his
+favorites, he does not disdain to play a Granados _Spanish Dance_--it
+seemed natural to ask him how he came to make those adaptations and
+transcripts which have been so notable a feature of his programs, and
+which have given such pleasure to thousands.
+
+
+         [Illustration: FRITZ KREISLER, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                HOW KREISLER CAME TO COMPOSE AND ARRANGE
+
+He said: "I began to compose and arrange as a young man. I wanted to
+create a repertory for myself, to be able to express through my medium,
+the violin, a great deal of beautiful music that had first to be adapted
+for the instrument. What I composed and arranged was for my own use,
+reflected my own musical tastes and preferences. In fact, it was not
+till years after that I even thought of publishing the pieces I had
+composed and arranged. For I was very diffident as to the outcome of
+such a step. I have never written anything with the commercial idea of
+making it 'playable.' And I have always felt that anything done in a
+cold-blooded way for purely mercenary considerations somehow cannot be
+good. It cannot represent an artist's best."
+
+
+                       AT THE VIENNA CONSERVATORY
+
+In reply to another query Mr. Kreisler reverted to the days when as a
+boy he studied at the Vienna Conservatory. "I was only seven when I
+attended the Conservatory and was much more interested in playing in the
+park, where my boy friends would be waiting for me, than in taking
+lessons on the violin. And yet some of the most lasting musical
+impressions of my life were gathered there. Not so much as regards study
+itself, as with respect to the good music I heard. Some very great men
+played at the Conservatory when I was a pupil. There were Joachim,
+Sarasate in his prime, Hellmesberger, and Rubinstein, whom I heard play
+the first time he came to Vienna. I really believe that hearing Joachim
+and Rubinstein play was a greater event in my life and did more for me
+than five years of study!"
+
+"Of course you do not regard technic as the main essential of the
+concert violinist's equipment?" I asked him. "Decidedly not. Sincerity
+and personality are the first main essentials. Technical equipment is
+something which should be taken for granted. The _virtuoso_ of the type
+of Ole Bull, let us say, has disappeared. The 'stunt' player of a former
+day with a repertory of three or four bravura pieces was not far above
+the average music-hall 'artist.' The modern _virtuoso_, the true concert
+artist, is not worthy of the title unless his art is the outcome of a
+completely unified nature.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"I do not believe that any artist is truly a master of his instrument
+unless his control of it is an integral part of a whole. The musician is
+born--his medium of expression is often a matter of accident. I believe
+one may be intended for an artist prenatally; but whether violinist,
+'cellist or pianist is partly a matter of circumstance. Violin mastery,
+to my mind, still falls short of perfection, in spite of the completest
+technical and musical equipment, if the artist thinks only of the
+instrument he plays. After all, it is just a single medium of
+expression. The true musician is an artist with a special instrument.
+And every real artist has the feeling for other forms and mediums of
+expression if he is truly a master of his own.
+
+
+                       TECHNIC VERSUS IMAGINATION
+
+"I think the technical element in the artist's education is often unduly
+stressed. Remember," added Mr. Kreisler, with a smile, "I am not a
+teacher, and this is a purely personal opinion I am giving you. But it
+seems to me that absolute sincerity of effort, actual impossibility
+_not_ to react to a genuine musical impulse are of great importance. I
+firmly believe that if one is destined to become an artist the technical
+means find themselves. The necessity of expression will follow the line
+of least resistance. Too great a manual equipment often leads to an
+exaggeration of the technical and tempts the artist to stress it unduly.
+
+"I have worked a great deal in my life, but have always found that too
+large an amount of purely technico-musical work fatigued me and reacted
+unfavorably on my imagination. As a rule I only practice enough to keep
+my fingers in trim; the nervous strain is such that doing more is out of
+the question. And for a concert-violinist when on tour, playing every
+day, the technical question is not absorbing. Far more important is it
+for him to keep himself mentally and physically fresh and in the right
+mood for his work. For myself I have to enjoy whatever I play or I
+cannot play it. And it has often done me more good to dip my finger-tips
+in hot water for a few seconds before stepping out on the platform than
+to spend a couple of hours practicing. But I should not wish the student
+to draw any deductions from what I say on this head. It is purely
+personal and has no general application.
+
+"Technical exercises I use very moderately. I wish my imagination to be
+responsive, my interest fresh, and as a rule I have found that too much
+work along routine channels does not accord with the best development of
+my Art. I feel that technic should be in the player's head, it should be
+a mental picture, a sort of 'master record.' It should be a matter of
+will power to which the manual possibilities should be subjected.
+Technic to me is a mental and not a manual thing.
+
+
+            MENTAL TECHNIC: ITS DRAWBACK AND ITS ADVANTAGE
+
+"The technic thus achieved, a technic whose controlling power is chiefly
+mental, is not perfect--I say so frankly--because it is more or less
+dependent on the state of the artist's nervous system. Yet it is the one
+and only kind of technic that can adequately and completely express the
+musician's every instinct, wish and emotion. Every other form of technic
+is stiff, unpliable, since it cannot entirely subordinate itself to the
+individuality of the artist."
+
+
+                PRACTICE HOURS FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT
+
+Mr. Kreisler gives no lessons and hence referred this question in the
+most amiable manner to his boyhood friend and fellow-student Felix
+Winternitz, the well-known Boston violin teacher, one of the faculty of
+the New England Conservatory of Music, who had come in while we were
+talking. Mr. Winternitz did not refuse an answer: "The serious student,
+in my opinion, should not practice less than four hours a day, nor need
+he practice more than five. Other teachers may demand more. Sevčik, I
+know, insists that his pupils practice eight and ten hours a day. To do
+so one must have the constitution of an ox, and the results are often
+not equal to those produced by four hours of concentrated work. As Mr.
+Kreisler intimated with regard to technic, practice calls for brain
+power. Concentration in itself is not enough. There is only one way to
+work and if the pupil can find it he can cover the labor of weeks in an
+hour."
+
+And turning to me, Mr. Winternitz added: "You must not take Mr. Kreisler
+too seriously when he lays no stress on his own practicing. During the
+concert season he has his violin in hand for an hour or so nearly every
+day. He does not call it practicing, and you and I would consider it
+playing and great playing at that. But it is a genuine illustration of
+what I meant when I said that one who knew how could cover the work of
+weeks in an hour's time."
+
+
+                    AN EXPLANATION BY MR. WINTERNITZ
+
+I tried to draw from the famous violinist some hint as to the secret of
+the abiding popularity of his own compositions and transcripts but--as
+those who know him are aware--Kreisler has all the modesty of the truly
+great. He merely smiled and said: "Frankly, I don't know." But Mr.
+Winternitz' comment (when a 'phone call had taken Kreisler from the room
+for a moment) was, "It is the touch given by his accompaniments that
+adds so much: a harmonic treatment so rich in design and coloring, and
+so varied that melodies were never more beautifully set off." Mr.
+Kreisler, as he came in again, remarked: "I don't mind telling you that
+I enjoyed very much writing my _Tambourin Chinois_.[A] The idea for it
+came to me after a visit to the Chinese theater in San Francisco--not
+that the music there suggested any theme, but it gave me the impulse to
+write a free fantasy in the Chinese manner."
+
+[Footnote A: It is interesting to note that Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor
+of the San Francisco Philharmonic, returning from a tour of the American
+and French army camps in France, some time ago, said: "My most popular
+number was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_. Invariably I had to repeat
+that." A strong indorsement of the internationalism of Art by the actual
+fighter in the trenches.]
+
+
+              STYLE, INTERPRETATION AND THE ARTISTIC IDEAL
+
+The question of style now came up. "I am not in favor of 'labeling' the
+concert artist, of calling him a 'lyric' or a 'dramatic' or some other
+kind of a player. If he is an artist in the real sense he controls all
+styles." Then, in answer to another question: "Nothing can express music
+but music itself. Tradition in interpretation does not mean a
+cut-and-dried set of rules handed down; it is, or should be, a matter
+of individual sentiment, of inner conviction. What makes one man an
+artist and keeps another an amateur is a God-given instinct for the
+artistically and musically right. It is not a thing to be explained, but
+to be felt. There is often only a narrow line of demarcation between the
+artistically right and wrong. Yet nearly every real artist will be found
+to agree as to when and when not that boundary has been overstepped.
+Sincerity and personality as well as disinterestedness, an expression of
+himself in his art that is absolutely honest, these, I believe, are
+ideals which every artist should cherish and try to realize. I believe,
+furthermore, that these ideals will come more and more into their own;
+that after the war there will be a great uplift, and that Art will
+realize to the full its value as a humanizing factor in life." And as is
+well known, no great artist of our day has done more toward the actual
+realization of these ideals he cherishes than Fritz Kreisler himself.
+
+
+
+
+                                    X
+
+
+                              FRANZ KNEISEL
+
+                       THE PERFECT STRING ENSEMBLE
+
+
+Is there a lover of chamber music unfamiliar with Franz Kneisel's name?
+It may be doubted. After earlier European triumphs the gifted Roumanian
+violinist came to this country (1885), and aside from his activities in
+other directions--as a solo artist he was the first to play the Brahms
+and Goldmark violin concertos, and the César Franck sonata in this
+country--organized his famous quartet. And, until his recent retirement
+as its director and first violin, it has been perhaps the greatest
+single influence toward stimulating appreciation for the best in chamber
+music that the country has known. Before the Flonzaley was, the Kneisels
+were. They made plain how much of beauty the chamber music repertory
+offered the amateur string player; not only in the classic
+repertory--Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr; in Schubert, Schumann,
+Brahms; but in Smetana, Dvořák and Tschaikovsky; in César Franck,
+Debussy and Ravel. Not the least among Kneisel's achievements is, that
+while the professional musicians in the cities in which his organization
+played attended its concerts as a matter of course, the average music
+lover who played a string instrument came to them as well, and carried
+away with him a message delivered with all the authority of superb
+musicianship and sincerity, one which bade him "go and do likewise," in
+so far as his limitations permitted. And the many excellent professional
+chamber music organizations, trios, quartets and _ensembles_ of various
+kinds which have come to the fore since they began to play offer
+eloquent testimony with regard to the cultural work of Kneisel and his
+fellow artists.
+
+            [Illustration: FRANZ KNEISEL, with signature]
+
+A cheery grate fire burned in the comfortable study in Franz Kneisel's
+home; the autographed--in what affectionate and appreciative
+terms--pictures of great fellow artists looked down above the book-cases
+which hold the scores of those masters of what has been called "the
+noblest medium of music in existence," whose beauties the famous quartet
+has so often disclosed on the concert stage. And Mr. Kneisel was
+amiability personified when I asked him to give me his theory of the
+perfect string _ensemble_, and the part virtuosity played in it.
+
+
+           "THE ARTIST RANKS THE VIRTUOSO IN CHAMBER MUSIC"
+
+"The artist, the _Tonkünstler_, to use a foreign phrase, ranks the
+virtuoso in chamber music. Joachim was no virtuoso, he did not stress
+technic, the less important factor in _ensemble_ playing. Sarasate was a
+virtuoso in the best sense of the word; and yet as an _ensemble_ music
+player he fell far short of Joachim. As I see it 'virtuoso' is a kind of
+flattering title, no more. But a _Tonkünstler_, a 'tone-artist,' though
+he must have the virtuoso technic in order to play Brahms and Beethoven
+concertos, needs besides a spiritual insight, a deep concept of their
+nobility to do them justice--the mere technic demanded for a virtuoso
+show piece is not enough.
+
+
+                  VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET
+
+"You ask me what 'Violin Mastery' means in the string quartet. It has an
+altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin
+virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string _ensemble_ is as much mastery of
+self as of technical means. The artist must sink his identity completely
+in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are
+as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the
+combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a
+mastery of repression as well as expression. I realized how keenly alive
+the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in
+Alma-Tadema's beautiful London home, for the great English painter was
+also a music-lover and a very discriminating one. He had a fine piano in
+a beautifully decorated case, and it was an open secret that at his
+musical evenings, after an artist had played, the lid of the piano was
+raised, and Sir Lawrence asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft
+white wood of its inner surface--_but only if he thought the compliment
+deserved_. There were some famous names written there--Joachim,
+Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention a few. Naturally an
+artist playing at Alma-Tadema's home for the first time could not help
+speculating as to his chances. Many were called, but comparatively few
+were chosen. We were guests at a dinner given by Sir Lawrence. There
+were some fifty people prominent in London's artistic, musical and
+social world present, and we had no idea of being asked to play. Our
+instruments were at our hotel and we had to send for them. We played the
+Schubert quartet in A minor and Dvořák's 'American' quartet and, of
+course, my colleagues and myself forgot all about the piano lid the
+moment we began to play. Yet, I'm free to confess, that when the piano
+lid was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was no empty compliment
+coming from Sir Lawrence, and I have been told that some very
+distinguished artists have not had it extended to them. And I know that
+on that evening the phrase 'Violin Mastery' in an _ensemble_ sense, as
+the outcome of ceaseless striving for coördination in expression,
+absolute balance, and all the details that go to make up the perfect
+_ensemble_, seemed to us to have a very definite color and meaning.
+
+
+                THE FIRST VIOLIN IN THE STRING QUARTET
+
+"What exactly does the first violin represent?" Mr. Kneisel went on in
+answer to another question. "The first violin might be called the
+chairman of the string meeting. His is the leading voice. Not that he
+should be an autocrat, no, but he must hold the reins of discipline.
+Many think that the four string players in a quartet have equal rights.
+First of all, and above all, are the rights of the composer, Bach,
+Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,--as the case may be. But from the
+standpoint of interpretation the first violin has some seventy per cent.
+of the responsibility as compared with thirty per cent. for the
+remaining voices. In all the famous quartet organizations, Joachim,
+Hellmesberger, etc., the first violin has been the directing instrument
+and has set the pace. As chairman it has been his duty to say when
+second violin, viola and 'cello were entitled to hold the floor.
+Hellmesberger, in fact, considered himself the _whole_ quartet." Mr.
+Kneisel smiled and showed me a little book of Hellmesberger's Vienna
+programs. Each program was headed:
+
+                         HELLMESBERGER QUARTET
+
+                         with the assistance of
+
+                   MESSRS. MATH. DURST, CARL HEISSLER,
+                            CARL SCHLESINGER
+
+"In other words, Hellmesberger was the quartet himself, the other three
+artists merely 'assisted,' which, after all, is going too far!
+
+"Of course, quartets differ. Just as we have operas in which the alto
+solo _rôle_ is the most important, so we have quartets in which the
+'cello or the viola has a more significant part. Mozart dedicated
+quartets to a King of Prussia, who played 'cello, and he was careful to
+make the 'cello part the most important. And in Smetana's quartet _Aus
+meinem Leben_, the viola plays a most important rôle. Even the second
+violin often plays themes introducing principal themes of the first
+violin, and it has its brief moments of prominence. Yet, though the
+second violin or the 'cellist may be, comparatively speaking, a better
+player than the first violin, the latter is and must be the leader.
+Practically every composer of chamber music recognizes the fact in his
+compositions. He, the first violin, should not command three slaves,
+though; but guide three associates, and do it tactfully with regard to
+their individuality and that of their instruments.
+
+
+                         "ENSEMBLE" REHEARSING
+
+"You ask what are the essentials of _ensemble_ practice on the part of
+the artists? Real reverence, untiring zeal and punctuality at
+rehearsals. And then, an absolute sense of rhythm. I remember
+rehearsing a Volkmann quartet once with a new second violinist." [Mr.
+Kneisel crossed over to his bookcase and brought me the score to
+illustrate the rhythmic point in question, one slight in itself yet as
+difficult, perhaps, for a player without an absolute sense of rhythm as
+"perfect intonation" would be for some others.] "He had a lovely tone, a
+big technic and was a prize pupil of the Vienna Conservatory. We went
+over this two measure phrase some sixteen times, until I felt sure he
+had grasped the proper accentuation. And he was most amiable and willing
+about it, too. But when we broke up he pointed to the passage and said
+to me with a smile: 'After all, whether you play it _this_ way, or
+_that_ way, what's the difference?' Then I realized that he had stressed
+his notes correctly a few times by chance, and that his own sense of
+rhythm did not tell him that there were no two ways about it. The
+rhythmic and tonal _nuances_ in a quartet cannot be marked too perfectly
+in order to secure a beautiful and finished performance. And such a
+violinist as the one mentioned, in spite of his tone and technic, was
+never meant for an _ensemble_ player.
+
+"I have never believed in a quartet getting together and 'reading' a
+new work as a preparation for study. As first violin I have always made
+it my business to first study the work in score, myself, to study it
+until I knew the whole composition absolutely, until I had a mental
+picture of its meaning, and of the interrelation of its four voices in
+detail. Thirty-two years of experience have justified my theory. Once
+the first violin knows the work the practicing may begin; for he is in a
+position gradually and tactfully to guide the working-out of the
+interpretation without losing time in the struggle to correct faults in
+balance which are developed in an unprepared 'reading' of the work.
+There is always one important melody, and it is easier to find it
+studying the score, to trace it with eye and mind in its contrapuntal
+web, than by making voyages of discovery in actual playing.
+
+"Every player has his own qualities, every instrument its own
+advantages. Certain passages in a second violin or viola part may be
+technically better suited to the hand of the player, to the nature of
+the instrument, and--they will sound better than others. Yet from the
+standpoint of the composition the passages that 'lie well' are often not
+the more important. This is hard for the player--what is easy for him
+he unconsciously is inclined to stress, and he must be on his guard
+against it. This is another strong argument in favor of a thorough
+preliminary study on the part of the leading violin of the construction
+of the work."
+
+
+               THE FIRST VIOLIN IN CHAMBER MUSIC VERSUS
+                        THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR
+
+The comparison which I asked Mr. Kneisel to make is one which he could
+establish with authority. Aside from his experience as director of his
+quartet, he has been the _concert-meister_ of such famous foreign
+orchestras as Bilse's and that of the _Hofburg Theater_ in Vienna and,
+for eighteen years, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in this country. He
+has also conducted over one hundred concerts of the Boston Symphony, and
+was director of the Worcester Music Festivals.
+
+"Nikisch once said to me, after he had heard us play the Schumann A
+minor quartet in Boston: 'Kneisel, it was beautiful, and I felt that you
+had more difficulty in developing it than I have with an orchestral
+score!' And I think he was right. First of all the symphonic conductor
+is an autocrat. There is no appeal from the commands of his baton. But
+the first violin of a quartet is, in a sense, only the 'first among
+peers.' The velvet glove is an absolute necessity in his case. He must
+gain his art ends by diplomacy and tact, he must always remember that
+his fellow artists are solo players. If he is arbitrary, no matter how
+right he may be, he disturbs that fine feeling of artistic fellowship,
+that delicate balance of individual temperaments harmonized for and by a
+single purpose. In this connection I do not mind confessing that though
+I enjoy a good game of cards, I made it a rule never to play cards with
+my colleagues during the hours of railroad traveling involved in keeping
+our concert engagements. I played chess. In chess the element of luck
+does not enter. Each player is responsible for what he does or leaves
+undone. And defeat leaves no such sting as it does when all may be
+blamed on chance. In an _ensemble_ that strives for perfection there
+must be no undercurrents of regret, of dissatisfaction--nothing that
+interferes with the sympathy and good will which makes each individual
+artist do his best. And so I have never regretted giving cards the
+go-by!"
+
+
+                  HINTS TO THE SERIOUS VIOLIN STUDENT
+
+Of late years Mr. Kneisel's activity as a teacher has added to his
+reputation. Few teachers can point to a galaxy of artist pupils which
+includes such names as Samuel Gardner, Sascha Jacobsen, Breskin, Helen
+Jeffry and Olive Meade (who perpetuates the ideals of his great string
+_ensemble_ in her own quartet). "What is the secret of your method?" I
+asked him first of all. "Method is hardly the word," he told me. "It
+sounds too cut-and-dried. I teach according to principles, which must,
+of course, vary in individual cases; yet whose foundation is fixed. And
+like Joachim, or Leschetiszky, I have preparatory teachers.
+
+
+                           THE GENERAL FAULT
+
+"My experience has shown me that the fundamental fault of most pupils is
+that they do not know how to hold either the bow or the violin. Here in
+America the violin student as a rule begins serious technical study too
+late, contrary to the European practice. It is a great handicap to begin
+really serious work at seventeen or eighteen, when the flexible bones
+of childhood have hardened, and have not the pliability needed for
+violin gymnastics. It is a case of not bending the twig as you want the
+tree to grow in time. And those who study professionally are often more
+interested in making money as soon as possible than in bending all their
+energies on reaching the higher levels of their art. Many a promising
+talent never develops because its possessor at seventeen or eighteen is
+eager to earn money as an orchestra or 'job' player, instead of
+sacrificing a few years more and becoming a true artist. I've seen it
+happen time and again: a young fellow really endowed who thinks he can
+play for a living and find time to study and practice 'after hours.' And
+he never does!
+
+"But to return to the general fault of the violin student. There is a
+certain angle at which the bow should cross the strings in order to
+produce those vibrations which give the roundest, fullest, most perfect
+tone [he took his own beautiful instrument out of its case to illustrate
+the point], and the violin must be so held that the bow moves straight
+across the strings in this manner. A deviation from the correct attack
+produces a scratchy tone. And it is just in the one fundamental thing:
+the holding of the violin in exactly the same position when it is taken
+up by the player, never varying by so much as half-an-inch, and the
+correct attack by the bow, in which the majority of pupils are
+deficient. If the violin is not held at the proper angle, for instance,
+it is just as though a piano were to stand on a sloping floor. Too many
+students play 'with the violin' on the bow, instead of holding the
+violin steady, and letting the bow play.
+
+"And in beginning to study, this apparently simple, yet fundamentally
+important, principle is often overlooked or neglected. Joachim, when he
+studied as a ten-year-old boy under Hellmesberger in Vienna, once played
+a part in a concerto by Maurer, for four violins and piano. His teacher
+was displeased: 'You'll never be a fiddler!' he told him, 'you use your
+bow too stiffly!' But the boy's father took him to Böhm, and he remained
+with this teacher for three years, until his fundamental fault was
+completely overcome. And if Joachim had not given his concentrated
+attention to his bowing while there was still time, he would never have
+been the great artist he later became.
+
+
+                         THE ART OF THE BOW
+
+"You see," he continued, "the secret of really beautiful violin playing
+lies in the bow. A Blondin crossing Niagara finds his wire hard and firm
+where he first steps on it. But as he progresses it vibrates with
+increasing intensity. And as the tight-rope walker knows how to control
+the vibrations of his wire, so the violinist must master the vibrations
+of his strings. Each section of the string vibrates with a different
+quality of tone. Most pupils think that a big tone is developed by
+pressure with the bow--yet much depends on what part of the string this
+pressure is applied. Fingering is an art, of course, but the great art
+is the art of the bow, the 'art of bowing,' as Tartini calls it. When a
+pupil understands it he has gone far.
+
+"Every pupil may be developed to a certain degree without ever
+suspecting how important a factor the manipulation of the bow will be in
+his further progress. He thinks that if the fingers of his left hand are
+agile he has gained the main end in view. But then he comes to a
+stop--his left hand can no longer aid him, and he finds that if he wants
+to play with real beauty of expression the bow supplies the only true
+key. Out of a hundred who reach this stage," Mr. Kneisel went on, rather
+sadly, "only some five or six, or even less, become great artists. They
+are those who are able to control the bow as well as the left hand. All
+real art begins with phrasing, and this, too, lies altogether in the
+mastery of bow--the very soul of the violin!"
+
+I asked Mr. Kneisel how he came to write his own "Advanced Exercises"
+for the instrument. "I had an idea that a set of studies, in which each
+single study presented a variety of technical figures might be a relief
+from the exercises in so many excellent methods, where pages of scales
+are followed by pages of arpeggios, pages of double-notes and so forth.
+It is very monotonous to practice pages and pages of a single technical
+figure," he added. "Most pupils simply will not do it!" He brought out a
+copy of his "Exercises" and showed me their plan. "Here, for instance, I
+have scales, trills, arpeggios--all in the same study, and the study is
+conceived as a musical composition instead of a technical formula. This
+is a study in finger position, with all possible bowings. My aim has
+been to concentrate the technical material of a whole violin school in
+a set of _études_ with musical interest."
+
+And he showed me the second book of the studies, in ms., containing
+exercises in every variety of scale, and trill, bowing, _nuance_, etc.,
+combined in a single musical movement. This volume also contains his own
+cadenza to the Beethoven violin concerto. In conclusion Mr. Kneisel laid
+stress on the importance of the student's hearing the best music at
+concert and recital as often as possible, and on the value and incentive
+supplied by a musical atmosphere in the home and, on leaving him, I
+could not help but feel that what he had said in our interview, his
+reflections and observations based on an artistry beyond cavil, and an
+authoritative experience, would be well worth pondering by every serious
+student of the instrument. For Franz Kneisel speaks of what he knows.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+                              ADOLFO BETTI
+
+                    THE TECHNIC OF THE MODERN QUARTET
+
+
+What lover of chamber music in its more perfect dispensations is not
+familiar with the figure of Adolfo Betti, the guiding brain and bow of
+the Flonzaley Quartet? Born in Florence, he played his first public
+concert at the age of six, yet as a youth found it hard to choose
+between literature, for which he had decided aptitude,[A] and music.
+Fortunately for American concert audiences of to-day, he finally
+inclined to the latter. An exponent of what many consider the greatest
+of all violinistic schools, the Belgian, he studied for four years with
+César Thomson at Liège, spent four more concertizing in Vienna and
+elsewhere, and returned to Thomson as the latter's assistant in the
+Brussels Conservatory, three years before he joined the Flonzaleys, in
+1903. With pleasant recollections of earlier meetings with this gifted
+artist, the writer sought him out, and found him amiably willing to talk
+about the modern quartet and its ideals, ideals which he personally has
+done so much to realize.
+
+[Footnote A: M. Betti has published a number of critical articles in the
+_Guide Musical_ of Brussels, the _Rivista Musicale_ of Turin, etc.]
+
+
+                          THE MODERN QUARTET
+
+"You ask me how the modern quartet differs from its predecessors?" said
+Mr. Betti. "It differs in many ways. For one thing the modern quartet
+has developed in a way that makes its inner voices--second violin and
+viola--much more important than they used to be. Originally, as in
+Haydn's early quartets, we have a violin solo with three accompanying
+instruments. In Beethoven's last quartets the intermediate voices have
+already gained a freedom and individuality which before him had not even
+been suspected. In these last quartets Beethoven has already set forth
+the principle which was to become the basis of modern polyphony: '_first
+of all_ to allow each voice to express itself freely and fully, and
+_afterward_ to see what the relations were of one to the other.' In
+fact, no one has exercised a more revolutionary effect on the quartet
+than Beethoven--no one has made it attain so great a degree of
+progress. And surely the distance separating the quartet as Beethoven
+found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand Fugue, Op. 131, Op.
+132), is greater than that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132, and the
+most advanced modern quartet, let us say, for instance, Schönberg's Op.
+7. Schönberg, by the way, has only applied and developed the principles
+established by Beethoven in the latter's last quartets. But in the
+modern quartet we have a new element, one which tends more and more to
+become preponderant, and which might be called _orchestral_ rather than
+_da camera_. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky were the first to follow this
+path, in which the majority of the moderns, including Franck and
+Debussy, have followed them. And in addition, many among the most
+advanced modern composers _strive for orchestral effects that often lie
+outside the natural capabilities of the strings_!
+
+         [Illustration: ADOLFO BETTI, with hand-written note]
+
+"For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his three impressionistic
+sketches for quartet (which we have played), has the first violin play
+_ponticello_ throughout, not the natural _ponticello_, but a quite
+special one, to produce an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance.
+I had to try again and again till I found the right technical means to
+produce the effect desired. Then, the 'cello is used to imitate the
+drum; there are special technical problems for the second violin--a
+single sustained D, with an accompanying _pizzicato_ on the open
+strings--while the viola is required to suggest the tramp of marching
+feet. And, again, in other modern quartets we find special technical
+devices undreamt of in earlier days. Borodine, for instance, is the
+first to systematically employ successions of harmonics. In the trio of
+his first quartet the melody is successively introduced by the 'cello
+and the first violin, altogether in harmonics.
+
+
+                 THE MODERN QUARTET AND AMATEUR PLAYERS
+
+"You ask me whether the average quartet of amateurs, of lovers of string
+music, can get much out of the more modern quartets. I would say yes,
+but with some serious reservations. There has been much beautiful music
+written, but most of it is complicated. In the case of the older
+quartets, Haydn, Mozart, etc., even if they are not played well, the
+performers can still obtain an idea of the music, of its thought
+content. But in the modern quartets, unless each individual player has
+mastered every technical difficulty, the musical idea does not pierce
+through, there is no effect.
+
+"I remember when we rehearsed the first Schönberg quartet. It was in
+1913, at a Chicago hotel, and we had no score, but only the separate
+parts. The results, at our first attempt, were so dreadful that we
+stopped after a few pages. It was not till I had secured a score,
+studied it and again tried it that we began to see a light. Finally
+there was not one measure which we did not understand. But Schönberg,
+Reger, Ravel quartets make too great a demand on the technical ability
+of the average quartet amateur.
+
+
+                     THE TECHNIC OF QUARTET PLAYING
+
+"Naturally, the first violin is the leader, the Conductor of the
+quartet, as in its early days, although the 'star' system, with one
+virtuose player and three satellites, has disappeared. Now the quartet
+as a whole has established itself in the _virtuoso_ field--using the
+word _virtuoso_ in its best sense. The Müller quartet (Hanover),
+1845-1850, was the first to travel as a chamber music organization, and
+the famous _Florentiner_ Quartet the first to realize what could be
+done in the way of finish in playing. As _premier violiniste_ of the
+Flonzaley's I study and prepare the interpretation of the works we are
+to play before any rehearsing is done.
+
+"While the first violin still holds first place in the modern quartet,
+the second violin has become much more important than formerly; it has
+gained in individuality. In many of the newer quartets it is quite as
+important as the first. In Hugo Wolf's quartet, for example, first and
+second violins are employed as though in a concerto for two violins.
+
+"The viola, especially in modern French works--Ravel, Debussy,
+Samazeuil--has a prominent part. In the older quartets one reason the
+viola parts are simple is because the alto players as a rule were
+technically less skillful. As a general thing they were violinists who
+had failed--'the refugees of the G clef,' as Edouard Colonne, the
+eminent conductor, once wittily said. But the reason modern French
+composers give the viola special attention is because France now is
+ahead of the other nations in virtuose viola playing. It is practically
+the only country which may be said to have a 'school' of viola playing.
+In the Smetana quartet the viola plays a most important part, and
+Dvořák, who himself played viola, emphasized the instrument in his
+quartets.
+
+"Mozart showed what the 'cello was able to do in the quartets he
+dedicated to the ''cellist king,' Frederick William of Prussia. And
+then, the 'cello has always the musical importance which attaches to it
+as the lower of the two 'outer voices' of the quartet _ensemble_. Like
+the second violin and viola, it has experienced a technical and musical
+development beyond anything Haydn or Mozart would have dared to write.
+
+
+                               REHEARSING
+
+"Realization of the Art aims of the modern quartet calls for endless
+rehearsal. Few people realize the hard work and concentrated effort
+entailed. And there are always new problems to solve. After preparing a
+new score in advance, we meet and establish its general idea, its broad
+outlines in actual playing. And then, gradually, we fill in the details.
+Ordinarily we rehearse three hours a day, less during the concert
+season, of course; but always enough to keep absolutely in trim. And we
+vary our practice programs in order to keep mentally fresh as well as
+technically fit.
+
+
+                               INTONATION
+
+"Perfect intonation is a great problem--one practically unknown to the
+average amateur quartet player. Four players may each one of them be
+playing in tune, in pitch; yet their chords may not be truly in tune,
+because of the individual bias--a trifle sharp, a trifle flat--in
+interpreting pitch. This individual bias may be caused by the attraction
+existing between certain notes, by differences of register and _timbre_,
+or any number of other reasons--too many to recount. The true beauty of
+the quartet tone cannot be obtained unless there is an exact adjustment,
+a tempering of the individual pitch of each instrument, till perfect
+accordance exists. This is far more difficult and complicated than one
+might at first believe. For example, let us take one of the simplest
+violin chords," said Mr. Betti [and he rapidly set it down in pencil].
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"Now let us begin by fixing the B so that it is perfectly in tune with
+the E, then _without at all changing_ the B, take the interval D-B. You
+will see that the sixth will not be in tune. Repeat the experiment,
+inverting the notes: the result will still be the same. Try it yourself
+some time," added Mr. Betti with a smile, "and you will see. What is the
+reason? It is because the middle B has not been adjusted, tempered! Give
+the same notes to the first and second violins and the viola and you
+will have the same result. Then, when the 'cello is added, the problem
+is still more complicated, owing to the difference in _timbre_ and
+register. Yet it is a problem which can be solved, and is solved in
+practically everything we play.
+
+"Another difficulty, especially in the case of some of the _very daring_
+chords encountered in modern compositions, is the matter of balance
+between the individual notes. There are chords which only _sound well_
+if certain notes are thrown into relief; and others only if played very
+softly (almost as though they were overtones). To overcome such
+difficulties means a great deal of work, real musical instinct and,
+above all, great familiarity with the composer's harmonic processes. Yet
+with time and patience the true balance of tone can be obtained.
+
+
+                                 TEMPO
+
+"All four individual players must be able to _feel_ the tempo they are
+playing in the same way. I believe it was Mahler who once gave out a
+beat very distinctly--one, two, three--told his orchestra players to
+count the beat silently for twenty measures and then stop. As each
+_felt_ the beat differently from the other, every one of them stopped at
+a different time. So _tempo_, just like intonation, must be 'tempered'
+by the four quartet players in order to secure perfect rhythmic
+inflection.
+
+
+                               DYNAMICS
+
+"Modern composers have wonderfully improved dynamic expression. Every
+little shade of meaning they make clear with great distinctness. The
+older composers, and occasionally a modern like Emanuel Moor, do not use
+expression marks. Moor says, 'If the performers really have something to
+put into my work the signs are not needed.' Yet this has its
+disadvantages. I once had an entirely unmarked Sonata by Sammartini. As
+most first movements in the sonatas of that composer are _allegros_ I
+tried the beginning several times as an _allegro_, but it sounded
+radically wrong. Then, at last, it occurred to me to try it as a _largo_
+and, behold, it was beautiful!
+
+
+                            INTERPRETATION
+
+"If the leader of the quartet has lived himself into and mastered a
+composition, together with his associates, the result is sure. I must
+live in the music I play just as an actor must live the character he
+represents. All higher interpretation depends on solving technical
+problems in a way which is not narrowly mechanical. And while the
+_ensemble_ spirit must be preserved, the freedom of the individual
+should not be too much restrained. Once the style and manner of a modern
+composer are familiar, it is easier to present his works: when we first
+played the Reger quartet here some twenty years ago, we found pages
+which at first we could not at all understand. If one has fathomed
+Debussy, it is easier to play Milhaud, Roger-Ducasse, Samazeuil--for the
+music of the modern French school has much in common. One great cultural
+value the professional quartet has for the musical community is the fact
+that it gives a large circle a measure of acquaintance with the mode of
+thought and style of composers whose symphonic and larger works are
+often an unknown quantity. This applies to Debussy, Reger, the modern
+Russians, Bloch and others. When we played the Stravinsky pieces here,
+for instance, his _Pétrouschka_ and _Firebird_ had not yet been heard.
+
+
+                             SOME IDEALS
+
+"We try, as an organization, to be absolutely catholic in taste. Nor do
+we neglect the older music, because we play so much of the new. This
+year we are devoting special attention to the American composers.
+Formerly the Kneisels took care of them, and now we feel that we should
+assume this legacy. We have already played Daniel Gregory Mason's fine
+_Intermezzo_, and the other American numbers we have played include
+David Stanley Smith's _Second Quartet_, and movements from quartets by
+Victor Kolar and Samuel Gardner. We are also going to revive Charles
+Martin Loeffler's _Rhapsodies_ for viola, oboe and piano.
+
+"I have been for some time making a collection of sonatas _a tre_, two
+violins and 'cello--delightful old things by Sammartini, Leclair, the
+Englishman Boyce, Friedemann Bach and others. This is material from
+which the amateur could derive real enjoyment and profit. The Leclair
+sonata in D minor we have played some three hundred times; and its slow
+movement is one of the most beautiful _largos_ I know of in all chamber
+music. The same thing could be done in the way of transcription for
+chamber music which Kreisler has already done so charmingly for the solo
+violin. And I would dearly love to do it! There are certain 'primitives'
+of the quartet--Johann Christian Bach, Gossec, Telemann, Michel
+Haydn--who have written music full of the rarest melodic charm and
+freshness. I have much excellent material laid by, but as you know,"
+concluded Mr. Betti with a sigh, "one has so little time for anything in
+America."
+
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+
+                                HANS LETZ
+
+                          THE TECHNIC OF BOWING
+
+
+Hans Letz, the gifted Alsatian violinist, is well fitted to talk on any
+phase of his Art. A pupil of Joachim (he came to this country in 1908),
+he was for three years concertmaster of the Thomas orchestra, appearing
+as a solo artist in most of our large cities, and was not only one of
+the Kneisels (he joined that organization in 1912), but the leader of a
+quartet of his own. As a teacher, too, he is active in giving others an
+opportunity to apply the lessons of his own experience.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+When asked for his definition of the term, Mr. Letz said: "There can be
+no such thing as an _absolute_ mastery of the violin. Mastery is a
+relative term. The artist is first of all more or less dependent on
+circumstances which he cannot control--his mood, the weather, strings,
+a thousand and one incidentals. And then, the nearer he gets to his
+ideal, the more apt his ideal is to escape him. Yet, discounting all
+objections, I should say that a master should be able to express
+perfectly the composer's idea, reflected by his own sensitive soul.
+
+
+                        THE KEY TO INTERPRETATION
+
+"The bow is the key to this mastery in expression, in interpretation: in
+a lesser degree the left hand. The average pupil does not realize this
+but believes that mere finger facility is the whole gist of technic. Yet
+the richest color, the most delicate _nuance_, is mainly a matter of
+bowing. In the left hand, of course, the _vibrato_ gives a certain
+amount of color effect, the intense, dramatic tone quality of the rapid
+_vibrato_ is comparable on the violin to the _tremulando_ of the singer.
+At the same time the _vibrato_ used to excess is quite as bad as an
+excessive _tremulando_ in the voice. But control of the bow is the key
+to the gates of the great field of declamation, it is the means of
+articulation and accent, it gives character, comprising the entire scale
+of the emotions. In fact, declamation with the violin bow is very much
+like declamation in dramatic art. And the attack of the bow on the
+string should be as incisive as the utterance of the first accented
+syllable of a spoken word. The bow is emphatically the means of
+expression, but only the advanced pupil can develop its finer, more
+delicate expressional possibilities.
+
+
+                         THE TECHNIC OF BOWING
+
+"Genius does many things by instinct. And it sometimes happens that very
+great performers, trying to explain some technical function, do not know
+how to make their meaning clear. With regard to bowing, I remember that
+Joachim (a master colorist with the bow) used to tell his students to
+play largely with the wrist. What he really meant was with an
+elbow-joint movement, that is, moving the bow, which should always be
+connected with a movement of the forearm by means of the elbow-joint.
+The ideal bow stroke results from keeping the joints of the right arm
+loose, and at the same time firm enough to control each motion made. A
+difficult thing for the student is to learn to draw the bow across the
+strings _at a right angle_, the only way to produce a good tone. I find
+it helps my pupils to tell them not to think of the position of the
+bow-arm while drawing the bow across the strings, but merely to follow
+with the tips of the fingers of the right hand an imaginary line running
+at a right angle across the strings. The whole bow then moves as it
+should, and the arm motions unconsciously adjust themselves.
+
+
+                           RHYTHM AND COLOR
+
+"Rhythm is the foundation of all music--not rhythm in its metronomic
+sense, but in the broader sense of proportion. I lay the greatest stress
+on the development of rhythmic sensibility in the student. Rhythm gives
+life to every musical phrase." Mr. Letz had a Brahms' quartet open on
+his music stand. Playing the following passage, he said:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"In order to give this phrase its proper rhythmic value, to express it
+clearly, plastically, there must be a very slight separation between the
+sixteenths and the eighth-note following them. This--the bow picked up a
+trifle from the strings--throws the sixteenths into relief. As I have
+already said, tone color is for the main part controlled by the bow. If
+I draw the bow above the fingerboard instead of keeping it near the
+bridge, I have a decided contrast in color. This color contrast may
+always be established: playing near the bridge results in a clear and
+sharp tone, playing near the fingerboard in a veiled and velvety one.
+
+
+                        SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING
+
+"I find that, aside from the personal illustration absolutely necessary
+when teaching, that an appeal to the pupil's imagination usually bears
+fruit. In developing tone-quality, let us say, I tell the pupil his
+phrases should have a golden, mellow color, the tonal equivalent of the
+hues of the sunrise. I vary my pictures according to the circumstances
+and the pupil, in most cases, reacts to them. In fast bowings, for
+instance, I make three color distinctions or rather sound distinctions.
+There is the 'color of rain,' when a fast bow is pushed gently over the
+strings, while not allowed to jump; the 'color of snowflakes' produced
+when the hairs of the bow always touch the strings, and the wood dances;
+and 'the color of hail' (which seldom occurs in the classics), when in
+the real characteristic _spiccato_ the whole bow leaves the string."
+
+
+                       THE ART AND THE SCHOOLS
+
+In reply to another question, Mr. Letz added: "Great violin playing is
+great violin playing, irrespective of school or nationality. Of course
+the Belgians and French have notable elegance, polish, finish in detail.
+The French lay stress on sensuous beauty of tone. The German temperament
+is perhaps broader, neglecting sensuous beauty for beauty of idea,
+developing the scholarly side. Sarasate, the Spaniard, is a unique
+national figure. The Slavs seem to have a natural gift for the
+violin--perhaps because of centuries of repression--and are passionately
+temperamental. In their playing we find that melancholy, combined with
+an intense craving for joy, which runs through all Slavonic music and
+literature. Yet, all said and done, Art is and remains first of all
+international, and the great violinist is a great artist, no matter what
+his native land."
+
+
+
+
+                                XIII
+
+
+                            DAVID MANNES
+
+                  THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
+
+
+That David Mannes, the well-known violinist and conductor, so long
+director of the New York Music School Settlement, would be able to speak
+in an interesting and authoritative manner on his art, was a foregone
+conclusion in the writer's mind. A visit to the educator's own beautiful
+"Music School" confirmed this conviction. In reply to some questions
+concerning his own study years Mr. Mannes spoke of his work with
+Heinrich de Ahna, Karl Halir and Eugène Ysaye. "When I came to de Ahna
+in Berlin, I was, unfortunately, not yet ready for him, and so did not
+get much benefit from his instruction. In the case of Halir, to whom I
+went later, I was in much better shape to take advantage of what he
+could give me, and profited accordingly. It is a point any student may
+well note--that when he thinks of studying with some famous teacher
+he be technically and musically equipped to take advantage of all that
+the latter may be able to give him. Otherwise it is a case of love's
+labor lost on the part of both. Karl Halir was a sincere and very
+thorough teacher. He was a Spohr player _par excellence_, and I have
+never found his equal in the playing of Spohr's _Gesangsscene_. With him
+I studied Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo; and to know Halir as a teacher was
+to know him at his best; since as a public performer--great violinist as
+he was--he did not do himself justice, because he was too nervous and
+high-strung.
+
+          [Illustration: DAVID MANNES, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                           STUDYING WITH YSAYE
+
+"It was while sitting among the first violins in the New York Symphony
+Orchestra that I first heard Ysaye. And for the first time in my life I
+heard a man with whom I fervently _wanted_ to study; an artist whose
+whole attitude with regard to tone and sound reproduction embodied my
+ideals.
+
+"I worked with Ysaye in Brussels and in his cottage at Godinne. Here he
+taught much as Liszt did at Weimar, a group of from ten to twenty
+disciples. Early in the morning he went fishing in the Meuse, then back
+to breakfast and then came the lessons: not more than three or four a
+day. Those who studied drew inspiration from him as the pianists of the
+Weimar circle did from their Master. In fact, Ysaye's standpoint toward
+music had a good deal in common with Rubinstein's and he often said he
+wished he could play the violin as Rubinstein did the piano. Ysaye is an
+artist who has transcended his own medium--he has become a poet of
+sound. And unless the one studying with him could understand and
+appreciate this fact he made a poor teacher. But to me, in all humility,
+he was and will always remain a wonderful inspiration. As an influence
+in my career his marvelous genius is unique. In my own teaching I have
+only to recall his tone, his playing in his little cottage on the banks
+of the Meuse which the tide of war has swept away, to realize in a
+cumulative sense the things he tried to make plain to me then. Ysaye
+taught the technic of expression as against the expression of technic.
+He gave the lessons of a thousand teachers in place of the lessons of
+one. The greatest technical development was required by Ysaye of a
+pupil; and given this pre-requisite, he could open up to him ever
+enlarging horizons of musical beauty.
+
+"Nor did he think that the true beauty of violin playing must depend
+upon six to eight hours of daily practice work. I absolutely believe
+with Ysaye that unless a student can make satisfactory progress with
+three hours of practice a day, he should not attempt to play the violin.
+Inability to do so is in itself a confession of failure at the outset.
+Nor do I think it possible to practice the violin intensively more than
+three-quarters of an hour at a time. In order to utilize his three hours
+of practice to the best advantage the student should divide them into
+four periods, with intervals of rest between each, and these rest
+periods might simply represent a transfer of energy--which is a rest in
+itself--to reading or some other occupation not necessarily germane to
+music, yet likely to stimulate interest in some other art.
+
+
+                SOME INITIAL PRINCIPLES OF VIOLIN STUDY
+
+"The violin student first and foremost should accustom himself to
+practicing purely technical exercises without notes. The scales and
+arpeggios should never be played otherwise and books of scales should be
+used only as a reference. Quite as important as scale practice are
+broken chords. On the violin these cannot be played _solidly_, as on the
+piano; but must be studied as arpeggios, in the most exhaustive way,
+harmonically and technically. Their great value lies in developing an
+innate musical sense, in establishing an idea of tonality and harmony
+that becomes so deeply rooted that every other key is as natural to the
+player as is the key of C. Work of this kind can never be done ideally
+in class. But every individual student must himself come to realize the
+necessity of doing technical work without notes as a matter of daily
+exercise, even though his time be limited. Perhaps the most difficult of
+all lessons is learning to hold the violin. There are pupils to whom
+holding the instrument presents insurmountable obstacles. Such pupils,
+instead of struggling in vain with a physical difficulty, might rather
+take up the study of the 'cello, whose weight rests on the floor. That
+many a student was not intended to be a violin player by nature is
+proved by the various inventions, chin-rests, braces, intended to supply
+what nature has not supplied. The study of the violin should never be
+allowed if it is going to result in actual physical deformity: raising
+of the left shoulder, malformation of the back, or eruptions resulting
+from chin-rest pressure. These are all evidences of physical unfitness,
+or of incorrect teaching.
+
+
+                    THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
+
+"Class study is for the advanced student, not the beginner. In the
+beginning only the closest personal contact between the individual pupil
+and the teacher is desirable. To borrow an analogy from nature, the
+student may be compared to the young bird whose untrained wings will not
+allow him to take any trial flights unaided by his natural guardian. For
+the beginning violinist the principal thing to do is to learn the 'voice
+placing' of the violin. This goes hand in hand with the proper--which is
+the easy and natural--manner of holding the violin, bow study, and an
+appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument. The student's attention
+should at once be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities of the
+violin tone, and he should at once familiarize himself with the
+development of those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and
+relaxation which are instrumental in its production. The analogies
+between the violin voice and the human voice should also be developed.
+The violin itself must to all intents become a part of the player
+himself, just as the vocal chords are part of the human body. It should
+not be considered a foreign tone-producing instrument adjusted to the
+body of the performer; but an extension, a projection of his physical
+self. In a way it is easier for the violinist to get at the chords of
+the violin and make them sound, since they are all exposed, which is not
+the case with the singer.
+
+"There are two dangerous points in present-day standards of violin
+teaching. One is represented by the very efficient European professional
+standards of technic, which may result in an absolute failure of poetic
+musical comprehension. These should not be transplanted here from
+European soil. The other is the non-technical, sentimental, formless
+species of teaching which can only result in emotional enervation. Yet
+if forced to choose between the two the former would be preferable since
+without tools it is impossible to carve anything of beauty. The final
+beauty of the violin tone, the pure _legato_, remains in the beginning
+as in the end a matter of holding the violin and bow. Together they
+'place' the tone just as the physical _media_ in the throat 'place' the
+tone of the voice.
+
+"Piano teachers have made greater advances in the tone developing
+technic of their instrument than the violin teachers. One reason is,
+that as a class they are more intellectual. And then, too, violin
+teaching is regarded too often as a mystic art, an occult science, and
+one into which only those specially gifted may hope to be initiated.
+This, it seems to me, is a fallacy. Just as a gift for mathematics is a
+special talent not given to all, so a _natural_ technical talent exists
+in relatively few people. Yet this does not imply that the majority are
+shut off from playing the violin and playing it well. Any student who
+has music in his soul may be taught to play simple, and even relatively
+more difficult music with beauty, beauty of expression and
+interpretation. This he may be taught to do even though not endowed with
+a _natural_ technical facility for the violin. A proof that natural
+technical facility is anything but a guarantee of higher musicianship is
+shown in that the musical weakness of many brilliant violinists, hidden
+by the technical elaboration of virtuoso pieces, is only apparent when
+they attempt to play a Beethoven _adagio_ or a simple Mozart _rondo_.
+
+"In a number of cases the unsuccessful solo player has a bad effect on
+violin teaching. Usually the soloist who has not made a success as a
+concert artist takes up teaching as a last resort, without enthusiasm or
+the true vocational instinct. The false standards he sets up for his
+pupils are a natural result of his own ineffectual worship of the fetish
+of virtuosity--those of the musical mountebank of a hundred years ago.
+Of course such false prophets of the virtuose have nothing in common
+with such high-priests of public utterance as Ysaye, Kreisler and
+others, whose virtuosity is a true means for the higher development of
+the musical. The encouragement of musicianship in general suffers for
+the stress laid on what is obviously technical _impedimenta_. But more
+and more, as time passes, the playing of such artists as those already
+mentioned, and others like them, shows that the real musician is the
+lover of beautiful sound, which technic merely develops in the highest
+degree.
+
+"To-day technic in a cumulative sense often is a confession of failure.
+For technic does not do what it so often claims to--produce the artist.
+Most professional teaching aims to prepare the student for professional
+life, the concert stage. Hence there is an intensive _technical_ study
+of compositions that even if not wholly intended for display are
+primarily and principally projected for its sake. It is a well-known
+fact that few, even among gifted players, can sit down to play chamber
+music and do it justice. This is not because they cannot grasp or
+understand it; or because their technic is insufficient. It is because
+their whole violinistic education has been along the line of solo
+playing; they have literally been brought up, not to play _with_ others,
+but to be accompanied _by_ others.
+
+"Yet despite all this there has been a notable development of violin
+study in the direction of _ensemble_ work with, as a result, an attitude
+on the part of the violinists cultivating it, of greater humility as
+regards music in general, a greater appreciation of the charm of
+artistic collaboration: and--I insist--a technic both finer and more
+flexible. Chamber music--originally music written for the intimate
+surroundings of the home, for a small circle of listeners--carries out
+in its informal way many of the ideals of the larger orchestral
+_ensemble_. And, as regards the violinist, he is not dependent only on
+the literature of the string quartet; there are piano quintets and
+quartets, piano trios, and the duos for violin and piano. Some of the
+most beautiful instrumental thoughts of the classic and modern
+composers are to be found in the duo for violin and piano, mainly in the
+sonata form. Amateurs--violinists who love music for its own sake, and
+have sufficient facility to perform such works creditably--do not do
+nearly enough _ensemble_ playing with a pianist. It is not always
+possible to get together the four players needed for the string quartet,
+but a pianist is apt to be more readily found.
+
+"The combination of violin and piano is as a rule obtainable and the
+literature is particularly rich. Aside from sonatas by Corelli,
+Locatelli, Tartini, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haendel, Brahms and
+Schumann, nearly all the romantic and modern composers have contributed
+to it. And this music has all been written so as to show the character
+of each instrument at its best--the piano, harmonic in its nature; the
+violin, a natural melodic voice, capable of every shade of _nuance_."
+That Mr. Mannes, as an artist, has made a point of "practicing what he
+preaches" to the student as regards the _ensemble_ of violin and piano
+will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has
+given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his
+views regarding the moot question of gut _versus_ wire strings are of
+interest.
+
+
+                        GUT VERSUS WIRE STRINGS
+
+"My own violin, a Maggini of more than the usual size, dates from the
+year 1600. It formerly belonged to Dr. Leopold Damrosch. Which strings
+do I use on it? The whole question as to whether gut or wire strings are
+to be preferred may, in my opinion, be referred to the violin itself for
+decision. What I mean is that if Stradivarius, Guarnerius, Amati,
+Maggini and others of the old-master builders of violins had ever had
+wire strings in view, they would have built their fiddles in accordance,
+and they would not be the same we now possess. First of all there are
+scientific reasons against using the wire strings. They change the tone
+of the instrument. The rigidity of tension of the wire E string where it
+crosses the bridge tightens up the sound of the lower strings. Their
+advantages are: reliability under adverse climatic conditions and the
+incontestable fact that they make things easier technically. They
+facilitate purity of intonation. Yet I am willing to forgo these
+advantages when I consider the wonderful pliability of the gut strings
+for which Stradivarius built his violins. I can see the artistic
+retrogression of those who are using the wire E, for when materially
+things are made easier, spiritually there is a loss.
+
+
+                              CHIN RESTS
+
+"And while we are discussing the physical aspects of the instrument
+there is the 'chin rest.' None of the great violin makers ever made a
+'chin rest.' Increasing technical demands, sudden pyrotechnical flights
+into the higher octaves brought the 'chin rest' into being. The 'chin
+rest' was meant to give the player a better grasp of his instrument. I
+absolutely disapprove, in theory, of chin rest, cushion or pad.
+Technical reasons may be adduced to justify their use, never artistic
+ones. I admit that progress in violin study is infinitely slower without
+the use of the pad; but the more close and direct a contact with his
+instrument the player can develop, the more intimately expressive his
+playing becomes. Students with long necks and thin bodies claim they
+have to use a 'chin rest,' but the study of physical adjustments could
+bring about a better coördination between them and the instrument. A
+thin pad may be used without much danger, yet I feel that the thicker
+and higher the 'chin rest' the greater the loss in expressive rendering.
+The more we accustom ourselves to mechanical aids, the more we will come
+to rely on them.... But the question you ask anent 'Violin Mastery'
+leads altogether away from the material!
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"To me it signifies technical efficiency coupled with poetic insight,
+freedom from conventionally accepted standards, the attainment of a more
+varied personal expression along individual lines. It may be realized,
+of course, only to a degree, since the possessor of absolute 'Violin
+Mastery' would be forever glorified. As it is the violin master, as I
+conceive him, represents the embodier of the greatest intimacy between
+himself, the artist, and his medium of expression. Considered in this
+light Pablo Casals and his 'cello, perhaps, most closely comply with the
+requirements of the definition. And this is not as paradoxical as it may
+seem, since all string instruments are brethren, descended from the
+ancient viol, and the 'cello is, after all, a variant of the violin!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XIV
+
+
+                              TIVADAR NACHÉZ
+
+                     JOACHIM AND LÉONARD AS TEACHERS
+
+
+Tivadar Nachéz, the celebrated violin virtuoso, is better known as a
+concertizing artist in Europe, where he has played with all the leading
+symphonic orchestras, than in this country, to which he paid his first
+visit during these times of war, and which he was about to leave for his
+London home when the writer had the pleasure of meeting him. Yet, though
+he has not appeared in public in this country (if we except some Red
+Cross concerts in California, at which he gave his auditors of his best
+to further our noblest war charity), his name is familiar to every
+violinist. For is not Mr. Nachéz the composer of the "Gypsy Dances" for
+violin and piano, which have made him famous?
+
+Genuinely musical, effective and largely successful as they have been,
+however, as any one who has played them can testify, the composer of
+the "Gypsy Dances" regards them with mixed feelings. "I have done other
+work that seems to me, relatively, much more important," said Mr.
+Nachéz, "but when my name happens to be mentioned, echo always answers
+'Gypsy Dances,' my little rubbishy 'Gypsy Dances!' It is not quite fair.
+I have published thirty-five works, among them a 'Requiem Mass,' an
+orchestral overture, two violin concertos, three rhapsodies for violin
+and orchestra, variations on a Swiss theme, Romances, a Polonaise
+(dedicated to Ysaye), and Evening Song, three _Poèmes hongrois_, twelve
+classical masterworks of the 17th century--to say nothing of songs,
+etc.--and the two concertos of Vivaldi and Nardini which I have edited,
+practically new creations, owing to the addition of the piano
+accompaniments and orchestral score. I wrote the 'Gypsy Dances' as a
+mere boy when I was studying with H. Léonard in Paris, and really at his
+suggestion. In one of my lessons I played Sarasate's 'Spanish Dances,'
+which chanced to be published at the time, and at once made a great hit.
+So Léonard said to me: 'Why not write some _Hungarian_ Gypsy
+dances--there must be wonderful material at hand in the music of the
+_Tziganes_ of Hungary. You should do something with it!' I took him at
+his word, and he liked my 'Dances' so well that he made me play them at
+his musical evenings, which he gave often during the winter, and which
+were always attended by the musical _Tout Paris!_ I may say that during
+these last thirty years there has been scarcely a violinist before the
+public who at one time or the other has _not_ played these 'Gypsy
+Dances.' Besides the _original_ edition, there are two (pirated!)
+editions in America and six in Europe.
+
+        [Illustration: TIVADAR NACHÉZ, with hand-written note]
+
+
+       THE BEGINNING OF A VIOLINISTIC CAREER: PLAYING WITH LISZT
+
+"No, Léonard was not my first teacher. I took up violin work when a boy
+of five years of age, and for seven years practiced from eight to ten
+hours a day, studying with Sabathiel, the leader of the Royal Orchestra
+in Budapest, where I was born, though England, the land of my adoption,
+in which I have lived these last twenty-six years, is the land where I
+have found all my happiness, and much gratifying honor, and of which I
+have been a devoted, ardent and loyal naturalized citizen for more than
+a quarter of a century. Sabathiel was an excellent routine teacher, and
+grounded me well in the fundamentals--good tone production and
+technical control. Later I had far greater teachers, and they taught me
+much, but--in the last analysis, most of the little I have achieved I
+owe to myself, to hard, untiring work: I had determined to be a
+violinist and I trust I became one. No serious student of the instrument
+should ever forget that, no matter who his teacher may be, he himself
+must supply the determination, the continued energy and devotion which
+will lead him to success.
+
+"Playing with Liszt--he was an intimate friend of my father--is my most
+precious musical recollection of Budapest. I enjoyed it a great deal
+more than my regular lesson work. He would condescend to play with me
+some evenings and you can imagine what rare musical enjoyment, what
+happiness there was in playing with such a genius! I was still a boy
+when with him I played the Grieg F major sonata, which had just come
+fresh from the press. He played with me the D minor sonata of Schumann
+and introduced me to the mystic beauties of the Beethoven sonatas. I can
+still recall how in the Beethoven C minor sonata, in the first movement,
+Liszt would bring out a certain broken chromatic passage in the left
+hand, with a mighty _crescendo_, an effect of melodious thunder, of
+enormous depth of tone, and yet with the most exquisite regard for the
+balance between the violin and his own instrument. And there was not a
+trace of condescension in his attitude toward me; but always
+encouragement, a tender affectionate and paternal interest in a young
+boy, who at _that moment_ was a brother artist.
+
+"Through Liszt I came to know the great men of Hungarian music of that
+time: Erkel, Hans Richter, Robert Volkmann, Count Geza Zichy, and
+eventually I secured a scholarship, which the King had founded for
+music, to study with Joachim in Berlin, where I remained nearly three
+years. Hubay was my companion there; but afterward we separated, he
+going to Vieuxtemps, while I went to Léonard.
+
+
+                 JOACHIM AS A TEACHER AND INTERPRETER
+
+"Joachim was, perhaps, the most celebrated teacher of his time. Yet it
+is one of the greatest ironies of fate that when he died there was not
+one of his pupils who was considered by the German authorities 'great'
+enough to take the place the Master had held. Henri Marteau, who was
+not his pupil, and did not even exemplify his style in playing, was
+chosen to succeed him! Henri Petri, a Vieuxtemps pupil who went to
+Joachim, played just as well when he came to him as when he left him.
+The same might be said of Willy Burmester, Hess, Kes and Halir, the
+latter one of those Bohemian artists who had a tremendous 'Kubelik-like'
+execution. Teaching is and always will be a special gift. There are many
+minor artists who are wonderful 'teachers,' and _vice versa_!
+
+"Yet if Joachim may be criticized as regards the way of imparting the
+secrets of technical phases in his violin teaching, as a teacher of
+interpretation he was incomparable! As an interpreter of Beethoven and
+of Bach in particular, there has never been any one to equal Joachim.
+Yet he never played the same Bach composition twice in the same way. We
+were four in our class, and Hubay and I used to bring our copies of the
+sonatas with us, to make marginal notes while Joachim played to us, and
+these instantaneous musical 'snapshots' remain very interesting. But no
+matter how Joachim played Bach, it was always with a big tone, broad
+chords of an organ-like effect. There is no greater discrepancy than the
+edition of the Bach sonatas published (since his death) by Moser, and
+which is supposed to embody Joachim's interpretation. Sweeping chords,
+which Joachim always played with the utmost breadth, are 'arpeggiated'
+in Moser's edition! Why, if any of his pupils had ever attempted to
+play, for instance, the end of the _Bourée_ in the B minor _Partita_ of
+Bach _à la Moser_, Joachim would have broken his bow over their heads!
+
+
+                          STUDYING WITH LÉONARD
+
+"After three years' study I left Joachim and went to Paris. Liszt had
+given me letters of introduction to various French artists, among them
+Saint-Saëns. One evening I happened to hear Léonard play Corelli's _La
+Folia_ in the _Salle Pleyel_, and the liquid clarity and beauty of his
+tone so impressed me that I decided I must study with him. I played for
+him and he accepted me as a pupil. I am free to admit that my tone,
+which people seem to be pleased to praise especially, I owe entirely to
+Léonard, for when I came to him I had the so-called 'German tone' (_son
+allemand_), of a harsh, rasping quality, which I tried to abandon
+absolutely. Léonard often would point to his ears while teaching and
+say: '_Ouvrez vos oreilles: écoutéz la beauté du son!_' ('Open your
+ears, listen for beauty of sound!'). Most Joachim pupils you hear
+(unless they have reformed) attack a chord with the nut of the bow, the
+German method, which unduly stresses the attack. Léonard, on the
+contrary, insisted with his pupils on the attack being made with such
+smoothness as to be absolutely unobtrusive. Being a nephew of Mme.
+Malibran, he attached special importance to the 'singing' tone, and
+advised his pupils to hear great singers, to _listen_ to them, and to
+try and reproduce their _bel canto_ on the violin.
+
+"He was most particular in his observance of every _nuance_ of shading
+and expression. He told me that when he played Mendelssohn's concerto
+(for the first time) at the Leipsic _Gewandhaus_, at a rehearsal,
+Mendelssohn himself conducting, he began the first phrase with a full
+_mezzo-forte_ tone. Mendelssohn laid his hand on his arm and said: 'But
+it begins _piano!_' In reply Léonard merely pointed with his bow to the
+score--the _p_ which is now indicated in all editions had been omitted
+by some printer's error, and he had been quite within his rights in
+playing _mezzo-forte_.
+
+"Léonard paid a great deal of attention to scales and the right way to
+practice them. He would say, _'Il faut filer les sons: c'est l'art des
+maîtres_. ('One must spin out the tone: that is the art of the
+masters.') He taught his pupils to play the scales with long, steady
+bowings, counting sixty to each bow. Himself a great classical
+violinist, he nevertheless paid a good deal of attention to _virtuoso_
+pieces; and always tried to prepare his pupils for _public life_. He had
+all sorts of wise hints for the budding concert artist, and was in the
+habit of saying: 'You must plan a program as you would the _ménu_ of a
+dinner: there should be something for every one's taste. And,
+especially, if you are playing on a long program, together with other
+artists, offer nothing indigestible--let _your_ number be a relief!'
+
+
+                                SIVORI
+
+"While studying with Léonard I met Sivori, Paganini's only pupil (if we
+except Catarina Caleagno), for whom Paganini wrote a concerto and six
+short sonatas. Léonard took me to see him late one evening at the _Hôtel
+de Havane_ in Paris, where Sivori was staying. When we came to his room
+we heard the sound of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from
+behind the closed door. We peered through the keyhole, and there he sat
+on his bed stringing his scale tones like pearls. He was a little chap
+and had the tiniest hands I have ever seen. Was this a drawback? If so,
+no one could tell from his playing; he had a flawless technic, and a
+really pearly quality of tone. He was very jolly and amiable, and he and
+Léonard were great friends, each always going to hear the other whenever
+he played in concert. My four years in Paris were in the main years of
+storm and stress--plain living and hard, very hard, concentrated work. I
+gave some accompanying lessons to help keep things going. When I left
+Paris I went to London and then began my public life as a concert
+violinist.
+
+
+                  GREAT MOMENTS IN AN ARTIST'S LIFE
+
+"What is the happiest remembrance of my career as a _virtuoso_? Some of
+the great moments in my life as an artist? It is hard to say. Of course
+some of my court appearances before the crowned heads of Europe are dear
+to me, not so much because they were _court_ appearances, but because of
+the graciousness and appreciation of the highly placed personages for
+whom I played.
+
+"Then, what I count a signal honor, I have played no less than _three_
+times as a solo artist with the Royal Philharmonic Society of London,
+the oldest symphonic society in Europe, for whom Beethoven composed his
+immortal IXth symphony (once under Sir Arthur Sullivan's baton; once
+under that of Sir A.C. Mackenzie, and once with Sir Frederick Cowen as
+conductor--on this last occasion I was asked to introduce my new Second
+concerto in B minor, Op. 36, at the time still in ms.) Then there is
+quite a number of great conductors with whom I have appeared, a few
+among them being Liszt, Rubinstein, Brahms, Pasdeloup, Sir August Manns,
+Sir Charles Hallé, L. Mancinelli, Weingartner and Hans Richter, etc.
+Perhaps, as a violinist, what I like best to recall is that as a boy I
+was invited by Richter to go with him to Bayreuth and play at the
+foundation of the Bayreuth festival theater, which however my parents
+would _not_ permit owing to my tender age. I also remember with pleasure
+an episode at the famous Pasdeloup Concerts in the _Cirque d'hiver_ in
+Paris, on an occasion when I performed the F sharp minor concerto of
+Ernst. After I had finished, two ladies came to the green room: they
+were in deep mourning, and one of them greatly moved, asked me to 'allow
+her to thank me' for the manner in which I had played this
+concerto--she said: _'I am the widow of Ernst!'_ She also told me that
+since his death she had never heard the concerto played as I had played
+it! In presenting to me her companion, the Marquise de Gallifet (wife of
+the General de Gallifet who led the brigade of the _Chasseurs d'Afrique_
+in the heroic charge of General Margueritte's cavalry division at Sedan,
+which excited the admiration of the old king of Prussia), I had the
+honor of meeting the once world famous violinist Mlle. Millanollo, as
+she was before her marriage. Mme. Ernst often came to hear me play her
+late husband's music, and as a parting gift presented me with his
+beautiful 'Tourte' bow, and an autographed copy of the first edition of
+Ernst's transcription for solo violin of Schubert's 'Erlking.' It is so
+incredibly difficult to play with proper balance of melody and
+accompaniment--I never heard any one but Kubelik play it--that it is
+almost impossible. It is so difficult, in fact, that it should not be
+played!
+
+
+                     VIOLINS AND STRINGS: SARASATE
+
+"My violin? I am a Stradivarius player, and possess two fine Strads,
+though I also have a beautiful Joseph Guarnerius. Ysaye, Thibaud and
+Caressa, when they lunched with me not long ago, were enthusiastic about
+them. My favorite Strad is a 1716 instrument--I have used it for
+twenty-five years. But I cannot use the wire strings that are now in
+such vogue here. I have to have Italian gut strings. The wire E cuts my
+fingers, and besides I notice a perceptible difference in sound quality.
+Of course, wire strings are practical; they do not 'snap' on the concert
+stage. Speaking of strings that 'snap,' reminds me that the first time I
+heard Sarasate play the Saint-Saëns concerto, at Frankfort, he twice
+forgot his place and stopped. They brought him the music, he began for
+the third time and then--the E string snapped! I do not think _any_
+other than Sarasate could have carried off these successive mishaps and
+brought his concert to a triumphant conclusion. He was a great friend of
+mine and one of the most _perfect_ players I have ever known, as well as
+one of the greatest _grand seigneurs_ among violinists. His rendering of
+romantic works, Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Bruch, was exquisite--I have never,
+never heard them played as beautifully. On the other hand, his Bach
+playing was excruciating--he played Bach sonatas as though they were
+virtuoso pieces. It made one think of Hans von Bülow's _mot_ when, in
+speaking of a certain famous pianist, he said: 'He plays Beethoven with
+velocity and Czerny with expression.' But to hear Sarasate play romantic
+music, his own 'Spanish Dances' for instance, was all like glorious
+birdsong and golden sunshine, a lark soaring heavenwards!
+
+
+                       THE NARDINI CONCERTO IN A
+
+"You ask about my compositions? Well, Eddy Brown is going to play my
+Second violin concerto, Op. 36 in B flat, which I wrote for the London
+Philharmonic Society, next season; Elman the Nardini concerto in A,
+which was published only shortly before the outbreak of the war. Thirty
+years ago I found, by chance, three old Nardini concertos for violin and
+bass in the composer's _original_ ms., in Bologna. The best was the one
+in A--a beautiful work! But the bass was not even figured, and the task
+of reconstructing the accompaniment for piano, as well as for orchestra,
+and reverently doing justice to the composer's original intent and idea;
+while at the same time making its beauties clearly and expressively
+available from the standpoint of the violinist of to-day, was not easy.
+Still, I think I may say I succeeded." And Mr. Nachéz showed me some
+letters from famous contemporaries who had made the acquaintance of this
+Nardini concerto in A major. Auer, Thibaud, Sir Hubert Parry (who said
+that he had "infused the work with new life"), Pollak, Switzerland's
+ranking fiddler, Carl Flesch, author of the well-known _Urstudien_--all
+expressed their admiration. One we cannot forbear quoting a letter in
+part. It was from Ottokar Sevčik. The great Bohemian pedagogue is
+usually regarded as the apostle of mechanism in violin playing: as the
+inventor of an inexorably logical system of development, which stresses
+the technical at the expense of the musical. The following lines show
+him in quite a different light:
+
+     "I would not be surprised if Nardini, Vivaldi and their
+     companions were to appear to you at the midnight hour in
+     order to thank the master for having given new life to
+     their works, long buried beneath the mold of figured
+     basses; works whose vital, pulsating possibilities these
+     old gentlemen probably never suspected. Nardini emerges
+     from your alchemistic musical laboratory with so fresh
+     and lively a quality of charm that starving fiddlers will
+     greet him with the same pleasure with which the bee
+     greets the first honeyed blossom of spring."
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"And now you want my definition of 'Violin Mastery'? To me the whole art
+of playing violin is contained in the reverent and respectful
+interpretation of the works of the great masters. I consider the artist
+only their messenger, singing the message they give us. And the more one
+realizes this, the greater becomes one's veneration especially for
+Bach's creative work. For twenty years I never failed to play the Bach
+solo sonatas for violin every day of my life--a violinist's 'daily
+prayer' in its truest sense! Students of Bach are apt, in the beginning,
+to play, say, the _finale_ of the G minor sonata, the final _Allegro_ of
+the A minor sonata, the _Gigue_ of the B minor, or the _Preludio_ of the
+E major sonata like a mechanical exercise: it takes _constant_ study to
+disclose their intimate harmonic melodious conception and poetry! One
+should always remember that technic is, after all, only a _means_. It
+must be acquired in order to be an unhampered master of the instrument,
+as a medium for presenting the thoughts of the great creators--but
+_these thoughts_, and not their medium of expression, are the chief
+objects of the true and great artist, whose aim in life is to serve his
+Art humbly, reverently and faithfully! You remember these words:
+
+"'In the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of
+passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it
+smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,
+periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split
+the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of
+nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise!...'"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XV
+
+
+                           MAXIMILIAN PILZER
+
+                   THE SINGING TONE AND THE VIBRATO
+
+
+Maximilian Pilzer is deservedly prominent among younger American concert
+violinists. A pupil of Joachim, Shradieck, Gustav Hollander, he is, as
+it has already been picturesquely put, "a graduate of the rock and thorn
+university," an artist who owes his success mainly to his own natural
+gifts plus an infinite capacity for taking pains. Though primarily an
+interpreter his interlocutor yet had the good fortune to happen on Mr.
+Pilzer when he was giving a lesson. Essentially a solo violinist, Mr.
+Pilzer nevertheless has the born teacher's wish to impart, to share,
+where talent justifies it, his own knowledge. He himself did not have to
+tell the listener this--the lesson he was giving betrayed the fact.
+
+It was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_ that the student played. And as
+Mr. Pilzer illustrated the delicate shades of _nuance_, of phrasing, of
+bowing, with instant rebuke for an occasional lack of "warmth" in tone,
+the improvement was instantaneous and unmistakable. The lesson over, he
+said:
+
+
+                            THE SINGING TONE
+
+"The singing tone is the ideal one, it is the natural violin tone. Too
+many violin students have the technical bee in their bonnet and neglect
+it. And too many believe that speed is brilliancy. When they see the
+black notes they take for granted that they must 'run to beat the band.'
+Yet often it is the teacher's fault if a good singing tone is not
+developed. Where the teacher's playing is cold, that of the pupil is apt
+to be the same. Warmth, rounded fullness, the truly beautiful violin
+tone is more difficult to call forth than is generally supposed. And, in
+a manner of speaking, the soul of this tone quality is the _vibrato_,
+though the individual instrument also has much to do with the tone.
+
+
+                              THE VIBRATO
+
+"But not," Mr. Pilzer continued, "not as it is too often mistakenly
+employed. Of course, any trained player will draw his bow across the
+strings in a smooth, even way, but that is not enough. There must be an
+inner, emotional instinct, an electric spark within the player himself
+that sets the _vibrato_ current in motion. It is an inner, psychic
+vibration which should be reflected by the intense, rapid vibration in
+the fingers of the left hand on the strings in order to give fluent
+expression to emotion. The _vibrato_ can not be used, naturally, on the
+open strings, but otherwise it represents the true means for securing
+warmth of expression. Of course, some decry the _vibrato_--but the
+reason is often because the _vibrato_ is too slow. One need only listen
+to Ysaye, Elman, Kreisler: artists such as these employ the quick,
+intense _vibrato_ with ideal effect. An exaggerated _vibrato_ is as bad
+as what I call 'the sentimental slide,' a common fault, which many
+violinists cultivate under the impression that they are playing
+expressively.
+
+
+                   VIOLIN MASTERY AND ITS ATTAINMENT
+
+"Violin mastery expresses more or less the aspiration to realize an
+ideal. It is a hope, a prayer, rather than an actual fact, since nothing
+human is absolutely perfect. Ysaye, perhaps, with his golden tone, comes
+nearest to my idea of what violin mastery should be, both as regards
+breadth and delicacy of interpretation. And guide-posts along the long
+road that leads to mastery of the instrument? Individuality in teaching,
+progress along natural lines, surety in bowing, a tone-production
+without forcing, cultivating a sense of rhythm and accent. I always
+remember what Moser once wrote in my autograph album: 'Rhythm and accent
+are the soul of music!'
+
+
+                           THE SHINING GOAL
+
+"And what a shining goal is waiting to be reached! The correct
+interpretation of Bach, Haendel and the old Italian and French classics,
+and of the vast realm of _ensemble_ music under which head come the
+Mozart and Beethoven violin sonatas, and those of their successors,
+Schumann, Brahms, etc. And aside from the classics, the moderns. And
+then there are the great violin concertos, in a class by themselves.
+They represent, in a degree, the utmost that the composer has done for
+the interpreting artist. Yet they differ absolutely in manner, style,
+thought, etc. Take Joachim's own Hungarian concerto, which I played for
+the composer, of which I still treasure the recollection of his patting
+me on the shoulder and saying: 'There is nothing for me to correct!' It
+is a work deliberately designed for technical display, and is
+tremendously difficult. But the wonderful Brahms concerto, those of
+Beethoven and Max Bruch; of Mozart and Mendelssohn--it is hard to
+express a preference for works so different in the quality of their
+beauty. The Russian Conus has a fine concerto in E, and Sinding a most
+effective one in A major. Edmund Severn, the American composer and
+violinist, has also written a notably fine violin concerto which I have
+played, with the Philharmonic, one that ought to be heard oftener.
+
+
+                             PLAYING BACH
+
+"Bach is one of the most difficult of the great masters to interpret on
+the violin. His polyphonic style and interweaving themes demand close
+study in order to make the meaning clear. In the Bach _Chaconne_, for
+instance, some very great violinists do not pay enough attention to
+making a distinction between principal and secondary notes of a chord.
+Here [Mr. Pilzer took up a new Strad he has recently acquired and
+illustrated his meaning] in this four-note chord there is one important
+melody note which must stand out. And it can be done, though not without
+some study. Bach abounds in such pitfalls, and in studying him the
+closest attention is necessary. Once the problems involved overcome, his
+music gains its true clarity and beauty and the enjoyment of artist and
+listener is doubled.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XVI
+
+
+                               MAUD POWELL
+
+                   TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: SOME HINTS
+                         FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER
+
+
+Maud Powell is often alluded to as our representative "American _woman_
+violinist" which, while true in a narrower sense, is not altogether just
+in a broader way. It would be decidedly more fair to consider her a
+representative American violinist, without stressing the term "woman";
+for as regards Art in its higher sense, the artist comes first, sex
+being incidental, and Maud Powell is first and foremost--an artist. And
+her infinite capacity for taking pains, her willingness to work hard
+have had no small part in the position she has made for herself, and the
+success she has achieved.
+
+
+                 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONCERT VIOLINIST
+
+"Too many Americans who take up the violin professionally," Maud Powell
+told the writer, "do not realize that the mastery of the instrument is
+a life study, that without hard, concentrated work they cannot reach the
+higher levels of their art. Then, too, they are too often inclined to
+think that if they have a good tone and technic that this is all they
+need. They forget that the musical instinct must be cultivated; they do
+not attach enough importance to musical surroundings: to hearing and
+understanding music of every kind, not only that written for the violin.
+They do not realize the value of _ensemble_ work and its influence as an
+educational factor of the greatest artistic value. I remember when I was
+a girl of eight, my mother used to play the Mozart violin sonatas with
+me; I heard all the music I possibly could hear; I was taught harmony
+and musical form in direct connection with my practical work, so that
+theory was a living thing to me and no abstraction. In my home town I
+played in an orchestra of twenty pieces--Oh, no, not a 'ladies
+orchestra'--the other members were men grown! I played chamber music as
+well as solos whenever the opportunity offered, at home and in public.
+In fact music was part of my life.
+
+          [Illustration: MAUD POWELL, with hand-written note]
+
+"No student who looks on music primarily as a thing apart in his
+existence, as a bread-winning tool, as a craft rather than an art,
+can ever mount to the high places. So often girls [who sometimes lack
+the practical vision of boys], although having studied but a few years,
+come to me and say: 'My one ambition is to become a great _virtuoso_ on
+the violin! I want to begin to study the great concertos!' And I have to
+tell them that their first ambition should be to become musicians--to
+study, to know, to understand music before they venture on its
+interpretation. Virtuosity without musicianship will not carry one far
+these days. In many cases these students come from small inland towns,
+far from any music center, and have a wrong attitude of mind. They crave
+the glamor of footlights, flowers and applause, not realizing that music
+is a speech, an idiom, which they must master in order to interpret the
+works of the great composers.
+
+
+                     THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER
+
+"Of course, all artistic playing represents essentially the mental
+control of technical means. But to acquire the latter in the right way,
+while at the same time developing the former, calls for the best of
+teachers. The problem of the teacher is to prevent his pupils from being
+too imitative--all students are natural imitators--and furthering the
+quality of musical imagination in them. Pupils generally have something
+of the teacher's tone--Auer pupils have the Auer tone, Joachim pupils
+have a Joachim tone, an excellent thing. But as each pupil has an
+individuality of his own, he should never sink it altogether in that of
+his teacher. It is this imitative trend which often makes it hard to
+judge a young player's work. I was very fortunate in my teachers.
+William Lewis of Chicago gave me a splendid start. Then I studied in
+turn with Schradieck in Leipsic--Schradieck himself was a pupil of
+Ferdinand David and of Léonard--Joachim in Berlin, and Charles Dancla in
+Paris. I might say that I owe most, in a way, to William Lewis, a born
+fiddler. Of my three European masters Dancla was unquestionably the
+greatest as a teacher--of course I am speaking for myself. It was no
+doubt an advantage, a decided advantage for me in my artistic
+development, which was slow--a family trait--to enjoy the broadening
+experience of three entirely different styles of teaching, and to be
+able to assimilate the best of each. Yet Joachim was a far greater
+violinist than teacher. His method was a cramping one, owing to his
+insistence on pouring all his pupils into the same mold, so to speak,
+of forming them all on the Joachim lathe. But Dancla was inspiring. He
+taught me De Bériot's wonderful method of attack; he showed me how to
+develop purity of style. Dancla's method of teaching gave his pupils a
+technical equipment which carried bowing right along, 'neck and neck'
+with the finger work of the left hand, while the Germans are apt to
+stress finger development at the expense of the bow. And without ever
+neglecting technical means, Dancla always put the purely musical before
+the purely virtuoso side of playing. And this is always a sign of a good
+teacher. He was unsparing in taking pains and very fair.
+
+"I remember that I was passed first in a class of eighty-four at an
+examination, after only three private lessons in which to prepare the
+concerto movement to be played. I was surprised and asked him why
+Mlle.---- who, it seemed to me, had played better than I, had not
+passed. 'Ah,' he said, 'Mlle.---- studied that movement for six months;
+and in comparison, you, with only three lessons, play it better!' Dancla
+switched me right over in his teaching from German to French methods,
+and taught me how to become an artist, just as I had learned in Germany
+to become a musician. The French school has taste, elegance,
+imagination; the German is more conservative, serious, and has, perhaps,
+more depth.
+
+
+                          TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
+
+"Perhaps it is because I belong to an older school, or it may be because
+I laid stress on technic because of its necessity as a means of
+expression--at any rate I worked hard at it. Naturally, one should never
+practice any technical difficulty too long at a stretch. Young players
+sometimes forget this. I know that _staccato_ playing was not easy for
+me at one time. I believe a real _staccato_ is inborn; a knack. I used
+to grumble about it to Joachim and he told me once that musically
+_staccato_ did not have much value. His own, by the way, was very
+labored and heavy. He admitted that he had none. Wieniawski had such a
+wonderful _staccato_ that one finds much of it in his music. When I
+first began to play his D minor concerto I simply made up my mind to get
+a _staccato_. It came in time, by sheer force of will. After that I had
+no trouble. An artistic _staccato_ should, like the trill, be plastic
+and under control; for different schools of composition demand
+different styles of treatment of such details.
+
+"Octaves--the unison, not broken--I did not find difficult; but though
+they are supposed to add volume of tone they sound hideous to me. I have
+used them in certain passages of my arrangement of 'Deep River,' but
+when I heard them played, promised myself I would never repeat the
+experiment. Wilhelmj has committed even a worse crime in taste by
+putting six long bars of Schubert's lovely _Ave Maria_ in octaves. Of
+course they represent skill; but I think they are only justified in show
+pieces. Harmonics I always found easy; though whether they ring out as
+they should always depends more or less on atmospheric conditions, the
+strings and the amount of rosin on the bow. On the concert stage if the
+player stands in a draught the harmonics are sometimes husky.
+
+
+                  THE AMERICAN WOMAN VIOLINIST AND
+                            AMERICAN MUSIC
+
+"The old days of virtuoso 'tricks' have passed--I should like to hope
+forever. Not that some of the old type virtuosos were not fine players.
+Remenyi played beautifully. So did Ole Bull. I remember one favorite
+trick of the latter's, for instance, which would hardly pass muster
+to-day. I have seen him draw out a long _pp_, the audience listening
+breathlessly, while he drew his bow way beyond the string, and then
+looked innocently at the point of the bow, as though wondering where the
+tone had vanished. It invariably brought down the house.
+
+"Yet an artist must be a virtuoso in the modern sense to do his full
+duty. And here in America that duty is to help those who are groping for
+something higher and better musically; to help without rebuffing them.
+When I first began my career as a concert violinist I did pioneer work
+for the cause of the American woman violinist, going on with the work
+begun by Mme. Camilla Urso. A strong prejudice then existed against
+women fiddlers, which even yet has not altogether been overcome. The
+very fact that a Western manager recently told Mr. Turner with surprise
+that he 'had made a success of a woman artist' proves it. When I first
+began to play here in concert this prejudice was much stronger. Yet I
+kept on and secured engagements to play with orchestra at a time when
+they were difficult to obtain. Theodore Thomas liked my playing (he
+said I had brains), and it was with his orchestra that I introduced the
+concertos of Saint-Saëns (C min.), Lalo (F min.), and others, to
+American audiences.
+
+"The fact that I realized that my sex was against me in a way led me to
+be startlingly authoritative and convincing in the masculine manner when
+I first played. This is a mistake no woman violinist should make. And
+from the moment that James Huneker wrote that I 'was not developing the
+feminine side of my work,' I determined to be just myself, and play as
+the spirit moved me, with no further thought of sex or sex distinctions
+which, in Art, after all, are secondary. I never realized this more
+forcibly than once, when, sitting as a judge, I listened to the
+competitive playing of a number of young professional violinists and
+pianists. The individual performers, unseen by the judges, played in
+turn behind a screen. And in three cases my fellow judges and myself
+guessed wrongly with regard to the sex of the players. When we thought
+we had heard a young man play it happened to be a young woman, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+"To return to the question of concert-work. You must not think that I
+have played only foreign music in public. I have always believed in
+American composers and in American composition, and as an American have
+tried to do justice as an interpreting artist to the music of my native
+land. Aside from the violin concertos by Harry Rowe Shelly and Henry
+Holden Huss, I have played any number of shorter original compositions
+by such representative American composers as Arthur Foote, Mrs. H.H.A.
+Beach, Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa, Arthur Bird, Edwin Grasse,
+Marion Bauer, Cecil Burleigh, Harry Gilbert, A. Walter Kramer, Grace
+White, Charles Wakefield Cadman and others. Then, too, I have presented
+transcriptions by Arthur Hartmann, Francis Macmillan and Sol Marcosson,
+as well as some of my own. Transcriptions are wrong, theoretically; yet
+some songs, like Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Song of India' and some piano
+pieces, like the Dvořák _Humoresque_, are so obviously effective on the
+violin that a transcription justifies itself. My latest temptative in
+that direction is my 'Four American Folk Songs,' a simple setting of
+four well-known airs with connecting cadenzas--no variations, no special
+development! I used them first as _encores_, but my audiences seemed to
+like them so well that I have played them on all my recent programs.
+
+
+                    SOME HINTS FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER
+
+"The very first thing in playing in public is to free oneself of all
+distrust in one's own powers. To do this, nothing must be left to
+chance. One should not have to give a thought to strings, bow, etc. All
+should be in proper condition. Above all the violinist should play with
+an accompanist who is used to accompanying him. It seems superfluous to
+emphasize that one's program numbers must have been mastered in every
+detail. Only then can one defy nervousness, turning excess of emotion
+into inspiration.
+
+"Acoustics play a greater part in the success of a public concert than
+most people realize. In some halls they are very good, as in the case of
+the Cleveland Hippodrome, an enormous place which holds forty-three
+hundred people. Here the acoustics are perfect, and the artist has those
+wonderful silences through which his slightest tones carry clearly and
+sweetly. I have played not only solos, but chamber music in this hall,
+and was always sorry to stop playing. In most halls the acoustic
+conditions are best in the evening.
+
+"Then there is the matter of the violin. I first used a Joseph
+Guarnerius, a deeper toned instrument than the Jean Baptista Guadagnini
+I have now played for a number of years. The Guarnerius has a tone that
+seems to come more from within the instrument; but all in all I have
+found my Guadagnini, with its glassy clearness, its brilliant and limpid
+tone-quality, better adapted to American concert halls. If I had a Strad
+in the same condition as my Guadagnini the instrument would be
+priceless. I regretted giving up my Guarnerius, but I could not play the
+two violins interchangeably; for they were absolutely different in size
+and tone-production, shape, etc. Then my hand is so small that I ought
+to use the instrument best adapted to it, and to use the same instrument
+always. Why do I use no chin-rest? I use no chin-rest on my Guadagnini
+simply because I cannot find one to fit my chin. One should use a
+chin-rest to prevent perspiration from marring the varnish. My Rocca
+violin is an interesting instance of wood worn in ridges by the stubble
+on a man's chin.
+
+"Strings? Well, I use a wire E string. I began to use it twelve years
+ago one humid, foggy summer in Connecticut. I had had such trouble with
+strings snapping that I cried: 'Give me anything but a gut string.' The
+climate practically makes metal strings a necessity, though some kind
+person once said that I bought wire strings because they were cheap! If
+wire strings had been thought of when Theodore Thomas began his career,
+he might never have been a conductor, for he told me he gave up the
+violin because of the E string. And most people will admit that hearing
+a wire E you cannot tell it from a gut E. Of course, it is unpleasant on
+the open strings, but then the open strings never do sound well. And in
+the highest registers the tone does not spin out long enough because of
+the tremendous tension: one has to use more bow. And it cuts the hairs:
+there is a little surface nap on the bow-hairs which a wire string wears
+right out. I had to have my four bows rehaired three times last
+season--an average of every three months. But all said and done it has
+been a God-send to the violinist who plays in public. On the wire A one
+cannot get the harmonics; and the aluminum D is objectionable in some
+violins, though in others not at all.
+
+"The main thing--no matter what strings are used--is for the artist to
+get his audience into the concert hall, and give it a program which is
+properly balanced. Theodore Thomas first advised me to include in my
+programs short, simple things that my listeners could 'get hold
+of'--nothing inartistic, but something selected from their standpoint,
+not from mine, and played as artistically as possible. Yet there must
+also be something that is beyond them, collectively. Something that they
+may need to hear a number of times to appreciate. This enables the
+artist to maintain his dignity and has a certain psychological effect in
+that his audience holds him in greater respect. At big conservatories
+where music study is the most important thing, and in large cities,
+where the general level of music culture is high, a big solid program
+may be given, where it would be inappropriate in other places.
+
+"Yet I remember having many recalls at El Paso, Texas, once, after
+playing the first movement of the Sibelius concerto. It is one of those
+compositions which if played too literally leaves an audience quite
+cold; it must be rendered temperamentally, the big climaxing effects
+built up, its Northern spirit brought out, though I admit that even then
+it is not altogether easy to grasp.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery or mastery of any instrument, for that matter, is the
+technical power to say exactly what you want to say in exactly the way
+you want to say it. It is technical equipment that stands at the service
+of your musical will--a faithful and competent servant that comes at
+your musical bidding. If your spirit soars 'to parts unknown,' your well
+trained servant 'technic' is ever at your elbow to prevent irksome
+details from hampering your progress. Mastery of your instrument makes
+mastery of your Art a joy instead of a burden. Technic should always be
+the hand-maid of the spirit.
+
+"And I believe that one result of the war will be to bring us a greater
+self-knowledge, to the violinist as well as to every other artist, a
+broader appreciation of what he can do to increase and elevate
+appreciation for music in general and his Art in particular. And with
+these I am sure a new impetus will be given to the development of a
+musical culture truly American in thought and expression."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVII
+
+
+                              LEON SAMETINI
+
+                                HARMONICS
+
+
+Leon Sametini, at present director of the violin department of the
+Chicago Music College, where Sauret, Heermann and Sebald preceded him,
+is one of the most successful teachers of his instrument in this
+country. It is to be regretted that he has not played in public in the
+United States as often as in Europe, where his extensive _tournées_ in
+Holland--Leon Sametini is a Hollander by birth--Belgium, England and
+Austria have established his reputation as a virtuoso, and the quality
+of his playing led Ysaye to include him in a quartet of artists "in
+order of lyric expression" with himself and Thibaud. Yet, the fact
+remains that this erstwhile _protégé_ of Queen Wilhelmina--she gave him
+his beautiful Santo Serafin (1730) violin, whose golden varnish back "is
+a genuine picture,"--to quote its owner--is a distinguished interpreting
+artist besides having a real teaching gift, which lends additional
+weight to his educational views.
+
+
+                         REMINISCENCES OF SEVČIK
+
+"I began to study violin at the age of six, with my uncle. From him I
+went to Eldering in Amsterdam, now Willy Hess's successor at the head of
+the Cologne Conservatory, and then spent a year with Sevčik in Prague.
+Yet--without being his pupil--I have learned more from Ysaye than from
+any of my teachers. It is rather the custom to decry Sevčik as a
+teacher, to dwell on his absolutely mechanical character of
+instruction--and not without justice. First of all Sevčik laid all the
+stress on the left hand and not on the bow--an absolute inversion of a
+fundamental principle. Eldering had taken great pains with my bow
+technic, for he himself was a pupil of Hubay, who had studied with
+Vieuxtemps and had his tradition. But Sevčik's teaching as regards the
+use of the bow was very poor; his pupils--take Kubelik with all his
+marvelous finger facility--could never develop a big bow technic. Their
+playing lacks strength, richness of sound. Sevčik soon noticed that my
+bowing did not conform to his theories; yet since he could not
+legitimately complain of the results I secured, he did not attempt to
+make me change it. Musical beauty, interpretation, in Sevčik's case were
+all subordinated to mechanical perfection. With him the study of some
+inspired masterpiece was purely a mathematical process, a problem in
+technic and mental arithmetic, without a bit of spontaneity. Ysaye used
+to roar with laughter when I would tell him how, when a boy of fifteen,
+I played the Beethoven concerto for Sevčik--a work which I myself felt
+and knew it was then out of the question for me to play with artistic
+maturity--the latter's only criticisms on my performance were that one
+or two notes were a little too high, and a certain passage not quite
+clear.
+
+"Sevčik did not like the Dvořák concerto and never gave it to his
+pupils. But I lived next door to Dvořák at Prague, and meeting him in
+the street one day, asked him some questions anent its interpretation,
+with the result that I went to his home various times and he gave me his
+own ideas as to how it should be played. Sevčik never pointed his
+teachings by playing himself. I never saw him take up the fiddle while I
+studied with him. While I was his pupil he paid me the compliment of
+selecting me to play Sinigaglia's engaging violin concerto, at short
+notice, for the first time in Prague. Sinigaglia had asked Sevčik to
+play it, who said: 'I no longer play violin, but I have a pupil who can
+play it for you,' and introduced me to him. Sinigaglia became a good
+friend of mine, and I was the first to introduce his _Rapsodia
+Piedmontese_ for violin and orchestra in London. To return to
+Sevčik--with all the deficiencies of his teaching methods, he had one
+great gift. He taught his pupils _how to practice_! And--aside from
+bowing--he made all mechanical problems, especially finger problems,
+absolutely clear and lucid.
+
+
+                  A QUARTET OF GREAT TEACHERS WITH WHOM
+                              ALL MAY STUDY
+
+"Still, all said and done, it was after I had finished with all my
+teachers that I really began to learn to play violin: above all from
+Ysaye, whom I went to hear play wherever and whenever I could. I think
+that the most valuable lessons I have ever had are those unconsciously
+given me by four of the greatest violinists I know: Ysaye, Kreisler,
+Elman and Thibaud. Each of these artists is so different that no one
+seems altogether to replace the other. Ysaye with his unique
+personality, the immense breadth and sweep of his interpretation, his
+dramatic strength, stands alone. Kreisler has a certain sparkling
+scintillance in his playing that is his only. Elman might be called the
+Caruso among violinists, with the perfected sensuous beauty of his tone;
+while Thibaud stands for supreme elegance and distinction. I have
+learned much from each member of this great quartet. And if the artist
+can profit from hearing and seeing them play, why not the student? Every
+recital given by such masters offers the earnest violin student
+priceless opportunities for study and comparison. My special leaning
+toward Ysaye is due, aside from his wonderful personality, to the fact
+that I feel music in the same way that he does.
+
+
+                           TEACHING PRINCIPLES
+
+'My teaching principles are the results of my own training period, my
+own experience as a concert artist and teacher--before I came to America
+I taught in London, where Isolde Menges, among others, studied with
+me--and what either directly or indirectly I have learned from my great
+colleagues. In the Music College I give the advanced pupils their
+individual lessons; but once a week the whole class assembles--as in
+the European conservatories--and those whose turn it is to play do so
+while the others listen. This is of value to every student, since it
+gives him an opportunity of 'hearing himself as others hear him.' Then,
+to stimulate appreciation and musical development there are _ensemble_
+and string quartet classes. I believe that every violinist should be
+able to play viola, and in quartet work I make the players shift
+constantly from one to the other instrument in order to hear what they
+play from a different angle.
+
+"For left hand work I stick to the excellent Sevčik exercises and for
+some pupils I use the Carl Flesch _Urstudien_. For studies of real
+_musical_ value Rode, of course, is unexcelled. His studies are the
+masterpieces of their kind, and I turn them into concert pieces. Thibaud
+and Elman have supplied some of them with interesting piano
+accompaniments.
+
+"For bowing, with the exception of a few purely mechanical exercises, I
+used Kreutzer and Rode, and Gavinies. Ninety-nine per cent. of pupils'
+faults are faults of bowing. It is an art in itself. Sevčik was able to
+develop Kubelik's left hand work to the last degree of perfection--but
+not his bowing. In the case of Kocian, another well-known Sevčik pupil
+whom I have heard play, his bowing was by no means an outstanding
+feature. I often have to start pupils on the open strings in order to
+correct fundamental bow faults.
+
+"When watching a great artist play the student should not expect to
+secure similar results by slavish imitation--another pupil fault. The
+thing to do is to realize the principle behind the artist's playing, and
+apply it to one's own physical possibilities.
+
+"Every one holds, draws and uses the bow in a different way. If no two
+thumb-prints are alike, neither are any two sets of fingers and wrists.
+This is why not slavish imitation, but intelligent adaptation should be
+applied to the playing of the teacher in the class-room or the artist on
+the concert-stage. For instance, the little finger of Ysaye's left hand
+bends inward somewhat--as a result it is perfectly natural for him to
+make less use of the little finger, while it might be very difficult or
+almost impossible for another to employ the same fingering. And certain
+compositions and styles of composition are more adapted to one violinist
+than to another. I remember when I was a student, that Wieniawski's
+music seemed to lie just right for my hand. I could read difficult
+things of his at sight.
+
+
+                           DOUBLE HARMONICS
+
+"Would I care to discuss any special feature of violin technic? I might
+say something anent double harmonics--a subject too often taught in a
+mechanical way, and one I have always taken special pains to make
+absolutely plain to my own pupils--for every violinist should be able to
+play double harmonics out of a clear understanding of how to form them.
+
+"There are only two kinds of harmonics: natural and artificial. Natural
+harmonics may be formed on the major triad of each open string, using
+the open string as the tonic. As, for example, on the G string [and Mr.
+Sametini set down the following illustration]:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Then there are four kinds of artificial harmonics, only three of which
+are used: harmonics on the major third (1); harmonics on the perfect
+fourth (2); harmonics on the perfect fifth (3); and harmonics--never
+used--on the octave:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Where does the harmonic sound in each case? Two octaves and a third
+higher (1); two octaves higher (2); one octave and a fifth higher (3)
+respectively, than the pressed-down note. If the harmonic on the octave
+(4) were played, it would sound just an octave higher than the
+pressed-down note.
+
+"Now say we wished to combine different double harmonics. The whole
+principle is made clear if we take, let us say, the first double-stop in
+the scale of C major in thirds as an example:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"Beginning with the lower of these two notes, the C, we find that it
+cannot not be taken as a natural harmonic
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+because natural harmonics on the open strings run as follows: G, B, D on
+the G string; D, F♯, A on the D string; A, C♯, E on the A string; and
+E, G♯, B on the E string. There are three ways of taking the C before
+mentioned as an artificial harmonic. The E may be taken in the following
+manner:
+
+           Nat. harmonic                     Artificial harmonic
+  [Illustration: Musical Notation]    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Now we have to combine the C and E as well as we are able. Rejecting
+the following combinations as _impossible_--any violinist will see why--
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+we have a choice of the two _possible_ combinations remaining, with the
+fingering indicated:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"With regard to the _actual execution_ of these harmonics, I advise all
+students to try and play them with every bit as much expressive feeling
+as ordinary notes. My experience has been that pupils do not pay nearly
+enough attention to the intonation of harmonics. In other words, they
+try to produce the harmonics _immediately_, instead of first making sure
+that both fingers are on the right spot before they loosen one finger on
+the string. For instance in the following: [Illustration: Musical
+Notation] first play [Illustration: Musical Notation] and then
+[Illustration: Musical Notation] then loosen the fourth finger, and play
+[Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"The same principle holds good when playing double harmonics. Nine
+tenths of the 'squeaking' heard when harmonics are played is due to the
+fact that the finger-placing is not properly prepared, and that the
+fingers are not on the right spot.
+
+"Never, when playing a harmonic with an up-bow [Symbol: up-bow], at the
+point, smash down the bow on the string; but have it already _on_ the
+string _before_ playing the harmonic. The process is reversed when
+playing a down-bow [Symbol: down-bow] harmonic. When beginning a
+harmonic at the frog, have the harmonic ready, then let the bow _drop_
+gently on the string.
+
+"Triple and quadruple harmonics may be combined in exactly the same way.
+Students should never get the idea that you press down the string as you
+press a button and--presto--the magic harmonics appear! They are a
+simple and natural result of the proper application of scientific
+principles; and the sooner the student learns to form and combine
+harmonics himself instead of learning them by rote, the better will he
+play them. Too often a student can give the fingering of certain double
+harmonics and cannot use it. Of course, harmonics are only a detail of
+the complete mastery of the violin; but mastery of all details leads to
+mastery of the whole.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"And what is mastery of the whole? Mastery of the whole, real violin
+mastery, I think, lies in the control of the interpretative problem, the
+power to awaken emotion by the use of the instrument. Many feel more
+than they can express, have more left hand than bow technic and, like
+Kubelik, have not the perfected technic for which perfected playing
+calls. The artist who feels beauty keenly and deeply and whose
+mechanical equipment allows him to make others feel and share the beauty
+he himself feels is in my opinion worthy of being called a master of the
+violin."
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+
+
+                          ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY
+
+                  WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO
+
+
+Alexander Saslavsky is probably best known as a solo artist, as the
+concertmaster of a great symphonic orchestra, as the leader of the
+admirable quartet which bears his name. Yet, at the same time, few
+violinists can speak with more authority anent the instructive phases of
+their Art. Not only has he been active for years in the teaching field;
+but as a pedagog he rounds out the traditions of Ferdinand David,
+Massard, Auer, and Grün (Vienna _Hochschule_), acquired during his
+"study years," with the result of his own long and varied experience.
+
+Beginning at the beginning, I asked Mr. Saslavsky to tell me something
+about methods, his own in particular. "Method is a flexible term," he
+answered. "What the word should mean is the cultivation of the pupil's
+individuality along the lines best suited to it. Not that a guide which
+may be employed to develop common-sense principles is not valuable. But
+even here, the same guide (violin-method) will not answer for every
+pupil. Personally I find De Bériot's 'Violin School' the most generally
+useful, and for advanced students, Ferdinand David's second book. Then,
+for scales--I insist on my pupils being able to play, a perfect scale
+through three octaves--the Hrimaly book of scales. Many advanced
+violinists cannot play a good scale simply because of a lack of
+fundamental work.
+
+"As soon as the pupil is able, he should take up Kreutzer and stick to
+him as the devotee does to his Bible. Any one who can play the '42
+Exercises' as they should be played may be called a well-balanced
+violinist. There are too many purely mechanical exercises--and the
+circumstance that we have Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo, Rovelli and Dont
+emphasizes the fact. And there are too many elaborate and complicated
+violin methods. Sevčik, for instance, has devised a purely mechanical
+system of this kind, perfect from a purely mechanical standpoint, but
+one whose consistent use, in my opinion, kills initiative and
+individuality. I have had experience with Sevčik pupils in quartet
+playing, and have found that they have no expression.
+
+
+                   WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO
+
+"After all, the teacher can only supply the pupil with the violinistic
+equipment. The pupil must use it. There is tone, for instance. The
+teacher cannot _make_ tone for the pupil--he can only show him how tone
+can be made. Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes it almost
+impossible for the pupil to produce a good natural tone. If the
+finger-tips are not adequately equipped with 'cushions,' and a pupil
+wishes to use the _vibrato_ there is nothing with which he can vibrate.
+There is real meaning, speaking of the violinist's tone, in the phrase
+'he has it at his fingers' tips.' Then there is the matter of _slow_
+practice. It rests with the pupil to carry out the teacher's injunctions
+in this respect. The average pupil practices too fast, is too eager to
+develop his Art as a money maker. And too many really gifted students
+take up orchestra playing, which no one can do continuously and hope to
+be a solo player. Four hours of study work may be nullified by a single
+hour of orchestra playing. Musically it is broadening, of course, but I
+am speaking from the standpoint of the student who hopes to become a
+solo artist. An opera orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the
+symphonic _ensemble_ more care is used; but in the opera orchestra they
+employ the _right_ arm for tremolo! There is a good deal of _camouflage_
+as regards string playing in an opera orchestra, and much of the
+music--notably Wagner's--is quite impracticable.
+
+"And lessons are often made all too short. A teacher in common honesty
+cannot really give a pupil much in half-an-hour--it is not a real
+lesson. There is a good deal to be said for class teaching as it is
+practiced at the European conservatories, especially as regards
+interpretation. In my student days I learned much from listening to
+others play the concertos they had prepared, and from noting the
+teacher's corrections. And this even in a purely technical way: I can
+recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the
+_technical_ points of violin playing.
+
+
+                             A GREAT DEFECT
+
+"Most pupils seem to lack an absolute sense of rhythm--a great defect.
+Yet where latent it may be developed. Here Kreutzer is invaluable,
+since he presents every form of rhythmic problem, scales in various
+rhythms and bowings. Kreutzer's 'Exercise No. 2,' for example, may be
+studied with any number of bowings. To produce a broad tone the bow must
+move slowly, and in rapid passages should never seem to introduce
+technical exercises in a concert number. The student should memorize
+Kreutzer and Fiorillo. Flesch's _Urstudien_ offer the artist or
+professional musician who has time for little practice excellent
+material; but are not meant for the pupil, unless he be so far advanced
+that he may be trusted to use them alone.
+
+
+                           TONE: PRACTICE TIME
+
+"Broad playing gives the singing tone--the true violin tone--a long bow
+drawn its full length. Like every general rule though, this one must be
+modified by the judgment of the individual player. Violin playing is an
+art of many mysteries. Some pupils grasp a point at once; others have to
+have it explained seven or eight different ways before grasping it. The
+serious student should practice not less than four hours, preferably in
+twenty minute intervals. After some twenty minutes the brain is apt to
+tire. And since the fingers are controlled by the brain, it is best to
+relax for a short time before going on. Mental and physical control must
+always go hand in hand. Four hours of intelligent, consistent practice
+work are far better than eight or ten of fatigued effort.
+
+
+                         A NATIONAL CONSERVATORY
+
+"Some five years ago too many teachers gave their pupils the Mendelssohn
+and Paganini concertos to play before they knew their Kreutzer. But
+there has been a change for the better during recent years. Kneisel was
+one of the first to produce pupils here who played legitimately,
+according to standard violinistic ideals. One reason why Auer has had
+such brilliant pupils is that poor students were received at the
+Petrograd Conservatory free of charge. All they had to supply was
+talent; and I look forward to the time when we will have a National
+conservatory in this country, supported by the Government. Then the
+poor, but musically gifted, pupil will have the same opportunities that
+his brother, who is well-to-do, now has.
+
+
+                  SOME PERSONAL VIEWS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+"You ask me to tell you something of my own musical preferences. Well,
+take the concertos. I have reached a point where the Mendelssohn,
+Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Brahms concertos seen to sum up what is
+truly worth while. The others begin to bore me; even Bruch! Paganini,
+Wieniawski, etc., are mainly mediums of display. Most of the great
+violinists, Ysaye, Thibaud, etc., during recent years are reverting to
+the violin sonatas. Ysaye, for instance, has recently been playing the
+Lazzari sonata, a very powerful and beautiful work.
+
+"My experiences as a 'concertmaster'? I have played with Weingartner;
+Saint-Saëns (whose amiability to me, when he first visited this country,
+I recall with pleasure); Gustav Mahler, Tschaikovsky, Safonoff, Seidel,
+Bauer, and Walter Damrosch, whose friend and associate I have been for
+the last twenty-two years. He is a wonderful man, many-sided and
+versatile; a notably fine pianist; and playing chamber music with him
+during successive summers is numbered among my pleasantest
+recollections.
+
+"In speaking of concertos some time ago, I forgot to mention one work
+well worth studying. This is the Russian Mlynarski's concerto in D,
+which I played with the Russian Symphony Orchestra some eight years ago
+for the first time in this country, as well as a fine 'Romance and
+Caprice' by Rubinstein.
+
+"Is the music a concertmaster is called upon to play always violinistic?
+Far from it. Symphonic music--in as much as the concertmaster is
+concerned, is usually not idiomatic violin music. Richard Strauss's
+violin concerto can really be played by the violinist. The _obbligatos_
+in his symphonies are a very different matter; they go beyond accepted
+technical boundaries. With Stravinsky it is the same. The violin
+_obbligato_ in Rimsky-Korsakov's _Schéhérazade_, though, is real violin
+music. Debussy and Ravel are most subtle; they call for a particularly
+good ear, since the harmonic balance of their music is very delicate.
+The concertmaster has to develop his own interpretations, subject, of
+course, to the conductor's ideas.
+
+
+                           VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? It means to me complete control of the fingerboard, a
+being at home in every position, absolute sureness of fingering,
+absolute equality of tone under all circumstances. I remember Ysaye
+playing Tschaikovsky's _Sérénade Mélancolique_, and using a fingering
+for certain passages which I liked very much. I asked him to give it to
+me in detail, but he merely laughed and said: 'I'd like to, but I
+cannot, because I really do not remember which fingers I used!' That is
+mastery--a control so complete that fingering was unconscious, and the
+interpretation of the thought was all that was in the artist's mind!
+Sevčik's 'complete technical mastery' is after all not perfect, since it
+represents mechanical and not mental control."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIX
+
+
+                              TOSCHA SEIDEL
+
+                              HOW TO STUDY
+
+
+Toscha Seidel, though one of the more recent of the young Russian
+violinists who represent the fruition of Professor Auer's formative
+gifts, has, to quote H.F. Peyser, "the transcendental technic observed
+in the greatest pupils of his master, a command of mechanism which makes
+the rough places so plain that the traces of their roughness are hidden
+to the unpracticed eye." He commenced to study the violin seriously at
+the age of seven in Odessa, his natal town, with Max Fiedemann, an Auer
+pupil. A year and a half later Alexander Fiedemann heard him play a De
+Bériot concerto in public, and induced him to study at the Stern
+Conservatory in Berlin, with Brodsky, a pupil of Joachim, with whom he
+remained for two years.
+
+It was in Berlin that the young violinist reached the turning point of
+his career. "I was a boy of twelve," he said, "when I heard Jascha
+Heifetz play for the first time. He played the Tschaikovsky concerto,
+and he played it wonderfully. His bowing, his fingering, his whole style
+and manner of playing so greatly impressed me that I felt I _must_ have
+his teacher, that I would never be content unless I studied with
+Professor Auer! In 1912 I at length had an opportunity to play for the
+Professor in his home at Loschivitz, in Dresden, and to my great joy he
+at once accepted me as a pupil.
+
+
+                      STUDYING WITH PROFESSOR AUER
+
+"Studying with Professor Auer was a revelation. I had private lessons
+from him, and at the same time attended the classes at the Petrograd
+Conservatory. I should say that his great specialty, if one can use the
+word specialty in the case of so universal a master of teaching as the
+Professor, was bowing. In all violin playing the left hand, the finger
+hand, might be compared to a perfectly adjusted technical machine, one
+that needs to be kept well oiled to function properly. The right hand,
+the bow hand, is the direct opposite--it is the painter hand, the artist
+hand, its phrasing outlines the pictures of music; its _nuances_ fill
+them with beauty of color. And while the Professor insisted as a matter
+of course on the absolute development of finger mechanics, he was an
+inspiration as regards the right manipulation of the bow, and its use as
+a medium of interpretation. And he made his pupils think. Often, when I
+played a passage in a concerto or sonata and it lacked clearness, he
+would ask me: 'Why is this passage not clear?' Sometimes I knew and
+sometimes I did not. But not until he was satisfied that I could not
+myself answer the question, would he show me how to answer it. He could
+make every least detail clear, illustrating it on his own violin; but if
+the pupil could 'work out his own salvation' he always encouraged him to
+do so.
+
+          [Illustration: TOSCHA SEIDEL, with hand-written note]
+
+"Most teachers make bowing a very complicated affair, adding to its
+difficulties. But Professor Auer develops a _natural_ bowing, with an
+absolutely free wrist, in all his pupils; for he teaches each student
+along the line of his individual aptitudes. Hence the length of the
+fingers and the size of the hand make no difference, because in the case
+of each pupil they are treated as separate problems, capable of an
+individual solution. I have known of pupils who came to him with an
+absolutely stiff wrist; and yet he taught them to overcome it.
+
+
+                  ARTIST PUPILS AND AMATEUR STUDENTS
+
+"As regards difficulties, technical and other, a distinction might be
+made between the artist and the average amateur. The latter does not
+make the violin his life work: it is an incidental. While he may
+reasonably content himself with playing well, the artist-pupil _must_
+achieve perfection. It is the difference between an accomplishment and
+an art. The amateur plays more or less for the sake of playing--the
+'how' is secondary; but for the artist the 'how' comes first, and for
+him the shortest piece, a single scale, has difficulties of which the
+amateur is quite ignorant. And everything is difficult in its perfected
+sense. What I, as a student, found to be most difficult were double
+harmonics--I still consider them to be the most difficult thing in the
+whole range of violin technic. First of all, they call for a large hand,
+because of the wide stretches. But harmonics were one of the things I
+had to master before Professor Auer would allow me to appear in public.
+Some find tenths and octaves their stumbling block, but I cannot say
+that they ever gave me much trouble. After all, the main thing with any
+difficulty is to surmount it, and just _how_ is really a secondary
+matter. I know Professor Auer used to say: 'Play with your feet if you
+must, but make the violin sound!' With tenths, octaves, sixths, with any
+technical frills, the main thing is to bring them out clearly and
+convincingly. And, rightly or wrongly, one must remember that when
+something does not sound out convincingly on the violin, it is not the
+fault of the weather, or the strings or rosin or anything else--it is
+always the artist's own fault!
+
+
+                             HOW TO STUDY
+
+"Scale study--all Auer pupils had to practice scales every day, scales
+in all the intervals--is a most important thing. And following his idea
+of stimulating the pupil's self-development, the Professor encouraged us
+to find what we needed ourselves. I remember that once--we were standing
+in a corridor of the Conservatory--when I asked him, 'What should I
+practice in the way of studies?' he answered: 'Take the difficult
+passages from the great concertos. You cannot improve on them, for they
+are as good, if not better, as any studies written.' As regards
+technical work we were also encouraged to think out our own exercises.
+And this I still do. When I feel that my thirds and sixths need
+attention I practice scales and original figurations in these intervals.
+But genuine, resultful practice is something that should never be
+counted by 'hours.' Sometimes I do not touch my violin all day long; and
+one hour with head work is worth any number of days without it. At the
+most I never practice more than three hours a day. And when my thoughts
+are fixed on other things it would be time lost to try to practice
+seriously. Without technical control a violinist could not be a great
+artist; for he could not express himself. Yet a great artist can give
+even a technical study, say a Rode _étude_, a quality all its own in
+playing it. That technic, however, is a means, not an end, Professor
+Auer never allowed his pupils to forget. He is a wonderful master of
+interpretation. I studied the great concertos with him--Beethoven,
+Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tschaikovsky, Dvořák*, the Brahms concerto (which I
+prefer to any other); the Vieuxtemps Fifth and Lalo (both of which I
+have heard Ysaye, that supreme artist who possesses all that an artist
+should have, play in Berlin); the Elgar concerto (a fine work which I
+once heard Kreisler, an artist as great as he is modest, play
+wonderfully in Petrograd), as well as other concertos of the standard
+repertory. And Professor Auer always sought to have us play as
+individuals; and while he never allowed us to overstep the boundaries of
+the musically esthetic, he gave our individuality free play within its
+limits. He never insisted on a pupil accepting his own _nuances_ of
+interpretation because they were his. I know that when playing for him,
+if I came to a passage which demanded an especially beautiful _legato_
+rendering, he would say: 'Now show how you can sing!' The exquisite
+_legato_ he taught was all a matter of perfect bowing, and as he often
+said: 'There must be no such thing as strings or hair in the pupil's
+consciousness. One must not play violin, one must sing violin!'
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Dvorák".
+
+
+                           FIDDLE AND STRINGS
+
+"I do not see how any artist can use an instrument which is quite new to
+him in concert. I never play any but my own Guadagnini, which is a fine
+fiddle, with a big, sonorous tone. As to wire strings, I hate them! In
+the first place, a wire E sounds distinctly different to the artist
+than does a gut E. And it is a difference which any violinist will
+notice. Then, too, the wire E is so thin that the fingers have nothing
+to take hold of, to touch firmly. And to me the metallic vibrations,
+especially on the open strings, are most disagreeable. Of course, from a
+purely practical standpoint there is much to be said for the wire E.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"What is violin mastery as I understand it? First of all it means
+talent, secondly technic, and in the third place, tone. And then one
+must be musical in an all-embracing sense to attain it. One must have
+musical breadth and understanding in general, and not only in a narrowly
+violinistic sense. And, finally, the good God must give the artist who
+aspires to be a master good hands, and direct him to a good teacher!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XX
+
+
+                              EDMUND SEVERN
+
+                      THE JOACHIM BOWING AND OTHERS:
+                              THE LEFT HAND
+
+
+Edmund Severn's activity in the field of violin music is a three-fold
+one: he is a composer, an interpreting artist and a teacher, and his
+fortuitous control of the three vital phases of his Art make his views
+as regards its study of very real value. The lover of string music in
+general would naturally attach more importance to his string quartet in
+D major, his trio for violin, 'cello and piano, his violin concerto in D
+minor, the sonata, the "Oriental," "Italian," "New England" suites for
+violin, and the fine suite in A major, for two violins and piano, than
+to his symphonic poems for orchestra, his choral works and his songs.
+And those in search of hints to aid them to master the violin would be
+most interested in having the benefit of his opinions as a teacher,
+founded on long experience and keen observation. Since Mr. Severn is
+one of those teachers who are born, not made, and is interested heart
+and soul in this phase of his musical work, it was not difficult to draw
+him out.
+
+
+                          THE JOACHIM BOWING
+
+"My first instructor in the violin was my father, the pioneer violin
+teacher of Hartford, Conn., where my boyhood was passed, and then I
+studied with Franz Milcke and Bernard Listemann, concertmaster of the
+Boston Symphony Orchestra. But one day I happened to read a few lines
+reprinted in the _Metronome_ from some European source, which quoted
+Wilhelmj as saying that Emanuel Wirth, Joachim's first assistant at the
+Berlin _Hochschule_, 'was the best teacher of his generation.' This was
+enough for me: feeling that the best could be none too good, I made up
+my mind to go to him. And I did. Wirth was the viola of the Joachim
+Quartet, and probably a better teacher than was Joachim himself. Violin
+teaching was a cult with him, a religion; and I think he believed God
+had sent him to earth to teach fiddle. Like all the teachers at the
+_Hochschule_ he taught the regular 'Joachim' bowing--they were obliged
+to teach it--as far as it could be taught, for it could not be taught
+every one. And that is the real trouble with the 'Joachim' bowing. It is
+impossible to make a general application of it.
+
+"Joachim had a very long arm and when he played at the point of the bow
+his arm position was approximately the same as that of the average
+player at the middle of the bow. Willy Hess was a perfect exponent of
+the Joachim method of bowing. Why? Because he had a very long arm. But
+at the _Hochschule_ the Joachim bowing was compulsory: they taught, or
+tried to teach, all who came there to use it without exception; boys or
+girls whose arms chanced to be long enough could acquire it, but big men
+with short arms had no chance whatever. Having a medium long arm, by
+dint of hard work I managed to get my bowing to suit Wirth; yet I always
+felt at a disadvantage at the point of the bow, in spite of the fact
+that after my return to the United States I taught the Joachim bowing
+for fully eight years.
+
+"Then, when he first came here, I heard and saw Ysaye play, and I
+noticed how greatly his bowing differed from that of Joachim, the point
+being that his first finger was always in a position to press
+_naturally_ without the least stiffness. This led me to try to find a
+less constrained bowing for myself, working along perfectly natural
+lines. The Joachim bowing demands a high wrist; but in the case of the
+Belgian school an easy position at the point is assumed naturally. And
+it is not hard to understand that if the bow be drawn parallel with the
+bridge, allowing for the least possible movement of hands and wrist, the
+greatest economy of motion, there is no contravention of the laws of
+nature and playing is natural and unconstrained.
+
+"And this applies to every student of the instrument, whether or no he
+has a long arm. While I was studying in Berlin, Sarasate played there in
+public, with the most natural and unhampered grace and freedom in the
+use of his bow. Yet the entire _Hochschule_ contingent unanimously
+condemned his bowing as being 'stiff'--merely because it did not conform
+to the Joachim tradition. Of course, there is no question but that
+Joachim was the greatest quartet player of his time; and with regard to
+the interpretation of the classics he was not to be excelled. His
+conception of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms was wonderful. The
+insistence at the _Hochschule_ on forcing the bowing which was natural
+to him on all others, irrespective of physical adaptability, is a matter
+of regret. Wirth was somewhat deficient in teaching left hand technic,
+as compared with, let us say, Schradieck. Wirth's real strength lay in
+his sincerity and his ability to make clear the musical contents of the
+works of the great masters. In a Beethoven or Spohr concerto he made a
+pupil give its due emphasis to every single note.
+
+
+                        A PRE-TEACHING REQUISITE
+
+"Before the violin student can even begin to study, there are certain
+pre-teaching requisites which are necessary if the teacher is to be of
+any service to him. The violin is a singing instrument, and therefore
+the first thing called for is a good singing tone. That brings up an
+important point--the proper adjustment of the instrument used by the
+student. If his lessons are to be of real benefit to him, the component
+parts of the instrument, post, bridge, bass-bar, strings, etc., must be
+accurately adjusted, in order that the sound values are what they should
+be.
+
+"From the teaching standpoint it is far more important that whatever
+violin the student has is one properly built and adjusted, than that it
+be a fine instrument. And the bow must have the right amount of spring,
+of elasticity in its stick. A poor bow will work more harm than a poor
+fiddle, for if the bow is poor, if it lacks the right resilience, the
+student cannot acquire the correct bow pressure. He cannot play
+_spiccato_ or any of the 'bouncing' bowings, including various forms of
+arpeggios, with a poor stick.
+
+
+                            DRAWING A LONG BOW
+
+"When I say that the student should 'draw a long bow,'" continued Mr.
+Severn with a smile, "I do not say so at a venture. If his instrument
+and bow are in proper shape, this is the next thing for the student to
+do. Ever since Tartini's time it has been acknowledged that nothing can
+take the place of the study of the long bow, playing in all shades of
+dynamics, from _pp_ to _ff_, and with all the inflections of _crescendo_
+and _diminuendo_. Part of this study should consist of 'mute'
+exercises--not playing, but drawing the bow _above the strings_, to its
+full length, resting at either end. This ensures bow control. One great
+difficulty is that as a rule the teacher cannot induce pupils to
+practice these 'mute' exercises, in spite of their unquestionable value.
+All the great masters of the violin have used them. Viotti thought so
+highly of them that he taught them only to his favorite pupils. And even
+to-day some distinguished violinists play dumb exercises before stepping
+on the recital stage. They are one of the best means that we have for
+control of the violinistic nervous system.
+
+
+                               WRIST-BOWING
+
+"Wrist-bowing is one of the bowings in which the student should learn to
+feel absolutely and naturally at home. To my thinking the German way of
+teaching wrist-bowing is altogether wrong. Their idea is to keep the
+fingers neutral, and let the stick move the fingers! Yet this is
+wrong--for the player holds his bow at the finger-tips, that terminal
+point of the fingers where the tactile nerves are most highly developed,
+and where their direct contact with the bow makes possible the greatest
+variety of dynamic effect, and also allows the development of far
+greater speed in short bowings.
+
+"Though the Germans say 'Think of the wrist!' I think with the Belgians:
+Put your mind where you touch and hold the bow, concentrate on your
+fingers. In other words, when you make your bow change, do not make it
+according to the Joachim method, with the wrist, but in the natural way,
+with the fingers always in command. In this manner only will you get the
+true wrist motion.
+
+
+                        STACCATO AND OTHER BOWINGS
+
+"After all, there are only two general principles in violin playing, the
+long and short bow, _legato_ and _staccato_. Many a teacher finds it
+very difficult to teach _staccato_ correctly, which may account for the
+fact that many pupils find it hard to learn. The main reason is that, in
+a sense, _staccato_ is opposed to the nature of the violin as a singing
+instrument. To produce a true _staccato_ and not a 'scratchato' it is
+absolutely necessary, while exerting the proper pressure and movement,
+to keep the muscles loose. I have evolved a simple method for quickly
+achieving the desired result in _staccato_. First I teach the attack in
+the middle of the bow, without drawing the bow and as though pressing a
+button: I have pupils press up with the thumb and down with the first
+finger, with all muscles relaxed. This, when done correctly, produces a
+sudden sharp attack.
+
+"Then, I have the pupil place his bow in the middle, in position to draw
+a down-stroke from the wrist, the bow-hair being pressed and held
+against the string. A quick down-bow follows with an immediate release
+of the string. Repeating the process, use the up-stroke. The finished
+product is merely the combination of these two exercises--drawing and
+attacking simultaneously. I have never failed to give a pupil a good
+_staccato_ by this exercise, which comprises the principle of all
+genuine _staccato_ playing.
+
+"One of the most difficult of all bowings is the simple up-and-down
+stroke used in the second Kreutzer _étude_, that is to say, the bowing
+between the middle and point of the bow, _tête d'archet_, as the French
+call it. This bowing is played badly on the violin more often than any
+other. It demands constant rapid changing and, as most pupils play it,
+the _legato_ quality is noticeably absent. Too much emphasis cannot be
+laid on the truth that the 'singing stroke' should be employed for all
+bowings, long or short. Often pupils who play quite well show a want of
+true _legato_ quality in their tone, because there is no connection
+between their bowing in rapid work.
+
+"Individual bowings should always be practiced separately. I always
+oblige my pupils to practice all bowings on the open strings, and in all
+combinations of the open strings, because this allows them to
+concentrate on the bowing itself, to the exclusion of all else; and they
+advance far more quickly. Students should never be compelled to learn
+new bowings while they have to think of their fingers at the same time:
+we cannot serve two masters simultaneously! All in all, bowing is most
+important in violin technic, for control of the bow means much toward
+mastery of the violin.
+
+
+                              THE LEFT HAND
+
+"It is evident, however, that the correct use of the left hand is of
+equal importance. It seems not to be generally known that
+finger-pressure has much to do with tone-quality. The correct poise of
+the left hand, as conspicuously shown by Heifetz for instance, throws
+the extreme tips of the fingers hammerlike on the strings, and renders
+full pressure of the string easy. Correctly done, a brilliance results,
+especially in scale and passage work, which can be acquired in no other
+manner, each note partaking somewhat of the quality of the open string.
+As for intonation--that is largely a question of listening. To really
+listen to oneself is as necessary as it is rare. It would take a volume
+to cover that subject alone. We hear much about the use of the _vibrato_
+these days. It was not so when I was a student. I can remember when it
+was laughed at by the purists as an Italian evidence of bad taste. My
+teachers decried it, yet if we could hear the great players of the past,
+we would be astonished at their frugal use of it.
+
+"One should remember in this connection that there was a conflict among
+singers for many years as to whether the straight tone as cultivated by
+the English oratorio singers, or the vibrated tone of the Italians were
+correct. As usual, Nature won out. The correctly vibrated voice
+outlasted the other form of production, thus proving its lawful basis.
+But to-day the _vibrato_ is frequently made to cover a multitude of
+violin sins.
+
+"It is accepted by many as a substitute for genuine warmth and it is
+used as a _camouflage_ to 'put over' some very bad art in the shape of
+poor tone-quality, intonation and general sloppiness of technic. Why,
+then, has it come into general use during the last twenty-five years?
+Simply because it is based on the correctly produced human voice. The
+old players, especially those of the German school, said, and some still
+say, the _vibrato_ should only be used at the climax of a melody. If we
+listen to a Sembrich or a Bonci, however, we hear a vibration on every
+tone. Let us not forget that the violin is a singing instrument and that
+even Joachim said: 'We must imitate the human voice,' This, I think,
+disposes of the case finally and we must admit that every little boy or
+girl with a natural _vibrato_ is more correct in that part of his
+tone-production than many of the great masters of the past. As the Negro
+pastor said: 'The world do move!'
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Are 'mastery of the violin' and 'Violin Mastery' synonymous in my mind?
+Yes and no: 'Violin Mastery' may be taken to mean that technical mastery
+wherewith one is enabled to perform any work in the entire literature of
+the instrument with precision, but not necessarily with feeling for its
+beauty or its emotional content. In this sense, in these days of
+improved violin pedagogy, such mastery is not uncommon. But 'Violin
+Mastery' may also be understood to mean, not merely a cold though
+flawless technic, but its living, glowing product when used to express
+the emotions suggested by the music of the masters. This latter kind of
+violin mastery is rare indeed.
+
+"One who makes technic an end travels light, and should reach his
+destination more quickly. But he whose goal is music with its
+thousand-hued beauties, with its call for the exertion of human and
+spiritual emotion, sets forth on a journey without end. It is plain,
+however, that this is the only journey worth taking with the violin as a
+traveling companion. 'Violin Mastery', then, means to me technical
+proficiency used to the highest extent possible, for artistic ends!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XXI
+
+
+                             ALBERT SPALDING
+
+                     THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
+                         DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+For the duration of the war Albert Spalding the violinist became Albert
+Spalding the soldier. As First Lieutenant in the Aviation Service,
+U.S.A., he maintained the ideals of civilization on the Italian front
+with the same devotion he gave to those of Art in the piping times of
+peace. As he himself said not so very long ago: "You cannot do two
+things, and do them properly, at the same time. At the present moment
+there is more music for me in the factories gloriously grinding out
+planes and motors than in a symphony of Beethoven. And to-day I would
+rather run on an office-boy's errand for my country and do it as well as
+I can, if it's to serve my country, than to play successfully a Bach
+Chaconne; and I would rather hear a well directed battery of American
+guns blasting the Road of Peace and Victorious Liberty than the
+combined applause of ten thousand audiences. For it is my conviction
+that Art has as much at stake in this War as Democracy."
+
+    [Illustration: _Copyright by Matzene, Chicago_. ALBERT SPALDING]
+
+Yet Lieutenant Spalding, despite the arduous demands of his patriotic
+duties, found time to answer some questions of the writer in the
+interests of "Violin Mastery" which, representing the views and opinions
+of so eminent and distinctively American a violinist, cannot fail to
+interest every lover of the Art. Writing from Rome (Sept. 9, 1918),
+Lieutenant Spalding modestly said that his answers to the questions
+asked "will have to be simple and short, because my time is very
+limited, and then, too, having been out of music for more than a year, I
+feel it difficult to deal in more than a general way with some of the
+questions asked."
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"As to 'Violin Mastery'? To me it means effortless mastery of details;
+the correlating of them into a perfect whole; the subjecting of them to
+the expression of an architecture which is music. 'Violin Mastery' means
+technical mastery in every sense of the word. It means a facility which
+will enable the interpreter to forget difficulties, and to express at
+once in a language that will seem clear, simple and eloquent, that which
+in the hands of others appears difficult, obtuse and dull.
+
+
+                    THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
+                         DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
+
+"As to the processes, mental and technical, which make an artist? These
+different processes, mental and technical, are too many, too varied and
+involved to invite an answer in a short space of time. Suffice it to say
+that the most _important_ mental process, to my mind, is the development
+of a perception of beauty. All the perseverance in the study of music,
+all the application devoted to it, is not worth a tinker's dam, unless
+accompanied by this awakening to the perception of beauty. And with
+regard to the influence of teachers? Since all teachers vary greatly,
+the student should not limit himself to his own personal masters. The
+true student of Art should be able to derive benefit and instruction
+from every beautiful work of Art that he hears or sees; otherwise he
+will be limited by the technical and mental limitations of his own
+prejudices and jealousies. One's greatest difficulties may turn out to
+be one's greatest aids in striving toward artistic results. By this I
+mean that nothing is more fatally pernicious for the true artist than
+the precocious facility which invites cheap success. Therefore I make
+the statement that one's greatest difficulties are one's greatest
+facilities.
+
+
+                 A LESS DEVELOPED PHASE OF VIOLIN TECHNIC
+
+"In the technical field, the phase of violin technic which is less
+developed, it seems to me is, in most cases, bowing. One often notes a
+highly developed left hand technic coupled with a monotonous and
+oftentimes faulty bowing. The _color_ and _variety_ of a violinist's art
+must come largely from his intimate acquaintance with all that can be
+accomplished by the bow arm. The break or change from a down-bow to an
+up-bow, or _vice versa_, should be under such control as to make it
+perceptible only when it may be desirable to use it for color or
+accentuation.
+
+
+                    GOOD AND BAD HANDS: MENTAL STUDY
+
+"The influence of the physical conformation of bow hand and string hand
+on actual playing? There are no 'good' or 'bad' bow hands or string
+hands (unless they be deformed); there are only 'good' and 'bad' heads.
+By this I mean that the finest development of technic comes from the
+head, not from the hand. Quickness of thought and action is what
+distinguishes the easy player from the clumsy player. Students should
+develop mental study even of technical details--this, of course, in
+addition to the physical practice; for this mental study is of the
+highest importance in developing the student so that he can gain that
+effortless mastery of detail of which I have already spoken.
+
+
+                  ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CONCERT
+                        ATTENDANCE FOR THE STUDENT
+
+"Concerts undoubtedly have great value in developing the student
+technically and mentally; but too often they have a directly contrary
+effect. I think there is a very doubtful benefit to be derived from the
+present habit, as illustrated in New York, London, or other centers, of
+the student attending concerts, sometimes as many as two or three a day.
+This habit dwarfs the development of real appreciation, as the student,
+under these conditions, can little appreciate true works of art when he
+has crammed his head so full of truck, and worn out his faculties of
+concentration until listening to music becomes a mechanical mental
+process. The _indiscriminate_ attending of concerts, to my mind, has an
+absolutely pernicious effect on the student.
+
+
+                    NATIONALITY AS A FORMATIVE INFLUENCE
+
+"Nationality and national feeling have a very real influence in the
+development of an artist; but this influence is felt subconsciously more
+than consciously, and it reacts more on the creative than on the
+interpretative artist. By this I mean that the interpretative artist,
+while reserving the right to his individual expression, should subject
+himself to what he considers to have been the artistic impulse, the
+artistic intentions of the composer. As to type music to whose appeal I
+as an American am susceptible, I confess to a very sympathetic reaction
+to the syncopated rhythms known as 'rag-time,' and which appear to be
+especially American in character." For the benefit of those readers who
+may not chance to know it, Lieutenant Spalding's "Alabama," a Southern
+melody and dance in plantation style, for violin and piano, represents
+a very delightful creative exploitation of these rhythms. The writer
+makes mention of the fact since with regard to this and other of his own
+compositions Lieutenant Spalding would only state: "I felt that I had
+something to say and, therefore, tried to say it. Whether what I have to
+say is of any interest to others is not for me to judge.
+
+
+                         PLAYING WHILE IN SERVICE
+
+"Do I play at all while in Service? I gave up all playing in public when
+entering the Army a year ago, and to a great extent all private playing
+as well. I have on one or two occasions played at charity concerts
+during the past year, once in Rome, and once in the little town in Italy
+near the aviation camp at which I was stationed at the time. I have
+purposely refused all other requests to play because one cannot do two
+things at once, and do them properly. My time now belongs to my country:
+When we have peace again I shall hope once more to devote it to Art."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXII
+
+
+                           THEODORE SPIERING
+
+                  THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO
+                         THE STUDY OF KREUTZER
+
+
+A. Walter Kramer has said: "Mr. Spiering knows how serious a study can
+be made of the violin, because he has made it. He has investigated the
+'how' and 'why' of every detail, and what he has to say about the violin
+is the utterance of a big musician, one who has mastered the
+instrument." And Theodore Spiering, solo artist and conductor, as a
+teacher has that wider horizon which has justified the statement made
+that "he is animated by the thoughts and ideals which stimulate a
+Godowsky or Busoni." Such being the case, it was with unmixed
+satisfaction that the writer found Mr. Spiering willing to give him the
+benefit of some of those constructive ideas of his as regards violin
+study which have established his reputation so prominently in that
+field.
+
+
+                          TWO TYPES OF STUDENTS
+
+"There are certain underlying principles which govern every detail of
+the violinist's Art," said Mr. Spiering, "and unless the violinist fully
+appreciates their significance, and has the intelligence and patience to
+apply them in everything he does, he will never achieve that absolute
+command over his instrument which mastery implies.
+
+"It is a peculiar fact that a large percentage of students--probably
+believing that they can reach their goal by a short cut--resent the
+mental effort required to master these principles, the passive
+resistance, evident in their work, preventing them from deriving true
+benefit from their studies. They form that large class which learns
+merely by imitation, and invariably retrograde the moment they are no
+longer under the teacher's supervision.
+
+"The smaller group, with an analytical bent of mind, largely subject
+themselves to the needed mental drill and thus provide for themselves
+that inestimable basic quality that makes them independent and capable
+of developing their talent to its full fruition.
+
+       [Illustration: THEODORE SPIERING, with hand-written note]
+
+
+               MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROCESSES COÖRDINATED
+
+"The conventional manner of teaching provided an inordinate number of
+mechanical exercises in order to overcome so called 'technical
+difficulties.' Only the _prima facie_ disturbance, however, was thus
+taken into consideration--not its actual cause. The result was, that
+notwithstanding the great amount of labor thus expended, the effort had
+to be repeated each time the problem was confronted. Aside from the
+obviously uncertain results secured in this manner, it meant deadening
+of the imagination and cramping of interpretative possibilities. It is
+only possible to reduce to a minimum the element of chance by
+scrupulously carrying out the dictates of the laws governing vital
+principles. Analysis and the severest self-criticism are the means of
+determination as to whether theory and practice conform with one
+another.
+
+"_Mental preparedness_ (Marcus Aurelius calls it 'the good ordering of
+the mind') is the keynote of technical control. Together with the
+principle of _relaxation_ it provides the player with the most effective
+means of establishing precise and sensitive coöperation between mental
+and physical processes. Muscular relaxation at will is one of the
+results of this coöperation. It makes sustained effort possible
+(counteracting the contraction ordinarily resulting therefrom), and it
+is freedom of movement more than anything else that tends to establish
+confidence.
+
+
+             THE TWO-FOLD VALUE OF CELEBRATED STUDY WORKS
+
+"The study period of the average American is limited. It has been
+growing less year by year. Hence the teacher has had to redouble his
+efforts. The desire to give my pupils the essentials of technical
+control in their most concentrated and immediately applicable form, have
+led me to evolve a series of 'bow exercises,' which, however, do not
+merely pursue a mechanical purpose. Primarily enforcing the carrying out
+of basic principles as pertaining to the bow--and establishing or
+correcting (as the case may be) arm and hand (right arm) positions, they
+supply the means of creating a larger interpretative style.
+
+"I use the Kreutzer studies as the medium of these bow-exercises, since
+the application of new technical ideas is easier when the music itself
+is familiar to the student. I have a two-fold object in mind when I
+review these studies in my particular manner, technic and appreciation.
+I might add that not only Kreutzer, but Fiorillo and Rode--in fact all
+the celebrated 'Caprices,' with the possible exception of those of
+Paganini--are viewed almost entirely from the purely technical side, as
+belonging to the classroom, because their musical qualities have not
+been sufficiently pointed out. Rode, in particular, is a veritable
+musical treasure trove.
+
+
+                 THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO THE
+                            STUDY OF KREUTZER
+
+"How do I use the Kreutzer studies to develop style and technic? By
+making the student study them in such wise that the following principles
+are emphasized in his work: _control before action_ (mental direction at
+all times); _relaxation_; and _observance of string levels_; for
+unimpeded movement is more important than pressure as regards the
+carrying tone. These principles are among the most important pertaining
+to right arm technic.
+
+"In Study No. 2 (version 1, up-strokes only, version 2, down-strokes
+only), I have my pupils use the full arm stroke (_grand detaché_). In
+version 1, the bow is taken from the string after completion of
+stroke--but in such a way that the vibrations of the string are not
+interfered with. Complete relaxation is insured by release of the
+thumb--the bow being caught in a casual manner, third and fourth fingers
+slipping from their normal position on stick--and holding, but not
+tightly clasping, the bow.
+
+"Version 2 calls for a _return down-stroke_, the return part of the
+stroke being accomplished over the string, but making no division in
+stroke, no hesitating before the return. Relaxation is secured as
+before. Rapidity of stroke, elimination of impediment (faulty hand or
+arm position and unnecessary upper arm action), is the aim of this
+exercise. The pause between each stroke--caused by relinquishing the
+hold on the bow--reminds the student that mental control should at all
+times be paramount: that analysis of technical detail is of vital
+importance.
+
+"In Study No. 7 I employ the same vigorous full arm strokes as in No. 2:
+the up and down bows as indicated in the original version. The bow is
+raised from the strings after each note, by means of hand (little
+finger, first and thumb) not by arm action. Normal hand position is
+retained: thumb not released.
+
+"The _observance of string levels_ is very essential. While the stroke
+is in progress the arm must not leave its level in an anticipatory
+movement to reach the next level. Especially after the down-stroke is it
+advisable to verify the arm position with regard to this feature.
+
+"No. 8 affords opportunity for a _résumé_ of the work done in Nos. 2 and
+7:
+
+                    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"It is evident that the tempo of this study must be very much reduced in
+speed. The _return_ down-stroke as in No. 2: the _second_ down-stroke as
+in No. 7: the up-strokes as in No. 2.
+
+"In Study No. 5 I use the hand-stroke only--at the frog--arm absolutely
+immobile, with no attempt at tone. This exercise represents the first
+attempt at dissecting the _martelé_ idea: precise timing of pressure,
+movement (stroke), and relaxation. The pause between the strokes is
+utilized to learn the value of left hand preparedness, with the fingers
+in place before bow action.
+
+"In Study No. 13 I develop the principles of string crossing, of the
+extension stroke, and articulation. String crossing is the main feature
+of the exercise. I employ three versions, in order to accomplish my aim.
+In version 1 I consider only the crossing from a higher to a lower
+level:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+version 2:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+version 3 is the original version. In versions 1 and 2 I omit all
+repetitions:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Articulation is one of the main points at issue--the middle note is
+generally inarticulate. For further string crossing analysis I use
+Kreutzer's No. 25. Study No. 10 I carry out as a _martelé_ study, with
+the string crossing very much in evidence; establishing observance of
+the notes occurring on the same string level, consequently compelling a
+more judicious use of the so-called wrist movement (not merely
+developing a supple wrist, with indefinite crossing movements, which in
+many cases are applied by the player without regard to actual string
+crossing) and in consequence securing stability of bow on string when
+string level is not changed, this result being secured even in rapid
+passage work.
+
+"In Studies 11, 19 and 21 I cover shifting and left thumb action: in No.
+9, finger action--flexibility and evenness, the left thumb relaxed--the
+fundamental idea of the trill. After the _interrupted_ types of bowing
+(grand _detaché_, _martelé_, _staccato_) have been carefully studied,
+the _continuous_ types (_detaché_, _legato_ and _spiccato_) are then
+taken up, and in part the same studies again used: 2, 7, 8. Lastly the
+slurred _legato_ comes under consideration (Studies 9, 11, 14, 22, 27,
+29). Shifting, extension and string crossing have all been previously
+considered, and hence the _legato_ should be allowed to take its even
+course.
+
+"Although I do, temporarily, place these studies on a purely mechanical
+level, I am convinced that they thus serve to call into being a broader
+_musical_ appreciation for the whole set. For I have found that in spite
+of the fact that pupils who come to me have all played their Kreutzer,
+with very few exceptions have they realized the musical message which
+it contains. The time when the student body will have learned to depict
+successfully musical character--even in studies and caprices--will mark
+the fulfillment of the teacher's task with regard to the cultivation of
+the right arm--which is essentially the teacher's domain.
+
+
+              SOME OF MR. SPIERING'S OWN STUDY SOUVENIRS
+
+"It may interest you to know," Mr. Spiering said in reply to a question,
+"that I began my teaching career in Chicago immediately following my
+four years with Joachim in Berlin. It was natural that I should first
+commit myself to the pedagogic methods of the _Hochschule_, which to a
+great extent, however, I discarded as my own views crystallized. I found
+that too much emphasis allotted the wrist stroke (a misnomer, by the
+way), was bound to result in too academic a style. By transferring
+primary importance to the control of the full arm-stroke--with the
+hand-stroke incidentally completing the control--I felt that I was
+better able to reflect the larger interpretative ideals which my years
+of musical development were creating for me. Chamber music--a youthful
+passion--led me to interest myself in symphonic work and conducting.
+These activities not only reacted favorably on my solo playing, but
+influenced my development as regards the broader, more dramatic style,
+the grand manner in interpretation. It is this realization that places
+me in a position to earnestly advise the ambitious student not to
+disregard the great artistic benefits to be derived from the cultivation
+of chamber music and symphonic playing.
+
+"I might call my teaching ideals a combination of those of the
+Franco-Belgian and German schools. To the former I attribute my
+preference for the large sweep of the bow-arm, its style and tonal
+superiority; to the latter, vigor of interpretation and attention to
+musical detail.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"How do I define 'Violin Mastery'? The violinist who has succeeded in
+eliminating all superfluous tension or physical resistance, whose mental
+control is such that the technic of the left hand and right arm has
+become coordinate, thus forming a perfect mechanism not working at
+cross-purposes; who, furthermore, is so well poised that he never
+oversteps the boundaries of good taste in his interpretations, though
+vitally alive to the human element; who, finally, has so broad an
+outlook on life and Art that he is able to reveal the transcendent
+spirit characterizing the works of the great masters--such a violinist
+has truly attained mastery!"
+
+
+
+
+                                 XXIII
+
+
+                            JACQUES THIBAUD
+
+                           THE IDEAL PROGRAM
+
+
+Jacques Thibaud, whose gifts as an interpreting artist have brought him
+so many friends and admirers in the United States, is the foremost
+representative of the modern French school of violin-playing. And as
+such he has held his own ever since, at the age of twenty, he resigned
+his rank as concert-master of the Colonne orchestra, to dedicate his
+talents exclusively to the concert stage. So great an authority as the
+last edition of the Riemann _Musik-Lexicon_ cannot forbear, even in
+1915, to emphasize his "technic, absolutely developed in its every
+detail, and his fiery and poetic manner of interpretation."
+
+But Mr. Thibaud does not see any great difference between the ideals of
+_la grande école belge_, that of Vieuxtemps, De Bériot, Léonard, Massart
+and Marsick, whose greatest present-day exponent is Eugène Ysaye, and
+the French. Himself a pupil of Marsick, he inherited the French
+traditions of Alard through his father, who was Alard's pupil and handed
+them on to his son. "The two schools have married and are as one,"
+declared Mr. Thibaud. "They may differ in the interpretation of music,
+but to me they seem to have merged so far as their systems of finger
+technic, bowing and tone production goes.
+
+
+                  THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY TO OVERCOME
+
+"You ask me what is most difficult in playing the violin? It is bowing.
+Bowing makes up approximately eighty per cent. of the sum total of
+violinistic difficulties. One reason for it is that many teachers with
+excellent ideas on the subject present it to their pupils in too
+complicated a manner. The bow must be used in an absolutely natural way,
+and over elaboration in explaining what should be a simple and natural
+development often prevents the student from securing a good bowing, the
+end in view. Sarasate (he was an intimate friend of mine) always used
+his bow in the most natural way, his control of it was unsought and
+unconscious. Were I a teacher I should not say: 'You must bow as I do';
+but rather: 'Find the way of bowing most convenient and natural to
+you and use it!' Bowing is largely a physical and individual matter. I
+am slender but have long, large fingers; Kreisler is a larger man than I
+am but his fingers are small. It stands to reason that there must be a
+difference in the way in which we hold and use the bow. The difference
+between a great and a mediocre teacher lies in the fact that the first
+recognizes that bowing is an individual matter, different in the case of
+each individual pupil; and that the greatest perfection is attained by
+the development of the individual's capabilities within his own norm.
+
+            [Illustration: JACQUES THIBAUD, with signature]
+
+
+                          MARSICK AS A TEACHER
+
+"Marsick was a teacher of this type. At each of the lessons I took from
+him at the _Conservatoire_ (we went to him three days a week), he would
+give me a new _étude_--Gavinies, Rode, Fiorillo, Dont--to prepare for
+the next lesson. We also studied all of Paganini, and works by Ernst and
+Spohr. For our bow technic he employed difficult passages made into
+_études_. Scales--the violinist's daily bread--we practiced day in, day
+out. Marsick played the piano well, and could improvise marvelous
+accompaniments on his violin when his pupils played. I continued my
+studies with Marsick even after I left the _Conservatoire_. With him I
+believe that three essentials--absolute purity of pitch, equality of
+tone and sonority of tone, in connection with the bow--are the base on
+which everything else rests.
+
+
+            THE MECHANICAL VERSUS THE NATURAL IN VIOLIN PLAYING
+
+"Sevčik's purely soulless and mechanical system has undoubtedly produced
+a number of excellent mechanicians of the violin. But it has just as
+unquestionably killed real talent. Kubelik--there was a genuinely
+talented violinist! If he had had another teacher instead of Sevčik he
+would have been great, for he had great gifts. Even as it was he played
+well, but I consider him one of Sevčik's victims. As an illustration of
+how the technical point of view is thrust to the fore by this system I
+remember some fifteen years ago Kubelik and I were staying at the same
+villa in Monte-Carlo, where we were to play the Beethoven concerto, each
+of us, in concert, two days apart. Kubelik spent the live-long day
+before the concert practicing Sevčik exercises. I read and studied
+Beethoven's score, but did not touch my violin. I went to hear Kubelik
+play the concerto, and he played it well; but then, so did I, when my
+turn came. And I feel sure I got more out of it musically and
+spiritually, than I would have if instead of concentrating on its
+meaning, its musical message, I had prepared the concerto as a problem
+in violin mechanics whose key was contained in a number of dry technical
+exercises arbitrarily laid down.
+
+"Technic, in the case of the more advanced violinist, should not have a
+place in the foreground of his consciousness. I heard Rubinstein play
+when a boy--what did his false notes amount to compared with his
+wonderful manner of disclosing the spirit of the things he played!
+Planté, the Parisian pianist, a kind of keyboard cyclone, once expressed
+the idea admirably to an English society lady. She had told him he was a
+greater pianist than Rubinstein, because the latter played so many wrong
+notes. 'Ah, Madame,' answered Planté, 'I would rather be able to play
+Rubinstein's wrong notes than all my own correct ones.' A violinist's
+natural manner of playing is the one he should cultivate; since it is
+individual, it really represents him. And a teacher or a colleague of
+greater fame does him no kindness if he encourages him to distrust his
+own powers by too good naturedly 'showing' him how to do this, that or
+the other. I mean, when the student can work out his problem himself at
+the expense of a little initiative.
+
+"When I was younger I once had to play Bach's G minor fugue at a concert
+in Brussels. I was living at Ysaye's home, and since I had never played
+the composition in public before, I began to worry about its
+interpretation. So I asked Ysaye (thinking he would simply show me),
+'How ought I to play this fugue?' The Master reflected a moment and then
+dashed my hopes by answering: _'Tu m'embêtes!'_ (You bore me!) 'This
+fugue should be played well, that's all!' At first I was angry, but
+thinking it over, I realized that if he had shown me, I would have
+played it just as he did; while what he wanted me to do was to work out
+my own version, and depend on my own initiative--which I did, for I had
+no choice. It is by means of concentration on the higher, the
+interpretative phases of one's Art that the technical side takes its
+proper, secondary place. Technic does not exist for me in the sense of a
+certain quantity of mechanical work which I must do. I find it out of
+the question to do absolutely mechanical technical work of any length of
+time. In realizing the three essentials of good violin playing which I
+have already mentioned, Ysaye and Sarasate are my ideals.
+
+
+                                SARASATE
+
+"All really good violinists are good artists. Sarasate, whom I knew so
+intimately and remember so well, was a pupil of Alard (my father's
+teacher). He literally sang on the violin, like a nightingale. His
+purity of intonation was remarkable; and his technical facility was the
+most extraordinary that I have ever seen. He handled his bow with
+unbelievable skill. And when he played, the unassuming grace of his
+movements won the hearts of his audiences and increased the enthusiasm
+awakened by his tremendous talent.
+
+"We other violinists, all of us, occasionally play a false note, for we
+are not infallible; we may flat a little or sharp a little. But never,
+as often as I have heard Sarasate play, did I ever hear him play a wrong
+note, one not in perfect pitch. His Spanish things he played like a god!
+And he had a wonderful gift of phrasing which gave a charm hard to
+define to whatever he played. And playing in quartet--the greatest solo
+violinist does not always shine in this _genre_--he was admirable.
+Though he played all the standard repertory, Bach, Beethoven, etc., I
+can never forget his exquisite rendering of modern works, especially of
+a little composition by Raff, called _La Fée d'Amour_. He was the first
+to play the violin concertos of Saint-Saëns, Lalo and Max Bruch. They
+were all written for him, and I doubt whether they would have been
+composed had not Sarasate been there to play them. Of course, in his own
+Spanish music he was unexcelled--a whole school of violin playing was
+born and died with him! He had a hobby for collecting canes. He had
+hundreds of them of all kinds, and every sovereign in Europe had
+contributed to his collection. I know Queen Christina of Spain gave him
+no less than twenty. He once gave me a couple of his canes, a great sign
+of favor with him. I have often played quartet with Sarasate, for he
+adored quartet playing, and these occasions are among my treasured
+memories.
+
+
+                  STRADIVARIUS AND GUARNERIUS PLAYERS
+
+"My violin? It is a Stradivarius--the same which once belonged to the
+celebrated Baillot. I think it is good for a violin to rest, so during
+the three months when I am not playing in concert, I send my
+Stradivarius away to the instrument maker's, and only take it out about
+a month before I begin to play again in public. What do I use in the
+meantime? Caressa, the best violin maker in Paris, made me an exact copy
+of my own Strad, exact in every little detail. It is so good that
+sometimes, when circumstances compelled me to, I have used it in
+concert, though it lacks the tone-quality of the original. This
+under-study violin I can use for practice, and when I go back to the
+original, as far as the handling of the instrument is concerned, I never
+know the difference.
+
+"But I do not think that every one plays to the best advantage on a
+Strad. I'm a believer in the theory that there are natural Guarnerius
+players and natural Stradivarius players; that certain artists do their
+best with the one, and certain others with the other. And I also believe
+that any one who is 'equally' good in both, is great on neither. The
+reason I believe in Guarnerius players and Stradivarius players as
+distinct is this. Some years ago I had a sudden call to play in Ostende.
+It was a concert engagement which I had overlooked, and when it was
+recalled to me I was playing golf in Brittany. I at once hurried to
+Paris to get my violin from Caressa, with whom I had left it, but--his
+safe, in which it had been put, and to which he only had the
+combination, was locked. Caressa himself was in Milan. I telegraphed him
+but found that he could not get back in time before the concert to
+release my violin. So I telegraphed Ysaye at Namur, to ask if he could
+loan me a violin for the concert. 'Certainly' he wired back. So I
+hurried to his home and, with his usual generosity, he insisted on my
+taking both his treasured Guarnerius and his 'Hercules' Strad
+(afterwards stolen from him in Russia), in order that I might have my
+choice. His brother-in-law and some friends accompanied me from Namur to
+Ostende--no great distance--to hear the concert. Well, I played the
+Guarnerius at rehearsal, and when it was over, every one said to me,
+'Why, what is the matter with your fiddle? (It was the one Ysaye always
+used.) It has no tone at all.' At the concert I played the Strad and
+secured a big tone that filled the hall, as every one assured me. When
+I brought back the violins to Ysaye I mentioned the circumstance to him,
+and he was so surprised and interested that he took them from the cases
+and played a bit, first on one, then on the other, a number of times.
+And invariably when he played the Strad (which, by the way, he had not
+used for years) he, Ysaye--imagine it!--could develop only a small tone;
+and when he played the Guarnerius, he never failed to develop that
+great, sonorous tone we all know and love so well. Take Sarasate, when
+he lived, Elman, myself--we all have the habit of the Stradivarius: on
+the other hand Ysaye and Kreisler are Guarnerius players _par
+excellence_!
+
+"Yes, I use a wire E string. Before I found out about them I had no end
+of trouble. In New Orleans I snapped seven gut strings at a single
+concert. Some say that you can tell the difference, when listening,
+between a gut and a wire E. I cannot, and I know a good many others who
+cannot. After my last New York recital I had tea with Ysaye, who had
+done me the honor of attending it. 'What strings do you use?' he asked
+me, _à propos_ to nothing in particular. When I told him I used a wire E
+he confessed that he could not have told the difference. And, in fact,
+he has adopted the wire E just like Kreisler, Maud Powell and others,
+and has told me that he is charmed with it--for Ysaye has had a great
+deal of trouble with his strings. I shall continue to use them even
+after the war, when it will be possible to obtain good gut strings
+again.
+
+
+                            THE IDEAL PROGRAM
+
+"The whole question of programs and program-making is an intricate one.
+In my opinion the usual recital program, piano, song or violin, is too
+long. The public likes the recital by a single vocal or instrumental
+artist, and financially and for other practical reasons the artist, too,
+is better satisfied with them. But are they artistically altogether
+satisfactory? I should like to hear Paderewski and Ysaye, Bauer and
+Casals, Kreisler and Hofmann all playing at the same recital. What a
+variety, what a wealth of contrasting artistic enjoyment such a concert
+would afford. There is nothing that is so enjoyable for the true artist
+as _ensemble_ playing with his peers. Solo playing seems quite
+unimportant beside it.
+
+"I recall as the most perfect and beautiful of all my musical memories,
+a string quartet and quintet (with piano) session in Paris, in my own
+home, where we played four of the loveliest chamber music works ever
+written in the following combination: Beethoven's 7th quartet (Ysaye,
+Vo. I, myself, Vo. II, Kreisler, viola--he plays it remarkably well--and
+Casals, 'cello); the Schumann quartet (Kreisler, Vo. I, Ysaye, Vo. II,
+myself, viola and Casals, 'cello); and the Mozart G major quartet
+(myself, Vo. I, Kreisler, Vo. II, Ysaye, viola and Casals, 'cello). Then
+we telephoned to Pugno, who came over and joined us and, after an
+excellent dinner, we played the César Franck piano quintet. It was the
+most enjoyable musical day of my life. A concert manager offered us a
+fortune to play in this combination--just two concerts in every capital
+in Europe.
+
+"We have not enough variety in our concert programs--not enough
+collaboration. The truth is our form of concert, which usually
+introduces only one instrument or one group of instruments, such as the
+string quartet, is too uniform in color. I can enjoy playing a recital
+program of virtuose violin pieces well enough; but I cannot help fearing
+that many find it too unicolored. Practical considerations do not do
+away with the truth of an artistic contention, though they may often
+prevent its realization. What I enjoy most, musically, is to play
+together with another good artist. That is why I have had such great
+artistic pleasure in the joint recitals I have given with Harold Bauer.
+We could play things that were really worth while for each of us--for
+the piano parts of the modern sonatas call for a virtuose technical and
+musical equipment, and I have had more satisfaction from this _ensemble_
+work than I would have had in playing a long list of solo pieces.
+
+"The ideal violin program, to play in public, as I conceive it, is one
+that consists of absolute music, or should it contain virtuose pieces,
+then these should have some definite musical quality of soul, character,
+elegance or charm to recommend them. I think one of the best programs I
+have ever played in America is that which I gave with Harold Bauer at
+Æolian Hall, New York, during the season of 1917-1918:
+
+
+             Sonata in B flat .  .  .  .  .  . _Mozart_
+                            BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+             Scenes from Childhood .  .  .  .  _Schumann_
+                              H. BAUER
+
+             Poème  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _E. Chausson_
+                             J. THIBAUD
+
+             Sonata  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . _César Franck_
+                            BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+
+Or perhaps this other, which Bauer and I played in Boston, during
+November, 1913:
+
+
+             Kreutzer Sonata  .  .  .  .  . .  _Beethoven_
+                             BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+             Sarabanda }
+             Giga      }  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _J.S. Bach_
+             Chaconne  }
+                              J. THIBAUD
+
+             Kreisleriana  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _Schumann_
+                               H. BAUER
+
+             Sonata  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _César Franck_
+                             BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+
+Either of these programs is artistic from the standpoint of the
+compositions represented. And even these programs are not too
+short--they take almost two hours to play; while for my ideal program an
+hour-and-a-half of beautiful music would suffice. You will notice that I
+believe in playing the big, fine things in music; in serving roasts
+rather than too many _hors d'oeuvres_ and pastry.
+
+"On a solo program, of course, one must make some concessions. When I
+play a violin concerto it seems fair enough to give the public three or
+four nice little things, but--always pieces which are truly musical, not
+such as are only 'ear-ticklers.' Kreisler--he has a great talent for
+transcription--has made charming arrangements. So has Tivadar Nachéz, of
+older things, and Arthur Hartmann. These one can play as well as shorter
+numbers by Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski that are delightful, such as the
+former's _Ballade et Polonaise_, though I know of musical purists who
+disapprove of it. I consider this _Polonaise_ on a level with Chopin's.
+Or take, in the virtuoso field, Sarasate's _Gypsy Airs_--they are equal
+to any Liszt Rhapsody. I have only recently discovered that Ysaye--my
+life-long friend--has written some wonderful original compositions: a
+_Poème élégiaque_, a _Chant d'hiver_, an _Extase_ and a ms. trio for two
+violins and alto that is marvelous. These pieces were an absolute find
+for me, with the exception of the lovely _Chant d'hiver_, which I have
+already played in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin, and expect to
+make a feature of my programs this winter. You see, Ysaye is so modest
+about his own compositions that he does not attempt to 'push' them, even
+with his friends, hence they are not nearly as well known as they
+should be.
+
+"I never play operatic transcriptions and never will. The music of the
+opera, no matter how fine, appears to me to have its proper place on the
+stage--it seems out of place on the violin recital program. The artist
+cannot be too careful in the choice of his shorter program pieces. And
+he can profit by the example set by some of the foremost violinists of
+the day. Ysaye, that great apostle of the truly musical, is a shining
+example. It is sad to see certain young artists of genuine talent
+disregard the remarkable work of their great contemporary, and secure
+easily gained triumphs with compositions whose musical value is _nil_.
+
+"Sometimes the wish to educate the public, to give it a high standard* of
+appreciation, leads an artist astray. I heard a well-known German
+violinist play in Berlin five years ago, and what do you suppose he
+played? Beethoven's _Trios_ transcribed for violin and piano! The last
+thing in the world to play! And there was, to my astonishment, no
+critical disapproval of what he did. I regard it as little less than a
+crime.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "standad".
+
+"But this whole question of programs and repertory is one without end.
+Which of the great concertos do I prefer? That is a difficult question
+to answer off-hand. But I can easily tell you which I like least. It is
+the Tschaikovsky* violin concerto--I would not exchange the first ten
+measures of Vieuxtemps's Fourth concerto for the whole of
+Tschaikovsky's, that is from the musical point of view. I have heard the
+Tschaikovsky played magnificently by Auer and by Elman; but I consider
+it the worst thing the composer has written."
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Tchaikovsky".
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXIV
+
+
+                             GUSTAV SAENGER
+
+                THE EDITOR AS A FACTOR IN "VIOLIN MASTERY"
+
+
+The courts of editorial appeal presided over by such men as Wm. Arms
+Fisher, Dr. Theodore Baker, Gustav Saenger and others, have a direct
+relation to the establishment and maintenance of standards of musical
+mastery in general and, in the case of Gustav Saenger, with "Violin
+Mastery" in particular. For this editor, composer and violinist is at
+home with every detail of the educational and artistic development of
+his instrument, and a considerable portion of the violin music published
+in the United States represents his final and authoritative revision.
+
+"Has the work of the editor any influence on the development of 'Violin
+Mastery'?" was the first question put to Mr. Saenger when he found time
+to see the writer in his editorial rooms. "In a larger sense I think it
+has," was the reply. "Mastery of any kind comes as a result of striving
+for a definite goal. In the case of the violin student the road of
+progress is long, and if he is not to stray off into the numerous
+by-paths of error, it must be liberally provided with sign-posts. These
+sign-posts, in the way of clear and exact indications with regard to
+bowing, fingering, interpretation, it is the editor's duty to erect. The
+student himself must provide mechanical ability and emotional instinct,
+the teacher must develop and perfect them, and the editor must neglect
+nothing in the way of explanation, illustration and example which will
+help both teacher and pupil to obtain more intimate insight into the
+musical and technical values. Yes, I think the editor may claim to be a
+factor in the attainment of 'Violin Mastery.'
+
+
+                         OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES
+
+"The work of the responsible editor of modern violin music must have
+constructive value, it must suggest and stimulate. When Kreutzer,
+Gavinies and Rode first published their work, little stress was laid on
+editorial revision. You will find little in the way of fingering
+indicated in the old editions of Kreutzer. It was not till long after
+Kreutzer's death that his pupil, Massart, published an excellent
+little book, which he called 'The Art of Studying R. Kreutzer's Études'
+and which I have translated. It contains no less than four hundred and
+twelve examples specially designed to aid the student to master the
+_Études_ in the spirit of their composer. Yet these studies, as
+difficult to-day as they were when first written, are old wine that need
+no bush, though they have gained by being decanted into new bottles of
+editorial revision.
+
+          [Illustration: GUSTAV SAENGER, with hand-written note]
+
+"They have such fundamental value, that they allow of infinite variety
+of treatment and editorial presentation. Every student who has reached a
+certain degree of technical proficiency takes them up. Yet when studying
+them for the first time, as a rule it is all he can do to master them in
+a purely superficial way. When he has passed beyond them, he can return
+to them with greater technical facility and, because of their infinite
+variety, find that they offer him any number of new study problems. As
+with Kreutzer--an essential to 'Violin Mastery'--so it is with Rode,
+Fiorillo, and Gavinies. Editorial care has prepared the studies in
+distinct editions, such as those of Hermann and Singer, specifically for
+the student, and that of Emil Kross, for the advanced player. These
+editions give the work of the teacher a more direct proportion of
+result. The difference between the two types is mainly in the fingering.
+In the case of the student editions a simple, practical fingering of
+positive educational value is given; and the student should be careful
+to use editions of this kind, meant for him. Kross provides many of the
+_études_ with fingerings which only the virtuoso player is able to
+apply. Aside from technical considerations the absolute musical beauty
+of many of these studies is great, and they are well suited for solo
+performance. Rode's _Caprices_, for instance, are particularly suited
+for such a purpose, and many of Paganini's famous _Caprices_ have found
+a lasting place in the concert repertory, with piano accompaniments by
+artists like Kreisler, Eddy Brown, Edward Behm and Max Vogrich--- the
+last-named composer's three beautiful 'Characteristic Pieces' after
+Paganini are worth any violinist's attention.
+
+
+                        AMERICAN EDITORIAL IDEALS
+
+"In this country those intrusted with editorial responsibility as
+regards violin music have upheld a truly American standard of
+independent judgment. The time has long since passed when foreign
+editions were accepted on their face value, particularly older works. In
+a word, the conscientious American editor of violin music reflects in
+his editions the actual state of progress of the art of violin playing
+as established by the best teachers and teaching methods, whether the
+works in question represent a higher or lower standard of artistic
+merit.
+
+"And this is no easy task. One must remember that the peculiar
+construction of the violin with regard to its technical possibilities
+makes the presentation of a violin piece difficult from an editorial
+standpoint. A composition may be so written that a beginner can play it
+in the first position; and the same number may be played with beautiful
+effects in the higher positions by an artist. This accounts for the fact
+that in many modern editions of solo music for violin, double
+fingerings, for student and advanced players respectively, are
+indicated--an essentially modern editorial development. Modern
+instructive works by such masters as Sevčik, Eberhardt and others have
+made technical problems more clearly and concisely get-at-able than did
+the older methods. Yet some of these older works are by no means
+negligible, though of course, in all classic violin literature, from
+Tartini on, Kreutzer, Spohr, Paganini, Ernst, each individual artist
+represents his own school, his own method to the exclusion of any other.
+Spohr was one of the first to devote editorial attention to his own
+method, one which, despite its age, is a valuable work, though most
+students do not know how to use it. It is really a method for the
+advanced player, since it presupposes a good deal of preliminary
+technical knowledge, and begins at once with the higher positions. It is
+rather a series of study pieces for the special development of certain
+difficult phases, musical and technical, of the violinist's art, than a
+method. I have translated and edited the American edition of this work,
+and the many explanatory notes with which Spohr has provided* it--as in
+his own 9th, and the Rode concerto (included as representative of what
+violin concertos really should be), the measures being provided with
+group numbers for convenience in reference--are not obsolete. They are
+still valid, and any one who can appreciate the ideals of the
+_Gesangsscene_, its beautiful _cantilene_ and pure serenity, may profit
+by them. I enjoyed editing this work because I myself had studied with
+Carl Richter, a Spohr pupil, who had all his master's traditions.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "provied".
+
+
+                    THE MASTER VIOLINIST AS AN EDITOR
+
+"That the editorial revisions of a number of our greatest living
+violinists and teachers have passed through my editorial rooms, on their
+way to press, is a fact of which I am decidedly proud. Leopold Auer, for
+instance, is one of the most careful, exact and practical of editors,
+and the fact is worth dwelling on since sometimes the great artist or
+teacher quite naturally forgets that those for whom he is editing a
+composition have neither his knowledge nor resources. Auer never loses
+sight of the composer's _own ideas_.
+
+"And when I mention great violinists with whom I have been associated as
+an editor, Mischa Elman must not be forgotten. I found it at first a
+difficult matter to induce an artist like Elman, for whom no technical
+difficulties exist, to seriously consider the limitations of the average
+player in his fingerings and interpretative demands. Elman, like every
+great _virtuoso_ of his caliber, is influenced in his revisions by the
+manner in which he himself does things. I remember in one instance I
+could see no reason why he should mark the third finger for a
+_cantilena_ passage where a certain effect was desired, and questioned
+it. Catching up his violin he played the note preceding it with his
+second finger, then instead of slipping the second finger down the
+string, he took the next note with the third, in such a way that a most
+exquisite _legato_ effect, like a breath, the echo of a sigh, was
+secured. And the beauty of tone color in this instance not only proved
+his point, but has led me invariably to examine very closely a fingering
+on the part of a master violinist which represents a departure from the
+conventional--it is often the technical key to some new beauty of
+interpretation or expression.
+
+"Fritz Kreisler's individuality is also reflected in his markings and
+fingerings. Of course those in his 'educational' editions are strictly
+meant for study needs. But in general they are difficult and based on
+his own manner and style of playing. As he himself has remarked: 'I
+could play the violin just as well with three as with four fingers.'
+Kreisler is fond of 'fingered' octaves, and these, because of his
+abnormal hand, he plays with the first and third fingers, where virtuose
+players, as a rule, are only too happy if they can play them with the
+first and fourth. To verify this individual character of his revisions,
+one need only glance at his edition of Godowsky's '12 Impressions' for
+violin--in every case the fingerings indicated are difficult in the
+extreme; yet they supply the key to definite effects, and since this
+music is intended for the advance player, are quite in order.
+
+"The ms. and revisions of many other distinguished artists have passed
+through my hands. Theodore Spiering has been responsible for the
+educational detail of classic and modern works; Arthur Hartmann--a
+composer of marked originality--Albert Spalding, Eddy Brown, Francis
+MacMillan, Max Pilzer, David Hochstein, Richard Czerwonky, Cecil
+Burleigh, Edwin Grasse, Edmund Severn, Franz C. Bornschein, Leo
+Ornstein, Rubin Goldmark, Louis Pershinger, Louis Victor Saar--whose ms.
+always look as though engraved--have all given me opportunities of
+seeing the best the American violin composer is creating at the present
+time.
+
+
+                        EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES
+
+"The revisional work of the master violinist is of very great
+importance, but often great artists and distinguished teachers hold
+radically different views with regard to practically every detail of
+their art. And it is by no means easy for an editor like myself, who is
+finally responsible for their editions, to harmonize a hundred
+conflicting views and opinions. The fiddlers best qualified to speak
+with authority will often disagree absolutely regarding the use of a
+string, position, up-bow or down-bow. And besides meeting the needs of
+student and teacher, an editor-in-chief must bear in mind the artistic
+requirements of the music itself. In many cases the divergence in
+teaching standards reflects the personal preferences for the editions
+used. Less ambitious teachers choose methods which make the study of the
+violin as _easy_ as possible for _them_; rather than those which--in the
+long run--may be most advantageous for the _pupil_. The best editions of
+studies are often cast aside for trivial reasons, such as are embodied
+in the poor excuse that 'the fourth finger is too frequently indicated.'
+According to the old-time formulas, it was generally accepted that
+ascending passages should be played on the open strings and descending
+ones using the fourth finger. It stands to reason that the use of the
+fourth finger involves more effort, is a greater tax of strength, and
+that the open string is an easier playing proposition. Yet a really
+perfected technic demands that the fourth finger be every bit as strong
+and flexible as any of the others. By nature it is shorter and weaker,
+and beginners usually have great trouble with it--which makes perfect
+control of it all the more essential! And yet teachers, contrary to all
+sound principle and merely to save effort--temporarily--for themselves
+and their pupils, will often reject an edition of a method or book of
+studies merely because in its editing the fourth finger has not been
+deprived of its proper chance of development. I know of cases where,
+were it not for the guidance supplied by editorial revision, the average
+teacher would have had no idea of the purpose of the studies he was
+using. One great feature of good modern editions of classical study
+works, from Kreutzer to Paganini, is the double editorial numeration:
+one giving the sequence as in the original editions; the other numbering
+the studies in order of technical difficulty, so that they may be
+practiced progressively.
+
+
+                 A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF VIOLIN STUDIES
+
+"What special editorial work of mine has given me the greatest personal
+satisfaction in the doing? That is a hard question to answer. Off-hand
+I might say that, perhaps, the collection of progressive orchestral
+studies for advanced violinists which I have compiled and annotated for
+the benefit of the symphony orchestra player is something that has meant
+much to me personally. Years ago, when I played professionally--long
+before the days of 'miniature' orchestra scores--it was almost
+impossible for an ambitious young violinist to acquaint himself with the
+first and second violin parts of the great symphonic works. Prices of
+scores were prohibitive--and though in such works as the Brahms
+symphonies, for instance, the 'concertmaster's' part should be studied
+from score, in its relation to the rest of the _partitura_--often,
+merely to obtain a first violin part, I had to acquire the entire set of
+strings. So when I became an editor I determined, in view of my own
+unhappy experiences and that of many others, to give the aspiring
+fiddler who really wanted to 'get at' the violin parts of the best
+symphonic music, from Bach to Brahms and Richard Strauss, a chance to do
+so. And I believe I solved the problem in the five books of the 'Modern
+Concert-Master,' which includes all those really difficult and important
+passages in the great repertory works of the symphony orchestra that
+offer violinistic problems. My only regret is that the grasping attitude
+of European publishers prevented the representation of certain important
+symphonic numbers. Yet, as it stands, I think I may say that the five
+encyclopedic books of the collection give the symphony concertmaster
+every practical opportunity to gain orchestral routine, and orchestral
+mastery.
+
+
+              A NEW CLASSIFICATION OF VIOLIN LITERATURE
+
+"What I am inclined to consider, however, as even more important, in a
+sense, than my editorial labors is a new educational classification of
+violin literature, one which practically covers the entire field of
+violin music, and upon which I have been engaged for several years.
+Insomuch as an editor's work helps in the acquisition of 'Violin
+Mastery,' I am tempted to think this catalogue will be a contribution of
+real value.
+
+"As far as I know there does not at present exist any guide or hand-book
+of violin literature in which the fundamental question of grading has
+been presented _au fond_. This is not strange, since the task of
+compiling a really valid and logically graded guide-book of violin
+literature is one that offers great difficulties from almost every
+point of view.
+
+"Yet I have found the work engrossing, because the need of a book of the
+kind which makes it easy for the teacher to bring his pupils ahead more
+rapidly and intelligently by giving him an oversight of the entire
+teaching-material of the violin and under clear, practical heads in
+detail order of progression is making itself more urgently felt every
+day. In classification (there are seven grades and a preparatory grade),
+I have not chosen an easier and conventional plan of _general_
+consideration of difficulties; but have followed a more systematic
+scheme, one more closely related to the study of the instrument itself.
+Thus, my 'Preparatory Grade' contains only material which could be
+advantageously used with children and beginners, those still struggling
+with the simplest elementary problems--correct drawing of the bow across
+the open strings, in a certain rhythmic order, and the first use of the
+fingers. And throughout the grades are special sub-sections for special
+difficulties, special technical and other problems. In short, I cannot
+help but feel that I have compiled a real guide, one with a definite
+educational value, and not a catalogue, masquerading as a violinistic
+Baedeker.
+
+
+                 VIOLIN EDITIONS "MADE IN AMERICA"
+
+"One of the most significant features of the violin guide I have
+mentioned is, perhaps, the fact that its contents largely cover the
+whole range of violin literature in American editions. There was a time,
+years ago, when 'made in Germany' was accepted as a certificate of
+editorial excellence and mechanical perfection. Those days have long
+since passed, and the American edition has come into its own. It has
+reached a point of development where it is of far more practical and
+musically stimulating value than any European edition. For American
+editions of violin music do not take so much for granted! They reflect
+in the highest degree the needs of students and players in smaller
+places throughout the country, and where teachers are rare or
+non-existent they do much to supply instruction by meticulous regard for
+all detail of fingering, bowing, phrasing, expression, by insisting in
+explanatory annotation on the correct presentation of authoritative
+teaching ideas and principles. In a broader sense 'Violin Mastery' knows
+no nationality; but yet we associate the famous artists of the day with
+individual and distinctively national trends of development and
+'schools.' In this connection I am convinced that one result of this
+great war of world liberation we have waged, one by-product of the
+triumph of the democratic truth, will be a notably 'American' ideal of
+'Violin Mastery,' in the musical as well as the technical sense. And in
+the development of this ideal I do not think it is too much to claim
+that American editions of violin music, and those who are responsible
+for them, will have done their part."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 15535-0.txt or 15535-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/3/15535/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/15535-0.zip b/15535-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ef5b4d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-0.zip
diff --git a/15535-8.txt b/15535-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..20f223b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6500 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Violin Mastery
+       Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
+
+Author: Frederick H. Martens
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15535]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EUG�NE YSAYE, with hand-written note]
+
+
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+               _TALKS WITH MASTER VIOLINISTS AND TEACHERS_
+
+
+               COMPRISING INTERVIEWS WITH YSAYE, KREISLER,
+                ELMAN, AUER, THIBAUD, HEIFETZ, HARTMANN,
+                        MAUD POWELL AND OTHERS
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          FREDERICK H. MARTENS
+
+                         WITH SIXTEEN PORTRAITS
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                      FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+                               PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+                       _Copyright, 1919, by_
+                    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+        _All rights reserved, including that of translation
+                     into foreign languages_
+
+
+
+
+                               FOREWORD
+
+
+The appreciation accorded Miss Harriette Brower's admirable books on
+PIANO MASTERY has prompted the present volume of intimate _Talks with
+Master Violinists and Teachers_, in which a number of famous artists and
+instructors discuss esthetic and technical phases of the art of violin
+playing in detail, their concept of what Violin Mastery means, and how
+it may be acquired. Only limitation of space has prevented the inclusion
+of numerous other deserving artists and teachers, yet practically all of
+the greatest masters of the violin now in this country are represented.
+That the lessons of their artistry and experience will be of direct
+benefit and value to every violin student and every lover of violin
+music may be accepted as a foregone conclusion.
+
+                                      FREDERICK H. MARTENS.
+    171 Orient Way,
+      Rutherford N.J.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+                                                                   PAGE
+    FOREWORD                                                         v
+
+    EUG�NE YSAYE         The Tools of Violin Mastery                 1
+
+    LEOPOLD AUER         A Method without Secrets                   14
+
+    EDDY BROWN           Hubay and Auer: Technic: Hints
+                           to the Student                           25
+
+    MISCHA ELMAN         Life and Color in Interpretation.
+                           Technical Phases                         38
+
+    SAMUEL GARDNER       Technic and Musicianship                   54
+
+    ARTHUR HARTMANN      The Problem of Technic                     66
+
+    JASCHA HEIFETZ       The Danger of Practicing Too
+                           Much. Technical Mastery and
+                           Temperament                              78
+
+    DAVID HOCHSTEIN      The Violin as a Means of Expression
+                           and Expressive Playing                   91
+
+    FRITZ KREISLER       Personality in Art                         99
+
+    FRANZ KNEISEL        The Perfect String Ensemble               110
+
+    ADOLFO BETTI         The Technic of the Modern Quartet         127
+
+    HANS LETZ            The Technic of Bowing                     140
+
+    DAVID MANNES         The Philosophy of Violin Teaching         146
+
+    TIVADAR NACH�Z       Joachim and L�onard as Teachers           160
+
+    MAXIMILIAN PILZER    The Singing Tone and the Vibrato          177
+
+    MAUD POWELL          Technical Difficulties: Some Hints
+                           for the Concert Player                  183
+
+    LEON SAMETINI        Harmonics                                 198
+
+    ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY  What the Teacher Can and Cannot Do        210
+
+    TOSCHA SEIDEL        How to Study                              219
+
+    EDMUND SEVERN        The Joachim Bowing and Others:
+                           The Left Hand                           227
+
+    ALBERT SPALDING      The Most Important Factor in the
+                           Development of an Artist                240
+
+    THEODORE SPIERING    The Application of Bow Exercises
+                           to the Study of Kreutzer                247
+
+    JACQUES THIBAUD      The Ideal Program                         259
+
+    GUSTAV SAENGER       The Editor as a Factor in "Violin
+                           Mastery"                                277
+
+
+
+
+                                ILLUSTRATIONS
+       Eug�ne Ysaye                                   _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                           FACING
+                                                            PAGE
+       Leopold Auer                                          14
+
+       Mischa Elman                                          38
+
+       Arthur Hartmann                                       66
+
+       Jascha Heifetz                                        78
+
+       Fritz Kreisler                                       100
+
+       Franz Kneisel                                        110
+
+       Adolfo Betti                                         128
+
+       David Mannes                                         146
+
+       Tivadar Nach�z                                       160
+
+       Maud Powell                                          184
+
+       Toscha Seidel                                        220
+
+       Albert Spalding                                      240
+
+       Theodore Spiering                                    248
+
+       Jacques Thibaud                                      260
+
+       Gustav Saenger                                       278
+
+
+
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+                               EUG�NE YSAYE
+
+                        THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+Who is there among contemporary masters of the violin whose name stands
+for more at the present time than that of the great Belgian artist, his
+"extraordinary temperamental power as an interpreter" enhanced by a
+hundred and one special gifts of tone and technic, gifts often alluded
+to by his admiring colleagues? For Ysaye is the greatest exponent of
+that wonderful Belgian school of violin playing which is rooted in his
+teachers Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, and which as Ysaye himself says,
+"during a period covering seventy years reigned supreme at the
+_Conservatoire_ in Paris in the persons of Massart, Remi, Marsick, and
+others of its great interpreters."
+
+What most impresses one who meets Ysaye and talks with him for the
+first time is the mental breadth and vision of the man; his kindness and
+amiability; his utter lack of small vanity. When the writer first called
+on him in New York with a note of introductio from his friend and
+admirer Adolfo Betti, and later at Scarsdale where, in company with his
+friend Thibaud, he was dividing his time between music and tennis, Ysaye
+made him entirely at home, and willingly talked of his art and its
+ideals. In reply to some questions anent his own study years, he said:
+
+"Strange to say, my father was my very first teacher--it is not often
+the case. I studied with him until I went to the Li�ge Conservatory in
+1867, where I won a second prize, sharing it with Ovide Musin, for
+playing Viotti's 22d Concerto. Then I had lessons from Wieniawski in
+Brussels and studied two years with Vieuxtemps in Paris. Vieuxtemps was
+a paralytic when I came to him; yet a wonderful teacher, though he could
+no longer play. And I was already a concertizing artist when I met him.
+He was a very great man, the grandeur of whose tradition lives in the
+whole 'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at his seven
+concertos--of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the
+virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up!
+How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far
+more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only
+Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, did not
+play it as it is now played. In wealth of technical development, in true
+musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof is the fact that
+his works have endured forty to fifty years, a long life for
+compositions.
+
+"Joachim, L�onard, Sivori, Wieniawski--all admired Vieuxtemps. In
+Paganini's and Locatelli's works the effect, comparatively speaking,
+lies in the mechanics; but Vieuxtemps is the great artist who made the
+instrument take the road of romanticism which Hugo, Balzac and Gauthier
+trod in literature. And before all the violin was made to charm, to
+move, and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like Rubinstein, he held that the artist
+must first of all have ideas, emotional power--his technic must be so
+perfected that he does not have to think of it! Incidentally, speaking
+of schools of violin playing, I find that there is a great tendency to
+confuse the Belgian and French. This should not be. They are distinct,
+though the latter has undoubtedly been formed and influenced by the
+former. Many of the great violin names, in fact,--Vieuxtemps, L�onard*,
+Marsick, Remi, Parent, de Broux, Musin, Thomson,--are all Belgian."
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Leonard".
+
+
+                           YSAYE'S REPERTORY
+
+Ysaye spoke of Vieuxtemps's repertory--only he did not call it that: he
+spoke of the Vieuxtemps compositions and of Vieuxtemps himself.
+"Vieuxtemps wrote in the grand style; his music is always rich and
+sonorous. If his violin is really to sound, the violinist must play
+Vieuxtemps, just as the 'cellist plays Servais. You know, in the
+Catholic Church, at Vespers, whenever God's name is spoken, we bow the
+head. And Wieniawski would always bow his head when he said: 'Vieuxtemps
+is the master of us all!'
+
+"I have often played his _Fifth Concerto_, so warm, brilliant and
+replete with temperament, always full-sounding, rich in an almost
+unbounded strength. Of course, since Vieuxtemps wrote his concertos, a
+great variety of fine modern works has appeared, the appreciation of
+chamber-music has grown and developed, and with it that of the sonata.
+And the modern violin sonata is also a vehicle for violin virtuosity in
+the very best meaning of the word. The sonatas of C�sar Franck, d'Indy,
+Th�odore Dubois, Lekeu, Vierne, Ropartz, Lazarri--they are all highly
+expressive, yet at the same time virtuose. The violin parts develop a
+lovely song line, yet their technic is far from simple. Take Lekeu's
+splendid Sonata in G major; rugged and massive, making decided technical
+demands--it yet has a wonderful breadth of melody, a great expressive
+quality of song."
+
+These works--those who have heard the Master play the beautiful Lazarri
+sonata this season will not soon forget it--are all dedicated to Ysaye.
+And this holds good, too, of the C�sar Franck sonata. As Ysaye says:
+"Performances of these great sonatas call for _two_ artists--for their
+piano parts are sometimes very elaborate. C�sar Franck sent me his
+sonata on September 26, 1886, my wedding day--it was his wedding
+present! I cannot complain as regards the number of works, really
+important works, inscribed to me. There are so many--by Chausson (his
+symphony), Ropartz, Dubois (his sonata--one of the best after Franck),
+d'Indy (the _Istar_ variations and other works), Gabriel Faur� (the
+Quintet), Debussy (the Quartet)! There are more than I can recall at
+the moment--violin sonatas, symphonic music, chamber-music, choral
+works, compositions of every kind!
+
+"Debussy, as you know, wrote practically nothing originally for the
+violin and piano--with the exception, perhaps, of a work published by
+Durand during his last illness. Yet he came very near writing something
+for me. Fifteen years ago he told me he was composing a 'Nocturne' for
+me. I went off on a concert tour and was away a long time. When I
+returned to Paris I wrote to Debussy to find out what had become of my
+'Nocturne.' And he replied that, somehow, it had shaped itself up for
+orchestra instead of a violin solo. It is one of the _Trois Nocturnes_
+for orchestra. Perhaps one reason why so much has been inscribed to me
+is the fact that as an interpreting artist, I have never cultivated a
+'specialty.' I have played everything from Bach to Debussy, for real art
+should be international!"
+
+Ysaye himself has an almost marvelous right-arm and fingerboard control,
+which enables him to produce at will the finest and most subtle tonal
+nuances in all bowings. Then, too, he overcomes the most intricate
+mechanical problems with seemingly effortless ease. And his tone has
+well been called "golden." His own definition of tone is worth
+recording. He says it should be "In music what the heart suggests, and
+the soul expresses!"
+
+
+                      THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"With regard to mechanism," Ysaye continued, "at the present day the
+tools of violin mastery, of expression, technic, mechanism, are far more
+necessary than in days gone by. In fact they are indispensable, if the
+spirit is to express itself without restraint. And the greater
+mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that
+suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more
+than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often
+said: _Pas de trait pour le trait--chantez, chantez_! (Not runs for the
+sake of runs--sing, sing!)
+
+"Too many of the technicians of the present day no longer sing. Their
+difficulties--they surmount them more or less happily; but the effect is
+too apparent, and though, at times, the listener may be astonished, he
+can never be charmed. Agile fingers, sure of themselves, and a perfect
+bow stroke are essentials; and they must be supremely able to carry
+along the rhythm and poetic action the artist desires. Mechanism
+becomes, if anything, more accessible in proportion as its domain is
+enriched by new formulas. The violinist of to-day commands far greater
+technical resources than did his predecessors. Paganini is accessible to
+nearly all players: Vieuxtemps no longer offers the difficulties he did
+thirty years ago. Yet the wood-wind, brass and even the string
+instruments subsist in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the
+masters of the past. I often feel that violin teaching to-day endeavors
+to develop the esthetic sense at too early a stage. And in devoting
+itself to the _head_ it forgets the _hands_, with the result that the
+young soldiers of the violinistic army, full of ardor and courage, are
+ill equipped for the great battle of art.
+
+"In this connection there exists an excellent set of _�tudes-Caprices_
+by E. Chaumont, which offer the advanced student new elements and
+formulas of development. Though in some of them 'the frame is too large
+for the picture,' and though difficult from a violinistic point of view,
+'they lie admirably well up the neck,' to use one of Vieuxtemps's
+expressions, and I take pleasure in calling attention to them.
+
+"When I said that the string instruments, including the violin, subsist
+in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the masters of the past, I
+spoke with special regard to technic. Since Vieuxtemps there has been
+hardly one new passage written for the violin; and this has retarded the
+development of its technic. In the case of the piano, men like Godowsky
+have created a new technic for their instrument; but although
+Saint-Sa�ns, Bruch, Lalo and others have in their works endowed the
+violin with much beautiful music, music itself was their first concern,
+and not music for the violin. There are no more concertos written for
+the solo flute, trombone, etc.--as a result there is no new technical
+material added to the resources of these instruments.
+
+"In a way the same holds good of the violin--new works conceived only
+from the musical point of view bring about the stagnation of technical
+discovery, the invention of new passages, of novel harmonic wealth of
+combination is not encouraged. And a violinist owes it to himself to
+exploit the great possibilities of his own instrument. I have tried to
+find new technical ways and means of expression in my own compositions.
+For example, I have written a _Divertiment_ for violin and orchestra in
+which I believe I have embodied new thoughts and ideas, and have
+attempted to give violin technic a broader scope of life and vigor.
+
+"In the days of Viotti and Rode the harmonic possibilities were more
+limited--they had only a few chords, and hardly any chords of the ninth.
+But now harmonic material for the development of a new violin technic is
+there: I have some violin studies, in ms., which I may publish some day,
+devoted to that end. I am always somewhat hesitant about
+publishing--there are many things I might publish, but I have seen so
+much brought out that was banal, poor, unworthy, that I have always been
+inclined to mistrust the value of my own creations rather than fall into
+the same error. We have the scale of Debussy and his successors to draw
+upon, their new chords and successions of fourths and fifths--for new
+technical formulas are always evolved out of and follow after new
+harmonic discoveries--though there is as yet no violin method which
+gives a fingering for the whole-tone scale. Perhaps we will have to wait
+until Kreisler or I will have written one which makes plain the new
+flowering of technical beauty and esthetic development which it brings
+the violin.
+
+"As to teaching violin, I have never taught violin in the generally
+accepted sense of the phrase. But at Godinne, where I usually spent my
+summers when in Europe, I gave a kind of traditional course in the works
+of Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and other masters to some forty or fifty
+artist-students who would gather there--the same course I look forward
+to giving in Cincinnati, to a master class of very advanced pupils. This
+was and will be a labor of love, for the compositions of Vieuxtemps and
+Wieniawski especially are so inspiring and yet, as a rule, they are so
+badly played--without grandeur or beauty, with no thought of the
+traditional interpretation--that they seem the piecework of technic
+factories!
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"When I take the whole history of the violin into account I feel that
+the true inwardness of 'Violin Mastery' is best expressed by a kind of
+threefold group of great artists. First, in the order of romantic
+expression, we have a trinity made up of Corelli, Viotti and Vieuxtemps.
+Then there is a trinity of mechanical perfection, composed of Locatelli,
+Tartini and Paganini or, a more modern equivalent, C�sar Thomson,
+Kubelik and Burmeister. And, finally, what I might call in the order of
+lyric expression, a quartet comprising Ysaye, Thibaud, Mischa Elman and
+Sametini of Chicago, the last-named a wonderfully fine artist of the
+lyric or singing type. Of course there are qualifications to be made.
+Locatelli was not altogether an exponent of technic. And many other fine
+artists besides those mentioned share the characteristics of those in
+the various groups. Yet, speaking in a general way, I believe that these
+groups of attainment might be said to sum up what 'Violin Mastery'
+really is. And a violin master? He must be a violinist, a thinker, a
+poet, a human being, he must have known hope, love, passion and despair,
+he must have run the gamut of the emotions in order to express them all
+in his playing. He must play his violin as Pan played his flute!"
+
+In conclusion Ysaye sounded a note of warning for the too ambitious
+young student and player. "If Art is to progress, the technical and
+mechanical element must not, of course, be neglected. But a boy of
+eighteen cannot expect to express that to which the serious student of
+thirty, the man who has actually lived, can give voice. If the
+violinist's art is truly a great art, it cannot come to fruition in the
+artist's 'teens. His accomplishment then is no more than a promise--a
+promise which finds its realization in and by life itself. Yet Americans
+have the brains as well as the spiritual endowment necessary to
+understand and appreciate beauty in a high degree. They can already
+point with pride to violinists who emphatically deserve to be called
+artists, and another quarter-century of artistic striving may well bring
+them into the front rank of violinistic achievement!"
+
+
+
+
+                                    II
+
+
+                               LEOPOLD AUER
+
+                         A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS
+
+
+When that celebrated laboratory of budding musical genius, the Petrograd
+Conservatory, closed its doors indefinitely owing to the disturbed
+political conditions of Russia, the famous violinist and teacher
+Professor Leopold Auer decided to pay the visit to the United States
+which had so repeatedly been urged on him by his friends and pupils. His
+fame, owing to such heralds as Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Kathleen
+Parlow, Eddy Brown, Francis MacMillan, and more recently Sascha Heifetz,
+Toscha Seidel, and Max Rosen, had long since preceded him; and the
+reception accorded him in this country, as a soloist and one of the
+greatest exponents and teachers of his instrument, has been one justly
+due to his authority and pre�minence.
+
+It was not easy to have a heart-to-heart talk with the Master anent his
+art, since every minute of his time was precious. Yet ushered into
+his presence, the writer discovered that he had laid aside for the
+moment other preoccupations, and was amiably responsive to all
+questions, once their object had been disclosed. Naturally, the first
+and burning question in the case of so celebrated a pedagogue was: "How
+do you form such wonderful artists? What is the secret of your method?"
+
+           [Illustration: LEOPOLD AUER, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                         A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS
+
+"I know," said Professor Auer, "that there is a theory somewhat to the
+effect that I make a few magic passes with the bow by way of
+illustration and--_presto_--you have a Zimbalist or a Heifetz! But the
+truth is I have no method--unless you want to call purely natural lines
+of development, based on natural principles, a method--and so, of
+course, there is no secret about my teaching. The one great point I lay
+stress on in teaching is never to kill the individuality of my various
+pupils. Each pupil has his own inborn aptitudes, his own personal
+qualities as regards tone and interpretation. I always have made an
+individual study of each pupil, and given each pupil individual
+treatment. And always, always I have encouraged them to develop freely
+in their own way as regards inspiration and ideals, so long as this was
+not contrary to esthetic principles and those of my art. My idea has
+always been to help bring out what nature has already given, rather than
+to use dogma to force a student's natural inclinations into channels I
+myself might prefer. And another great principle in my teaching, one
+which is productive of results, is to demand as much as possible of the
+pupil. Then he will give you something!
+
+"Of course the whole subject of violin teaching is one that I look at
+from the standpoint of the teacher who tries to make what is already
+excellent perfect from the musical and artistic standpoint. I insist on
+a perfected technical development in every pupil who comes to me. Art
+begins where technic ends. There can be no real art development before
+one's technic is firmly established. And a great deal of technical work
+has to be done before the great works of violin literature, the sonatas
+and concertos, may be approached. In Petrograd my own assistants, who
+were familiar with my ideas, prepared my pupils for me. And in my own
+experience I have found that one cannot teach by word, by the spoken
+explanation, alone. If I have a point to make I explain it; but if my
+explanation fails to explain I take my violin and bow, and clear up the
+matter beyond any doubt. The word lives, it is true, but often the word
+must be materialized by action so that its meaning is clear. There are
+always things which the pupil must be shown literally, though
+explanation should always supplement illustration. I studied with
+Joachim as a boy of sixteen--it was before 1866, when there was still a
+kingdom of Hanover in existence--and Joachim always illustrated his
+meaning with bow and fiddle. But he never explained the technical side
+of what he illustrated. Those more advanced understood without verbal
+comment; yet there were some who did not.
+
+"As regards the theory that you can tell who a violinist's teacher is by
+the way in which he plays, I do not believe in it. I do not believe that
+you can tell an Auer pupil by the manner in which he plays. And I am
+proud of it since it shows that my pupils have profited by my
+encouragement of individual development, and that they become genuine
+artists, each with a personality of his own, instead of violinistic
+automats, all bearing a marked family resemblance."
+
+Questioned as to how his various pupils reflected different phases of
+his teaching ideals, Professor Auer mentioned that he had long since
+given over passing final decisions on his pupils. "I could express no
+such opinions without unconsciously implying comparisons. And so few
+comparisons really compare! Then, too, mine would be merely an
+individual opinion. Therefore, as has been my custom for years, I will
+continue to leave any ultimate decisions regarding my pupils' playing to
+the public and the press."
+
+
+                            HOURS OF PRACTICE
+
+"How long should the advanced pupil practice?" Professor Auer was asked.
+"The right kind of practice is not a matter of hours," he replied.
+"Practice should represent the utmost concentration of brain. It is
+better to play with concentration for two hours than to practice eight
+without. I should say that four hours would be a good maximum practice
+time--I never ask more of my pupils--and that during each minute of the
+time the brain be as active as the fingers.
+
+
+                NATIONALITY VERSUS THE CONSERVATORY SYSTEM
+
+"I think there is more value in the idea of a national conservatory than
+in the idea of nationality as regards violin playing. No matter what his
+birthplace, there is only one way in which a student can become an
+artist--and that is to have a teacher who can teach! In Europe the best
+teachers are to be found in the great national conservatories. Thibaud,
+Ysaye--artists of the highest type--are products of the conservatory
+system, with its splendid teachers. So is Kreisler, one of the greatest
+artists, who studied in Vienna and Paris. Eddy Brown, the brilliant
+American violinist, finished at the Budapest Conservatory. In the Paris
+Conservatory the number of pupils in a class is strictly limited; and
+from these pupils each professor chooses the very best--who may not be
+able to pay for their course--for free instruction. At the Petrograd
+Conservatory, where Wieniawski preceded me, there were hundreds of free
+scholarships available. If a really big talent came along he always had
+his opportunity. We took and taught those less talented at the
+Conservatory in order to be able to give scholarships to the deserving
+of limited means. In this way no real violinistic genius, whom poverty
+might otherwise have kept from ever realizing his dreams, was deprived
+of his chance in life. Among the pupils there in my class, having
+scholarships, were Kathleen Parlow, Elman, Zimbalist, Heifetz and
+Seidel.
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery? To me it represents the sum total of accomplishment on
+the part of those who live in the history of the Art. All those who may
+have died long since, yet the memory of whose work and whose creations
+still lives, are the true masters of the violin, and its mastery is the
+record of their accomplishment. As a child I remember the well-known
+composers of the day were Marschner, Hiller, Nicolai and others--yet
+most of what they have written has been forgotten. On the other hand
+there are Tartini, Nardini, Paganini, Kreutzer, Dont and Rode--they
+still live; and so do Ernst, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski.
+Joachim (incidentally the only great German violinist of whom I
+know--and he was a Hungarian!), though he had but few great pupils, and
+composed but little, will always be remembered because he, together with
+David, gave violin virtuosity a nobler trend, and introduced a higher
+ideal in the music played for violin. It is men such as these who always
+will remain violin 'masters,' just as 'violin mastery' is defined by
+what they have done."
+
+
+            THE BACH VIOLIN SONATAS AND OTHER COMPOSITIONS
+
+Replying to a question as to the value of the Bach violin sonatas,
+Professor Auer said: "My pupils always have to play Bach. I have
+published my own revision of them with a New York house. The most
+impressive thing about these Bach solo sonatas is they do not need an
+accompaniment: one feels it would be superfluous. Bach composed so
+rapidly, he wrote with such ease, that it would have been no trouble for
+him to supply one had he felt it necessary. But he did not, and he was
+right. And they still must be played as he has written them. We have the
+'modern' orchestra, the 'modern' piano, but, thank heaven, no 'modern'
+violin! Such indications as I have made in my edition with regard to
+bowing, fingering, _nuances_ of expression, are more or less in accord
+with the spirit of the times; but not a single note that Bach has
+written has been changed. The sonatas are technically among the most
+difficult things written for the violin, excepting Ernst and Paganini.
+Not that they are hard in a modern way: Bach knew nothing of harmonics,
+_pizzicati_, scales in octaves and tenths. But his counterpoint, his
+fugues--to play them well when the principal theme is sometimes in the
+outer voices, sometimes in the inner voices, or moving from one to the
+other--is supremely difficult! In the last sonatas there is a larger
+number of small movements--- but this does not make them any easier to
+play.
+
+"I have also edited the Beethoven sonatas together with Rudolph Ganz. He
+worked at the piano parts in New York, while I studied and revised the
+violin parts in Petrograd and Norway, where I spent my summers during
+the war. There was not so much to do," said Professor Auer modestly, "a
+little fingering, some bowing indications and not much else. No reviser
+needs to put any indications for _nuance_ and shading in Beethoven. He
+was quite able to attend to all that himself. There is no composer who
+shows such refinement of _nuance_. You need only to take his quartets
+or these same sonatas to convince yourself of the fact. In my Brahms
+revisions I have supplied really needed fingerings, bowings, and other
+indications! Important compositions on which I am now at work include
+Ernst's fine Concerto, Op. 23, the Mozart violin concertos, and
+Tartini's _Trille du diable_, with a special cadenza for my pupil,
+Toscha Seidel.
+
+
+                          AS REGARDS "PRODIGIES"
+
+"Prodigies?" said Professor Auer. "The word 'prodigy' when applied to
+some youthful artist is always used with an accent of reproach. Public
+and critics are inclined to regard them with suspicion. Why? After all,
+the important thing is not their youth, but their artistry. Examine the
+history of music--you will discover that any number of great masters,
+great in the maturity of their genius, were great in its infancy as
+well. There are Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Rubinstein, d'Albert, Hofmann,
+Scriabine, Wieniawski--they were all 'infant prodigies,' and certainly
+not in any objectionable sense. Not that I wish to claim that every
+_prodigy_ necessarily becomes a great master. That does not always
+follow. But I believe that a musical prodigy, instead of being regarded
+with suspicion, has a right to be looked upon as a striking example of a
+pronounced natural predisposition for musical art. Of course, full
+mental development of artistic power must come as a result of the
+maturing processes of life itself. But I firmly believe that every
+prodigy represents a valuable musical phenomenon, one deserving of the
+keenest interest and encouragement. It does not seem right to me that
+when the art of the prodigy is incontestably great, that the mere fact
+of his youth should serve as an excuse to look upon him with prejudice,
+and even with a certain degree of distrust."
+
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+
+                                EDDY BROWN
+
+                         HUBAY AND AUER: TECHNIC:
+                           HINTS TO THE STUDENT
+
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that Eddy Brown was born in Chicago, Ill., and
+that he is so great a favorite with concert audiences in the land of his
+birth, the gifted violinist hesitates to qualify himself as a strictly
+"American" violinist. As he expresses it: "Musically I was altogether
+educated in Europe--I never studied here, because I left this country at
+the age of seven, and only returned a few years ago. So I would not like
+to be placed in the position of claiming anything under false pretenses!
+
+
+                    HUBAY AND AUER: SOME COMPARISONS
+
+"With whom did I study? With two famous masters; by a strange
+coincidence both Hungarians. First with Jen� Hubay, at the National
+Academy of Music in Budapest, later with Leopold Auer in Petrograd.
+Hubay had been a pupil of Vieuxtemps in Brussels, and is a justly
+celebrated teacher, very thorough and painstaking in explaining to his
+pupils how to do things; but the great difference between Hubay and Auer
+is that while Hubay tells a student how to do things, Auer, a
+temperamental teacher, literally drags out of him whatever there is in
+him, awakening latent powers he never knew he possessed. Hubay is a
+splendid builder of virtuosity, and has a fine sense for phrasing. For a
+year and a half I worked at nothing but studies with him, giving special
+attention to technic. He did not believe in giving too much time to left
+hand development, when without adequate bow technic finger facility is
+useless. Here he was in accord with Auer, in fact with every teacher
+seriously deserving of the name. Hubay was a first-class pedagog, and
+under his instruction one could not help becoming a well-balanced and
+musicianly player. But there is a higher ideal in violin playing than
+mere correctness, and Auer is an inspiring teacher. Hubay has written
+some admirable studies, notably twelve studies for the right hand,
+though he never stressed technic too greatly. On the other hand, Auer's
+most notable contributions to violin literature are his revisions of
+such works as the Bach sonatas, the Tschaikovsky Concerto, etc. In a way
+it points the difference in their mental attitude: Hubay more concerned
+with the technical educational means, one which cannot be overlooked;
+Auer more interested in the interpretative, artistic educational end,
+which has always claimed his attention. Hubay personally was a _grand
+seigneur_, a multi-millionaire, and married to an Hungarian countess. He
+had a fine ear for phrasing, could improvise most interesting violin
+accompaniments to whatever his pupils played, and beside Rode, Kreutzer
+and Fiorillo I studied the concertos and other repertory works with him.
+Then there were the conservatory lessons! Attendance at a European
+conservatory is very broadening musically. Not only does the individual
+violin pupil, for example, profit by listening to his colleagues play in
+class: he also studies theory, musical history, the piano, _ensemble_
+playing, chamber-music and orchestra. I was concertmaster of the
+conservatory orchestra while studying with Hubay. There should be a
+national conservatory of music in this country; music in general would
+advance more rapidly. And it would help teach American students to
+approach the art of violin playing from the right point of view. As it
+is, too many want to study abroad under some renowned teacher not,
+primarily, with the idea of becoming great artists; but in the hope of
+drawing great future commercial dividends from an initial financial
+investment. In Art the financial should always be a secondary
+consideration.
+
+"It stands to reason that no matter how great a student's gifts may be,
+he can profit by study with a great teacher. This, I think, applies to
+all. After I had already appeared in concert at Albert Hall, London, in
+1909, where I played the Beethoven Concerto with orchestra, I decided to
+study with Auer. When I first came to him he wanted to know why I did
+so, and after hearing me play, told me that I did not need any lessons
+from him. But I knew that there was a certain 'something' which I wished
+to add to my violinistic make-up, and instinctively felt that he alone
+could give me what I wanted. I soon found that in many essentials his
+ideas coincided with those of Hubay. But I also discovered that Auer
+made me develop my individuality unconsciously, placing no undue
+restrictions whatsoever upon my manner of expression, barring, of
+course, unmusicianly tendencies. When he has a really talented pupil the
+Professor gives him of his best. I never gave a thought to technic while
+I studied with him--the great things were a singing tone, bowing,
+interpretation! I studied Brahms and Beethoven, and though Hubay always
+finished with the Bach sonatas, I studied them again carefully with
+Auer.
+
+
+                     TECHNIC: SOME HINTS TO THE STUDENT
+
+"At the bottom of all technic lies the scale. And scale practice is the
+ladder by means of which all must climb to higher proficiency. Scales,
+in single tones and intervals, thirds, sixths, octaves, tenths, with the
+incidental changes of position, are the foundation of technic. They
+should be practiced slowly, always with the development of tone in mind,
+and not too long a time at any one session. No one can lay claim to a
+perfected technic who has not mastered the scale. Better a good tone,
+even though a hundred mistakes be made in producing it, than a tone that
+is poor, thin and without quality. I find the Singer _Finger�bungen_ are
+excellent for muscular development in scale work, for imparting the
+great strength which is necessary for the fingers to have; and the
+Kreutzer _�tudes_ are indispensable. To secure an absolute _legato_
+tone, a true singing tone on the violin, one should play scales with a
+perfectly well sustained and steady bow, in whole notes, slowly and
+_mezzo-forte_, taking care that each note is clear and pure, and that
+its volume does not vary during the stroke. The quality of tone must be
+equalized, and each whole note should be 'sung' with a single bowing.
+The change from up-bow to down-bow and _vice versa_ should be made
+without a break, exclusively through skillful manipulation of the wrist.
+To accomplish this unbroken change of bow one should cultivate a loose
+wrist, and do special work at the extreme ends, nut and tip.
+
+"The _vibrato_ is a great tone beautifier. Too rapid or too slow a
+_vibrato_ defeats the object desired. There is a happy medium of
+_tempo_, rather faster than slower, which gives the best results. Carl
+Flesch has some interesting theories about vibration which are worth
+investigating. A slow and a moderately rapid _vibrato, from the wrist_,
+is best for practice, and the underlying idea while working must be
+tone, and not fingerwork.
+
+_Staccato_ is one of the less important branches of bow technic. There
+is a knack in doing it, and it is purely pyrotechnical. _Staccato_
+passages in quantity are only to be found in solos of the virtuoso type.
+One never meets with extended _staccato_ passages in Beethoven, Brahms,
+Bruch or Lalo. And the Saint-Sa�ns's violin concerto, if I remember
+rightly, contains but a single _staccato_ passage.
+
+"_Spiccato_ is a very different matter from _staccato_: violinists as a
+rule use the middle of the bow for _spiccato_: I use the upper third of
+the bow, and thus get most satisfactory results, in no matter what
+_tempo_. This question as to what portion of the bow to use for
+_spiccato_ each violinist must decide for himself, however, through
+experiment. I have tried both ways and find that by the last mentioned
+use of the bow I secure quicker, cleaner results. Students while
+practicing this bowing should take care that the wrist, and never the
+arm, be used. Hubay has written some very excellent studies for this
+form of 'springing bow.'
+
+"The trill, when it rolls quickly and evenly, is a trill indeed! I never
+had any difficulty in acquiring it, and can keep on trilling
+indefinitely without the slightest unevenness or slackening of speed.
+Auer himself has assured me that I have a trill that runs on and on
+without a sign of fatigue or uncertainty. The trill has to be practiced
+very slowly at first, later with increasing rapidity, and always with a
+firm pressure of the fingers. It is a very beautiful embellishment, and
+one much used; one finds it in Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, etc.
+
+"Double notes never seemed hard to me, but harmonics are not as easily
+acquired as some of the other violin effects. I advise pressing down the
+first finger on the strings _inordinately_, especially in the higher
+positions, when playing artificial harmonics. The higher the fingers
+ascend on the strings, the more firmly they should press them, otherwise
+the harmonics are apt to grow shrill and lose in clearness. The majority
+of students have trouble with their harmonics, because they do not
+practice them in this way. Of course the quality of the harmonics
+produced varies with the quality of the strings that produce them. First
+class strings are an absolute necessity for the production of pure
+harmonics. Yet in the case of the artist, he himself is held
+responsible, and not his strings.
+
+"Octaves? Occasionally, as in Auer's transcript of Beethoven's _Dance of
+the Dervishes_, or in the closing section of the Ernst Concerto, when
+they are used to obtain a certain weird effect, they sound well. But
+ordinarily, if cleanly played, they sound like one-note successions. In
+the examples mentioned, the so-called 'fingered octaves,' which are very
+difficult, are employed. Ordinary octaves are not so troublesome. After
+all, in octave playing we simply double the notes for the purpose of
+making them more powerful.
+
+"As regards the playing of tenths, it seems to me that the interval
+always sounds constrained, and hardly ever euphonious enough to justify
+its difficulty, especially in rapid passages. Yet Paganini used this
+awkward interval very freely in his compositions, and one of his
+'Caprices' is a variation in tenths, which should be played more often
+than it is, as it is very effective. In this connection change of
+position, which I have already touched on with regard to scale playing,
+should be so smooth that it escapes notice. Among special effects the
+_glissando_ is really beautiful when properly done. And this calls for
+judgment. It might be added, though, that the _glissando_ is an effect
+which should not be overdone. The _portamento_--gliding from one note to
+another--is also a lovely effect. Its proper and timely application
+calls for good judgment and sound musical taste.
+
+
+                            A SPANISH VIOLIN
+
+"I usually play a 'Strad,' but very often turn to my beautiful
+'Guillami,'" said Mr. Brown when asked about his violins. "It is an old
+Spanish violin, made in Barcelona, in 1728, with a tone that has a
+distinct Stradivarius character. In appearance it closely resembles a
+Guadagnini, and has often been taken for one. When the dealer of whom I
+bought it first showed it to me it was complete--but in four distinct
+pieces! Kubelik, who was in Budapest at the time, heard of it and wanted
+to buy it; but the dealer, as was only right, did not forget that my
+offer represented a prior claim, and so I secured it. The Guadagnini,
+which I have played in all my concerts here, I am very fond of--it has a
+Stradivarius tone rather than the one we usually associate with the
+make." Mr. Brown showed the writer his Grancino, a beautiful little
+instrument about to be sent to the repair shop, since exposure to the
+damp atmosphere of the sea-shore had opened its seams--and the rare and
+valuable Simon bow, now his, which had once been the property of
+Sivori. Mr. Brown has used a wire E ever since he broke six gut strings
+in one hour while at Seal Harbor, Maine. "A wire string, I find, is not
+only easier to play, but it has a more brilliant quality of tone than a
+gut string; and I am now so accustomed to using a wire E, that I would
+feel ill at ease if I did not have one on my instrument. Contrary to
+general belief, it does not sound 'metallic,' unless the string itself
+is of very poor quality.
+
+
+PROGRAMS
+
+"In making up a recital program I try to arrange it so that the first
+half, approximately, may appeal to the more specifically musical part of
+my audience, and to the critics. In the second half I endeavor to
+remember the general public; at the same time being careful to include
+nothing which is not really _musical_. This (Mr. Brown found one of his
+recent programs on his desk and handed it to me) represents a logical
+compromise between the strictly artistic and the more general taste:"
+
+
+                                 PROGRAM
+
+      I. Beethoven .  .  .  .  . Sonata Op. 47 (dedicated to Kreutzer)
+
+     II. Bruch .  .  .  .  .  .  Concerto (G minor)
+
+     III. (a) Beethoven . .  .  . Romance (in G major)
+          (b) Beethoven-Auer  . . Chorus of the Dervishes
+          (c) Brown .  .  .  .  . Rondino (on a Cramer theme)
+          (d) Arbos .  .  .  .  . Tango
+
+     IV. (a) Kreisler  .  .  .  . La Gitana
+         (Arabo-Spanish Gipsy Dance of the 18th Century)
+         (b) Cui .  .  .  .  .  . Orientale
+         (c) Bazzini.  .  .  .  . La Ronde des Lutins
+
+
+"As you see there are two extended serious works, followed by two
+smaller 'groups' of pieces. And these have also been chosen with a view
+to contrast. The _finale_ of the Bruch concerto is an _allegro
+energico_: I follow it with a Beethoven _Romance_, a slow movement. The
+second group begins with a taking Kreisler novelty, which is succeeded
+by another slow number; but one very effective in its working-up; and I
+end my program with a brilliant virtuoso number.
+
+
+                               VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"My own personal conception of violin mastery," concluded Mr. Brown,
+"might be defined as follows: 'An individual tone production, or rather
+tone quality, consummate musicianship in phrasing and interpretation,
+ability to rise above all mechanical and intellectual effort, and
+finally the power to express that which is dictated by one's imagination
+and emotion, with the same natural simplicity and spontaneity with which
+the thought of a really great orator is expressed in the easy,
+unconstrained flow of his language.'"
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+                              MISCHA ELMAN
+
+                    LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION.
+                             TECHNICAL PHASES
+
+
+To hear Mischa Elman on the concert platform, to listen to him play,
+"with all that wealth of tone, emotion and impulse which places him in
+the very foremost rank of living violinists," should be joy enough for
+any music lover. To talk with him in his own home, however, gives one a
+deeper insight into his art as an interpreter; and in the pleasant
+intimacy of familiar conversation the writer learned much that the
+serious student of the violin will be interested in knowing.
+
+
+          [Illustration: MISCHA ELMAN, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                          MANNERISMS IN PLAYING
+
+We all know that Elman, when he plays in public, moves his head, moves
+his body, sways in time to the music; in a word there are certain
+mannerisms associated with his playing which critics have on occasion
+mentioned with grave suspicion, as evidences of sensationalism. Half
+fearing to insult him by asking whether he was "sincere," or whether his
+motions were "stage business" carefully rehearsed, as had been implied,
+I still ventured the question. He laughed boyishly and was evidently
+much amused.
+
+"No, no," he said. "I do not study up any 'stage business' to help out
+my playing! I do not know whether I ought to compare myself to a dancer,
+but the appeal of the dance is in all musical movement. Certain rhythms
+and musical combinations affect me subconsciously. I suppose the direct
+influence of the music on me is such that there is a sort of emotional
+reflex: I move with the music in an unconscious translation of it into
+gesture. It is all so individual. The French violinists as a rule play
+very correctly in public, keeping their eye on finger and bow. And this
+appeals to me strongly in theory. In practice I seem to get away from
+it. It is a matter of temperament I presume. I am willing to believe I'm
+not graceful, but then--I do not know whether I move or do not move!
+Some of my friends have spoken of it to me at various times, so I
+suppose I do move, and sway and all the rest; but any movements of the
+sort must be unconscious, for I myself know nothing of them. And the
+idea that they are 'prepared' as 'stage effects' is delightful!" And
+again Elman laughed.
+
+
+                    LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION
+
+"For that matter," he continued, "every real artist has some mannerisms
+when playing, I imagine. Yet more than mannerisms are needed to impress
+an American audience. Life and color in interpretation are the true
+secrets of great art. And beauty of interpretation depends, first of
+all, on variety of color. Technic is, after all, only secondary. No
+matter how well played a composition be, its performance must have
+color, _nuance_, movement, life! Each emotional mood of the moment must
+be fully expressed, and if it is its appeal is sure. I remember when I
+once played for Don Manuel, the young ex-king of Portugal, in London, I
+had an illustration of the fact. He was just a pathetic boy, very
+democratic, and personally very likable. He was somewhat neglected at
+the time, for it is well known and not altogether unnatural, that
+royalty securely established finds 'kings in exile' a bit embarrassing.
+Don Manuel was a music-lover, and especially fond of Bach. I had had
+long talks with the young king at various times, and my sympathies had
+been aroused in his behalf. On the evening of which I speak I played a
+Chopin _Nocturne_, and I know that into my playing there went some of my
+feeling for the pathos of the situation of this young stranger in a
+strange land, of my own age, eating the bitter bread of exile. When I
+had finished, the Marchioness of Ripon touched my arm: 'Look at the
+King!' she whispered. Don Manuel had been moved to tears.
+
+"Of course the purely mechanical must always be dominated by the
+artistic personality of the player. Yet technic is also an important
+part of interpretation: knowing exactly how long to hold a bow, the most
+delicate inflections of its pressure on the strings. There must be
+perfect sympathy also with the composer's thought; his spirit must stand
+behind the personality of the artist. In the case of certain famous
+compositions, like the Beethoven concerto, for instance, this is so well
+established that the artist, and never the composer, is held responsible
+if it is not well played. But too rigorous an adherence to 'tradition'
+in playing is also an extreme. I once played privately for Joachim in
+Berlin: it was the Bach _Chaconne_. Now the edition I used was a
+standard one: and Joachim was extremely reverential as regards
+traditions. Yet he did not hesitate to indicate some changes which he
+thought should be made in the version of an authoritative edition,
+because 'they sounded better.' And 'How does it sound?' is really the
+true test of all interpretation."
+
+
+               ABSOLUTE PITCH THE FIRST ESSENTIAL OF A
+                           PERFECTED TECHNIC
+
+"What is the fundamental of a perfected violin technic?" was a natural
+question at this point. "Absolute pitch, first of all," replied Elman
+promptly. "Many a violinist plays a difficult passage, sounding every
+note; and yet it sounds out of tune. The first and second movements of
+the Beethoven concerto have no double-stops; yet they are extremely
+difficult to play. Why? Because they call for absolute pitch: they must
+be played in perfect tune so that each tone stands out in all its
+fullness and clarity like a rock in the sea. And without a fundamental
+control of pitch such a master work will always be beyond the
+violinist's reach. Many a player has the facility; but without perfect
+intonation he can never attain the highest perfection. On the other
+hand, any one who can play a single phrase in absolute pitch has the
+first and great essential. Few artists, not barring some of the
+greatest, play with perfect intonation. Its control depends first of all
+on the ear. And a sensitive ear finds differences and shading; it bids
+the violinist play a trifle sharper, a trifle flatter, according to the
+general harmonic color of the accompaniment; it leads him to observe a
+difference, when the harmonic atmosphere demands it, between a C sharp
+in the key of E major and a D flat in the same key.
+
+
+                            TECHNICAL PHASES
+
+"Every player finds some phases of technic easy and others difficult.
+For instance, I have never had to work hard for quality of tone--when I
+wish to get certain color effects they come: I have no difficulty in
+expressing my feelings, my emotions in tone. And in a technical way
+_spiccato_ bowing, which many find so hard, has always been easy to me.
+I have never had to work for it. Double-stops, on the contrary, cost me
+hours of intensive work before I played them with ease and facility.
+What did I practice? Scales in double-stops--they give color and variety
+to tone. And I gave up a certain portion of my regular practice time to
+passages from concertos and sonatas. There is wonderful work in
+double-stops in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini _�tudes_, for
+instance. With octaves and tenths I have never had any trouble: I have a
+broad hand and a wide stretch, which accounts for it, I suppose.
+
+"Then there are harmonics, flageolets--I, have never been able to
+understand why they should be considered so difficult! They should not
+be white, colorless; but call for just as much color as any other tones
+(and any one who has heard Mischa Elman play harmonics knows that this
+is no mere theory on his part). I never think of harmonics as
+'harmonics,' but try to give them just as much expressive quality as the
+notes of any other register. The mental attitude should influence their
+production--too many violinists think of them only as incidental to
+pyrotechnical display.
+
+"And fingering? Fingering in general seems to me to be an individual
+matter. A concert artist may use a certain fingering for a certain
+passage which no pupil should use, and be entirely justified if he can
+thus secure a certain effect.
+
+"I do not--speaking out of my own experience--believe much in methods:
+and never to the extent that they be allowed to kill the student's
+individuality. A clear, clean tone should always be the ideal of his
+striving. And to that end he must see that the up and down bows in a
+passage like the following from the Bach sonata in A minor (and Mr.
+Elman hastily jotted down the subjoined) are absolutely
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+even, and of the same length, played with the same strength and length
+of bow, otherwise the notes are swallowed. In light _spiccato_ and
+_staccato_ the detached notes should be played always with a single
+stroke of the bow. Some players, strange to say, find _staccato_ notes
+more difficult to play at a moderate tempo than fast. I believe it to be
+altogether a matter of control--if proper control be there the tempo
+makes no difference. Wieniawski, I have read, could only play his
+_staccati_ at a high rate of speed. _Spiccato_ is generally held to be
+more difficult than _staccato_; yet I myself find it easier.
+
+
+                        PROPORTION IN PRACTICE
+
+"To influence a clear, singing tone with the left hand, to phrase it
+properly with the bow hand, is most important. And it is a matter of
+proportion. Good phrasing is spoiled by an ugly tone: a beautiful
+singing tone loses meaning if improperly phrased. When the student has
+reached a certain point of technical development, technic must be a
+secondary--yet not neglected--consideration, and he should devote
+himself to the production of a good tone. Many violinists have missed
+their career by exaggerated attention to either bow or violin hand. Both
+hands must be watched at the same time. And the question of proportion
+should always be kept in mind in practicing studies and passages:
+pressure of fingers and pressure of bow must be equalized, coordinated.
+The teacher can only do a certain amount: the pupil must do the rest.
+
+
+                           AUER AS A TEACHER
+
+"Take Auer for example. I may call myself the first real exponent of his
+school, in the sense of making his name widely known. Auer is a great
+teacher, and leaves much to the individuality of his pupils. He first
+heard me play at the Imperial Music School in Odessa, and took me to
+Petrograd to study with him, which I did for a year and four months. And
+he could accomplish wonders! That one year he had a little group of four
+pupils each one better than the other--a very stimulating situation for
+all of them. There was a magnetism about him: he literally hypnotized
+his pupils into doing better than their best--though in some cases it
+was evident that once the support of his magnetic personality was
+withdrawn, the pupil fell back into the level from which he had been
+raised for the time being.
+
+"Yet Auer respected the fact that temperamentally I was not responsive
+to this form of appeal. He gave me of his best. I never practiced more
+than two or three hours a day--just enough to keep fresh. Often I came
+to my lesson unprepared, and he would have me play things--sonatas,
+concertos--which I had not touched for a year or more. He was a severe
+critic, but always a just one.
+
+"I can recall how proud I was when he sent me to beautiful music-loving
+Helsingfors, in Finland--where all seems to be bloodshed and confusion
+now--to play a recital in his own stead on one occasion, and how proud
+he was of my success. Yet Auer had his little peculiarities. I have read
+somewhere that the great fencing-masters of the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries were very jealous of the secrets of their famous
+feints and _ripostes_, and only confided them to favorite pupils who
+promised not to reveal them. Auer had his little secrets, too, with
+which he was loth to part. When I was to make my _d�but_ in Berlin, I
+remember, he was naturally enough interested--since I was his pupil--in
+my scoring a triumph. And he decided to part with some of his treasured
+technical thrusts and parries. And when I was going over the
+Tschaikovsky _D minor concerto_ (which I was to play), he would select a
+passage and say: 'Now I'll play this for you. If you catch it, well and
+good; if not it is your own fault!' I am happy to say that I did not
+fail to 'catch' his meaning on any occasion. Auer really has a wonderful
+intellect, and some secrets well worth knowing. That he is so great an
+artist himself on the instrument is the more remarkable, since
+physically he was not exceptionally favored. Often, when he saw me, he'd
+say with a sigh: 'Ah, if I only had your hand!'
+
+"Auer was a great virtuoso player. He held a unique place in the
+Imperial Ballet. You know in many of the celebrated ballets,
+Tschaikovsky's for instance, there occur beautiful and difficult solos
+for the violin. They call for an artist of the first rank, and Auer was
+accustomed to play them in Petrograd. In Russia it was considered a
+decided honor to be called upon to play one of those ballet solos; but
+in London it was looked on as something quite incidental. I remember
+when Diaghilev presented Tschaikovsky's _Lac des Cygnes_ in London, the
+Grand-Duke Andrew Vladimirev (who had heard me play), an amiable young
+boy, and a patron of the arts, requested me--and at that time the
+request of a Romanov was still equivalent to a command--to play the
+violin solos which accompany the love scenes. It was not exactly easy,
+since I had to play and watch dancers and conductor at the same time.
+Yet it was a novelty for London, however; everybody was pleased and the
+Grand-Duke presented me with a handsome diamond pin as an
+acknowledgment.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"You ask me what I understand by 'Violin Mastery'? Well, it seems to me
+that the artist who can present anything he plays as a distinct
+picture, in every detail, framing the composer's idea in the perfect
+beauty of his plastic rendering, with absolute truth of color and
+proportion--he is the artist who deserves to be called a master!
+
+"Of course, the instrument the artist uses is an important factor in
+making it possible for him to do his best. My violin? It is an authentic
+Strad--dated 1722. I bought it of Willy Burmester in London. You see he
+did not care much for it. The German style of playing is not calculated
+to bring out the tone beauty, the quality of the old Italian fiddles. I
+think Burmester had forced the tone, and it took me some time to make it
+mellow and truly responsive again, but now...." Mr. Elman beamed. It was
+evident he was satisfied with his instrument. "As to strings," he
+continued, "I never use wire strings--they have no color, no quality!
+
+
+                         WHAT TO STUDY AND HOW
+
+"For the advanced student there is a wealth of study material. No one
+ever wrote more beautiful violin music than Haendel, so rich in
+invention, in harmonic fullness. In Beethoven there are more ideas than
+tone--but such ideas! Schubert--all genuine, spontaneous! Bach is so
+gigantic that the violin often seems inadequate to express him. That is
+one reason why I do not play more Bach in public.
+
+"The study of a sonata or concerto should entirely absorb the attention
+of the student to such a degree that, as he is able to play it, it has
+become a part of him. He should be able to play it as though it were an
+improvisation--of course without doing violence to the composer's idea.
+If he masters the composition in the way it should be mastered it
+becomes a portion of himself. Before I even take up my violin I study a
+piece thoroughly in score. I read and reread it until I am at home with
+the composer's thought, and its musical balance and proportion. Then,
+when I begin to play it, its salient points are already memorized, and
+the practicing gives me a kind of photographic reflex of detail. After I
+have not played a number for a long time it fades from my memory--like
+an old negative--but I need only go over it once or twice to have a
+clear mnemonic picture of it once more.
+
+"Yes, I believe in transcriptions for the violin--with certain
+provisos," said Mr. Elman, in reply to another question. "First of all
+the music to be transcribed must lend itself naturally to the
+instrument. Almost any really good melodic line, especially a
+_cantilena_, will sound with a fitting harmonic development. Violinists
+of former days like Spohr, Rode and Paganini were more intent on
+composing music _out of the violin_! The modern idea lays stress first
+of all on the _idea_ in music. In transcribing I try to forget I am a
+violinist, in order to form a perfect picture of the musical idea--its
+violinistic development must be a natural, subconscious working-out. If
+you will look at some of my recent transcripts--the Albaniz _Tango_, the
+negro melody _Deep River_ and Amani's fine _Orientale_--you will see
+what I mean. They are conceived as pictures--I have not tried to analyze
+too much--and while so conceiving them their free harmonic background
+shapes itself for me without strain or effort.
+
+
+                       A REMINISCENCE OF COLONNE
+
+"Conductors with whom I have played? There are many: Hans Richter, who
+was a master of the baton; Nikisch, one of the greatest in conducting
+the orchestral accompaniment to a violin solo number; Colonne of Paris,
+and many others. I had an amusing experience with Colonne once. He
+brought his orchestra to Russia while I was with Auer, and was giving a
+concert at Pavlovsk, a summer resort near Petrograd. Colonne had a
+perfect horror of 'infant prodigies,' and Auer had arranged for me to
+play with his orchestra without telling him my age--I was eleven at the
+time. When Colonne saw me, violin in hand, ready to step on the stage,
+he drew himself up and said with emphasis: 'I play with a prodigy!
+Never!' Nothing could move him, and I had to play to a piano
+accompaniment. After he had heard me play, though, he came over to me
+and said: 'The best apology I can make for what I said is to ask you to
+do me the honor of playing with the _Orchestre Colonne_ in Paris.' He
+was as good as his word. Four months later I went to Paris and played
+the Mendelssohn concerto for him with great success."
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+                             SAMUEL GARDNER
+
+                        TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP
+
+
+Samuel Gardner, though born in Jelisavetgrad, Cherson province, in
+Southern Russia, in 1891, is to all intents and purposes an American,
+since his family, fleeing the tyranny of an Imperialistic regime of
+"pogroms" and "Black Hundreds," brought him to this country when a mere
+child; and here in the United States he has become, to quote Richard
+Aldrich, "the serious and accomplished artist," whose work on the
+concert stage has given such pleasure to lovers of violin music at its
+best. The young violinist, who in the course of the same week had just
+won two prizes in composition--the Pulitzer Prize (Columbia) for a
+string quartet, and the Loeb Prize for a symphonic poem--was amiably
+willing to talk of his study experience for the benefit of other
+students.
+
+
+       CHARLES MARTIN LOEFFLER AND FELIX WINTERNITZ AS TEACHERS
+
+"I took up the study of the violin at the age of seven, and when I was
+nine I went to Charles Martin Loeffler and really began to work
+seriously. Loeffler was a very strict teacher and very exacting, but he
+achieved results, for he had a most original way of making his points
+clear to the student. He started off with the Sevcik studies, laying
+great stress on the proper finger articulation. And he taught me
+absolute smoothness in change of position when crossing the strings. For
+instance, in the second book of Sevcik's 'Technical Exercises,' in the
+third exercise, the bow crosses from G to A, and from D to E, leaving a
+string between in each crossing. Well, I simply could not manage to get
+to the second string to be played without the string in between
+sounding! Loeffler showed me what every good fiddler _must_ learn to do:
+to leap from the end of the down-bow to the up-bow and _vice versa_ and
+then hesitate the fraction of a moment, thus securing a smooth,
+clean-cut tone, without any vibration of the intermediate string.
+Loeffler never gave a pupil any rest until he came up to his
+requirements. I know when I played the seventh and eighth Kreutzer
+studies for him--they are trill studies--he said: 'You trill like an
+electric bell, but not fast enough!' And he kept at me to speed up my
+tempo without loss of clearness or tone-volume, until I could do justice
+to a rapid trill. It is a great quality in a teacher to be literally
+able to _enforce_ the pupil's progress in certain directions; for though
+the latter may not appreciate it at the time, later on he is sure to do
+so. I remember once when he was trying to explain the perfect
+_crescendo_ to me, fire-engine bells began to ring in the distance, the
+sound gradually drawing nearer the house in Charles Street where I was
+taking my lesson. 'There you have it!' Loeffler cried: 'There's your
+ideal _crescendo_! Play it like that and I will be satisfied!' I
+remained with Loeffler a year and a half, and when he went to Paris
+began to study with Felix Winternitz.
+
+"Felix Winternitz was a teacher who allowed his pupils to develop
+individuality. 'I care nothing for theories,' he used to say, 'so long
+as I can see something original in your work!' He attached little
+importance to the theory of technic, but a great deal to technical
+development along individual lines. And he always encouraged me to
+express myself freely, within my limitations, stressing the musical side
+of my work. With him I played through the concertos which, after a time,
+I used for technical material, since every phase of technic and bowing
+is covered in these great works. I was only fifteen when I left
+Winternitz and still played by instinct rather than intellectually. I
+still used my bow arm somewhat stiffly, and did not think much about
+phrasing. I instinctively phrased whatever the music itself made clear
+to me, and what I did not understand I merely played.
+
+
+                       KNEISEL'S TEACHING METHODS
+
+"But when I came to Franz Kneisel, my last teacher, I began to work with
+my mind. Kneisel showed me that I had to think when I played. At first I
+did not realize why he kept at me so insistently about phrasing,
+interpretation, the exact observance of expression marks; but eventually
+it dawned on me that he was teaching me to read a soul into each
+composition I studied.
+
+"I practiced hard, from four to five hours a day. Fortunately, as
+regards technical equipment, I was ready for Kneisel's instruction. The
+first thing he gave me to study was, not a brilliant virtuoso piece, but
+the Bach concerto in E major, and then the Viotti concerto. In the
+beginning, until Kneisel showed me, I did not know what to do with them.
+This was music whose notes in themselves were easy, and whose
+difficulties were all of an individual order. But intellectual analysis,
+interpretation, are Kneisel's great points. A strict teacher, I worked
+with him for five years, the most remarkable years of all my violin
+study.
+
+"Kneisel knows how to develop technical perfection without using
+technical exercises. I had already played the Mendelssohn, Bruch and
+Lalo concertos with Winternitz, and these I now restudied with Kneisel.
+In interpretation he makes clear every phrase in its relation to every
+other phrase and the movement as a whole. And he insists on his pupils
+studying theory and composition--something I had formerly not been
+inclined to take seriously.
+
+"Some teachers are satisfied if the student plays his _notes_ correctly,
+in a general way. With Kneisel the very least detail, a trill, a scale,
+has to be given its proper tone-color and dynamic shading in absolute
+proportion with the balancing harmonies. This trill, in the first
+movement of the Beethoven concerto--(and Mr. Gardner jotted it down)
+
+                    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Kneisel kept me at during the entire lesson, till I was able to adjust
+its tone-color and _nuances_ to the accompanying harmony. Then, though
+many teachers do not know it, it is a tradition in the orchestra to make
+a _diminuendo_ in the sixth measure, before the change of key to C
+major, and this _diminuendo_ should, of course, be observed by the solo
+instrument as well. Yet you will hear well-known artists play the trill
+throughout with a loud, brilliant tone and no dynamic change!
+
+"Kneisel makes it a point to have all his pupils play chamber music
+because of its truly broadening influence. And he is unexcelled in
+taking apart structurally the Beethoven, Brahms, Tschaikovsky and other
+quartets, in analyzing and explaining the wonderful planning and
+building up of each movement. I had the honor of playing second violin
+in the Kneisel Quartet from September to February (1914-1915), at the
+outbreak of the war, a most interesting experience. The musicianship
+Kneisel had given me; I was used to his style and at home with his
+ideas, and am happy to think that he was satisfied. A year later as
+assistant concertmaster in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I had a
+chance to become practically acquainted with the orchestral works of
+Strauss, d'Indy and other moderns, and enjoy the Beethoven, Brahms and
+Tschaikovsky symphonies as a performer.
+
+
+                        TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP
+
+"How do I regard technic now? I think of it in the terms of the music
+itself. Music should dictate the technical means to be used. The
+composition and its phrases should determine bowing and the tone quality
+employed. One should not think of down-bows or up-bows. In the Brahms
+concerto you can find many long phrases: they cannot be played with one
+bow; yet there must be no apparent change of bow. If the player does not
+know what the phrase means; how to interpret it, how will he be able to
+bow it correctly?
+
+"And there are so many different _nuances_, especially in _legato_. It
+is as a rule produced by a slurred bow; yet it may also be produced by
+other bowings. To secure a good _legato_ tone watch the singer. The
+singer can establish the perfect smoothness that _legato_ calls for to
+perfection. To secure a like effect the violinist should convey the
+impression that there is no point, no frog, that the bow he uses is of
+indefinite length. And the violinist should never think: 'I must play
+this up-bow or down-bow.' Artists of the German school are more apt to
+begin a phrase with a down-bow; the French start playing a good deal at
+the point. Up or down, both are secondary to finding out, first of all,
+what quality, what balance of tone the phrase demands. The conductor of
+a symphonic orchestra does not care how, technically, certain effects
+are produced by the violins, whether they use an up-bow or a down-bow.
+He merely says: 'That's too heavy: give me less tone!' The result to be
+achieved is always more important than the manner of achievement.
+
+"All phases of technical accomplishment, if rightly acquired, tend to
+become second nature to the player in the course of time: _staccato_, a
+brilliant trick; _spiccato_, the reiteration of notes played from the
+wrist, etc. The _martellato_, a _nuance_ of _spiccato_, should be played
+with a firm bowing at the point. In a very broad _spiccato_, the arm
+may be brought into play; but otherwise not, since it makes rapid
+playing impossible. Too many amateurs try to play _spiccato_ from the
+arm. And too many teachers are contented with a trill that is merely
+brilliant. Kneisel insists on what he calls a 'musical trill,' of which
+Kreisler's beautiful trill is a perfect example. The trill of some
+violinists is _invariably_ brilliant, whether brilliancy is appropriate
+or not. Brilliant trills in Bach always seem out of place to me; while
+in Paganini and in Wieniawski's _Carnaval de Venise_ a high brilliant
+trill is very effective.
+
+"As to double-stops--Edison once said that violin music should be
+written only in double-stops--I practice them playing first the single
+notes and then the two together, and can recommend this mode of practice
+from personal experience. Harmonics, where clarity is the most important
+thing, are mainly a matter of bowing, of a sure attack and sustaining by
+the bow. Of course the harmonics themselves are made by the fingers; but
+their tone quality rests altogether with the bow.
+
+
+                          EDISON AND OCTAVES
+
+"The best thing I've ever heard said of octaves was Edison's remark to
+me that 'They are merely a nuisance and should not be played!' I was
+making some records for him during the experimental stage of the disk
+record, when he was trying to get an absolutely smooth _legato_ tone,
+one that conformed to Loeffler's definition of it as 'no breaks' in the
+tone. He had had Schubert's _Ave Maria_ recorded by Flesch, MacMillan
+and others, and wanted me to play it for him. The records were all
+played for me, and whenever he came to the octave passages Edison would
+say: 'Listen to them! How badly they sound!' Yet the octaves were
+absolutely in tune! 'Why do they sound so badly?' I inquired.
+
+"Then Edison explained to me that according to the scientific theory of
+vibration, the vibrations of the higher tone of the octaves should be
+exactly twice those of the lower note. 'But here,' he continued, 'the
+vibrations of the notes all vary.' 'Yet how can the player control his
+fingers in the _vibrato_ beyond playing his octaves in perfect tune?' I
+asked. 'Well, if he cannot do so,' said Edison, 'octaves are merely a
+nuisance, and should not be played at all.' I experimented and found
+that by simply pressing down the fingers and playing without any
+_vibrato_, I could come pretty near securing the exact relation between
+the vibrations of the upper and lower notes but--they sounded dreadful!
+Of course, octaves sound well in _ensemble_, especially in the
+orchestra, because each player plays but a single note. And tenths sound
+even better than octaves when two people play them.
+
+
+                          WIRE AND GUT STRINGS
+
+"You ask about my violin? It belonged to the famous Hawley collection,
+and is a Giovanni Baptista Guadignini, made in 1780, in Turin. The back
+is a single piece of maple-wood, having a broadish figure extending
+across its breadth. The maple-wood sides match the back. The top is
+formed of a very choice piece of spruce, and it is varnished a deep
+golden-red. It has a remarkably fine tone, very vibrant and with great
+carrying power, a tone that has all that I can ask for as regards volume
+and quality.
+
+"I think that wire strings are largely used now-a-days because gut
+strings are hard to obtain--not because they are better. I do not use
+wire strings. I have tried them and find them thin in tone, or so
+brilliant that their tone is too piercing. Then, too, I find that the
+use of a wire E reduces the volume of tone of the other strings. No
+wire string has the quality of a fine gut string; and I regard them only
+as a substitute in the case of some people, and a convenience for lazy
+ones.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? Off-hand I might say the phrase stands for a life-time
+of effort with its highest aims unattained. As I see it the achievement
+of violin mastery represents a combination of 90 per cent. of toil and
+10 per cent. of talent or inspiration. Goetschius, with whom I studied
+composition, once said to me: 'I do not congratulate you on having
+talent. That is a gift. But I do congratulate you on being able to work
+hard!' The same thing applies to the fiddle. It seems to me that only by
+keeping everlastingly at it can one become a master of the instrument."
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+                            ARTHUR HARTMANN
+
+                        THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC
+
+
+Arthur Hartmann is distinctly and unmistakably a personality. He stands
+out even in that circle of distinguished contemporary violinists which
+is so largely made up of personalities. He is a composer--not only of
+violin pieces, but of symphonic and choral works, chamber music, songs
+and piano numbers. His critical analysis of Bach's _Chaconne_,
+translated into well-nigh every tongue, is probably the most complete
+and exhaustive study of "that triumph of genius over matter" written.
+And besides being a master of his own instrument he plays the _viola
+d'amore_, that sweet-toned survival, with sympathetic strings, of the
+17th century viol family, and the Hungarian _czimbalom_. Nor is his
+mastery of the last-named instrument "out of drawing," for we must
+remember that Mr. Hartmann was born in Mat� Szalka, in Southern Hungary.
+Then, too, Mr. Hartmann is a genial and original thinker, a
+_litt�rateur_ of no mean ability, a bibliophile, the intimate of the
+late Claude Debussy, and of many of the great men of musical Europe. Yet
+from the reader's standpoint the interest he inspires is, no doubt,
+mainly due to the fact that not only is he a great interpreting
+artist--but a great artist doubled by a great teacher, an unusual
+combination.
+
+     [Illustration: _Photo by E.F. Foley, N.Y._ ARTHUR HARTMANN,
+                        with hand-written note]
+
+Characteristic of Mr. Hartmann's hospitality (the writer had passed a
+pleasant hour with him some years before, but had not seen him since),
+was the fact that he insisted in brewing Turkish coffee, and making his
+caller feel quite at home before even allowing him to broach the subject
+of his visit. And when he learned that its purpose was to draw on his
+knowledge and experience for information which would be of value to the
+serious student and lover of his art, he did not refuse to respond.
+
+
+                     WHAT VIOLIN PLAYING REALLY IS
+
+"Violin playing is really no abstract mystery. It's as clear as
+geography in a way: one might say the whole art is bounded on the South
+by the G string, on the North by the E string, on the West by the
+string hand--and that's about as far as the comparison may be carried
+out. The point is, there are definite boundaries, whose technical and
+esthetic limits may be extended, and territorial annexations made
+through brain power, mental control. To me 'Violin Mastery' means taking
+this little fiddle-box in hand [and Mr. Hartmann suited action to word
+by raising the lid of his violin-case and drawing forth his beautiful
+1711 Strad], and doing just what I want with it. And that means having
+the right finger on the right place at the right time--but don't forget
+that to be able to do this you must have forgotten to think of your
+fingers as fingers. They should be simply unconscious slaves of the
+artist's psychic expression, absolutely subservient to his ideal. Too
+many people reverse the process and become slaves to their fingers.
+
+
+                         THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC
+
+"Technic, for instance, in its mechanical sense, is a much exaggerated
+microbe of _Materia musica_. All technic must conform to its
+instrument.[A] The violin was made to suit the hand, not the hand to
+suit the violin, hence its technic must be based on a natural logic of
+hand movement. The whole problem of technical control is encountered in
+the first change of position on the violin. If we violinists could play
+in but one position there would be no technical problem. The solution of
+this problem means, speaking broadly, the ability to play the
+violin--for there is only one way of playing it--with a real, full,
+singing 'violin' tone. It's not a question of a method, but just a
+process based on pure reason, the working out of rational principles.
+
+[Footnote A: This is the idea which underlies my system for ear-training
+and absolute pitch, "Arthur Hartmann's System," as I call it, which I
+have published. A.H.]
+
+"What is the secret of this singing tone? Well, you may call it a
+secret, for many of my pupils have no inkling of it when they first come
+here, though it seems very much of an 'open secret' to me. The finished
+beauty of the violin 'voice' is a round, sustained, absolutely smooth
+_cantabile_ tone. Now [Mr. Hartmann took up his Strad], I'll play you
+the scale of G as the average violin student plays it. You see--each
+slide from one tone to the next, a break--a rosary of lurches! How can
+there be a round, harmonious tone when the fingers progress by jerks?
+Shifting position must not be a continuous movement of effort, but a
+continuous movement in which effort and relaxation--that of dead
+weight--alternate. As an illustration, when we walk we do not
+consciously set down one foot, and then swing forward the other foot and
+leg with a jerk. The forward movement is smooth, unconscious,
+coordinated: in putting the foot forward it carries the weight of the
+entire body, the movement becomes a matter of instinct. And the same
+applies to the progression of the fingers in shifting the position of
+the hand. Now, playing the scale as I now do--only two fingers should be
+used--
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+I prepare every shift. Absolute accuracy of intonation and a singing
+legato is the result. These guiding notes indicated are merely a test to
+prove the scientific spacing of the violin; they are not sounded once
+control of the hand has been obtained. _They serve only to accustom the
+fingers to keep moving in the direction in which they are going_.
+
+"The tone is produced by the left hand, by the weight of the fingers
+plus an undercurrent of sustained effort. Now, you see, _if in the
+moment of sliding you prepare the bow for the next string, the slide
+itself is lost in the crossing of the bow_. To carry out consistently
+this idea of effort and relaxation in the downward progression of the
+scale, you will find that when you are in the third position, the
+position of the hand is practically the same as in the first position.
+Hence, in order to go down from third to first position with the hand in
+what might be called a 'block' position, another movement is called for
+to bridge over this space (between third and first position), and this
+movement is the function of the thumb. The thumb, preceding the hand,
+relaxes the wrist and helps draw the hand back to first position. But
+great care must be taken that the thumb is not moved until the first
+finger will have been played; otherwise there will be a tendency to
+flatten. In the illustration the indication for the thumb is placed
+after the note played by the first finger.
+
+"The inviolable law of beautiful playing is that there must be no
+angles. As I have shown you, right and left hand co�rdinate. The fiddle
+hand is preparing the change of position, while the change of strings is
+prepared by the right hand. And always the slides in the left hand are
+prepared by the last played finger--_the last played finger is the true
+guide to smooth progression_--just as the bow hand prepares the slides
+in the last played bowing. There should be no such thing as jumping and
+trusting in Providence to land right, and a curse ought to be laid on
+those who let their fingers leave the fingerboard. None who develop this
+fundamental aspect of all good playing lose the perfect control of
+position.
+
+"Of course there are a hundred _nuances_ of technic (into which the
+quality of good taste enters largely) that one could talk of at length:
+phrasing, and the subtle things happening in the bow arm that influence
+it; _spiccato_, whose whole secret is finding the right point of balance
+in the bow and, with light finger control, never allowing it to leave
+the string. I've never been able to see the virtue of octaves or the
+logic of double-stops. Like tenths, one plays or does not play them. But
+do they add one iota of beauty to violin music? I doubt it! And, after
+all, it is the poetry of playing that counts. All violin playing in its
+essence is the quest for color; its perfection, that subtle art which
+hides art, and which is so rarely understood."
+
+"Could you give me a few guiding rules, a few Beatitudes, as it were,
+for the serious student to follow?" I asked Mr. Hartmann. Though the
+artist smiled at the idea of Beatitudes for the violinist, yet he was
+finally amiable enough to give me the following, telling me I would have
+to take them for what they were worth:
+
+
+                   NINE BEATITUDES FOR VIOLINISTS
+
+"Blessed are they who early in life approach Bach, for their love and
+veneration for music will multiply with the years.
+
+"Blessed are they who remember their own early struggles, for their
+merciful criticism will help others to a greater achievement and
+furtherance of the Divine Art.
+
+"Blessed are they who know their own limitations, for they shall have
+joy in the accomplishment of others.
+
+"Blessed are they who revere the teachers--their own or those of
+others--and who remember them with credit.
+
+"Blessed are they who, revering the old masters, seek out the newer ones
+and do not begrudge them a hearing or two.
+
+"Blessed are they who work in obscurity, nor sound the trumpet, for Art
+has ever been for the few, and shuns the vulgar blare of ignorance.
+
+"Blessed are they whom men revile as futurists and modernists, for Art
+can evolve only through the medium of iconoclastic spirits.
+
+"Blessed are they who unflinchingly serve their Art, for thus only is
+their happiness to be gained.
+
+"Blessed are they who have many enemies, for square pegs will never fit
+into round holes."
+
+
+                      ARRANGING VERSUS TRANSCRIBING
+
+Arthur Hartmann, like Kreisler, Elman, Maud Powell and others of his
+colleagues, has enriched the literature of the violin with some notably
+fine transcriptions. And it is a subject on which he has well-defined
+opinions and regarding which he makes certain distinctions: "An
+'arrangement,'" he said, "as a rule, is a purely commercial affair, into
+which neither art nor �sthetics enter. It usually consists in writing
+off the melody of a song--in other words, playing the 'tune' on an
+instrument instead of hearing it sung with words--or in the case of a
+piano composition, in writing off the upper voice, leaving the rest
+intact, regardless of sonority, tone-color or even effectiveness, and,
+furthermore, without consideration of the idiomatic principles of the
+instrument to which the adaptation was meant to fit.
+
+"A 'transcription,' on the other hand, can be raised to the dignity of
+an art-work. Indeed, at times it may even surpass the original, in the
+quality of thought brought into the work, the delicate and sympathetic
+treatment and by the many subtleties* which an artist can introduce to
+make it thoroughly a _re-creation_ of his chosen instrument.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "subleties".
+
+"It is the transcriber's privilege--providing he be sufficiently the
+artist to approach the personality of another artist with reverence--to
+donate his own gifts of ingenuity, and to exercise his judgment in
+either adding, omitting, harmonically or otherwise embellishing the work
+(_while preserving the original idea and characteristics_), so as to
+thoroughly _re-create_ it, so completely destroying the very sensing of
+the original _timbre_ that one involuntarily exclaims, 'Truly, this
+never was anything but a violin piece!' It is this, the blending and
+fusion of two personalities in the achievement of an art-ideal, that is
+the result of a true adaptation.
+
+"Among the transcriptions I have most enjoyed making were those of
+Debussy's _Il pleure dans mon coeur_, and _La Fille aux cheveaux de
+lin_. Debussy was my cherished friend, and they represent a labor of
+love. Though Debussy was not, generally speaking, an advocate of
+transcriptions, he liked these, and I remember when I first played _La
+Fille aux cheveaux de lin_ for him, and came to a bit of counterpoint I
+had introduced in the violin melody, whistling the harmonics, he nodded
+approvingly with a '_pas b�te �a!_' (Not stupid, that!)
+
+
+                      DEBUSSY'S PO�ME FOR VIOLIN
+
+"Debussy came near writing a violin piece for me once!" continued Mr.
+Hartmann, and brought out a folio containing letters the great
+impressionist had written him. They were a delightful revelation of the
+human side of Debussy's character, and Mr. Hartmann kindly consented to
+the quotation of one bearing on the _Po�me_ for violin which Debussy had
+promised to write for him, and which, alas, owing to his illness and
+other reasons, never actually came to be written:
+
+     "Dear Friend:
+
+     "Of course I am working a great deal now, because I feel
+     the need of writing music, and would find it difficult
+     to build an aeroplane; yet at times Music is ill-natured,
+     even toward those who love her most! Then I take my
+     little daughter and my hat and go walking in the Bois de
+     Boulogne, where one meets people who have come from afar
+     to bore themselves in Paris.
+
+     "I think of you, I might even say I am in need of you
+     (assume an air of exaltation and bow, if you please!) As
+     to the _Po�me_ for violin, you may rest assured that I
+     will write it. Only at the present moment I am so
+     preoccupied with the 'Fall of the House of Usher!' They
+     talk too much to me about it. I'll have to put an end to
+     all that or I will go mad. Once more I want to write it,
+     and above all _on your account_. And I believe you will
+     be the only one to play the _Po�me_. Others will attempt
+     it, and then quickly return to the Mendelssohn Concerto!
+
+     "Believe me always your sincere friend,
+
+                                         "CLAUDE DEBUSSY."
+
+"He never did write it," said Mr. Hartmann, "but it was not for want of
+good will. As to other transcriptions, I have never done any that I did
+not feel instinctively would make good fiddle pieces, such as
+MacDowell's _To a Wild Rose_ and others of his compositions. And
+recently I have transcribed some fine Russian things--Gretchaninoff's
+_Chant d'Automne_, Karagitscheff's _Exaltation_, Tschaikovsky's
+_Humoresque_, Balakirew's _Chant du Pech�ur_, and Poldini's little
+_Poup�e valsante_, which Maud Powell plays so delightfully on all her
+programs."
+
+
+
+
+                                   VII
+
+
+                              JASCHA HEIFETZ
+
+                    THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH.
+                          TECHNICAL MASTERY AND
+                               TEMPERAMENT
+
+
+Mature in virtuosity--the modern virtuosity which goes so far beyond the
+mere technical mastery that once made the term a reproach--though young
+in years, Jascha Heifetz, when one makes his acquaintance "off-stage,"
+seems singularly modest about the great gifts which have brought him
+international fame. He is amiable, unassuming and--the best proof,
+perhaps, that his talent is a thing genuine and inborn, not the result
+of a forcing process--he has that broad interest in art and in life
+going far beyond his own particular medium, the violin, without which no
+artist may become truly great. For Jascha Heifetz, with his wonderful
+record of accomplishment achieved, and with triumphs still to come
+before him, does not believe in "all work and no play."
+
+        [Illustration: JASCHA HEIFETZ, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                    THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH
+
+He laughed when I put forward the theory that he worked many hours a
+day, perhaps as many as six or eight? "No," he said, "I do not think I
+could ever have made any progress if I had practiced six hours a day. In
+the first place I have never believed in practicing too much--it is just
+as bad as practicing too little! And then there are so many other things
+I like to do. I am fond of reading and I like sport: tennis, golf,
+bicycle riding, boating, swimming, etc. Often when I am supposed to be
+practicing hard I am out with my camera, taking pictures; for I have
+become what is known as a 'camera fiend.' And just now I have a new car,
+which I have learned to drive, and which takes up a good deal of my
+time. I have never believed in grinding. In fact I think that if one has
+to work very hard to get his piece, it will show in the execution. To
+interpret music properly, it is necessary to eliminate mechanical
+difficulty; the audience should not feel the struggle of the artist with
+what are considered hard passages. I hardly ever practice more than
+three hours a day on an average, and besides, I keep my Sunday when I
+do not play at all, and sometimes I make an extra holiday. As to six or
+seven hours a day, I would not have been able to stand it at all."
+
+I implied that what Mr. Heifetz said might shock thousands of aspiring
+young violinists for whom he pointed a moral: "Of course," his answer
+was, "you must not take me too literally. Please do not think because I
+do not favor overdoing practicing that one can do without it. I'm quite
+frank to say I could not myself. But there is a happy medium. I suppose
+that when I play in public it looks easy, but before I ever came on the
+concert stage I worked very hard. And I do yet--but always putting the
+two things together, mental work and physical work. And when a certain
+point of effort is reached in practice, as in everything else, there
+must be relaxation.
+
+
+                  THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUOSE TECHNIC
+
+"Have I what is called a 'natural' technic? It is hard for me to say,
+perhaps so. But if such is the case I had to develop it, to assure it,
+to perfect it. If you start playing at three, as I did, with a little
+violin one-quarter of the regular size, I suppose violin playing becomes
+second nature in the course of time. I was able to find my way about in
+all seven positions within a year's time, and could play the Kayser
+_�tudes_; but that does not mean to say I was a virtuoso by any means.
+
+"My first teacher? My first teacher was my father, a good violinist and
+concertmaster of the Vilna Symphony Orchestra. My first appearance in
+public took place in an overcrowded auditorium of the Imperial Music
+School in Vilna, Russia, when I was not quite five. I played the
+_Fantaisie Pastorale_ with piano accompaniment. Later, at the age of
+six, I played the Mendelssohn concerto in Kovno to a full house.
+Stage-fright? No, I cannot say I have ever had it. Of course, something
+may happen to upset one before a concert, and one does not feel quite at
+ease when first stepping on the stage; but then I hope that is not
+stage-fright!
+
+"At the Imperial Music School in Vilna, and before, I worked at all the
+things every violinist studies--I think that I played almost everything.
+I did not work too hard, but I worked hard enough. In Vilna my teacher
+was Malkin, a pupil of Professor Auer, and when I had graduated from the
+Vilna school I went to Auer. Did I go directly to his classes? Well,
+no, but I had only a very short time to wait before I joined the
+classes conducted by Auer personally.
+
+
+                       PROFESSOR AUER AS A TEACHER
+
+"Yes, he is a wonderful and an incomparable teacher; I do not believe
+there is one in the world who can possibly approach him. Do not ask me
+just how he does it, for I would not know how to tell you. But he is
+different with each pupil--perhaps that is one reason he is so great a
+teacher. I think I was with Professor Auer about six years, and I had
+both class lessons and private lessons of him, though toward the end my
+lessons were not so regular. I never played exercises or technical works
+of any kind for the Professor, but outside of the big things--the
+concertos and sonatas, and the shorter pieces which he would let me
+prepare--I often chose what I wanted.
+
+"Professor Auer was a very active and energetic teacher. He was never
+satisfied with a mere explanation, unless certain it was understood. He
+could always show you himself with his bow and violin. The Professor's
+pupils were supposed to have been sufficiently advanced in the technic
+necessary for them to profit by his wonderful lessons in
+interpretation. Yet there were all sorts of technical _finesses_ which
+he had up his sleeve, any number of fine, subtle points in playing as
+well as interpretation which he would disclose to his pupils. And the
+more interest and ability the pupil showed, the more the Professor gave
+him of himself! He is a very great teacher! Bowing, the true art of
+bowing, is one of the greatest things in Professor Auer's teaching. I
+know when I first came to the Professor, he showed me things in bowing I
+had never learned in Vilna. It is hard to describe in words (Mr. Heifetz
+illustrated with some of those natural, unstrained movements of arm and
+wrist which his concert appearances have made so familiar), but bowing
+as Professor Auer teaches it is a very special thing; the movements of
+the bow become more easy, graceful, less stiff.
+
+"In class there were usually from twenty-five to thirty pupils. Aside
+from what we each gained individually from the Professor's criticism and
+correction, it was interesting to hear the others who played before
+one's turn came, because one could get all kinds of hints from what
+Professor Auer told them. I know I always enjoyed listening to Poliakin,
+a very talented violinist, and C�cile Hansen, who attended the classes
+at the same time I did. The Professor was a stern and very exacting, but
+a sympathetic, teacher. If our playing was not just what it should be he
+always had a fund of kindly humor upon which to draw. He would
+anticipate our stock excuses and say: 'Well, I suppose you have just had
+your bow rehaired!' or 'These new strings are very trying,' or 'It's the
+weather that is against you again, is it not?' or something of the kind.
+Examinations were not so easy: we had to show that we were not only
+soloists, but also sight readers of difficult music.
+
+
+                          A DIFFICULTY OVERCOME
+
+"The greatest technical difficulty I had when I was studying?" Jascha
+Heifetz tried to recollect, which was natural, seeing that it must have
+been one long since overcome. Then he remembered, and smiled:
+"_Staccato_ playing. To get a good _staccato_, when I first tried seemed
+very hard to me. When I was younger, really, at one time I had a very
+poor _staccato_!" [I assured the young artist that any one who heard him
+play here would find it hard to believe this.] "Yes, I did," he
+insisted, "but one morning, I do not know just how it was--I was
+playing the _cadenza_ in the first movement of Wieniawski's F{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~} minor
+concerto,--it is full of _staccatos_ and double stops--the right way of
+playing _staccato_ came to me quite suddenly, especially after Professor
+Auer had shown me his method.
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? To me it means the ability to make the violin a
+perfectly controlled instrument guided by the skill and intelligence of
+the artist, to compel it to respond in movement to his every wish. The
+artist must always be superior to his instrument, it must be his
+servant, one that he can do with what he will.
+
+
+                    TECHNICAL MASTERY AND TEMPERAMENT
+
+"It appears to me that mastery of the technic of the violin is not so
+much of a mechanical accomplishment as it is of mental nature. It may be
+that scientists can tell us how through persistency the brain succeeds
+in making the fingers and the arms produce results through the infinite
+variety of inexplicable vibrations. The sweetness of tone, its
+melodiousness, its _legatos_, octaves, trills and harmonics all bear
+the mark of the individual who uses his strings like his vocal chords.
+When an artist is working over his harmonics, he must not be impatient
+and force purity, pitch, or the right intonation. He must coax the tone,
+try it again and again, seek for improvements in his fingering as well
+as in his bowing at the same time, and sometimes he may be surprised
+how, quite suddenly, at the time when he least expects it, the result
+has come. More than one road leads to Rome! The fact is that when you
+get it, you have it, that's all! I am perfectly willing to disclose to
+the musical profession all the secrets of the mastery of violin technic;
+but are there any secrets in the sense that some of the uninitiated take
+them? If an artist happens to excel in some particular, he is at once
+suspected of knowing some secret means of so doing. However, that may
+not be the case. He does it just because it is in him, and as a rule he
+accomplishes this through his mental faculties more than through his
+mechanical abilities. I do not intend to minimize the value of great
+teachers who prove to be important factors in the life of a musician;
+but think of the vast army of pupils that a master teacher brings
+forth, and listen to the infinite variety of their _spiccatos_,
+octaves, _legatos_, and trills! For the successful mastery of violin
+technic let each artist study carefully his own individuality, let him
+concentrate his mental energy on the quality of pitch he intends to
+produce, and sooner or later he will find his way of expressing himself.
+Music is not only in the fingers or in the elbow. It is in that
+mysterious EGO of the man, it is his soul; and his body is like his
+violin, nothing but a tool. Of course, the great master must have the
+tools that suit him best, and it is the happy combination that makes for
+success.
+
+"By the vibrations and modulations of the notes one may recognize the
+violinist as easily as we recognize the singer by his voice. Who can
+explain how the artist harmonizes the trilling of his fingers with the
+emotions of his soul?
+
+"An artist will never become great through mere imitation, and never
+will he be able to attain the best results only by methods adopted by
+others. He must have his own initiative, although he will surely profit
+by the experience of others. Of course there are standard ways of
+approaching the study of violin technic; but these are too well known to
+dwell upon them: as to the niceties of the art, they must come from
+within. You can make a musician but not an artist!
+
+
+                          REPERTORY AND PROGRAMS
+
+"Which of the master works do I like best? Well, that is rather hard to
+answer. Each master work has its own beauties. Naturally one likes best
+what one understands best, I prefer to play the classics like Brahms,
+Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, etc. However, I played Bruch's G
+minor in 1913 at the Leipzig Gewandhouse with Nikisch, where I was told
+that Joachim was the only other violinist as young as myself to appear
+there as soloist with orchestra; there is the Tschaikovsky concerto
+which I played in Berlin in 1912, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
+with Nikisch. Alsa Bruch's D minor and many more. I played the
+Mendelssohn concerto in 1914, in Vienna, with Safonoff as conductor.
+Last season in Chicago I played the Brahms concerto with a fine and very
+elaborate _cadenza_ by Professor Auer. I think the Brahms concerto for
+violin is like Chopin's music for piano, in a way, because it stands
+technically and musically for something quite different and distinct
+from other violin music, just as Chopin does from other piano music. The
+Brahms concerto is not technically as hard as, say, Paganini--but in
+interpretation!... And in the Beethoven concerto, too, there is a
+simplicity, a kind of clear beauty which makes it far harder to play
+than many other things technically more advanced. The slightest flaw,
+the least difference in pitch, in intonation, and its beauty suffers.
+
+"Yes, there are other Russian concertos besides the Tschaikovsky. There
+is the Glazounov concerto and others. I understand that Zimbalist was
+the first to introduce it in this country, and I expect to play it here
+next season.
+
+"Of course one cannot always play concertos, and one cannot always play
+Bach and Beethoven. And that makes it hard to select programs. The
+artist can always enjoy the great music of his instrument; but an
+audience wants variety. At the same time an artist cannot play only just
+what the majority of the audience wants. I have been asked to play
+Schubert's _Ave Maria_, or Beethoven's _Chorus of Dervishes_ at every
+one of my concerts, but I simply cannot play them all the time. I am
+afraid if program making were left altogether to audiences the programs
+would become far too popular in character; though audiences are just as
+different as individuals. I try hard to balance my programs, so that
+every one can find something to understand and enjoy. I expect to
+prepare some American compositions for next season. Oh, no, not as a
+matter of courtesy, but because they are really fine, especially some
+smaller pieces by Spalding, Cecil Burleigh and Grasse!"
+
+On concluding our interview Mr. Heifetz made a remark which is worth
+repeating, and which many a music lover who is _plus royaliste que le
+roi_ might do well to remember: "After all," he said, "much as I love
+music, I cannot help feeling that music is not the only thing in life. I
+really cannot imagine anything more terrible than always to hear, think
+and make music! There is so much else to know and appreciate; and I feel
+that the more I learn and know of other things the better artist I will
+be!"
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+                            DAVID HOCHSTEIN
+
+                 THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION
+                        AND EXPRESSIVE PLAYING
+
+
+The writer talked with Lieutenant David Hochstein, whose death in the
+battle of the Argonne Forest was only reported toward the end of
+January, while the distinguished young violinist, then only a sergeant,
+was on the eve of departure to France with his regiment and, as he
+modestly said, his "thoughts on music were rather scattered." Yet he
+spoke with keen insight and authority on various phases of his art, and
+much of what he said gains point from his own splendid work as a concert
+violinist; for Lieutenant Hochstein (whose standing has been established
+in numerous European as well as American recitals) could play what he
+preached.
+
+
+                SEVCIK AND AUER: A CONTRAST IN TEACHING
+
+Knowing that in the regimental band he was, quite appropriately, a
+clarinetist, "the clarinet in the military band being the equivalent of
+the violin in the orchestra"--and a scholarship pupil of the Vienna
+_Meisterschule_, it seemed natural to ask him concerning his teachers.
+And the interesting fact developed that he had studied with the
+celebrated Bohemian pedagog Sevcik and with Leopold Auer as well, two
+teachers whose ideas and methods differ materially. "I studied with
+Sevcik for two years," said the young violinist. "It was in 1909, when a
+class of ten pupils was formed for him in the _Meisterschule_, at
+Vienna, that I went to him. Sevcik was in many ways a wonderful teacher,
+yet inclined to overemphasize the mechanical side of the art. He
+literally _taught_ his pupils how to practice, how to develop technical
+control by the most slow and painstaking study. In addition to his own
+fine method and exercises, he also used Gavinies, Dont, Rode, Kreutzer,
+applying in their studies ideas of his own.
+
+"Auer as a teacher I found altogether different. Where Sevcik taught his
+pupils the technic of their art by means of a system elaborately worked
+out, Auer demonstrated his ideas through sheer personality, mainly from
+the interpretative point of view. Any ambitious student could learn much
+of value from either; yet in a general way one might express the
+difference between them by saying that Sevcik could take a pupil of
+medium talent and--at least from the mechanical standpoint--make an
+excellent violinist of him. But Auer is an ideal teacher for the greatly
+gifted. And he is especially skilled in taking some student of the
+violin while his mind is still plastic and susceptible and molding
+it--supplying it with lofty concepts of interpretation and expression.
+Of course Auer (I studied with him in Petrograd and Dresden) has been
+especially fortunate as regards his pupils, too, because active in a
+land like Russia, where musical genius has almost become a commonplace.
+
+"Sevcik, though an admirable teacher, personally is of a reserved and
+reflective type, quite different from Auer, who is open and expansive. I
+might recall a little instance which shows Sevcik's cautious nature, the
+care he takes not to commit himself too unreservedly. When I took leave
+of him--it was after I had graduated and won my prize--I naturally (like
+all his pupils) asked him for his photo. Several other pupils of his
+were in the room at the time. He took up his pen (I was looking over
+his shoulder), commenced to write _Meinem best_.... And then he stopped,
+glanced at the other pupils in the room, and wrote over the _best_ ...
+he had already written, the word _liebsten_. But though I would, of
+course, have preferred the first inscription, had Sevcik completed it, I
+can still console myself that the other, even though I value it, was an
+afterthought. But it was a characteristic thing for him to do!
+
+
+                   THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION
+
+"What is my idea of the violin as a medium of expression? It seems to me
+that it is that of any other valid artistic medium. It is not so much a
+question of the violin as of the violinist. A great interpreter reveals
+his inner-most soul through his instrument, whatever it may be. Most
+people think the violin is more expressive than any other instrument,
+but this is open to question. It may be that most people respond more
+readily to the appeal made by the violin. But genuine expression,
+expressive playing, depends on the message the player has to deliver far
+more than on the instrument he uses as a means. I have been as much
+moved by some piano playing I have heard as by the violin playing of
+some of the greatest violinists.
+
+"And variety, _nuance_ in expressive playing, is largely a matter of the
+player's mental attitude. Bach's _Chaconne_ or _Sicilienne_ calls for a
+certain humility on the part of the artist. When I play Bach I do it
+reverentially; a definite spiritual quality in my tone and expression is
+the result. And to select a composer who in many ways is Bach's exact
+opposite, Wieniawski, a certain audacious brilliancy cannot help but
+make itself felt tonally, if this music is to be played in character.
+The mental and spiritual attitude directly influences its own mechanical
+transmission. No one artist should criticize another for differences in
+interpretation, in expression, so long as they are justified by larger
+concepts of art. Individuality is one of the artist's most precious
+possessions, and there are always a number of different angles from
+which the interpretation of an art work may be approached.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery? There have been only three violinists within my own
+recollection, whom I would call masters of the violin. These are
+Kubelik (when at his best), Franz von Vecsey, Hubay's pupil, whom I
+heard abroad, and Heifetz, with his cameo-like perfection of technic.
+These I would call masters of the violin, as an instrument, since they
+have mastered every intricacy of the instrument. But I could name
+several others who are greater musicians, and whose playing and
+interpretation, to say nothing of tone, I prefer.
+
+
+                       TONE PRODUCTION: RHYTHM
+
+"In one sense true violin mastery is a question of tone production and
+rhythm. And I believe that tone production depends principally upon the
+imaginative ear of the player. This statement may seem somewhat
+ambiguous, and one might ask, 'What is an imaginative ear?' My ear, for
+instance, demands of my violin a certain quality of tone, which varies
+according to the music I am playing. But before I think of playing the
+music, I already know from reading it what I want it to sound like: that
+is to say, the quality of the tone I wish to secure in each principal
+phrase. Rhythm is perhaps the greatest factor in interpretation. Every
+good musician has a 'good sense of rhythm' (that much abused phrase).
+But it is only the _great_ musician who makes so striking and
+individual an application of rhythm that his playing may be easily
+distinguished by his use of it.
+
+"There is not much to tell you as regards my method of work. I usually
+work directly upon a program which has been previously mapped out. If I
+have been away from my violin for more than a week or two I begin by
+practicing scales, but ordinarily I find my technical work in the
+programs I am preparing."
+
+Asked about his band experiences at Camp Upton, Sergeant Hochstein was
+enthusiastic. "No violinist could help but gain much from work with a
+military band at one of the camps," he said. "For instance, I had a more
+or less theoretical knowledge of wind instruments before I went to Camp
+Upton. Now I have a practical working knowledge of them. I have already
+scored a little violin composition of mine, a 'Minuet in Olden Style'
+for full band, and have found it possible by the right manipulation to
+preserve its original dainty and graceful character, in spite of the
+fact that it is played by more than forty military bandsmen.
+
+"Then, too," he said in conclusion, "I have organized a real orchestra
+of twenty-one players, strings, brass, wood-wind, etc., which I hope is
+going to be of real use on the other side during our training period in
+France. You see, 'over there' the soldier boys' chances for leave are
+limited and we will have to depend a good deal on our own selves for
+amusement and recreation. I hope and believe my orchestra is not only
+going to take its place as one of the most enjoyable features of our
+army life; but also that it will make propaganda of the right sort for
+the best music in a broad, catholic sense of the word!"
+
+It is interesting to know that this patriotic young officer found
+opportunities in camp and in the towns of France of carrying out his
+wish to "make propaganda of the right sort for the best music" before he
+gave his life to further the greater purpose which had called him
+overseas.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+                             FRITZ KREISLER
+
+                           PERSONALITY IN ART
+
+
+The influence of the artist's personality in his art finds a most
+striking exemplification in the case of Fritz Kreisler. Some time before
+the writer called on the famous violinist to get at first hand some of
+his opinions with regard to his art, he had already met him under
+particularly interesting circumstances. The question had come up of
+writing text-poems for two song-adaptations of Viennese folk-themes,
+airs not unattractive in themselves; but which Kreisler's personal
+touch, his individual gift of harmonization had lifted from a lower
+plane to the level of the art song. Together with the mss. of his own
+beautiful transcript, Mr. Kreisler in the one instance had given me the
+printed original which suggested it--frankly a "popular" song, clumsily
+harmonized in a "four-square" manner (though written in 3/4 time) with
+nothing to indicate its latent possibilities. I compared it with his
+mss. and, lo, it had been transformed! Gone was the clumsiness, the
+vulgar and obvious harmonic treatment of the melody--Kreisler had kept
+the melodic outline, but etherealized, spiritualized it, given it new
+rhythmic _contours_, a deeper and more expressive meaning. And his rich
+and subtle harmonization had lent it a quality of distinction that
+justified a comparison between the grub and the butterfly. In a small
+way it was an illuminating glimpse of how the personality of a true
+artist can metamorphose what at first glance might seem something quite
+negligible, and create beauty where its possibilities alone had existed
+before.
+
+It is this personal, this individual, note in all that Fritz Kreisler
+does--when he plays, when he composes, when he transcribes--that gives
+his art-effort so great and unique a quality of appeal.
+
+Talking to him in his comfortable sitting-room in the Hotel
+Wellington--Homer and Juvenal (in the original) ranked on the piano-top
+beside De Vere Stackpole novels and other contemporary literature called
+to mind that though Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos are among his
+favorites, he does not disdain to play a Granados _Spanish Dance_--it
+seemed natural to ask him how he came to make those adaptations and
+transcripts which have been so notable a feature of his programs, and
+which have given such pleasure to thousands.
+
+
+         [Illustration: FRITZ KREISLER, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                HOW KREISLER CAME TO COMPOSE AND ARRANGE
+
+He said: "I began to compose and arrange as a young man. I wanted to
+create a repertory for myself, to be able to express through my medium,
+the violin, a great deal of beautiful music that had first to be adapted
+for the instrument. What I composed and arranged was for my own use,
+reflected my own musical tastes and preferences. In fact, it was not
+till years after that I even thought of publishing the pieces I had
+composed and arranged. For I was very diffident as to the outcome of
+such a step. I have never written anything with the commercial idea of
+making it 'playable.' And I have always felt that anything done in a
+cold-blooded way for purely mercenary considerations somehow cannot be
+good. It cannot represent an artist's best."
+
+
+                       AT THE VIENNA CONSERVATORY
+
+In reply to another query Mr. Kreisler reverted to the days when as a
+boy he studied at the Vienna Conservatory. "I was only seven when I
+attended the Conservatory and was much more interested in playing in the
+park, where my boy friends would be waiting for me, than in taking
+lessons on the violin. And yet some of the most lasting musical
+impressions of my life were gathered there. Not so much as regards study
+itself, as with respect to the good music I heard. Some very great men
+played at the Conservatory when I was a pupil. There were Joachim,
+Sarasate in his prime, Hellmesberger, and Rubinstein, whom I heard play
+the first time he came to Vienna. I really believe that hearing Joachim
+and Rubinstein play was a greater event in my life and did more for me
+than five years of study!"
+
+"Of course you do not regard technic as the main essential of the
+concert violinist's equipment?" I asked him. "Decidedly not. Sincerity
+and personality are the first main essentials. Technical equipment is
+something which should be taken for granted. The _virtuoso_ of the type
+of Ole Bull, let us say, has disappeared. The 'stunt' player of a former
+day with a repertory of three or four bravura pieces was not far above
+the average music-hall 'artist.' The modern _virtuoso_, the true concert
+artist, is not worthy of the title unless his art is the outcome of a
+completely unified nature.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"I do not believe that any artist is truly a master of his instrument
+unless his control of it is an integral part of a whole. The musician is
+born--his medium of expression is often a matter of accident. I believe
+one may be intended for an artist prenatally; but whether violinist,
+'cellist or pianist is partly a matter of circumstance. Violin mastery,
+to my mind, still falls short of perfection, in spite of the completest
+technical and musical equipment, if the artist thinks only of the
+instrument he plays. After all, it is just a single medium of
+expression. The true musician is an artist with a special instrument.
+And every real artist has the feeling for other forms and mediums of
+expression if he is truly a master of his own.
+
+
+                       TECHNIC VERSUS IMAGINATION
+
+"I think the technical element in the artist's education is often unduly
+stressed. Remember," added Mr. Kreisler, with a smile, "I am not a
+teacher, and this is a purely personal opinion I am giving you. But it
+seems to me that absolute sincerity of effort, actual impossibility
+_not_ to react to a genuine musical impulse are of great importance. I
+firmly believe that if one is destined to become an artist the technical
+means find themselves. The necessity of expression will follow the line
+of least resistance. Too great a manual equipment often leads to an
+exaggeration of the technical and tempts the artist to stress it unduly.
+
+"I have worked a great deal in my life, but have always found that too
+large an amount of purely technico-musical work fatigued me and reacted
+unfavorably on my imagination. As a rule I only practice enough to keep
+my fingers in trim; the nervous strain is such that doing more is out of
+the question. And for a concert-violinist when on tour, playing every
+day, the technical question is not absorbing. Far more important is it
+for him to keep himself mentally and physically fresh and in the right
+mood for his work. For myself I have to enjoy whatever I play or I
+cannot play it. And it has often done me more good to dip my finger-tips
+in hot water for a few seconds before stepping out on the platform than
+to spend a couple of hours practicing. But I should not wish the student
+to draw any deductions from what I say on this head. It is purely
+personal and has no general application.
+
+"Technical exercises I use very moderately. I wish my imagination to be
+responsive, my interest fresh, and as a rule I have found that too much
+work along routine channels does not accord with the best development of
+my Art. I feel that technic should be in the player's head, it should be
+a mental picture, a sort of 'master record.' It should be a matter of
+will power to which the manual possibilities should be subjected.
+Technic to me is a mental and not a manual thing.
+
+
+            MENTAL TECHNIC: ITS DRAWBACK AND ITS ADVANTAGE
+
+"The technic thus achieved, a technic whose controlling power is chiefly
+mental, is not perfect--I say so frankly--because it is more or less
+dependent on the state of the artist's nervous system. Yet it is the one
+and only kind of technic that can adequately and completely express the
+musician's every instinct, wish and emotion. Every other form of technic
+is stiff, unpliable, since it cannot entirely subordinate itself to the
+individuality of the artist."
+
+
+                PRACTICE HOURS FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT
+
+Mr. Kreisler gives no lessons and hence referred this question in the
+most amiable manner to his boyhood friend and fellow-student Felix
+Winternitz, the well-known Boston violin teacher, one of the faculty of
+the New England Conservatory of Music, who had come in while we were
+talking. Mr. Winternitz did not refuse an answer: "The serious student,
+in my opinion, should not practice less than four hours a day, nor need
+he practice more than five. Other teachers may demand more. Sevcik, I
+know, insists that his pupils practice eight and ten hours a day. To do
+so one must have the constitution of an ox, and the results are often
+not equal to those produced by four hours of concentrated work. As Mr.
+Kreisler intimated with regard to technic, practice calls for brain
+power. Concentration in itself is not enough. There is only one way to
+work and if the pupil can find it he can cover the labor of weeks in an
+hour."
+
+And turning to me, Mr. Winternitz added: "You must not take Mr. Kreisler
+too seriously when he lays no stress on his own practicing. During the
+concert season he has his violin in hand for an hour or so nearly every
+day. He does not call it practicing, and you and I would consider it
+playing and great playing at that. But it is a genuine illustration of
+what I meant when I said that one who knew how could cover the work of
+weeks in an hour's time."
+
+
+                    AN EXPLANATION BY MR. WINTERNITZ
+
+I tried to draw from the famous violinist some hint as to the secret of
+the abiding popularity of his own compositions and transcripts but--as
+those who know him are aware--Kreisler has all the modesty of the truly
+great. He merely smiled and said: "Frankly, I don't know." But Mr.
+Winternitz' comment (when a 'phone call had taken Kreisler from the room
+for a moment) was, "It is the touch given by his accompaniments that
+adds so much: a harmonic treatment so rich in design and coloring, and
+so varied that melodies were never more beautifully set off." Mr.
+Kreisler, as he came in again, remarked: "I don't mind telling you that
+I enjoyed very much writing my _Tambourin Chinois_.[A] The idea for it
+came to me after a visit to the Chinese theater in San Francisco--not
+that the music there suggested any theme, but it gave me the impulse to
+write a free fantasy in the Chinese manner."
+
+[Footnote A: It is interesting to note that Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor
+of the San Francisco Philharmonic, returning from a tour of the American
+and French army camps in France, some time ago, said: "My most popular
+number was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_. Invariably I had to repeat
+that." A strong indorsement of the internationalism of Art by the actual
+fighter in the trenches.]
+
+
+              STYLE, INTERPRETATION AND THE ARTISTIC IDEAL
+
+The question of style now came up. "I am not in favor of 'labeling' the
+concert artist, of calling him a 'lyric' or a 'dramatic' or some other
+kind of a player. If he is an artist in the real sense he controls all
+styles." Then, in answer to another question: "Nothing can express music
+but music itself. Tradition in interpretation does not mean a
+cut-and-dried set of rules handed down; it is, or should be, a matter
+of individual sentiment, of inner conviction. What makes one man an
+artist and keeps another an amateur is a God-given instinct for the
+artistically and musically right. It is not a thing to be explained, but
+to be felt. There is often only a narrow line of demarcation between the
+artistically right and wrong. Yet nearly every real artist will be found
+to agree as to when and when not that boundary has been overstepped.
+Sincerity and personality as well as disinterestedness, an expression of
+himself in his art that is absolutely honest, these, I believe, are
+ideals which every artist should cherish and try to realize. I believe,
+furthermore, that these ideals will come more and more into their own;
+that after the war there will be a great uplift, and that Art will
+realize to the full its value as a humanizing factor in life." And as is
+well known, no great artist of our day has done more toward the actual
+realization of these ideals he cherishes than Fritz Kreisler himself.
+
+
+
+
+                                    X
+
+
+                              FRANZ KNEISEL
+
+                       THE PERFECT STRING ENSEMBLE
+
+
+Is there a lover of chamber music unfamiliar with Franz Kneisel's name?
+It may be doubted. After earlier European triumphs the gifted Roumanian
+violinist came to this country (1885), and aside from his activities in
+other directions--as a solo artist he was the first to play the Brahms
+and Goldmark violin concertos, and the C�sar Franck sonata in this
+country--organized his famous quartet. And, until his recent retirement
+as its director and first violin, it has been perhaps the greatest
+single influence toward stimulating appreciation for the best in chamber
+music that the country has known. Before the Flonzaley was, the Kneisels
+were. They made plain how much of beauty the chamber music repertory
+offered the amateur string player; not only in the classic
+repertory--Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr; in Schubert, Schumann,
+Brahms; but in Smetana, Dvor�k and Tschaikovsky; in C�sar Franck,
+Debussy and Ravel. Not the least among Kneisel's achievements is, that
+while the professional musicians in the cities in which his organization
+played attended its concerts as a matter of course, the average music
+lover who played a string instrument came to them as well, and carried
+away with him a message delivered with all the authority of superb
+musicianship and sincerity, one which bade him "go and do likewise," in
+so far as his limitations permitted. And the many excellent professional
+chamber music organizations, trios, quartets and _ensembles_ of various
+kinds which have come to the fore since they began to play offer
+eloquent testimony with regard to the cultural work of Kneisel and his
+fellow artists.
+
+            [Illustration: FRANZ KNEISEL, with signature]
+
+A cheery grate fire burned in the comfortable study in Franz Kneisel's
+home; the autographed--in what affectionate and appreciative
+terms--pictures of great fellow artists looked down above the book-cases
+which hold the scores of those masters of what has been called "the
+noblest medium of music in existence," whose beauties the famous quartet
+has so often disclosed on the concert stage. And Mr. Kneisel was
+amiability personified when I asked him to give me his theory of the
+perfect string _ensemble_, and the part virtuosity played in it.
+
+
+           "THE ARTIST RANKS THE VIRTUOSO IN CHAMBER MUSIC"
+
+"The artist, the _Tonk�nstler_, to use a foreign phrase, ranks the
+virtuoso in chamber music. Joachim was no virtuoso, he did not stress
+technic, the less important factor in _ensemble_ playing. Sarasate was a
+virtuoso in the best sense of the word; and yet as an _ensemble_ music
+player he fell far short of Joachim. As I see it 'virtuoso' is a kind of
+flattering title, no more. But a _Tonk�nstler_, a 'tone-artist,' though
+he must have the virtuoso technic in order to play Brahms and Beethoven
+concertos, needs besides a spiritual insight, a deep concept of their
+nobility to do them justice--the mere technic demanded for a virtuoso
+show piece is not enough.
+
+
+                  VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET
+
+"You ask me what 'Violin Mastery' means in the string quartet. It has an
+altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin
+virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string _ensemble_ is as much mastery of
+self as of technical means. The artist must sink his identity completely
+in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are
+as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the
+combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a
+mastery of repression as well as expression. I realized how keenly alive
+the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in
+Alma-Tadema's beautiful London home, for the great English painter was
+also a music-lover and a very discriminating one. He had a fine piano in
+a beautifully decorated case, and it was an open secret that at his
+musical evenings, after an artist had played, the lid of the piano was
+raised, and Sir Lawrence asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft
+white wood of its inner surface--_but only if he thought the compliment
+deserved_. There were some famous names written there--Joachim,
+Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention a few. Naturally an
+artist playing at Alma-Tadema's home for the first time could not help
+speculating as to his chances. Many were called, but comparatively few
+were chosen. We were guests at a dinner given by Sir Lawrence. There
+were some fifty people prominent in London's artistic, musical and
+social world present, and we had no idea of being asked to play. Our
+instruments were at our hotel and we had to send for them. We played the
+Schubert quartet in A minor and Dvor�k's 'American' quartet and, of
+course, my colleagues and myself forgot all about the piano lid the
+moment we began to play. Yet, I'm free to confess, that when the piano
+lid was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was no empty compliment
+coming from Sir Lawrence, and I have been told that some very
+distinguished artists have not had it extended to them. And I know that
+on that evening the phrase 'Violin Mastery' in an _ensemble_ sense, as
+the outcome of ceaseless striving for co�rdination in expression,
+absolute balance, and all the details that go to make up the perfect
+_ensemble_, seemed to us to have a very definite color and meaning.
+
+
+                THE FIRST VIOLIN IN THE STRING QUARTET
+
+"What exactly does the first violin represent?" Mr. Kneisel went on in
+answer to another question. "The first violin might be called the
+chairman of the string meeting. His is the leading voice. Not that he
+should be an autocrat, no, but he must hold the reins of discipline.
+Many think that the four string players in a quartet have equal rights.
+First of all, and above all, are the rights of the composer, Bach,
+Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,--as the case may be. But from the
+standpoint of interpretation the first violin has some seventy per cent.
+of the responsibility as compared with thirty per cent. for the
+remaining voices. In all the famous quartet organizations, Joachim,
+Hellmesberger, etc., the first violin has been the directing instrument
+and has set the pace. As chairman it has been his duty to say when
+second violin, viola and 'cello were entitled to hold the floor.
+Hellmesberger, in fact, considered himself the _whole_ quartet." Mr.
+Kneisel smiled and showed me a little book of Hellmesberger's Vienna
+programs. Each program was headed:
+
+                         HELLMESBERGER QUARTET
+
+                         with the assistance of
+
+                   MESSRS. MATH. DURST, CARL HEISSLER,
+                            CARL SCHLESINGER
+
+"In other words, Hellmesberger was the quartet himself, the other three
+artists merely 'assisted,' which, after all, is going too far!
+
+"Of course, quartets differ. Just as we have operas in which the alto
+solo _r�le_ is the most important, so we have quartets in which the
+'cello or the viola has a more significant part. Mozart dedicated
+quartets to a King of Prussia, who played 'cello, and he was careful to
+make the 'cello part the most important. And in Smetana's quartet _Aus
+meinem Leben_, the viola plays a most important r�le. Even the second
+violin often plays themes introducing principal themes of the first
+violin, and it has its brief moments of prominence. Yet, though the
+second violin or the 'cellist may be, comparatively speaking, a better
+player than the first violin, the latter is and must be the leader.
+Practically every composer of chamber music recognizes the fact in his
+compositions. He, the first violin, should not command three slaves,
+though; but guide three associates, and do it tactfully with regard to
+their individuality and that of their instruments.
+
+
+                         "ENSEMBLE" REHEARSING
+
+"You ask what are the essentials of _ensemble_ practice on the part of
+the artists? Real reverence, untiring zeal and punctuality at
+rehearsals. And then, an absolute sense of rhythm. I remember
+rehearsing a Volkmann quartet once with a new second violinist." [Mr.
+Kneisel crossed over to his bookcase and brought me the score to
+illustrate the rhythmic point in question, one slight in itself yet as
+difficult, perhaps, for a player without an absolute sense of rhythm as
+"perfect intonation" would be for some others.] "He had a lovely tone, a
+big technic and was a prize pupil of the Vienna Conservatory. We went
+over this two measure phrase some sixteen times, until I felt sure he
+had grasped the proper accentuation. And he was most amiable and willing
+about it, too. But when we broke up he pointed to the passage and said
+to me with a smile: 'After all, whether you play it _this_ way, or
+_that_ way, what's the difference?' Then I realized that he had stressed
+his notes correctly a few times by chance, and that his own sense of
+rhythm did not tell him that there were no two ways about it. The
+rhythmic and tonal _nuances_ in a quartet cannot be marked too perfectly
+in order to secure a beautiful and finished performance. And such a
+violinist as the one mentioned, in spite of his tone and technic, was
+never meant for an _ensemble_ player.
+
+"I have never believed in a quartet getting together and 'reading' a
+new work as a preparation for study. As first violin I have always made
+it my business to first study the work in score, myself, to study it
+until I knew the whole composition absolutely, until I had a mental
+picture of its meaning, and of the interrelation of its four voices in
+detail. Thirty-two years of experience have justified my theory. Once
+the first violin knows the work the practicing may begin; for he is in a
+position gradually and tactfully to guide the working-out of the
+interpretation without losing time in the struggle to correct faults in
+balance which are developed in an unprepared 'reading' of the work.
+There is always one important melody, and it is easier to find it
+studying the score, to trace it with eye and mind in its contrapuntal
+web, than by making voyages of discovery in actual playing.
+
+"Every player has his own qualities, every instrument its own
+advantages. Certain passages in a second violin or viola part may be
+technically better suited to the hand of the player, to the nature of
+the instrument, and--they will sound better than others. Yet from the
+standpoint of the composition the passages that 'lie well' are often not
+the more important. This is hard for the player--what is easy for him
+he unconsciously is inclined to stress, and he must be on his guard
+against it. This is another strong argument in favor of a thorough
+preliminary study on the part of the leading violin of the construction
+of the work."
+
+
+               THE FIRST VIOLIN IN CHAMBER MUSIC VERSUS
+                        THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR
+
+The comparison which I asked Mr. Kneisel to make is one which he could
+establish with authority. Aside from his experience as director of his
+quartet, he has been the _concert-meister_ of such famous foreign
+orchestras as Bilse's and that of the _Hofburg Theater_ in Vienna and,
+for eighteen years, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in this country. He
+has also conducted over one hundred concerts of the Boston Symphony, and
+was director of the Worcester Music Festivals.
+
+"Nikisch once said to me, after he had heard us play the Schumann A
+minor quartet in Boston: 'Kneisel, it was beautiful, and I felt that you
+had more difficulty in developing it than I have with an orchestral
+score!' And I think he was right. First of all the symphonic conductor
+is an autocrat. There is no appeal from the commands of his baton. But
+the first violin of a quartet is, in a sense, only the 'first among
+peers.' The velvet glove is an absolute necessity in his case. He must
+gain his art ends by diplomacy and tact, he must always remember that
+his fellow artists are solo players. If he is arbitrary, no matter how
+right he may be, he disturbs that fine feeling of artistic fellowship,
+that delicate balance of individual temperaments harmonized for and by a
+single purpose. In this connection I do not mind confessing that though
+I enjoy a good game of cards, I made it a rule never to play cards with
+my colleagues during the hours of railroad traveling involved in keeping
+our concert engagements. I played chess. In chess the element of luck
+does not enter. Each player is responsible for what he does or leaves
+undone. And defeat leaves no such sting as it does when all may be
+blamed on chance. In an _ensemble_ that strives for perfection there
+must be no undercurrents of regret, of dissatisfaction--nothing that
+interferes with the sympathy and good will which makes each individual
+artist do his best. And so I have never regretted giving cards the
+go-by!"
+
+
+                  HINTS TO THE SERIOUS VIOLIN STUDENT
+
+Of late years Mr. Kneisel's activity as a teacher has added to his
+reputation. Few teachers can point to a galaxy of artist pupils which
+includes such names as Samuel Gardner, Sascha Jacobsen, Breskin, Helen
+Jeffry and Olive Meade (who perpetuates the ideals of his great string
+_ensemble_ in her own quartet). "What is the secret of your method?" I
+asked him first of all. "Method is hardly the word," he told me. "It
+sounds too cut-and-dried. I teach according to principles, which must,
+of course, vary in individual cases; yet whose foundation is fixed. And
+like Joachim, or Leschetiszky, I have preparatory teachers.
+
+
+                           THE GENERAL FAULT
+
+"My experience has shown me that the fundamental fault of most pupils is
+that they do not know how to hold either the bow or the violin. Here in
+America the violin student as a rule begins serious technical study too
+late, contrary to the European practice. It is a great handicap to begin
+really serious work at seventeen or eighteen, when the flexible bones
+of childhood have hardened, and have not the pliability needed for
+violin gymnastics. It is a case of not bending the twig as you want the
+tree to grow in time. And those who study professionally are often more
+interested in making money as soon as possible than in bending all their
+energies on reaching the higher levels of their art. Many a promising
+talent never develops because its possessor at seventeen or eighteen is
+eager to earn money as an orchestra or 'job' player, instead of
+sacrificing a few years more and becoming a true artist. I've seen it
+happen time and again: a young fellow really endowed who thinks he can
+play for a living and find time to study and practice 'after hours.' And
+he never does!
+
+"But to return to the general fault of the violin student. There is a
+certain angle at which the bow should cross the strings in order to
+produce those vibrations which give the roundest, fullest, most perfect
+tone [he took his own beautiful instrument out of its case to illustrate
+the point], and the violin must be so held that the bow moves straight
+across the strings in this manner. A deviation from the correct attack
+produces a scratchy tone. And it is just in the one fundamental thing:
+the holding of the violin in exactly the same position when it is taken
+up by the player, never varying by so much as half-an-inch, and the
+correct attack by the bow, in which the majority of pupils are
+deficient. If the violin is not held at the proper angle, for instance,
+it is just as though a piano were to stand on a sloping floor. Too many
+students play 'with the violin' on the bow, instead of holding the
+violin steady, and letting the bow play.
+
+"And in beginning to study, this apparently simple, yet fundamentally
+important, principle is often overlooked or neglected. Joachim, when he
+studied as a ten-year-old boy under Hellmesberger in Vienna, once played
+a part in a concerto by Maurer, for four violins and piano. His teacher
+was displeased: 'You'll never be a fiddler!' he told him, 'you use your
+bow too stiffly!' But the boy's father took him to B�hm, and he remained
+with this teacher for three years, until his fundamental fault was
+completely overcome. And if Joachim had not given his concentrated
+attention to his bowing while there was still time, he would never have
+been the great artist he later became.
+
+
+                         THE ART OF THE BOW
+
+"You see," he continued, "the secret of really beautiful violin playing
+lies in the bow. A Blondin crossing Niagara finds his wire hard and firm
+where he first steps on it. But as he progresses it vibrates with
+increasing intensity. And as the tight-rope walker knows how to control
+the vibrations of his wire, so the violinist must master the vibrations
+of his strings. Each section of the string vibrates with a different
+quality of tone. Most pupils think that a big tone is developed by
+pressure with the bow--yet much depends on what part of the string this
+pressure is applied. Fingering is an art, of course, but the great art
+is the art of the bow, the 'art of bowing,' as Tartini calls it. When a
+pupil understands it he has gone far.
+
+"Every pupil may be developed to a certain degree without ever
+suspecting how important a factor the manipulation of the bow will be in
+his further progress. He thinks that if the fingers of his left hand are
+agile he has gained the main end in view. But then he comes to a
+stop--his left hand can no longer aid him, and he finds that if he wants
+to play with real beauty of expression the bow supplies the only true
+key. Out of a hundred who reach this stage," Mr. Kneisel went on, rather
+sadly, "only some five or six, or even less, become great artists. They
+are those who are able to control the bow as well as the left hand. All
+real art begins with phrasing, and this, too, lies altogether in the
+mastery of bow--the very soul of the violin!"
+
+I asked Mr. Kneisel how he came to write his own "Advanced Exercises"
+for the instrument. "I had an idea that a set of studies, in which each
+single study presented a variety of technical figures might be a relief
+from the exercises in so many excellent methods, where pages of scales
+are followed by pages of arpeggios, pages of double-notes and so forth.
+It is very monotonous to practice pages and pages of a single technical
+figure," he added. "Most pupils simply will not do it!" He brought out a
+copy of his "Exercises" and showed me their plan. "Here, for instance, I
+have scales, trills, arpeggios--all in the same study, and the study is
+conceived as a musical composition instead of a technical formula. This
+is a study in finger position, with all possible bowings. My aim has
+been to concentrate the technical material of a whole violin school in
+a set of _�tudes_ with musical interest."
+
+And he showed me the second book of the studies, in ms., containing
+exercises in every variety of scale, and trill, bowing, _nuance_, etc.,
+combined in a single musical movement. This volume also contains his own
+cadenza to the Beethoven violin concerto. In conclusion Mr. Kneisel laid
+stress on the importance of the student's hearing the best music at
+concert and recital as often as possible, and on the value and incentive
+supplied by a musical atmosphere in the home and, on leaving him, I
+could not help but feel that what he had said in our interview, his
+reflections and observations based on an artistry beyond cavil, and an
+authoritative experience, would be well worth pondering by every serious
+student of the instrument. For Franz Kneisel speaks of what he knows.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+                              ADOLFO BETTI
+
+                    THE TECHNIC OF THE MODERN QUARTET
+
+
+What lover of chamber music in its more perfect dispensations is not
+familiar with the figure of Adolfo Betti, the guiding brain and bow of
+the Flonzaley Quartet? Born in Florence, he played his first public
+concert at the age of six, yet as a youth found it hard to choose
+between literature, for which he had decided aptitude,[A] and music.
+Fortunately for American concert audiences of to-day, he finally
+inclined to the latter. An exponent of what many consider the greatest
+of all violinistic schools, the Belgian, he studied for four years with
+C�sar Thomson at Li�ge, spent four more concertizing in Vienna and
+elsewhere, and returned to Thomson as the latter's assistant in the
+Brussels Conservatory, three years before he joined the Flonzaleys, in
+1903. With pleasant recollections of earlier meetings with this gifted
+artist, the writer sought him out, and found him amiably willing to talk
+about the modern quartet and its ideals, ideals which he personally has
+done so much to realize.
+
+[Footnote A: M. Betti has published a number of critical articles in the
+_Guide Musical_ of Brussels, the _Rivista Musicale_ of Turin, etc.]
+
+
+                          THE MODERN QUARTET
+
+"You ask me how the modern quartet differs from its predecessors?" said
+Mr. Betti. "It differs in many ways. For one thing the modern quartet
+has developed in a way that makes its inner voices--second violin and
+viola--much more important than they used to be. Originally, as in
+Haydn's early quartets, we have a violin solo with three accompanying
+instruments. In Beethoven's last quartets the intermediate voices have
+already gained a freedom and individuality which before him had not even
+been suspected. In these last quartets Beethoven has already set forth
+the principle which was to become the basis of modern polyphony: '_first
+of all_ to allow each voice to express itself freely and fully, and
+_afterward_ to see what the relations were of one to the other.' In
+fact, no one has exercised a more revolutionary effect on the quartet
+than Beethoven--no one has made it attain so great a degree of
+progress. And surely the distance separating the quartet as Beethoven
+found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand Fugue, Op. 131, Op.
+132), is greater than that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132, and the
+most advanced modern quartet, let us say, for instance, Sch�nberg's Op.
+7. Sch�nberg, by the way, has only applied and developed the principles
+established by Beethoven in the latter's last quartets. But in the
+modern quartet we have a new element, one which tends more and more to
+become preponderant, and which might be called _orchestral_ rather than
+_da camera_. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky were the first to follow this
+path, in which the majority of the moderns, including Franck and
+Debussy, have followed them. And in addition, many among the most
+advanced modern composers _strive for orchestral effects that often lie
+outside the natural capabilities of the strings_!
+
+         [Illustration: ADOLFO BETTI, with hand-written note]
+
+"For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his three impressionistic
+sketches for quartet (which we have played), has the first violin play
+_ponticello_ throughout, not the natural _ponticello_, but a quite
+special one, to produce an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance.
+I had to try again and again till I found the right technical means to
+produce the effect desired. Then, the 'cello is used to imitate the
+drum; there are special technical problems for the second violin--a
+single sustained D, with an accompanying _pizzicato_ on the open
+strings--while the viola is required to suggest the tramp of marching
+feet. And, again, in other modern quartets we find special technical
+devices undreamt of in earlier days. Borodine, for instance, is the
+first to systematically employ successions of harmonics. In the trio of
+his first quartet the melody is successively introduced by the 'cello
+and the first violin, altogether in harmonics.
+
+
+                 THE MODERN QUARTET AND AMATEUR PLAYERS
+
+"You ask me whether the average quartet of amateurs, of lovers of string
+music, can get much out of the more modern quartets. I would say yes,
+but with some serious reservations. There has been much beautiful music
+written, but most of it is complicated. In the case of the older
+quartets, Haydn, Mozart, etc., even if they are not played well, the
+performers can still obtain an idea of the music, of its thought
+content. But in the modern quartets, unless each individual player has
+mastered every technical difficulty, the musical idea does not pierce
+through, there is no effect.
+
+"I remember when we rehearsed the first Sch�nberg quartet. It was in
+1913, at a Chicago hotel, and we had no score, but only the separate
+parts. The results, at our first attempt, were so dreadful that we
+stopped after a few pages. It was not till I had secured a score,
+studied it and again tried it that we began to see a light. Finally
+there was not one measure which we did not understand. But Sch�nberg,
+Reger, Ravel quartets make too great a demand on the technical ability
+of the average quartet amateur.
+
+
+                     THE TECHNIC OF QUARTET PLAYING
+
+"Naturally, the first violin is the leader, the Conductor of the
+quartet, as in its early days, although the 'star' system, with one
+virtuose player and three satellites, has disappeared. Now the quartet
+as a whole has established itself in the _virtuoso_ field--using the
+word _virtuoso_ in its best sense. The M�ller quartet (Hanover),
+1845-1850, was the first to travel as a chamber music organization, and
+the famous _Florentiner_ Quartet the first to realize what could be
+done in the way of finish in playing. As _premier violiniste_ of the
+Flonzaley's I study and prepare the interpretation of the works we are
+to play before any rehearsing is done.
+
+"While the first violin still holds first place in the modern quartet,
+the second violin has become much more important than formerly; it has
+gained in individuality. In many of the newer quartets it is quite as
+important as the first. In Hugo Wolf's quartet, for example, first and
+second violins are employed as though in a concerto for two violins.
+
+"The viola, especially in modern French works--Ravel, Debussy,
+Samazeuil--has a prominent part. In the older quartets one reason the
+viola parts are simple is because the alto players as a rule were
+technically less skillful. As a general thing they were violinists who
+had failed--'the refugees of the G clef,' as Edouard Colonne, the
+eminent conductor, once wittily said. But the reason modern French
+composers give the viola special attention is because France now is
+ahead of the other nations in virtuose viola playing. It is practically
+the only country which may be said to have a 'school' of viola playing.
+In the Smetana quartet the viola plays a most important part, and
+Dvor�k, who himself played viola, emphasized the instrument in his
+quartets.
+
+"Mozart showed what the 'cello was able to do in the quartets he
+dedicated to the ''cellist king,' Frederick William of Prussia. And
+then, the 'cello has always the musical importance which attaches to it
+as the lower of the two 'outer voices' of the quartet _ensemble_. Like
+the second violin and viola, it has experienced a technical and musical
+development beyond anything Haydn or Mozart would have dared to write.
+
+
+                               REHEARSING
+
+"Realization of the Art aims of the modern quartet calls for endless
+rehearsal. Few people realize the hard work and concentrated effort
+entailed. And there are always new problems to solve. After preparing a
+new score in advance, we meet and establish its general idea, its broad
+outlines in actual playing. And then, gradually, we fill in the details.
+Ordinarily we rehearse three hours a day, less during the concert
+season, of course; but always enough to keep absolutely in trim. And we
+vary our practice programs in order to keep mentally fresh as well as
+technically fit.
+
+
+                               INTONATION
+
+"Perfect intonation is a great problem--one practically unknown to the
+average amateur quartet player. Four players may each one of them be
+playing in tune, in pitch; yet their chords may not be truly in tune,
+because of the individual bias--a trifle sharp, a trifle flat--in
+interpreting pitch. This individual bias may be caused by the attraction
+existing between certain notes, by differences of register and _timbre_,
+or any number of other reasons--too many to recount. The true beauty of
+the quartet tone cannot be obtained unless there is an exact adjustment,
+a tempering of the individual pitch of each instrument, till perfect
+accordance exists. This is far more difficult and complicated than one
+might at first believe. For example, let us take one of the simplest
+violin chords," said Mr. Betti [and he rapidly set it down in pencil].
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"Now let us begin by fixing the B so that it is perfectly in tune with
+the E, then _without at all changing_ the B, take the interval D-B. You
+will see that the sixth will not be in tune. Repeat the experiment,
+inverting the notes: the result will still be the same. Try it yourself
+some time," added Mr. Betti with a smile, "and you will see. What is the
+reason? It is because the middle B has not been adjusted, tempered! Give
+the same notes to the first and second violins and the viola and you
+will have the same result. Then, when the 'cello is added, the problem
+is still more complicated, owing to the difference in _timbre_ and
+register. Yet it is a problem which can be solved, and is solved in
+practically everything we play.
+
+"Another difficulty, especially in the case of some of the _very daring_
+chords encountered in modern compositions, is the matter of balance
+between the individual notes. There are chords which only _sound well_
+if certain notes are thrown into relief; and others only if played very
+softly (almost as though they were overtones). To overcome such
+difficulties means a great deal of work, real musical instinct and,
+above all, great familiarity with the composer's harmonic processes. Yet
+with time and patience the true balance of tone can be obtained.
+
+
+                                 TEMPO
+
+"All four individual players must be able to _feel_ the tempo they are
+playing in the same way. I believe it was Mahler who once gave out a
+beat very distinctly--one, two, three--told his orchestra players to
+count the beat silently for twenty measures and then stop. As each
+_felt_ the beat differently from the other, every one of them stopped at
+a different time. So _tempo_, just like intonation, must be 'tempered'
+by the four quartet players in order to secure perfect rhythmic
+inflection.
+
+
+                               DYNAMICS
+
+"Modern composers have wonderfully improved dynamic expression. Every
+little shade of meaning they make clear with great distinctness. The
+older composers, and occasionally a modern like Emanuel Moor, do not use
+expression marks. Moor says, 'If the performers really have something to
+put into my work the signs are not needed.' Yet this has its
+disadvantages. I once had an entirely unmarked Sonata by Sammartini. As
+most first movements in the sonatas of that composer are _allegros_ I
+tried the beginning several times as an _allegro_, but it sounded
+radically wrong. Then, at last, it occurred to me to try it as a _largo_
+and, behold, it was beautiful!
+
+
+                            INTERPRETATION
+
+"If the leader of the quartet has lived himself into and mastered a
+composition, together with his associates, the result is sure. I must
+live in the music I play just as an actor must live the character he
+represents. All higher interpretation depends on solving technical
+problems in a way which is not narrowly mechanical. And while the
+_ensemble_ spirit must be preserved, the freedom of the individual
+should not be too much restrained. Once the style and manner of a modern
+composer are familiar, it is easier to present his works: when we first
+played the Reger quartet here some twenty years ago, we found pages
+which at first we could not at all understand. If one has fathomed
+Debussy, it is easier to play Milhaud, Roger-Ducasse, Samazeuil--for the
+music of the modern French school has much in common. One great cultural
+value the professional quartet has for the musical community is the fact
+that it gives a large circle a measure of acquaintance with the mode of
+thought and style of composers whose symphonic and larger works are
+often an unknown quantity. This applies to Debussy, Reger, the modern
+Russians, Bloch and others. When we played the Stravinsky pieces here,
+for instance, his _P�trouschka_ and _Firebird_ had not yet been heard.
+
+
+                             SOME IDEALS
+
+"We try, as an organization, to be absolutely catholic in taste. Nor do
+we neglect the older music, because we play so much of the new. This
+year we are devoting special attention to the American composers.
+Formerly the Kneisels took care of them, and now we feel that we should
+assume this legacy. We have already played Daniel Gregory Mason's fine
+_Intermezzo_, and the other American numbers we have played include
+David Stanley Smith's _Second Quartet_, and movements from quartets by
+Victor Kolar and Samuel Gardner. We are also going to revive Charles
+Martin Loeffler's _Rhapsodies_ for viola, oboe and piano.
+
+"I have been for some time making a collection of sonatas _a tre_, two
+violins and 'cello--delightful old things by Sammartini, Leclair, the
+Englishman Boyce, Friedemann Bach and others. This is material from
+which the amateur could derive real enjoyment and profit. The Leclair
+sonata in D minor we have played some three hundred times; and its slow
+movement is one of the most beautiful _largos_ I know of in all chamber
+music. The same thing could be done in the way of transcription for
+chamber music which Kreisler has already done so charmingly for the solo
+violin. And I would dearly love to do it! There are certain 'primitives'
+of the quartet--Johann Christian Bach, Gossec, Telemann, Michel
+Haydn--who have written music full of the rarest melodic charm and
+freshness. I have much excellent material laid by, but as you know,"
+concluded Mr. Betti with a sigh, "one has so little time for anything in
+America."
+
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+
+                                HANS LETZ
+
+                          THE TECHNIC OF BOWING
+
+
+Hans Letz, the gifted Alsatian violinist, is well fitted to talk on any
+phase of his Art. A pupil of Joachim (he came to this country in 1908),
+he was for three years concertmaster of the Thomas orchestra, appearing
+as a solo artist in most of our large cities, and was not only one of
+the Kneisels (he joined that organization in 1912), but the leader of a
+quartet of his own. As a teacher, too, he is active in giving others an
+opportunity to apply the lessons of his own experience.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+When asked for his definition of the term, Mr. Letz said: "There can be
+no such thing as an _absolute_ mastery of the violin. Mastery is a
+relative term. The artist is first of all more or less dependent on
+circumstances which he cannot control--his mood, the weather, strings,
+a thousand and one incidentals. And then, the nearer he gets to his
+ideal, the more apt his ideal is to escape him. Yet, discounting all
+objections, I should say that a master should be able to express
+perfectly the composer's idea, reflected by his own sensitive soul.
+
+
+                        THE KEY TO INTERPRETATION
+
+"The bow is the key to this mastery in expression, in interpretation: in
+a lesser degree the left hand. The average pupil does not realize this
+but believes that mere finger facility is the whole gist of technic. Yet
+the richest color, the most delicate _nuance_, is mainly a matter of
+bowing. In the left hand, of course, the _vibrato_ gives a certain
+amount of color effect, the intense, dramatic tone quality of the rapid
+_vibrato_ is comparable on the violin to the _tremulando_ of the singer.
+At the same time the _vibrato_ used to excess is quite as bad as an
+excessive _tremulando_ in the voice. But control of the bow is the key
+to the gates of the great field of declamation, it is the means of
+articulation and accent, it gives character, comprising the entire scale
+of the emotions. In fact, declamation with the violin bow is very much
+like declamation in dramatic art. And the attack of the bow on the
+string should be as incisive as the utterance of the first accented
+syllable of a spoken word. The bow is emphatically the means of
+expression, but only the advanced pupil can develop its finer, more
+delicate expressional possibilities.
+
+
+                         THE TECHNIC OF BOWING
+
+"Genius does many things by instinct. And it sometimes happens that very
+great performers, trying to explain some technical function, do not know
+how to make their meaning clear. With regard to bowing, I remember that
+Joachim (a master colorist with the bow) used to tell his students to
+play largely with the wrist. What he really meant was with an
+elbow-joint movement, that is, moving the bow, which should always be
+connected with a movement of the forearm by means of the elbow-joint.
+The ideal bow stroke results from keeping the joints of the right arm
+loose, and at the same time firm enough to control each motion made. A
+difficult thing for the student is to learn to draw the bow across the
+strings _at a right angle_, the only way to produce a good tone. I find
+it helps my pupils to tell them not to think of the position of the
+bow-arm while drawing the bow across the strings, but merely to follow
+with the tips of the fingers of the right hand an imaginary line running
+at a right angle across the strings. The whole bow then moves as it
+should, and the arm motions unconsciously adjust themselves.
+
+
+                           RHYTHM AND COLOR
+
+"Rhythm is the foundation of all music--not rhythm in its metronomic
+sense, but in the broader sense of proportion. I lay the greatest stress
+on the development of rhythmic sensibility in the student. Rhythm gives
+life to every musical phrase." Mr. Letz had a Brahms' quartet open on
+his music stand. Playing the following passage, he said:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"In order to give this phrase its proper rhythmic value, to express it
+clearly, plastically, there must be a very slight separation between the
+sixteenths and the eighth-note following them. This--the bow picked up a
+trifle from the strings--throws the sixteenths into relief. As I have
+already said, tone color is for the main part controlled by the bow. If
+I draw the bow above the fingerboard instead of keeping it near the
+bridge, I have a decided contrast in color. This color contrast may
+always be established: playing near the bridge results in a clear and
+sharp tone, playing near the fingerboard in a veiled and velvety one.
+
+
+                        SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING
+
+"I find that, aside from the personal illustration absolutely necessary
+when teaching, that an appeal to the pupil's imagination usually bears
+fruit. In developing tone-quality, let us say, I tell the pupil his
+phrases should have a golden, mellow color, the tonal equivalent of the
+hues of the sunrise. I vary my pictures according to the circumstances
+and the pupil, in most cases, reacts to them. In fast bowings, for
+instance, I make three color distinctions or rather sound distinctions.
+There is the 'color of rain,' when a fast bow is pushed gently over the
+strings, while not allowed to jump; the 'color of snowflakes' produced
+when the hairs of the bow always touch the strings, and the wood dances;
+and 'the color of hail' (which seldom occurs in the classics), when in
+the real characteristic _spiccato_ the whole bow leaves the string."
+
+
+                       THE ART AND THE SCHOOLS
+
+In reply to another question, Mr. Letz added: "Great violin playing is
+great violin playing, irrespective of school or nationality. Of course
+the Belgians and French have notable elegance, polish, finish in detail.
+The French lay stress on sensuous beauty of tone. The German temperament
+is perhaps broader, neglecting sensuous beauty for beauty of idea,
+developing the scholarly side. Sarasate, the Spaniard, is a unique
+national figure. The Slavs seem to have a natural gift for the
+violin--perhaps because of centuries of repression--and are passionately
+temperamental. In their playing we find that melancholy, combined with
+an intense craving for joy, which runs through all Slavonic music and
+literature. Yet, all said and done, Art is and remains first of all
+international, and the great violinist is a great artist, no matter what
+his native land."
+
+
+
+
+                                XIII
+
+
+                            DAVID MANNES
+
+                  THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
+
+
+That David Mannes, the well-known violinist and conductor, so long
+director of the New York Music School Settlement, would be able to speak
+in an interesting and authoritative manner on his art, was a foregone
+conclusion in the writer's mind. A visit to the educator's own beautiful
+"Music School" confirmed this conviction. In reply to some questions
+concerning his own study years Mr. Mannes spoke of his work with
+Heinrich de Ahna, Karl Halir and Eug�ne Ysaye. "When I came to de Ahna
+in Berlin, I was, unfortunately, not yet ready for him, and so did not
+get much benefit from his instruction. In the case of Halir, to whom I
+went later, I was in much better shape to take advantage of what he
+could give me, and profited accordingly. It is a point any student may
+well note--that when he thinks of studying with some famous teacher
+he be technically and musically equipped to take advantage of all that
+the latter may be able to give him. Otherwise it is a case of love's
+labor lost on the part of both. Karl Halir was a sincere and very
+thorough teacher. He was a Spohr player _par excellence_, and I have
+never found his equal in the playing of Spohr's _Gesangsscene_. With him
+I studied Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo; and to know Halir as a teacher was
+to know him at his best; since as a public performer--great violinist as
+he was--he did not do himself justice, because he was too nervous and
+high-strung.
+
+          [Illustration: DAVID MANNES, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                           STUDYING WITH YSAYE
+
+"It was while sitting among the first violins in the New York Symphony
+Orchestra that I first heard Ysaye. And for the first time in my life I
+heard a man with whom I fervently _wanted_ to study; an artist whose
+whole attitude with regard to tone and sound reproduction embodied my
+ideals.
+
+"I worked with Ysaye in Brussels and in his cottage at Godinne. Here he
+taught much as Liszt did at Weimar, a group of from ten to twenty
+disciples. Early in the morning he went fishing in the Meuse, then back
+to breakfast and then came the lessons: not more than three or four a
+day. Those who studied drew inspiration from him as the pianists of the
+Weimar circle did from their Master. In fact, Ysaye's standpoint toward
+music had a good deal in common with Rubinstein's and he often said he
+wished he could play the violin as Rubinstein did the piano. Ysaye is an
+artist who has transcended his own medium--he has become a poet of
+sound. And unless the one studying with him could understand and
+appreciate this fact he made a poor teacher. But to me, in all humility,
+he was and will always remain a wonderful inspiration. As an influence
+in my career his marvelous genius is unique. In my own teaching I have
+only to recall his tone, his playing in his little cottage on the banks
+of the Meuse which the tide of war has swept away, to realize in a
+cumulative sense the things he tried to make plain to me then. Ysaye
+taught the technic of expression as against the expression of technic.
+He gave the lessons of a thousand teachers in place of the lessons of
+one. The greatest technical development was required by Ysaye of a
+pupil; and given this pre-requisite, he could open up to him ever
+enlarging horizons of musical beauty.
+
+"Nor did he think that the true beauty of violin playing must depend
+upon six to eight hours of daily practice work. I absolutely believe
+with Ysaye that unless a student can make satisfactory progress with
+three hours of practice a day, he should not attempt to play the violin.
+Inability to do so is in itself a confession of failure at the outset.
+Nor do I think it possible to practice the violin intensively more than
+three-quarters of an hour at a time. In order to utilize his three hours
+of practice to the best advantage the student should divide them into
+four periods, with intervals of rest between each, and these rest
+periods might simply represent a transfer of energy--which is a rest in
+itself--to reading or some other occupation not necessarily germane to
+music, yet likely to stimulate interest in some other art.
+
+
+                SOME INITIAL PRINCIPLES OF VIOLIN STUDY
+
+"The violin student first and foremost should accustom himself to
+practicing purely technical exercises without notes. The scales and
+arpeggios should never be played otherwise and books of scales should be
+used only as a reference. Quite as important as scale practice are
+broken chords. On the violin these cannot be played _solidly_, as on the
+piano; but must be studied as arpeggios, in the most exhaustive way,
+harmonically and technically. Their great value lies in developing an
+innate musical sense, in establishing an idea of tonality and harmony
+that becomes so deeply rooted that every other key is as natural to the
+player as is the key of C. Work of this kind can never be done ideally
+in class. But every individual student must himself come to realize the
+necessity of doing technical work without notes as a matter of daily
+exercise, even though his time be limited. Perhaps the most difficult of
+all lessons is learning to hold the violin. There are pupils to whom
+holding the instrument presents insurmountable obstacles. Such pupils,
+instead of struggling in vain with a physical difficulty, might rather
+take up the study of the 'cello, whose weight rests on the floor. That
+many a student was not intended to be a violin player by nature is
+proved by the various inventions, chin-rests, braces, intended to supply
+what nature has not supplied. The study of the violin should never be
+allowed if it is going to result in actual physical deformity: raising
+of the left shoulder, malformation of the back, or eruptions resulting
+from chin-rest pressure. These are all evidences of physical unfitness,
+or of incorrect teaching.
+
+
+                    THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
+
+"Class study is for the advanced student, not the beginner. In the
+beginning only the closest personal contact between the individual pupil
+and the teacher is desirable. To borrow an analogy from nature, the
+student may be compared to the young bird whose untrained wings will not
+allow him to take any trial flights unaided by his natural guardian. For
+the beginning violinist the principal thing to do is to learn the 'voice
+placing' of the violin. This goes hand in hand with the proper--which is
+the easy and natural--manner of holding the violin, bow study, and an
+appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument. The student's attention
+should at once be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities of the
+violin tone, and he should at once familiarize himself with the
+development of those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and
+relaxation which are instrumental in its production. The analogies
+between the violin voice and the human voice should also be developed.
+The violin itself must to all intents become a part of the player
+himself, just as the vocal chords are part of the human body. It should
+not be considered a foreign tone-producing instrument adjusted to the
+body of the performer; but an extension, a projection of his physical
+self. In a way it is easier for the violinist to get at the chords of
+the violin and make them sound, since they are all exposed, which is not
+the case with the singer.
+
+"There are two dangerous points in present-day standards of violin
+teaching. One is represented by the very efficient European professional
+standards of technic, which may result in an absolute failure of poetic
+musical comprehension. These should not be transplanted here from
+European soil. The other is the non-technical, sentimental, formless
+species of teaching which can only result in emotional enervation. Yet
+if forced to choose between the two the former would be preferable since
+without tools it is impossible to carve anything of beauty. The final
+beauty of the violin tone, the pure _legato_, remains in the beginning
+as in the end a matter of holding the violin and bow. Together they
+'place' the tone just as the physical _media_ in the throat 'place' the
+tone of the voice.
+
+"Piano teachers have made greater advances in the tone developing
+technic of their instrument than the violin teachers. One reason is,
+that as a class they are more intellectual. And then, too, violin
+teaching is regarded too often as a mystic art, an occult science, and
+one into which only those specially gifted may hope to be initiated.
+This, it seems to me, is a fallacy. Just as a gift for mathematics is a
+special talent not given to all, so a _natural_ technical talent exists
+in relatively few people. Yet this does not imply that the majority are
+shut off from playing the violin and playing it well. Any student who
+has music in his soul may be taught to play simple, and even relatively
+more difficult music with beauty, beauty of expression and
+interpretation. This he may be taught to do even though not endowed with
+a _natural_ technical facility for the violin. A proof that natural
+technical facility is anything but a guarantee of higher musicianship is
+shown in that the musical weakness of many brilliant violinists, hidden
+by the technical elaboration of virtuoso pieces, is only apparent when
+they attempt to play a Beethoven _adagio_ or a simple Mozart _rondo_.
+
+"In a number of cases the unsuccessful solo player has a bad effect on
+violin teaching. Usually the soloist who has not made a success as a
+concert artist takes up teaching as a last resort, without enthusiasm or
+the true vocational instinct. The false standards he sets up for his
+pupils are a natural result of his own ineffectual worship of the fetish
+of virtuosity--those of the musical mountebank of a hundred years ago.
+Of course such false prophets of the virtuose have nothing in common
+with such high-priests of public utterance as Ysaye, Kreisler and
+others, whose virtuosity is a true means for the higher development of
+the musical. The encouragement of musicianship in general suffers for
+the stress laid on what is obviously technical _impedimenta_. But more
+and more, as time passes, the playing of such artists as those already
+mentioned, and others like them, shows that the real musician is the
+lover of beautiful sound, which technic merely develops in the highest
+degree.
+
+"To-day technic in a cumulative sense often is a confession of failure.
+For technic does not do what it so often claims to--produce the artist.
+Most professional teaching aims to prepare the student for professional
+life, the concert stage. Hence there is an intensive _technical_ study
+of compositions that even if not wholly intended for display are
+primarily and principally projected for its sake. It is a well-known
+fact that few, even among gifted players, can sit down to play chamber
+music and do it justice. This is not because they cannot grasp or
+understand it; or because their technic is insufficient. It is because
+their whole violinistic education has been along the line of solo
+playing; they have literally been brought up, not to play _with_ others,
+but to be accompanied _by_ others.
+
+"Yet despite all this there has been a notable development of violin
+study in the direction of _ensemble_ work with, as a result, an attitude
+on the part of the violinists cultivating it, of greater humility as
+regards music in general, a greater appreciation of the charm of
+artistic collaboration: and--I insist--a technic both finer and more
+flexible. Chamber music--originally music written for the intimate
+surroundings of the home, for a small circle of listeners--carries out
+in its informal way many of the ideals of the larger orchestral
+_ensemble_. And, as regards the violinist, he is not dependent only on
+the literature of the string quartet; there are piano quintets and
+quartets, piano trios, and the duos for violin and piano. Some of the
+most beautiful instrumental thoughts of the classic and modern
+composers are to be found in the duo for violin and piano, mainly in the
+sonata form. Amateurs--violinists who love music for its own sake, and
+have sufficient facility to perform such works creditably--do not do
+nearly enough _ensemble_ playing with a pianist. It is not always
+possible to get together the four players needed for the string quartet,
+but a pianist is apt to be more readily found.
+
+"The combination of violin and piano is as a rule obtainable and the
+literature is particularly rich. Aside from sonatas by Corelli,
+Locatelli, Tartini, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haendel, Brahms and
+Schumann, nearly all the romantic and modern composers have contributed
+to it. And this music has all been written so as to show the character
+of each instrument at its best--the piano, harmonic in its nature; the
+violin, a natural melodic voice, capable of every shade of _nuance_."
+That Mr. Mannes, as an artist, has made a point of "practicing what he
+preaches" to the student as regards the _ensemble_ of violin and piano
+will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has
+given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his
+views regarding the moot question of gut _versus_ wire strings are of
+interest.
+
+
+                        GUT VERSUS WIRE STRINGS
+
+"My own violin, a Maggini of more than the usual size, dates from the
+year 1600. It formerly belonged to Dr. Leopold Damrosch. Which strings
+do I use on it? The whole question as to whether gut or wire strings are
+to be preferred may, in my opinion, be referred to the violin itself for
+decision. What I mean is that if Stradivarius, Guarnerius, Amati,
+Maggini and others of the old-master builders of violins had ever had
+wire strings in view, they would have built their fiddles in accordance,
+and they would not be the same we now possess. First of all there are
+scientific reasons against using the wire strings. They change the tone
+of the instrument. The rigidity of tension of the wire E string where it
+crosses the bridge tightens up the sound of the lower strings. Their
+advantages are: reliability under adverse climatic conditions and the
+incontestable fact that they make things easier technically. They
+facilitate purity of intonation. Yet I am willing to forgo these
+advantages when I consider the wonderful pliability of the gut strings
+for which Stradivarius built his violins. I can see the artistic
+retrogression of those who are using the wire E, for when materially
+things are made easier, spiritually there is a loss.
+
+
+                              CHIN RESTS
+
+"And while we are discussing the physical aspects of the instrument
+there is the 'chin rest.' None of the great violin makers ever made a
+'chin rest.' Increasing technical demands, sudden pyrotechnical flights
+into the higher octaves brought the 'chin rest' into being. The 'chin
+rest' was meant to give the player a better grasp of his instrument. I
+absolutely disapprove, in theory, of chin rest, cushion or pad.
+Technical reasons may be adduced to justify their use, never artistic
+ones. I admit that progress in violin study is infinitely slower without
+the use of the pad; but the more close and direct a contact with his
+instrument the player can develop, the more intimately expressive his
+playing becomes. Students with long necks and thin bodies claim they
+have to use a 'chin rest,' but the study of physical adjustments could
+bring about a better co�rdination between them and the instrument. A
+thin pad may be used without much danger, yet I feel that the thicker
+and higher the 'chin rest' the greater the loss in expressive rendering.
+The more we accustom ourselves to mechanical aids, the more we will come
+to rely on them.... But the question you ask anent 'Violin Mastery'
+leads altogether away from the material!
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"To me it signifies technical efficiency coupled with poetic insight,
+freedom from conventionally accepted standards, the attainment of a more
+varied personal expression along individual lines. It may be realized,
+of course, only to a degree, since the possessor of absolute 'Violin
+Mastery' would be forever glorified. As it is the violin master, as I
+conceive him, represents the embodier of the greatest intimacy between
+himself, the artist, and his medium of expression. Considered in this
+light Pablo Casals and his 'cello, perhaps, most closely comply with the
+requirements of the definition. And this is not as paradoxical as it may
+seem, since all string instruments are brethren, descended from the
+ancient viol, and the 'cello is, after all, a variant of the violin!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XIV
+
+
+                              TIVADAR NACH�Z
+
+                     JOACHIM AND L�ONARD AS TEACHERS
+
+
+Tivadar Nach�z, the celebrated violin virtuoso, is better known as a
+concertizing artist in Europe, where he has played with all the leading
+symphonic orchestras, than in this country, to which he paid his first
+visit during these times of war, and which he was about to leave for his
+London home when the writer had the pleasure of meeting him. Yet, though
+he has not appeared in public in this country (if we except some Red
+Cross concerts in California, at which he gave his auditors of his best
+to further our noblest war charity), his name is familiar to every
+violinist. For is not Mr. Nach�z the composer of the "Gypsy Dances" for
+violin and piano, which have made him famous?
+
+Genuinely musical, effective and largely successful as they have been,
+however, as any one who has played them can testify, the composer of
+the "Gypsy Dances" regards them with mixed feelings. "I have done other
+work that seems to me, relatively, much more important," said Mr.
+Nach�z, "but when my name happens to be mentioned, echo always answers
+'Gypsy Dances,' my little rubbishy 'Gypsy Dances!' It is not quite fair.
+I have published thirty-five works, among them a 'Requiem Mass,' an
+orchestral overture, two violin concertos, three rhapsodies for violin
+and orchestra, variations on a Swiss theme, Romances, a Polonaise
+(dedicated to Ysaye), and Evening Song, three _Po�mes hongrois_, twelve
+classical masterworks of the 17th century--to say nothing of songs,
+etc.--and the two concertos of Vivaldi and Nardini which I have edited,
+practically new creations, owing to the addition of the piano
+accompaniments and orchestral score. I wrote the 'Gypsy Dances' as a
+mere boy when I was studying with H. L�onard in Paris, and really at his
+suggestion. In one of my lessons I played Sarasate's 'Spanish Dances,'
+which chanced to be published at the time, and at once made a great hit.
+So L�onard said to me: 'Why not write some _Hungarian_ Gypsy
+dances--there must be wonderful material at hand in the music of the
+_Tziganes_ of Hungary. You should do something with it!' I took him at
+his word, and he liked my 'Dances' so well that he made me play them at
+his musical evenings, which he gave often during the winter, and which
+were always attended by the musical _Tout Paris!_ I may say that during
+these last thirty years there has been scarcely a violinist before the
+public who at one time or the other has _not_ played these 'Gypsy
+Dances.' Besides the _original_ edition, there are two (pirated!)
+editions in America and six in Europe.
+
+        [Illustration: TIVADAR NACH�Z, with hand-written note]
+
+
+       THE BEGINNING OF A VIOLINISTIC CAREER: PLAYING WITH LISZT
+
+"No, L�onard was not my first teacher. I took up violin work when a boy
+of five years of age, and for seven years practiced from eight to ten
+hours a day, studying with Sabathiel, the leader of the Royal Orchestra
+in Budapest, where I was born, though England, the land of my adoption,
+in which I have lived these last twenty-six years, is the land where I
+have found all my happiness, and much gratifying honor, and of which I
+have been a devoted, ardent and loyal naturalized citizen for more than
+a quarter of a century. Sabathiel was an excellent routine teacher, and
+grounded me well in the fundamentals--good tone production and
+technical control. Later I had far greater teachers, and they taught me
+much, but--in the last analysis, most of the little I have achieved I
+owe to myself, to hard, untiring work: I had determined to be a
+violinist and I trust I became one. No serious student of the instrument
+should ever forget that, no matter who his teacher may be, he himself
+must supply the determination, the continued energy and devotion which
+will lead him to success.
+
+"Playing with Liszt--he was an intimate friend of my father--is my most
+precious musical recollection of Budapest. I enjoyed it a great deal
+more than my regular lesson work. He would condescend to play with me
+some evenings and you can imagine what rare musical enjoyment, what
+happiness there was in playing with such a genius! I was still a boy
+when with him I played the Grieg F major sonata, which had just come
+fresh from the press. He played with me the D minor sonata of Schumann
+and introduced me to the mystic beauties of the Beethoven sonatas. I can
+still recall how in the Beethoven C minor sonata, in the first movement,
+Liszt would bring out a certain broken chromatic passage in the left
+hand, with a mighty _crescendo_, an effect of melodious thunder, of
+enormous depth of tone, and yet with the most exquisite regard for the
+balance between the violin and his own instrument. And there was not a
+trace of condescension in his attitude toward me; but always
+encouragement, a tender affectionate and paternal interest in a young
+boy, who at _that moment_ was a brother artist.
+
+"Through Liszt I came to know the great men of Hungarian music of that
+time: Erkel, Hans Richter, Robert Volkmann, Count Geza Zichy, and
+eventually I secured a scholarship, which the King had founded for
+music, to study with Joachim in Berlin, where I remained nearly three
+years. Hubay was my companion there; but afterward we separated, he
+going to Vieuxtemps, while I went to L�onard.
+
+
+                 JOACHIM AS A TEACHER AND INTERPRETER
+
+"Joachim was, perhaps, the most celebrated teacher of his time. Yet it
+is one of the greatest ironies of fate that when he died there was not
+one of his pupils who was considered by the German authorities 'great'
+enough to take the place the Master had held. Henri Marteau, who was
+not his pupil, and did not even exemplify his style in playing, was
+chosen to succeed him! Henri Petri, a Vieuxtemps pupil who went to
+Joachim, played just as well when he came to him as when he left him.
+The same might be said of Willy Burmester, Hess, Kes and Halir, the
+latter one of those Bohemian artists who had a tremendous 'Kubelik-like'
+execution. Teaching is and always will be a special gift. There are many
+minor artists who are wonderful 'teachers,' and _vice versa_!
+
+"Yet if Joachim may be criticized as regards the way of imparting the
+secrets of technical phases in his violin teaching, as a teacher of
+interpretation he was incomparable! As an interpreter of Beethoven and
+of Bach in particular, there has never been any one to equal Joachim.
+Yet he never played the same Bach composition twice in the same way. We
+were four in our class, and Hubay and I used to bring our copies of the
+sonatas with us, to make marginal notes while Joachim played to us, and
+these instantaneous musical 'snapshots' remain very interesting. But no
+matter how Joachim played Bach, it was always with a big tone, broad
+chords of an organ-like effect. There is no greater discrepancy than the
+edition of the Bach sonatas published (since his death) by Moser, and
+which is supposed to embody Joachim's interpretation. Sweeping chords,
+which Joachim always played with the utmost breadth, are 'arpeggiated'
+in Moser's edition! Why, if any of his pupils had ever attempted to
+play, for instance, the end of the _Bour�e_ in the B minor _Partita_ of
+Bach _� la Moser_, Joachim would have broken his bow over their heads!
+
+
+                          STUDYING WITH L�ONARD
+
+"After three years' study I left Joachim and went to Paris. Liszt had
+given me letters of introduction to various French artists, among them
+Saint-Sa�ns. One evening I happened to hear L�onard play Corelli's _La
+Folia_ in the _Salle Pleyel_, and the liquid clarity and beauty of his
+tone so impressed me that I decided I must study with him. I played for
+him and he accepted me as a pupil. I am free to admit that my tone,
+which people seem to be pleased to praise especially, I owe entirely to
+L�onard, for when I came to him I had the so-called 'German tone' (_son
+allemand_), of a harsh, rasping quality, which I tried to abandon
+absolutely. L�onard often would point to his ears while teaching and
+say: '_Ouvrez vos oreilles: �cout�z la beaut� du son!_' ('Open your
+ears, listen for beauty of sound!'). Most Joachim pupils you hear
+(unless they have reformed) attack a chord with the nut of the bow, the
+German method, which unduly stresses the attack. L�onard, on the
+contrary, insisted with his pupils on the attack being made with such
+smoothness as to be absolutely unobtrusive. Being a nephew of Mme.
+Malibran, he attached special importance to the 'singing' tone, and
+advised his pupils to hear great singers, to _listen_ to them, and to
+try and reproduce their _bel canto_ on the violin.
+
+"He was most particular in his observance of every _nuance_ of shading
+and expression. He told me that when he played Mendelssohn's concerto
+(for the first time) at the Leipsic _Gewandhaus_, at a rehearsal,
+Mendelssohn himself conducting, he began the first phrase with a full
+_mezzo-forte_ tone. Mendelssohn laid his hand on his arm and said: 'But
+it begins _piano!_' In reply L�onard merely pointed with his bow to the
+score--the _p_ which is now indicated in all editions had been omitted
+by some printer's error, and he had been quite within his rights in
+playing _mezzo-forte_.
+
+"L�onard paid a great deal of attention to scales and the right way to
+practice them. He would say, _'Il faut filer les sons: c'est l'art des
+ma�tres_. ('One must spin out the tone: that is the art of the
+masters.') He taught his pupils to play the scales with long, steady
+bowings, counting sixty to each bow. Himself a great classical
+violinist, he nevertheless paid a good deal of attention to _virtuoso_
+pieces; and always tried to prepare his pupils for _public life_. He had
+all sorts of wise hints for the budding concert artist, and was in the
+habit of saying: 'You must plan a program as you would the _m�nu_ of a
+dinner: there should be something for every one's taste. And,
+especially, if you are playing on a long program, together with other
+artists, offer nothing indigestible--let _your_ number be a relief!'
+
+
+                                SIVORI
+
+"While studying with L�onard I met Sivori, Paganini's only pupil (if we
+except Catarina Caleagno), for whom Paganini wrote a concerto and six
+short sonatas. L�onard took me to see him late one evening at the _H�tel
+de Havane_ in Paris, where Sivori was staying. When we came to his room
+we heard the sound of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from
+behind the closed door. We peered through the keyhole, and there he sat
+on his bed stringing his scale tones like pearls. He was a little chap
+and had the tiniest hands I have ever seen. Was this a drawback? If so,
+no one could tell from his playing; he had a flawless technic, and a
+really pearly quality of tone. He was very jolly and amiable, and he and
+L�onard were great friends, each always going to hear the other whenever
+he played in concert. My four years in Paris were in the main years of
+storm and stress--plain living and hard, very hard, concentrated work. I
+gave some accompanying lessons to help keep things going. When I left
+Paris I went to London and then began my public life as a concert
+violinist.
+
+
+                  GREAT MOMENTS IN AN ARTIST'S LIFE
+
+"What is the happiest remembrance of my career as a _virtuoso_? Some of
+the great moments in my life as an artist? It is hard to say. Of course
+some of my court appearances before the crowned heads of Europe are dear
+to me, not so much because they were _court_ appearances, but because of
+the graciousness and appreciation of the highly placed personages for
+whom I played.
+
+"Then, what I count a signal honor, I have played no less than _three_
+times as a solo artist with the Royal Philharmonic Society of London,
+the oldest symphonic society in Europe, for whom Beethoven composed his
+immortal IXth symphony (once under Sir Arthur Sullivan's baton; once
+under that of Sir A.C. Mackenzie, and once with Sir Frederick Cowen as
+conductor--on this last occasion I was asked to introduce my new Second
+concerto in B minor, Op. 36, at the time still in ms.) Then there is
+quite a number of great conductors with whom I have appeared, a few
+among them being Liszt, Rubinstein, Brahms, Pasdeloup, Sir August Manns,
+Sir Charles Hall�, L. Mancinelli, Weingartner and Hans Richter, etc.
+Perhaps, as a violinist, what I like best to recall is that as a boy I
+was invited by Richter to go with him to Bayreuth and play at the
+foundation of the Bayreuth festival theater, which however my parents
+would _not_ permit owing to my tender age. I also remember with pleasure
+an episode at the famous Pasdeloup Concerts in the _Cirque d'hiver_ in
+Paris, on an occasion when I performed the F sharp minor concerto of
+Ernst. After I had finished, two ladies came to the green room: they
+were in deep mourning, and one of them greatly moved, asked me to 'allow
+her to thank me' for the manner in which I had played this
+concerto--she said: _'I am the widow of Ernst!'_ She also told me that
+since his death she had never heard the concerto played as I had played
+it! In presenting to me her companion, the Marquise de Gallifet (wife of
+the General de Gallifet who led the brigade of the _Chasseurs d'Afrique_
+in the heroic charge of General Margueritte's cavalry division at Sedan,
+which excited the admiration of the old king of Prussia), I had the
+honor of meeting the once world famous violinist Mlle. Millanollo, as
+she was before her marriage. Mme. Ernst often came to hear me play her
+late husband's music, and as a parting gift presented me with his
+beautiful 'Tourte' bow, and an autographed copy of the first edition of
+Ernst's transcription for solo violin of Schubert's 'Erlking.' It is so
+incredibly difficult to play with proper balance of melody and
+accompaniment--I never heard any one but Kubelik play it--that it is
+almost impossible. It is so difficult, in fact, that it should not be
+played!
+
+
+                     VIOLINS AND STRINGS: SARASATE
+
+"My violin? I am a Stradivarius player, and possess two fine Strads,
+though I also have a beautiful Joseph Guarnerius. Ysaye, Thibaud and
+Caressa, when they lunched with me not long ago, were enthusiastic about
+them. My favorite Strad is a 1716 instrument--I have used it for
+twenty-five years. But I cannot use the wire strings that are now in
+such vogue here. I have to have Italian gut strings. The wire E cuts my
+fingers, and besides I notice a perceptible difference in sound quality.
+Of course, wire strings are practical; they do not 'snap' on the concert
+stage. Speaking of strings that 'snap,' reminds me that the first time I
+heard Sarasate play the Saint-Sa�ns concerto, at Frankfort, he twice
+forgot his place and stopped. They brought him the music, he began for
+the third time and then--the E string snapped! I do not think _any_
+other than Sarasate could have carried off these successive mishaps and
+brought his concert to a triumphant conclusion. He was a great friend of
+mine and one of the most _perfect_ players I have ever known, as well as
+one of the greatest _grand seigneurs_ among violinists. His rendering of
+romantic works, Saint-Sa�ns, Lalo, Bruch, was exquisite--I have never,
+never heard them played as beautifully. On the other hand, his Bach
+playing was excruciating--he played Bach sonatas as though they were
+virtuoso pieces. It made one think of Hans von B�low's _mot_ when, in
+speaking of a certain famous pianist, he said: 'He plays Beethoven with
+velocity and Czerny with expression.' But to hear Sarasate play romantic
+music, his own 'Spanish Dances' for instance, was all like glorious
+birdsong and golden sunshine, a lark soaring heavenwards!
+
+
+                       THE NARDINI CONCERTO IN A
+
+"You ask about my compositions? Well, Eddy Brown is going to play my
+Second violin concerto, Op. 36 in B flat, which I wrote for the London
+Philharmonic Society, next season; Elman the Nardini concerto in A,
+which was published only shortly before the outbreak of the war. Thirty
+years ago I found, by chance, three old Nardini concertos for violin and
+bass in the composer's _original_ ms., in Bologna. The best was the one
+in A--a beautiful work! But the bass was not even figured, and the task
+of reconstructing the accompaniment for piano, as well as for orchestra,
+and reverently doing justice to the composer's original intent and idea;
+while at the same time making its beauties clearly and expressively
+available from the standpoint of the violinist of to-day, was not easy.
+Still, I think I may say I succeeded." And Mr. Nach�z showed me some
+letters from famous contemporaries who had made the acquaintance of this
+Nardini concerto in A major. Auer, Thibaud, Sir Hubert Parry (who said
+that he had "infused the work with new life"), Pollak, Switzerland's
+ranking fiddler, Carl Flesch, author of the well-known _Urstudien_--all
+expressed their admiration. One we cannot forbear quoting a letter in
+part. It was from Ottokar Sevcik. The great Bohemian pedagogue is
+usually regarded as the apostle of mechanism in violin playing: as the
+inventor of an inexorably logical system of development, which stresses
+the technical at the expense of the musical. The following lines show
+him in quite a different light:
+
+     "I would not be surprised if Nardini, Vivaldi and their
+     companions were to appear to you at the midnight hour in
+     order to thank the master for having given new life to
+     their works, long buried beneath the mold of figured
+     basses; works whose vital, pulsating possibilities these
+     old gentlemen probably never suspected. Nardini emerges
+     from your alchemistic musical laboratory with so fresh
+     and lively a quality of charm that starving fiddlers will
+     greet him with the same pleasure with which the bee
+     greets the first honeyed blossom of spring."
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"And now you want my definition of 'Violin Mastery'? To me the whole art
+of playing violin is contained in the reverent and respectful
+interpretation of the works of the great masters. I consider the artist
+only their messenger, singing the message they give us. And the more one
+realizes this, the greater becomes one's veneration especially for
+Bach's creative work. For twenty years I never failed to play the Bach
+solo sonatas for violin every day of my life--a violinist's 'daily
+prayer' in its truest sense! Students of Bach are apt, in the beginning,
+to play, say, the _finale_ of the G minor sonata, the final _Allegro_ of
+the A minor sonata, the _Gigue_ of the B minor, or the _Preludio_ of the
+E major sonata like a mechanical exercise: it takes _constant_ study to
+disclose their intimate harmonic melodious conception and poetry! One
+should always remember that technic is, after all, only a _means_. It
+must be acquired in order to be an unhampered master of the instrument,
+as a medium for presenting the thoughts of the great creators--but
+_these thoughts_, and not their medium of expression, are the chief
+objects of the true and great artist, whose aim in life is to serve his
+Art humbly, reverently and faithfully! You remember these words:
+
+"'In the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of
+passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it
+smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,
+periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split
+the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of
+nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise!...'"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XV
+
+
+                           MAXIMILIAN PILZER
+
+                   THE SINGING TONE AND THE VIBRATO
+
+
+Maximilian Pilzer is deservedly prominent among younger American concert
+violinists. A pupil of Joachim, Shradieck, Gustav Hollander, he is, as
+it has already been picturesquely put, "a graduate of the rock and thorn
+university," an artist who owes his success mainly to his own natural
+gifts plus an infinite capacity for taking pains. Though primarily an
+interpreter his interlocutor yet had the good fortune to happen on Mr.
+Pilzer when he was giving a lesson. Essentially a solo violinist, Mr.
+Pilzer nevertheless has the born teacher's wish to impart, to share,
+where talent justifies it, his own knowledge. He himself did not have to
+tell the listener this--the lesson he was giving betrayed the fact.
+
+It was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_ that the student played. And as
+Mr. Pilzer illustrated the delicate shades of _nuance_, of phrasing, of
+bowing, with instant rebuke for an occasional lack of "warmth" in tone,
+the improvement was instantaneous and unmistakable. The lesson over, he
+said:
+
+
+                            THE SINGING TONE
+
+"The singing tone is the ideal one, it is the natural violin tone. Too
+many violin students have the technical bee in their bonnet and neglect
+it. And too many believe that speed is brilliancy. When they see the
+black notes they take for granted that they must 'run to beat the band.'
+Yet often it is the teacher's fault if a good singing tone is not
+developed. Where the teacher's playing is cold, that of the pupil is apt
+to be the same. Warmth, rounded fullness, the truly beautiful violin
+tone is more difficult to call forth than is generally supposed. And, in
+a manner of speaking, the soul of this tone quality is the _vibrato_,
+though the individual instrument also has much to do with the tone.
+
+
+                              THE VIBRATO
+
+"But not," Mr. Pilzer continued, "not as it is too often mistakenly
+employed. Of course, any trained player will draw his bow across the
+strings in a smooth, even way, but that is not enough. There must be an
+inner, emotional instinct, an electric spark within the player himself
+that sets the _vibrato_ current in motion. It is an inner, psychic
+vibration which should be reflected by the intense, rapid vibration in
+the fingers of the left hand on the strings in order to give fluent
+expression to emotion. The _vibrato_ can not be used, naturally, on the
+open strings, but otherwise it represents the true means for securing
+warmth of expression. Of course, some decry the _vibrato_--but the
+reason is often because the _vibrato_ is too slow. One need only listen
+to Ysaye, Elman, Kreisler: artists such as these employ the quick,
+intense _vibrato_ with ideal effect. An exaggerated _vibrato_ is as bad
+as what I call 'the sentimental slide,' a common fault, which many
+violinists cultivate under the impression that they are playing
+expressively.
+
+
+                   VIOLIN MASTERY AND ITS ATTAINMENT
+
+"Violin mastery expresses more or less the aspiration to realize an
+ideal. It is a hope, a prayer, rather than an actual fact, since nothing
+human is absolutely perfect. Ysaye, perhaps, with his golden tone, comes
+nearest to my idea of what violin mastery should be, both as regards
+breadth and delicacy of interpretation. And guide-posts along the long
+road that leads to mastery of the instrument? Individuality in teaching,
+progress along natural lines, surety in bowing, a tone-production
+without forcing, cultivating a sense of rhythm and accent. I always
+remember what Moser once wrote in my autograph album: 'Rhythm and accent
+are the soul of music!'
+
+
+                           THE SHINING GOAL
+
+"And what a shining goal is waiting to be reached! The correct
+interpretation of Bach, Haendel and the old Italian and French classics,
+and of the vast realm of _ensemble_ music under which head come the
+Mozart and Beethoven violin sonatas, and those of their successors,
+Schumann, Brahms, etc. And aside from the classics, the moderns. And
+then there are the great violin concertos, in a class by themselves.
+They represent, in a degree, the utmost that the composer has done for
+the interpreting artist. Yet they differ absolutely in manner, style,
+thought, etc. Take Joachim's own Hungarian concerto, which I played for
+the composer, of which I still treasure the recollection of his patting
+me on the shoulder and saying: 'There is nothing for me to correct!' It
+is a work deliberately designed for technical display, and is
+tremendously difficult. But the wonderful Brahms concerto, those of
+Beethoven and Max Bruch; of Mozart and Mendelssohn--it is hard to
+express a preference for works so different in the quality of their
+beauty. The Russian Conus has a fine concerto in E, and Sinding a most
+effective one in A major. Edmund Severn, the American composer and
+violinist, has also written a notably fine violin concerto which I have
+played, with the Philharmonic, one that ought to be heard oftener.
+
+
+                             PLAYING BACH
+
+"Bach is one of the most difficult of the great masters to interpret on
+the violin. His polyphonic style and interweaving themes demand close
+study in order to make the meaning clear. In the Bach _Chaconne_, for
+instance, some very great violinists do not pay enough attention to
+making a distinction between principal and secondary notes of a chord.
+Here [Mr. Pilzer took up a new Strad he has recently acquired and
+illustrated his meaning] in this four-note chord there is one important
+melody note which must stand out. And it can be done, though not without
+some study. Bach abounds in such pitfalls, and in studying him the
+closest attention is necessary. Once the problems involved overcome, his
+music gains its true clarity and beauty and the enjoyment of artist and
+listener is doubled.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XVI
+
+
+                               MAUD POWELL
+
+                   TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: SOME HINTS
+                         FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER
+
+
+Maud Powell is often alluded to as our representative "American _woman_
+violinist" which, while true in a narrower sense, is not altogether just
+in a broader way. It would be decidedly more fair to consider her a
+representative American violinist, without stressing the term "woman";
+for as regards Art in its higher sense, the artist comes first, sex
+being incidental, and Maud Powell is first and foremost--an artist. And
+her infinite capacity for taking pains, her willingness to work hard
+have had no small part in the position she has made for herself, and the
+success she has achieved.
+
+
+                 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONCERT VIOLINIST
+
+"Too many Americans who take up the violin professionally," Maud Powell
+told the writer, "do not realize that the mastery of the instrument is
+a life study, that without hard, concentrated work they cannot reach the
+higher levels of their art. Then, too, they are too often inclined to
+think that if they have a good tone and technic that this is all they
+need. They forget that the musical instinct must be cultivated; they do
+not attach enough importance to musical surroundings: to hearing and
+understanding music of every kind, not only that written for the violin.
+They do not realize the value of _ensemble_ work and its influence as an
+educational factor of the greatest artistic value. I remember when I was
+a girl of eight, my mother used to play the Mozart violin sonatas with
+me; I heard all the music I possibly could hear; I was taught harmony
+and musical form in direct connection with my practical work, so that
+theory was a living thing to me and no abstraction. In my home town I
+played in an orchestra of twenty pieces--Oh, no, not a 'ladies
+orchestra'--the other members were men grown! I played chamber music as
+well as solos whenever the opportunity offered, at home and in public.
+In fact music was part of my life.
+
+          [Illustration: MAUD POWELL, with hand-written note]
+
+"No student who looks on music primarily as a thing apart in his
+existence, as a bread-winning tool, as a craft rather than an art,
+can ever mount to the high places. So often girls [who sometimes lack
+the practical vision of boys], although having studied but a few years,
+come to me and say: 'My one ambition is to become a great _virtuoso_ on
+the violin! I want to begin to study the great concertos!' And I have to
+tell them that their first ambition should be to become musicians--to
+study, to know, to understand music before they venture on its
+interpretation. Virtuosity without musicianship will not carry one far
+these days. In many cases these students come from small inland towns,
+far from any music center, and have a wrong attitude of mind. They crave
+the glamor of footlights, flowers and applause, not realizing that music
+is a speech, an idiom, which they must master in order to interpret the
+works of the great composers.
+
+
+                     THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER
+
+"Of course, all artistic playing represents essentially the mental
+control of technical means. But to acquire the latter in the right way,
+while at the same time developing the former, calls for the best of
+teachers. The problem of the teacher is to prevent his pupils from being
+too imitative--all students are natural imitators--and furthering the
+quality of musical imagination in them. Pupils generally have something
+of the teacher's tone--Auer pupils have the Auer tone, Joachim pupils
+have a Joachim tone, an excellent thing. But as each pupil has an
+individuality of his own, he should never sink it altogether in that of
+his teacher. It is this imitative trend which often makes it hard to
+judge a young player's work. I was very fortunate in my teachers.
+William Lewis of Chicago gave me a splendid start. Then I studied in
+turn with Schradieck in Leipsic--Schradieck himself was a pupil of
+Ferdinand David and of L�onard--Joachim in Berlin, and Charles Dancla in
+Paris. I might say that I owe most, in a way, to William Lewis, a born
+fiddler. Of my three European masters Dancla was unquestionably the
+greatest as a teacher--of course I am speaking for myself. It was no
+doubt an advantage, a decided advantage for me in my artistic
+development, which was slow--a family trait--to enjoy the broadening
+experience of three entirely different styles of teaching, and to be
+able to assimilate the best of each. Yet Joachim was a far greater
+violinist than teacher. His method was a cramping one, owing to his
+insistence on pouring all his pupils into the same mold, so to speak,
+of forming them all on the Joachim lathe. But Dancla was inspiring. He
+taught me De B�riot's wonderful method of attack; he showed me how to
+develop purity of style. Dancla's method of teaching gave his pupils a
+technical equipment which carried bowing right along, 'neck and neck'
+with the finger work of the left hand, while the Germans are apt to
+stress finger development at the expense of the bow. And without ever
+neglecting technical means, Dancla always put the purely musical before
+the purely virtuoso side of playing. And this is always a sign of a good
+teacher. He was unsparing in taking pains and very fair.
+
+"I remember that I was passed first in a class of eighty-four at an
+examination, after only three private lessons in which to prepare the
+concerto movement to be played. I was surprised and asked him why
+Mlle.---- who, it seemed to me, had played better than I, had not
+passed. 'Ah,' he said, 'Mlle.---- studied that movement for six months;
+and in comparison, you, with only three lessons, play it better!' Dancla
+switched me right over in his teaching from German to French methods,
+and taught me how to become an artist, just as I had learned in Germany
+to become a musician. The French school has taste, elegance,
+imagination; the German is more conservative, serious, and has, perhaps,
+more depth.
+
+
+                          TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
+
+"Perhaps it is because I belong to an older school, or it may be because
+I laid stress on technic because of its necessity as a means of
+expression--at any rate I worked hard at it. Naturally, one should never
+practice any technical difficulty too long at a stretch. Young players
+sometimes forget this. I know that _staccato_ playing was not easy for
+me at one time. I believe a real _staccato_ is inborn; a knack. I used
+to grumble about it to Joachim and he told me once that musically
+_staccato_ did not have much value. His own, by the way, was very
+labored and heavy. He admitted that he had none. Wieniawski had such a
+wonderful _staccato_ that one finds much of it in his music. When I
+first began to play his D minor concerto I simply made up my mind to get
+a _staccato_. It came in time, by sheer force of will. After that I had
+no trouble. An artistic _staccato_ should, like the trill, be plastic
+and under control; for different schools of composition demand
+different styles of treatment of such details.
+
+"Octaves--the unison, not broken--I did not find difficult; but though
+they are supposed to add volume of tone they sound hideous to me. I have
+used them in certain passages of my arrangement of 'Deep River,' but
+when I heard them played, promised myself I would never repeat the
+experiment. Wilhelmj has committed even a worse crime in taste by
+putting six long bars of Schubert's lovely _Ave Maria_ in octaves. Of
+course they represent skill; but I think they are only justified in show
+pieces. Harmonics I always found easy; though whether they ring out as
+they should always depends more or less on atmospheric conditions, the
+strings and the amount of rosin on the bow. On the concert stage if the
+player stands in a draught the harmonics are sometimes husky.
+
+
+                  THE AMERICAN WOMAN VIOLINIST AND
+                            AMERICAN MUSIC
+
+"The old days of virtuoso 'tricks' have passed--I should like to hope
+forever. Not that some of the old type virtuosos were not fine players.
+Remenyi played beautifully. So did Ole Bull. I remember one favorite
+trick of the latter's, for instance, which would hardly pass muster
+to-day. I have seen him draw out a long _pp_, the audience listening
+breathlessly, while he drew his bow way beyond the string, and then
+looked innocently at the point of the bow, as though wondering where the
+tone had vanished. It invariably brought down the house.
+
+"Yet an artist must be a virtuoso in the modern sense to do his full
+duty. And here in America that duty is to help those who are groping for
+something higher and better musically; to help without rebuffing them.
+When I first began my career as a concert violinist I did pioneer work
+for the cause of the American woman violinist, going on with the work
+begun by Mme. Camilla Urso. A strong prejudice then existed against
+women fiddlers, which even yet has not altogether been overcome. The
+very fact that a Western manager recently told Mr. Turner with surprise
+that he 'had made a success of a woman artist' proves it. When I first
+began to play here in concert this prejudice was much stronger. Yet I
+kept on and secured engagements to play with orchestra at a time when
+they were difficult to obtain. Theodore Thomas liked my playing (he
+said I had brains), and it was with his orchestra that I introduced the
+concertos of Saint-Sa�ns (C min.), Lalo (F min.), and others, to
+American audiences.
+
+"The fact that I realized that my sex was against me in a way led me to
+be startlingly authoritative and convincing in the masculine manner when
+I first played. This is a mistake no woman violinist should make. And
+from the moment that James Huneker wrote that I 'was not developing the
+feminine side of my work,' I determined to be just myself, and play as
+the spirit moved me, with no further thought of sex or sex distinctions
+which, in Art, after all, are secondary. I never realized this more
+forcibly than once, when, sitting as a judge, I listened to the
+competitive playing of a number of young professional violinists and
+pianists. The individual performers, unseen by the judges, played in
+turn behind a screen. And in three cases my fellow judges and myself
+guessed wrongly with regard to the sex of the players. When we thought
+we had heard a young man play it happened to be a young woman, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+"To return to the question of concert-work. You must not think that I
+have played only foreign music in public. I have always believed in
+American composers and in American composition, and as an American have
+tried to do justice as an interpreting artist to the music of my native
+land. Aside from the violin concertos by Harry Rowe Shelly and Henry
+Holden Huss, I have played any number of shorter original compositions
+by such representative American composers as Arthur Foote, Mrs. H.H.A.
+Beach, Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa, Arthur Bird, Edwin Grasse,
+Marion Bauer, Cecil Burleigh, Harry Gilbert, A. Walter Kramer, Grace
+White, Charles Wakefield Cadman and others. Then, too, I have presented
+transcriptions by Arthur Hartmann, Francis Macmillan and Sol Marcosson,
+as well as some of my own. Transcriptions are wrong, theoretically; yet
+some songs, like Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Song of India' and some piano
+pieces, like the Dvor�k _Humoresque_, are so obviously effective on the
+violin that a transcription justifies itself. My latest temptative in
+that direction is my 'Four American Folk Songs,' a simple setting of
+four well-known airs with connecting cadenzas--no variations, no special
+development! I used them first as _encores_, but my audiences seemed to
+like them so well that I have played them on all my recent programs.
+
+
+                    SOME HINTS FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER
+
+"The very first thing in playing in public is to free oneself of all
+distrust in one's own powers. To do this, nothing must be left to
+chance. One should not have to give a thought to strings, bow, etc. All
+should be in proper condition. Above all the violinist should play with
+an accompanist who is used to accompanying him. It seems superfluous to
+emphasize that one's program numbers must have been mastered in every
+detail. Only then can one defy nervousness, turning excess of emotion
+into inspiration.
+
+"Acoustics play a greater part in the success of a public concert than
+most people realize. In some halls they are very good, as in the case of
+the Cleveland Hippodrome, an enormous place which holds forty-three
+hundred people. Here the acoustics are perfect, and the artist has those
+wonderful silences through which his slightest tones carry clearly and
+sweetly. I have played not only solos, but chamber music in this hall,
+and was always sorry to stop playing. In most halls the acoustic
+conditions are best in the evening.
+
+"Then there is the matter of the violin. I first used a Joseph
+Guarnerius, a deeper toned instrument than the Jean Baptista Guadagnini
+I have now played for a number of years. The Guarnerius has a tone that
+seems to come more from within the instrument; but all in all I have
+found my Guadagnini, with its glassy clearness, its brilliant and limpid
+tone-quality, better adapted to American concert halls. If I had a Strad
+in the same condition as my Guadagnini the instrument would be
+priceless. I regretted giving up my Guarnerius, but I could not play the
+two violins interchangeably; for they were absolutely different in size
+and tone-production, shape, etc. Then my hand is so small that I ought
+to use the instrument best adapted to it, and to use the same instrument
+always. Why do I use no chin-rest? I use no chin-rest on my Guadagnini
+simply because I cannot find one to fit my chin. One should use a
+chin-rest to prevent perspiration from marring the varnish. My Rocca
+violin is an interesting instance of wood worn in ridges by the stubble
+on a man's chin.
+
+"Strings? Well, I use a wire E string. I began to use it twelve years
+ago one humid, foggy summer in Connecticut. I had had such trouble with
+strings snapping that I cried: 'Give me anything but a gut string.' The
+climate practically makes metal strings a necessity, though some kind
+person once said that I bought wire strings because they were cheap! If
+wire strings had been thought of when Theodore Thomas began his career,
+he might never have been a conductor, for he told me he gave up the
+violin because of the E string. And most people will admit that hearing
+a wire E you cannot tell it from a gut E. Of course, it is unpleasant on
+the open strings, but then the open strings never do sound well. And in
+the highest registers the tone does not spin out long enough because of
+the tremendous tension: one has to use more bow. And it cuts the hairs:
+there is a little surface nap on the bow-hairs which a wire string wears
+right out. I had to have my four bows rehaired three times last
+season--an average of every three months. But all said and done it has
+been a God-send to the violinist who plays in public. On the wire A one
+cannot get the harmonics; and the aluminum D is objectionable in some
+violins, though in others not at all.
+
+"The main thing--no matter what strings are used--is for the artist to
+get his audience into the concert hall, and give it a program which is
+properly balanced. Theodore Thomas first advised me to include in my
+programs short, simple things that my listeners could 'get hold
+of'--nothing inartistic, but something selected from their standpoint,
+not from mine, and played as artistically as possible. Yet there must
+also be something that is beyond them, collectively. Something that they
+may need to hear a number of times to appreciate. This enables the
+artist to maintain his dignity and has a certain psychological effect in
+that his audience holds him in greater respect. At big conservatories
+where music study is the most important thing, and in large cities,
+where the general level of music culture is high, a big solid program
+may be given, where it would be inappropriate in other places.
+
+"Yet I remember having many recalls at El Paso, Texas, once, after
+playing the first movement of the Sibelius concerto. It is one of those
+compositions which if played too literally leaves an audience quite
+cold; it must be rendered temperamentally, the big climaxing effects
+built up, its Northern spirit brought out, though I admit that even then
+it is not altogether easy to grasp.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery or mastery of any instrument, for that matter, is the
+technical power to say exactly what you want to say in exactly the way
+you want to say it. It is technical equipment that stands at the service
+of your musical will--a faithful and competent servant that comes at
+your musical bidding. If your spirit soars 'to parts unknown,' your well
+trained servant 'technic' is ever at your elbow to prevent irksome
+details from hampering your progress. Mastery of your instrument makes
+mastery of your Art a joy instead of a burden. Technic should always be
+the hand-maid of the spirit.
+
+"And I believe that one result of the war will be to bring us a greater
+self-knowledge, to the violinist as well as to every other artist, a
+broader appreciation of what he can do to increase and elevate
+appreciation for music in general and his Art in particular. And with
+these I am sure a new impetus will be given to the development of a
+musical culture truly American in thought and expression."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVII
+
+
+                              LEON SAMETINI
+
+                                HARMONICS
+
+
+Leon Sametini, at present director of the violin department of the
+Chicago Music College, where Sauret, Heermann and Sebald preceded him,
+is one of the most successful teachers of his instrument in this
+country. It is to be regretted that he has not played in public in the
+United States as often as in Europe, where his extensive _tourn�es_ in
+Holland--Leon Sametini is a Hollander by birth--Belgium, England and
+Austria have established his reputation as a virtuoso, and the quality
+of his playing led Ysaye to include him in a quartet of artists "in
+order of lyric expression" with himself and Thibaud. Yet, the fact
+remains that this erstwhile _prot�g�_ of Queen Wilhelmina--she gave him
+his beautiful Santo Serafin (1730) violin, whose golden varnish back "is
+a genuine picture,"--to quote its owner--is a distinguished interpreting
+artist besides having a real teaching gift, which lends additional
+weight to his educational views.
+
+
+                         REMINISCENCES OF SEVCIK
+
+"I began to study violin at the age of six, with my uncle. From him I
+went to Eldering in Amsterdam, now Willy Hess's successor at the head of
+the Cologne Conservatory, and then spent a year with Sevcik in Prague.
+Yet--without being his pupil--I have learned more from Ysaye than from
+any of my teachers. It is rather the custom to decry Sevcik as a
+teacher, to dwell on his absolutely mechanical character of
+instruction--and not without justice. First of all Sevcik laid all the
+stress on the left hand and not on the bow--an absolute inversion of a
+fundamental principle. Eldering had taken great pains with my bow
+technic, for he himself was a pupil of Hubay, who had studied with
+Vieuxtemps and had his tradition. But Sevcik's teaching as regards the
+use of the bow was very poor; his pupils--take Kubelik with all his
+marvelous finger facility--could never develop a big bow technic. Their
+playing lacks strength, richness of sound. Sevcik soon noticed that my
+bowing did not conform to his theories; yet since he could not
+legitimately complain of the results I secured, he did not attempt to
+make me change it. Musical beauty, interpretation, in Sevcik's case were
+all subordinated to mechanical perfection. With him the study of some
+inspired masterpiece was purely a mathematical process, a problem in
+technic and mental arithmetic, without a bit of spontaneity. Ysaye used
+to roar with laughter when I would tell him how, when a boy of fifteen,
+I played the Beethoven concerto for Sevcik--a work which I myself felt
+and knew it was then out of the question for me to play with artistic
+maturity--the latter's only criticisms on my performance were that one
+or two notes were a little too high, and a certain passage not quite
+clear.
+
+"Sevcik did not like the Dvor�k concerto and never gave it to his
+pupils. But I lived next door to Dvor�k at Prague, and meeting him in
+the street one day, asked him some questions anent its interpretation,
+with the result that I went to his home various times and he gave me his
+own ideas as to how it should be played. Sevcik never pointed his
+teachings by playing himself. I never saw him take up the fiddle while I
+studied with him. While I was his pupil he paid me the compliment of
+selecting me to play Sinigaglia's engaging violin concerto, at short
+notice, for the first time in Prague. Sinigaglia had asked Sevcik to
+play it, who said: 'I no longer play violin, but I have a pupil who can
+play it for you,' and introduced me to him. Sinigaglia became a good
+friend of mine, and I was the first to introduce his _Rapsodia
+Piedmontese_ for violin and orchestra in London. To return to
+Sevcik--with all the deficiencies of his teaching methods, he had one
+great gift. He taught his pupils _how to practice_! And--aside from
+bowing--he made all mechanical problems, especially finger problems,
+absolutely clear and lucid.
+
+
+                  A QUARTET OF GREAT TEACHERS WITH WHOM
+                              ALL MAY STUDY
+
+"Still, all said and done, it was after I had finished with all my
+teachers that I really began to learn to play violin: above all from
+Ysaye, whom I went to hear play wherever and whenever I could. I think
+that the most valuable lessons I have ever had are those unconsciously
+given me by four of the greatest violinists I know: Ysaye, Kreisler,
+Elman and Thibaud. Each of these artists is so different that no one
+seems altogether to replace the other. Ysaye with his unique
+personality, the immense breadth and sweep of his interpretation, his
+dramatic strength, stands alone. Kreisler has a certain sparkling
+scintillance in his playing that is his only. Elman might be called the
+Caruso among violinists, with the perfected sensuous beauty of his tone;
+while Thibaud stands for supreme elegance and distinction. I have
+learned much from each member of this great quartet. And if the artist
+can profit from hearing and seeing them play, why not the student? Every
+recital given by such masters offers the earnest violin student
+priceless opportunities for study and comparison. My special leaning
+toward Ysaye is due, aside from his wonderful personality, to the fact
+that I feel music in the same way that he does.
+
+
+                           TEACHING PRINCIPLES
+
+'My teaching principles are the results of my own training period, my
+own experience as a concert artist and teacher--before I came to America
+I taught in London, where Isolde Menges, among others, studied with
+me--and what either directly or indirectly I have learned from my great
+colleagues. In the Music College I give the advanced pupils their
+individual lessons; but once a week the whole class assembles--as in
+the European conservatories--and those whose turn it is to play do so
+while the others listen. This is of value to every student, since it
+gives him an opportunity of 'hearing himself as others hear him.' Then,
+to stimulate appreciation and musical development there are _ensemble_
+and string quartet classes. I believe that every violinist should be
+able to play viola, and in quartet work I make the players shift
+constantly from one to the other instrument in order to hear what they
+play from a different angle.
+
+"For left hand work I stick to the excellent Sevcik exercises and for
+some pupils I use the Carl Flesch _Urstudien_. For studies of real
+_musical_ value Rode, of course, is unexcelled. His studies are the
+masterpieces of their kind, and I turn them into concert pieces. Thibaud
+and Elman have supplied some of them with interesting piano
+accompaniments.
+
+"For bowing, with the exception of a few purely mechanical exercises, I
+used Kreutzer and Rode, and Gavinies. Ninety-nine per cent. of pupils'
+faults are faults of bowing. It is an art in itself. Sevcik was able to
+develop Kubelik's left hand work to the last degree of perfection--but
+not his bowing. In the case of Kocian, another well-known Sevcik pupil
+whom I have heard play, his bowing was by no means an outstanding
+feature. I often have to start pupils on the open strings in order to
+correct fundamental bow faults.
+
+"When watching a great artist play the student should not expect to
+secure similar results by slavish imitation--another pupil fault. The
+thing to do is to realize the principle behind the artist's playing, and
+apply it to one's own physical possibilities.
+
+"Every one holds, draws and uses the bow in a different way. If no two
+thumb-prints are alike, neither are any two sets of fingers and wrists.
+This is why not slavish imitation, but intelligent adaptation should be
+applied to the playing of the teacher in the class-room or the artist on
+the concert-stage. For instance, the little finger of Ysaye's left hand
+bends inward somewhat--as a result it is perfectly natural for him to
+make less use of the little finger, while it might be very difficult or
+almost impossible for another to employ the same fingering. And certain
+compositions and styles of composition are more adapted to one violinist
+than to another. I remember when I was a student, that Wieniawski's
+music seemed to lie just right for my hand. I could read difficult
+things of his at sight.
+
+
+                           DOUBLE HARMONICS
+
+"Would I care to discuss any special feature of violin technic? I might
+say something anent double harmonics--a subject too often taught in a
+mechanical way, and one I have always taken special pains to make
+absolutely plain to my own pupils--for every violinist should be able to
+play double harmonics out of a clear understanding of how to form them.
+
+"There are only two kinds of harmonics: natural and artificial. Natural
+harmonics may be formed on the major triad of each open string, using
+the open string as the tonic. As, for example, on the G string [and Mr.
+Sametini set down the following illustration]:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Then there are four kinds of artificial harmonics, only three of which
+are used: harmonics on the major third (1); harmonics on the perfect
+fourth (2); harmonics on the perfect fifth (3); and harmonics--never
+used--on the octave:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Where does the harmonic sound in each case? Two octaves and a third
+higher (1); two octaves higher (2); one octave and a fifth higher (3)
+respectively, than the pressed-down note. If the harmonic on the octave
+(4) were played, it would sound just an octave higher than the
+pressed-down note.
+
+"Now say we wished to combine different double harmonics. The whole
+principle is made clear if we take, let us say, the first double-stop in
+the scale of C major in thirds as an example:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"Beginning with the lower of these two notes, the C, we find that it
+cannot not be taken as a natural harmonic
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+because natural harmonics on the open strings run as follows: G, B, D on
+the G string; D, F{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~}, A on the D string; A, C{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~}, E on the A string; and
+E, G{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~}, B on the E string. There are three ways of taking the C before
+mentioned as an artificial harmonic. The E may be taken in the following
+manner:
+
+           Nat. harmonic                     Artificial harmonic
+  [Illustration: Musical Notation]    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Now we have to combine the C and E as well as we are able. Rejecting
+the following combinations as _impossible_--any violinist will see why--
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+we have a choice of the two _possible_ combinations remaining, with the
+fingering indicated:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"With regard to the _actual execution_ of these harmonics, I advise all
+students to try and play them with every bit as much expressive feeling
+as ordinary notes. My experience has been that pupils do not pay nearly
+enough attention to the intonation of harmonics. In other words, they
+try to produce the harmonics _immediately_, instead of first making sure
+that both fingers are on the right spot before they loosen one finger on
+the string. For instance in the following: [Illustration: Musical
+Notation] first play [Illustration: Musical Notation] and then
+[Illustration: Musical Notation] then loosen the fourth finger, and play
+[Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"The same principle holds good when playing double harmonics. Nine
+tenths of the 'squeaking' heard when harmonics are played is due to the
+fact that the finger-placing is not properly prepared, and that the
+fingers are not on the right spot.
+
+"Never, when playing a harmonic with an up-bow [Symbol: up-bow], at the
+point, smash down the bow on the string; but have it already _on_ the
+string _before_ playing the harmonic. The process is reversed when
+playing a down-bow [Symbol: down-bow] harmonic. When beginning a
+harmonic at the frog, have the harmonic ready, then let the bow _drop_
+gently on the string.
+
+"Triple and quadruple harmonics may be combined in exactly the same way.
+Students should never get the idea that you press down the string as you
+press a button and--presto--the magic harmonics appear! They are a
+simple and natural result of the proper application of scientific
+principles; and the sooner the student learns to form and combine
+harmonics himself instead of learning them by rote, the better will he
+play them. Too often a student can give the fingering of certain double
+harmonics and cannot use it. Of course, harmonics are only a detail of
+the complete mastery of the violin; but mastery of all details leads to
+mastery of the whole.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"And what is mastery of the whole? Mastery of the whole, real violin
+mastery, I think, lies in the control of the interpretative problem, the
+power to awaken emotion by the use of the instrument. Many feel more
+than they can express, have more left hand than bow technic and, like
+Kubelik, have not the perfected technic for which perfected playing
+calls. The artist who feels beauty keenly and deeply and whose
+mechanical equipment allows him to make others feel and share the beauty
+he himself feels is in my opinion worthy of being called a master of the
+violin."
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+
+
+                          ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY
+
+                  WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO
+
+
+Alexander Saslavsky is probably best known as a solo artist, as the
+concertmaster of a great symphonic orchestra, as the leader of the
+admirable quartet which bears his name. Yet, at the same time, few
+violinists can speak with more authority anent the instructive phases of
+their Art. Not only has he been active for years in the teaching field;
+but as a pedagog he rounds out the traditions of Ferdinand David,
+Massard, Auer, and Gr�n (Vienna _Hochschule_), acquired during his
+"study years," with the result of his own long and varied experience.
+
+Beginning at the beginning, I asked Mr. Saslavsky to tell me something
+about methods, his own in particular. "Method is a flexible term," he
+answered. "What the word should mean is the cultivation of the pupil's
+individuality along the lines best suited to it. Not that a guide which
+may be employed to develop common-sense principles is not valuable. But
+even here, the same guide (violin-method) will not answer for every
+pupil. Personally I find De B�riot's 'Violin School' the most generally
+useful, and for advanced students, Ferdinand David's second book. Then,
+for scales--I insist on my pupils being able to play, a perfect scale
+through three octaves--the Hrimaly book of scales. Many advanced
+violinists cannot play a good scale simply because of a lack of
+fundamental work.
+
+"As soon as the pupil is able, he should take up Kreutzer and stick to
+him as the devotee does to his Bible. Any one who can play the '42
+Exercises' as they should be played may be called a well-balanced
+violinist. There are too many purely mechanical exercises--and the
+circumstance that we have Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo, Rovelli and Dont
+emphasizes the fact. And there are too many elaborate and complicated
+violin methods. Sevcik, for instance, has devised a purely mechanical
+system of this kind, perfect from a purely mechanical standpoint, but
+one whose consistent use, in my opinion, kills initiative and
+individuality. I have had experience with Sevcik pupils in quartet
+playing, and have found that they have no expression.
+
+
+                   WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO
+
+"After all, the teacher can only supply the pupil with the violinistic
+equipment. The pupil must use it. There is tone, for instance. The
+teacher cannot _make_ tone for the pupil--he can only show him how tone
+can be made. Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes it almost
+impossible for the pupil to produce a good natural tone. If the
+finger-tips are not adequately equipped with 'cushions,' and a pupil
+wishes to use the _vibrato_ there is nothing with which he can vibrate.
+There is real meaning, speaking of the violinist's tone, in the phrase
+'he has it at his fingers' tips.' Then there is the matter of _slow_
+practice. It rests with the pupil to carry out the teacher's injunctions
+in this respect. The average pupil practices too fast, is too eager to
+develop his Art as a money maker. And too many really gifted students
+take up orchestra playing, which no one can do continuously and hope to
+be a solo player. Four hours of study work may be nullified by a single
+hour of orchestra playing. Musically it is broadening, of course, but I
+am speaking from the standpoint of the student who hopes to become a
+solo artist. An opera orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the
+symphonic _ensemble_ more care is used; but in the opera orchestra they
+employ the _right_ arm for tremolo! There is a good deal of _camouflage_
+as regards string playing in an opera orchestra, and much of the
+music--notably Wagner's--is quite impracticable.
+
+"And lessons are often made all too short. A teacher in common honesty
+cannot really give a pupil much in half-an-hour--it is not a real
+lesson. There is a good deal to be said for class teaching as it is
+practiced at the European conservatories, especially as regards
+interpretation. In my student days I learned much from listening to
+others play the concertos they had prepared, and from noting the
+teacher's corrections. And this even in a purely technical way: I can
+recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the
+_technical_ points of violin playing.
+
+
+                             A GREAT DEFECT
+
+"Most pupils seem to lack an absolute sense of rhythm--a great defect.
+Yet where latent it may be developed. Here Kreutzer is invaluable,
+since he presents every form of rhythmic problem, scales in various
+rhythms and bowings. Kreutzer's 'Exercise No. 2,' for example, may be
+studied with any number of bowings. To produce a broad tone the bow must
+move slowly, and in rapid passages should never seem to introduce
+technical exercises in a concert number. The student should memorize
+Kreutzer and Fiorillo. Flesch's _Urstudien_ offer the artist or
+professional musician who has time for little practice excellent
+material; but are not meant for the pupil, unless he be so far advanced
+that he may be trusted to use them alone.
+
+
+                           TONE: PRACTICE TIME
+
+"Broad playing gives the singing tone--the true violin tone--a long bow
+drawn its full length. Like every general rule though, this one must be
+modified by the judgment of the individual player. Violin playing is an
+art of many mysteries. Some pupils grasp a point at once; others have to
+have it explained seven or eight different ways before grasping it. The
+serious student should practice not less than four hours, preferably in
+twenty minute intervals. After some twenty minutes the brain is apt to
+tire. And since the fingers are controlled by the brain, it is best to
+relax for a short time before going on. Mental and physical control must
+always go hand in hand. Four hours of intelligent, consistent practice
+work are far better than eight or ten of fatigued effort.
+
+
+                         A NATIONAL CONSERVATORY
+
+"Some five years ago too many teachers gave their pupils the Mendelssohn
+and Paganini concertos to play before they knew their Kreutzer. But
+there has been a change for the better during recent years. Kneisel was
+one of the first to produce pupils here who played legitimately,
+according to standard violinistic ideals. One reason why Auer has had
+such brilliant pupils is that poor students were received at the
+Petrograd Conservatory free of charge. All they had to supply was
+talent; and I look forward to the time when we will have a National
+conservatory in this country, supported by the Government. Then the
+poor, but musically gifted, pupil will have the same opportunities that
+his brother, who is well-to-do, now has.
+
+
+                  SOME PERSONAL VIEWS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+"You ask me to tell you something of my own musical preferences. Well,
+take the concertos. I have reached a point where the Mendelssohn,
+Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Brahms concertos seen to sum up what is
+truly worth while. The others begin to bore me; even Bruch! Paganini,
+Wieniawski, etc., are mainly mediums of display. Most of the great
+violinists, Ysaye, Thibaud, etc., during recent years are reverting to
+the violin sonatas. Ysaye, for instance, has recently been playing the
+Lazzari sonata, a very powerful and beautiful work.
+
+"My experiences as a 'concertmaster'? I have played with Weingartner;
+Saint-Sa�ns (whose amiability to me, when he first visited this country,
+I recall with pleasure); Gustav Mahler, Tschaikovsky, Safonoff, Seidel,
+Bauer, and Walter Damrosch, whose friend and associate I have been for
+the last twenty-two years. He is a wonderful man, many-sided and
+versatile; a notably fine pianist; and playing chamber music with him
+during successive summers is numbered among my pleasantest
+recollections.
+
+"In speaking of concertos some time ago, I forgot to mention one work
+well worth studying. This is the Russian Mlynarski's concerto in D,
+which I played with the Russian Symphony Orchestra some eight years ago
+for the first time in this country, as well as a fine 'Romance and
+Caprice' by Rubinstein.
+
+"Is the music a concertmaster is called upon to play always violinistic?
+Far from it. Symphonic music--in as much as the concertmaster is
+concerned, is usually not idiomatic violin music. Richard Strauss's
+violin concerto can really be played by the violinist. The _obbligatos_
+in his symphonies are a very different matter; they go beyond accepted
+technical boundaries. With Stravinsky it is the same. The violin
+_obbligato_ in Rimsky-Korsakov's _Sch�h�razade_, though, is real violin
+music. Debussy and Ravel are most subtle; they call for a particularly
+good ear, since the harmonic balance of their music is very delicate.
+The concertmaster has to develop his own interpretations, subject, of
+course, to the conductor's ideas.
+
+
+                           VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? It means to me complete control of the fingerboard, a
+being at home in every position, absolute sureness of fingering,
+absolute equality of tone under all circumstances. I remember Ysaye
+playing Tschaikovsky's _S�r�nade M�lancolique_, and using a fingering
+for certain passages which I liked very much. I asked him to give it to
+me in detail, but he merely laughed and said: 'I'd like to, but I
+cannot, because I really do not remember which fingers I used!' That is
+mastery--a control so complete that fingering was unconscious, and the
+interpretation of the thought was all that was in the artist's mind!
+Sevcik's 'complete technical mastery' is after all not perfect, since it
+represents mechanical and not mental control."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIX
+
+
+                              TOSCHA SEIDEL
+
+                              HOW TO STUDY
+
+
+Toscha Seidel, though one of the more recent of the young Russian
+violinists who represent the fruition of Professor Auer's formative
+gifts, has, to quote H.F. Peyser, "the transcendental technic observed
+in the greatest pupils of his master, a command of mechanism which makes
+the rough places so plain that the traces of their roughness are hidden
+to the unpracticed eye." He commenced to study the violin seriously at
+the age of seven in Odessa, his natal town, with Max Fiedemann, an Auer
+pupil. A year and a half later Alexander Fiedemann heard him play a De
+B�riot concerto in public, and induced him to study at the Stern
+Conservatory in Berlin, with Brodsky, a pupil of Joachim, with whom he
+remained for two years.
+
+It was in Berlin that the young violinist reached the turning point of
+his career. "I was a boy of twelve," he said, "when I heard Jascha
+Heifetz play for the first time. He played the Tschaikovsky concerto,
+and he played it wonderfully. His bowing, his fingering, his whole style
+and manner of playing so greatly impressed me that I felt I _must_ have
+his teacher, that I would never be content unless I studied with
+Professor Auer! In 1912 I at length had an opportunity to play for the
+Professor in his home at Loschivitz, in Dresden, and to my great joy he
+at once accepted me as a pupil.
+
+
+                      STUDYING WITH PROFESSOR AUER
+
+"Studying with Professor Auer was a revelation. I had private lessons
+from him, and at the same time attended the classes at the Petrograd
+Conservatory. I should say that his great specialty, if one can use the
+word specialty in the case of so universal a master of teaching as the
+Professor, was bowing. In all violin playing the left hand, the finger
+hand, might be compared to a perfectly adjusted technical machine, one
+that needs to be kept well oiled to function properly. The right hand,
+the bow hand, is the direct opposite--it is the painter hand, the artist
+hand, its phrasing outlines the pictures of music; its _nuances_ fill
+them with beauty of color. And while the Professor insisted as a matter
+of course on the absolute development of finger mechanics, he was an
+inspiration as regards the right manipulation of the bow, and its use as
+a medium of interpretation. And he made his pupils think. Often, when I
+played a passage in a concerto or sonata and it lacked clearness, he
+would ask me: 'Why is this passage not clear?' Sometimes I knew and
+sometimes I did not. But not until he was satisfied that I could not
+myself answer the question, would he show me how to answer it. He could
+make every least detail clear, illustrating it on his own violin; but if
+the pupil could 'work out his own salvation' he always encouraged him to
+do so.
+
+          [Illustration: TOSCHA SEIDEL, with hand-written note]
+
+"Most teachers make bowing a very complicated affair, adding to its
+difficulties. But Professor Auer develops a _natural_ bowing, with an
+absolutely free wrist, in all his pupils; for he teaches each student
+along the line of his individual aptitudes. Hence the length of the
+fingers and the size of the hand make no difference, because in the case
+of each pupil they are treated as separate problems, capable of an
+individual solution. I have known of pupils who came to him with an
+absolutely stiff wrist; and yet he taught them to overcome it.
+
+
+                  ARTIST PUPILS AND AMATEUR STUDENTS
+
+"As regards difficulties, technical and other, a distinction might be
+made between the artist and the average amateur. The latter does not
+make the violin his life work: it is an incidental. While he may
+reasonably content himself with playing well, the artist-pupil _must_
+achieve perfection. It is the difference between an accomplishment and
+an art. The amateur plays more or less for the sake of playing--the
+'how' is secondary; but for the artist the 'how' comes first, and for
+him the shortest piece, a single scale, has difficulties of which the
+amateur is quite ignorant. And everything is difficult in its perfected
+sense. What I, as a student, found to be most difficult were double
+harmonics--I still consider them to be the most difficult thing in the
+whole range of violin technic. First of all, they call for a large hand,
+because of the wide stretches. But harmonics were one of the things I
+had to master before Professor Auer would allow me to appear in public.
+Some find tenths and octaves their stumbling block, but I cannot say
+that they ever gave me much trouble. After all, the main thing with any
+difficulty is to surmount it, and just _how_ is really a secondary
+matter. I know Professor Auer used to say: 'Play with your feet if you
+must, but make the violin sound!' With tenths, octaves, sixths, with any
+technical frills, the main thing is to bring them out clearly and
+convincingly. And, rightly or wrongly, one must remember that when
+something does not sound out convincingly on the violin, it is not the
+fault of the weather, or the strings or rosin or anything else--it is
+always the artist's own fault!
+
+
+                             HOW TO STUDY
+
+"Scale study--all Auer pupils had to practice scales every day, scales
+in all the intervals--is a most important thing. And following his idea
+of stimulating the pupil's self-development, the Professor encouraged us
+to find what we needed ourselves. I remember that once--we were standing
+in a corridor of the Conservatory--when I asked him, 'What should I
+practice in the way of studies?' he answered: 'Take the difficult
+passages from the great concertos. You cannot improve on them, for they
+are as good, if not better, as any studies written.' As regards
+technical work we were also encouraged to think out our own exercises.
+And this I still do. When I feel that my thirds and sixths need
+attention I practice scales and original figurations in these intervals.
+But genuine, resultful practice is something that should never be
+counted by 'hours.' Sometimes I do not touch my violin all day long; and
+one hour with head work is worth any number of days without it. At the
+most I never practice more than three hours a day. And when my thoughts
+are fixed on other things it would be time lost to try to practice
+seriously. Without technical control a violinist could not be a great
+artist; for he could not express himself. Yet a great artist can give
+even a technical study, say a Rode _�tude_, a quality all its own in
+playing it. That technic, however, is a means, not an end, Professor
+Auer never allowed his pupils to forget. He is a wonderful master of
+interpretation. I studied the great concertos with him--Beethoven,
+Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tschaikovsky, Dvor�k*, the Brahms concerto (which I
+prefer to any other); the Vieuxtemps Fifth and Lalo (both of which I
+have heard Ysaye, that supreme artist who possesses all that an artist
+should have, play in Berlin); the Elgar concerto (a fine work which I
+once heard Kreisler, an artist as great as he is modest, play
+wonderfully in Petrograd), as well as other concertos of the standard
+repertory. And Professor Auer always sought to have us play as
+individuals; and while he never allowed us to overstep the boundaries of
+the musically esthetic, he gave our individuality free play within its
+limits. He never insisted on a pupil accepting his own _nuances_ of
+interpretation because they were his. I know that when playing for him,
+if I came to a passage which demanded an especially beautiful _legato_
+rendering, he would say: 'Now show how you can sing!' The exquisite
+_legato_ he taught was all a matter of perfect bowing, and as he often
+said: 'There must be no such thing as strings or hair in the pupil's
+consciousness. One must not play violin, one must sing violin!'
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Dvor�k".
+
+
+                           FIDDLE AND STRINGS
+
+"I do not see how any artist can use an instrument which is quite new to
+him in concert. I never play any but my own Guadagnini, which is a fine
+fiddle, with a big, sonorous tone. As to wire strings, I hate them! In
+the first place, a wire E sounds distinctly different to the artist
+than does a gut E. And it is a difference which any violinist will
+notice. Then, too, the wire E is so thin that the fingers have nothing
+to take hold of, to touch firmly. And to me the metallic vibrations,
+especially on the open strings, are most disagreeable. Of course, from a
+purely practical standpoint there is much to be said for the wire E.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"What is violin mastery as I understand it? First of all it means
+talent, secondly technic, and in the third place, tone. And then one
+must be musical in an all-embracing sense to attain it. One must have
+musical breadth and understanding in general, and not only in a narrowly
+violinistic sense. And, finally, the good God must give the artist who
+aspires to be a master good hands, and direct him to a good teacher!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XX
+
+
+                              EDMUND SEVERN
+
+                      THE JOACHIM BOWING AND OTHERS:
+                              THE LEFT HAND
+
+
+Edmund Severn's activity in the field of violin music is a three-fold
+one: he is a composer, an interpreting artist and a teacher, and his
+fortuitous control of the three vital phases of his Art make his views
+as regards its study of very real value. The lover of string music in
+general would naturally attach more importance to his string quartet in
+D major, his trio for violin, 'cello and piano, his violin concerto in D
+minor, the sonata, the "Oriental," "Italian," "New England" suites for
+violin, and the fine suite in A major, for two violins and piano, than
+to his symphonic poems for orchestra, his choral works and his songs.
+And those in search of hints to aid them to master the violin would be
+most interested in having the benefit of his opinions as a teacher,
+founded on long experience and keen observation. Since Mr. Severn is
+one of those teachers who are born, not made, and is interested heart
+and soul in this phase of his musical work, it was not difficult to draw
+him out.
+
+
+                          THE JOACHIM BOWING
+
+"My first instructor in the violin was my father, the pioneer violin
+teacher of Hartford, Conn., where my boyhood was passed, and then I
+studied with Franz Milcke and Bernard Listemann, concertmaster of the
+Boston Symphony Orchestra. But one day I happened to read a few lines
+reprinted in the _Metronome_ from some European source, which quoted
+Wilhelmj as saying that Emanuel Wirth, Joachim's first assistant at the
+Berlin _Hochschule_, 'was the best teacher of his generation.' This was
+enough for me: feeling that the best could be none too good, I made up
+my mind to go to him. And I did. Wirth was the viola of the Joachim
+Quartet, and probably a better teacher than was Joachim himself. Violin
+teaching was a cult with him, a religion; and I think he believed God
+had sent him to earth to teach fiddle. Like all the teachers at the
+_Hochschule_ he taught the regular 'Joachim' bowing--they were obliged
+to teach it--as far as it could be taught, for it could not be taught
+every one. And that is the real trouble with the 'Joachim' bowing. It is
+impossible to make a general application of it.
+
+"Joachim had a very long arm and when he played at the point of the bow
+his arm position was approximately the same as that of the average
+player at the middle of the bow. Willy Hess was a perfect exponent of
+the Joachim method of bowing. Why? Because he had a very long arm. But
+at the _Hochschule_ the Joachim bowing was compulsory: they taught, or
+tried to teach, all who came there to use it without exception; boys or
+girls whose arms chanced to be long enough could acquire it, but big men
+with short arms had no chance whatever. Having a medium long arm, by
+dint of hard work I managed to get my bowing to suit Wirth; yet I always
+felt at a disadvantage at the point of the bow, in spite of the fact
+that after my return to the United States I taught the Joachim bowing
+for fully eight years.
+
+"Then, when he first came here, I heard and saw Ysaye play, and I
+noticed how greatly his bowing differed from that of Joachim, the point
+being that his first finger was always in a position to press
+_naturally_ without the least stiffness. This led me to try to find a
+less constrained bowing for myself, working along perfectly natural
+lines. The Joachim bowing demands a high wrist; but in the case of the
+Belgian school an easy position at the point is assumed naturally. And
+it is not hard to understand that if the bow be drawn parallel with the
+bridge, allowing for the least possible movement of hands and wrist, the
+greatest economy of motion, there is no contravention of the laws of
+nature and playing is natural and unconstrained.
+
+"And this applies to every student of the instrument, whether or no he
+has a long arm. While I was studying in Berlin, Sarasate played there in
+public, with the most natural and unhampered grace and freedom in the
+use of his bow. Yet the entire _Hochschule_ contingent unanimously
+condemned his bowing as being 'stiff'--merely because it did not conform
+to the Joachim tradition. Of course, there is no question but that
+Joachim was the greatest quartet player of his time; and with regard to
+the interpretation of the classics he was not to be excelled. His
+conception of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms was wonderful. The
+insistence at the _Hochschule_ on forcing the bowing which was natural
+to him on all others, irrespective of physical adaptability, is a matter
+of regret. Wirth was somewhat deficient in teaching left hand technic,
+as compared with, let us say, Schradieck. Wirth's real strength lay in
+his sincerity and his ability to make clear the musical contents of the
+works of the great masters. In a Beethoven or Spohr concerto he made a
+pupil give its due emphasis to every single note.
+
+
+                        A PRE-TEACHING REQUISITE
+
+"Before the violin student can even begin to study, there are certain
+pre-teaching requisites which are necessary if the teacher is to be of
+any service to him. The violin is a singing instrument, and therefore
+the first thing called for is a good singing tone. That brings up an
+important point--the proper adjustment of the instrument used by the
+student. If his lessons are to be of real benefit to him, the component
+parts of the instrument, post, bridge, bass-bar, strings, etc., must be
+accurately adjusted, in order that the sound values are what they should
+be.
+
+"From the teaching standpoint it is far more important that whatever
+violin the student has is one properly built and adjusted, than that it
+be a fine instrument. And the bow must have the right amount of spring,
+of elasticity in its stick. A poor bow will work more harm than a poor
+fiddle, for if the bow is poor, if it lacks the right resilience, the
+student cannot acquire the correct bow pressure. He cannot play
+_spiccato_ or any of the 'bouncing' bowings, including various forms of
+arpeggios, with a poor stick.
+
+
+                            DRAWING A LONG BOW
+
+"When I say that the student should 'draw a long bow,'" continued Mr.
+Severn with a smile, "I do not say so at a venture. If his instrument
+and bow are in proper shape, this is the next thing for the student to
+do. Ever since Tartini's time it has been acknowledged that nothing can
+take the place of the study of the long bow, playing in all shades of
+dynamics, from _pp_ to _ff_, and with all the inflections of _crescendo_
+and _diminuendo_. Part of this study should consist of 'mute'
+exercises--not playing, but drawing the bow _above the strings_, to its
+full length, resting at either end. This ensures bow control. One great
+difficulty is that as a rule the teacher cannot induce pupils to
+practice these 'mute' exercises, in spite of their unquestionable value.
+All the great masters of the violin have used them. Viotti thought so
+highly of them that he taught them only to his favorite pupils. And even
+to-day some distinguished violinists play dumb exercises before stepping
+on the recital stage. They are one of the best means that we have for
+control of the violinistic nervous system.
+
+
+                               WRIST-BOWING
+
+"Wrist-bowing is one of the bowings in which the student should learn to
+feel absolutely and naturally at home. To my thinking the German way of
+teaching wrist-bowing is altogether wrong. Their idea is to keep the
+fingers neutral, and let the stick move the fingers! Yet this is
+wrong--for the player holds his bow at the finger-tips, that terminal
+point of the fingers where the tactile nerves are most highly developed,
+and where their direct contact with the bow makes possible the greatest
+variety of dynamic effect, and also allows the development of far
+greater speed in short bowings.
+
+"Though the Germans say 'Think of the wrist!' I think with the Belgians:
+Put your mind where you touch and hold the bow, concentrate on your
+fingers. In other words, when you make your bow change, do not make it
+according to the Joachim method, with the wrist, but in the natural way,
+with the fingers always in command. In this manner only will you get the
+true wrist motion.
+
+
+                        STACCATO AND OTHER BOWINGS
+
+"After all, there are only two general principles in violin playing, the
+long and short bow, _legato_ and _staccato_. Many a teacher finds it
+very difficult to teach _staccato_ correctly, which may account for the
+fact that many pupils find it hard to learn. The main reason is that, in
+a sense, _staccato_ is opposed to the nature of the violin as a singing
+instrument. To produce a true _staccato_ and not a 'scratchato' it is
+absolutely necessary, while exerting the proper pressure and movement,
+to keep the muscles loose. I have evolved a simple method for quickly
+achieving the desired result in _staccato_. First I teach the attack in
+the middle of the bow, without drawing the bow and as though pressing a
+button: I have pupils press up with the thumb and down with the first
+finger, with all muscles relaxed. This, when done correctly, produces a
+sudden sharp attack.
+
+"Then, I have the pupil place his bow in the middle, in position to draw
+a down-stroke from the wrist, the bow-hair being pressed and held
+against the string. A quick down-bow follows with an immediate release
+of the string. Repeating the process, use the up-stroke. The finished
+product is merely the combination of these two exercises--drawing and
+attacking simultaneously. I have never failed to give a pupil a good
+_staccato_ by this exercise, which comprises the principle of all
+genuine _staccato_ playing.
+
+"One of the most difficult of all bowings is the simple up-and-down
+stroke used in the second Kreutzer _�tude_, that is to say, the bowing
+between the middle and point of the bow, _t�te d'archet_, as the French
+call it. This bowing is played badly on the violin more often than any
+other. It demands constant rapid changing and, as most pupils play it,
+the _legato_ quality is noticeably absent. Too much emphasis cannot be
+laid on the truth that the 'singing stroke' should be employed for all
+bowings, long or short. Often pupils who play quite well show a want of
+true _legato_ quality in their tone, because there is no connection
+between their bowing in rapid work.
+
+"Individual bowings should always be practiced separately. I always
+oblige my pupils to practice all bowings on the open strings, and in all
+combinations of the open strings, because this allows them to
+concentrate on the bowing itself, to the exclusion of all else; and they
+advance far more quickly. Students should never be compelled to learn
+new bowings while they have to think of their fingers at the same time:
+we cannot serve two masters simultaneously! All in all, bowing is most
+important in violin technic, for control of the bow means much toward
+mastery of the violin.
+
+
+                              THE LEFT HAND
+
+"It is evident, however, that the correct use of the left hand is of
+equal importance. It seems not to be generally known that
+finger-pressure has much to do with tone-quality. The correct poise of
+the left hand, as conspicuously shown by Heifetz for instance, throws
+the extreme tips of the fingers hammerlike on the strings, and renders
+full pressure of the string easy. Correctly done, a brilliance results,
+especially in scale and passage work, which can be acquired in no other
+manner, each note partaking somewhat of the quality of the open string.
+As for intonation--that is largely a question of listening. To really
+listen to oneself is as necessary as it is rare. It would take a volume
+to cover that subject alone. We hear much about the use of the _vibrato_
+these days. It was not so when I was a student. I can remember when it
+was laughed at by the purists as an Italian evidence of bad taste. My
+teachers decried it, yet if we could hear the great players of the past,
+we would be astonished at their frugal use of it.
+
+"One should remember in this connection that there was a conflict among
+singers for many years as to whether the straight tone as cultivated by
+the English oratorio singers, or the vibrated tone of the Italians were
+correct. As usual, Nature won out. The correctly vibrated voice
+outlasted the other form of production, thus proving its lawful basis.
+But to-day the _vibrato_ is frequently made to cover a multitude of
+violin sins.
+
+"It is accepted by many as a substitute for genuine warmth and it is
+used as a _camouflage_ to 'put over' some very bad art in the shape of
+poor tone-quality, intonation and general sloppiness of technic. Why,
+then, has it come into general use during the last twenty-five years?
+Simply because it is based on the correctly produced human voice. The
+old players, especially those of the German school, said, and some still
+say, the _vibrato_ should only be used at the climax of a melody. If we
+listen to a Sembrich or a Bonci, however, we hear a vibration on every
+tone. Let us not forget that the violin is a singing instrument and that
+even Joachim said: 'We must imitate the human voice,' This, I think,
+disposes of the case finally and we must admit that every little boy or
+girl with a natural _vibrato_ is more correct in that part of his
+tone-production than many of the great masters of the past. As the Negro
+pastor said: 'The world do move!'
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Are 'mastery of the violin' and 'Violin Mastery' synonymous in my mind?
+Yes and no: 'Violin Mastery' may be taken to mean that technical mastery
+wherewith one is enabled to perform any work in the entire literature of
+the instrument with precision, but not necessarily with feeling for its
+beauty or its emotional content. In this sense, in these days of
+improved violin pedagogy, such mastery is not uncommon. But 'Violin
+Mastery' may also be understood to mean, not merely a cold though
+flawless technic, but its living, glowing product when used to express
+the emotions suggested by the music of the masters. This latter kind of
+violin mastery is rare indeed.
+
+"One who makes technic an end travels light, and should reach his
+destination more quickly. But he whose goal is music with its
+thousand-hued beauties, with its call for the exertion of human and
+spiritual emotion, sets forth on a journey without end. It is plain,
+however, that this is the only journey worth taking with the violin as a
+traveling companion. 'Violin Mastery', then, means to me technical
+proficiency used to the highest extent possible, for artistic ends!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XXI
+
+
+                             ALBERT SPALDING
+
+                     THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
+                         DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+For the duration of the war Albert Spalding the violinist became Albert
+Spalding the soldier. As First Lieutenant in the Aviation Service,
+U.S.A., he maintained the ideals of civilization on the Italian front
+with the same devotion he gave to those of Art in the piping times of
+peace. As he himself said not so very long ago: "You cannot do two
+things, and do them properly, at the same time. At the present moment
+there is more music for me in the factories gloriously grinding out
+planes and motors than in a symphony of Beethoven. And to-day I would
+rather run on an office-boy's errand for my country and do it as well as
+I can, if it's to serve my country, than to play successfully a Bach
+Chaconne; and I would rather hear a well directed battery of American
+guns blasting the Road of Peace and Victorious Liberty than the
+combined applause of ten thousand audiences. For it is my conviction
+that Art has as much at stake in this War as Democracy."
+
+    [Illustration: _Copyright by Matzene, Chicago_. ALBERT SPALDING]
+
+Yet Lieutenant Spalding, despite the arduous demands of his patriotic
+duties, found time to answer some questions of the writer in the
+interests of "Violin Mastery" which, representing the views and opinions
+of so eminent and distinctively American a violinist, cannot fail to
+interest every lover of the Art. Writing from Rome (Sept. 9, 1918),
+Lieutenant Spalding modestly said that his answers to the questions
+asked "will have to be simple and short, because my time is very
+limited, and then, too, having been out of music for more than a year, I
+feel it difficult to deal in more than a general way with some of the
+questions asked."
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"As to 'Violin Mastery'? To me it means effortless mastery of details;
+the correlating of them into a perfect whole; the subjecting of them to
+the expression of an architecture which is music. 'Violin Mastery' means
+technical mastery in every sense of the word. It means a facility which
+will enable the interpreter to forget difficulties, and to express at
+once in a language that will seem clear, simple and eloquent, that which
+in the hands of others appears difficult, obtuse and dull.
+
+
+                    THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
+                         DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
+
+"As to the processes, mental and technical, which make an artist? These
+different processes, mental and technical, are too many, too varied and
+involved to invite an answer in a short space of time. Suffice it to say
+that the most _important_ mental process, to my mind, is the development
+of a perception of beauty. All the perseverance in the study of music,
+all the application devoted to it, is not worth a tinker's dam, unless
+accompanied by this awakening to the perception of beauty. And with
+regard to the influence of teachers? Since all teachers vary greatly,
+the student should not limit himself to his own personal masters. The
+true student of Art should be able to derive benefit and instruction
+from every beautiful work of Art that he hears or sees; otherwise he
+will be limited by the technical and mental limitations of his own
+prejudices and jealousies. One's greatest difficulties may turn out to
+be one's greatest aids in striving toward artistic results. By this I
+mean that nothing is more fatally pernicious for the true artist than
+the precocious facility which invites cheap success. Therefore I make
+the statement that one's greatest difficulties are one's greatest
+facilities.
+
+
+                 A LESS DEVELOPED PHASE OF VIOLIN TECHNIC
+
+"In the technical field, the phase of violin technic which is less
+developed, it seems to me is, in most cases, bowing. One often notes a
+highly developed left hand technic coupled with a monotonous and
+oftentimes faulty bowing. The _color_ and _variety_ of a violinist's art
+must come largely from his intimate acquaintance with all that can be
+accomplished by the bow arm. The break or change from a down-bow to an
+up-bow, or _vice versa_, should be under such control as to make it
+perceptible only when it may be desirable to use it for color or
+accentuation.
+
+
+                    GOOD AND BAD HANDS: MENTAL STUDY
+
+"The influence of the physical conformation of bow hand and string hand
+on actual playing? There are no 'good' or 'bad' bow hands or string
+hands (unless they be deformed); there are only 'good' and 'bad' heads.
+By this I mean that the finest development of technic comes from the
+head, not from the hand. Quickness of thought and action is what
+distinguishes the easy player from the clumsy player. Students should
+develop mental study even of technical details--this, of course, in
+addition to the physical practice; for this mental study is of the
+highest importance in developing the student so that he can gain that
+effortless mastery of detail of which I have already spoken.
+
+
+                  ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CONCERT
+                        ATTENDANCE FOR THE STUDENT
+
+"Concerts undoubtedly have great value in developing the student
+technically and mentally; but too often they have a directly contrary
+effect. I think there is a very doubtful benefit to be derived from the
+present habit, as illustrated in New York, London, or other centers, of
+the student attending concerts, sometimes as many as two or three a day.
+This habit dwarfs the development of real appreciation, as the student,
+under these conditions, can little appreciate true works of art when he
+has crammed his head so full of truck, and worn out his faculties of
+concentration until listening to music becomes a mechanical mental
+process. The _indiscriminate_ attending of concerts, to my mind, has an
+absolutely pernicious effect on the student.
+
+
+                    NATIONALITY AS A FORMATIVE INFLUENCE
+
+"Nationality and national feeling have a very real influence in the
+development of an artist; but this influence is felt subconsciously more
+than consciously, and it reacts more on the creative than on the
+interpretative artist. By this I mean that the interpretative artist,
+while reserving the right to his individual expression, should subject
+himself to what he considers to have been the artistic impulse, the
+artistic intentions of the composer. As to type music to whose appeal I
+as an American am susceptible, I confess to a very sympathetic reaction
+to the syncopated rhythms known as 'rag-time,' and which appear to be
+especially American in character." For the benefit of those readers who
+may not chance to know it, Lieutenant Spalding's "Alabama," a Southern
+melody and dance in plantation style, for violin and piano, represents
+a very delightful creative exploitation of these rhythms. The writer
+makes mention of the fact since with regard to this and other of his own
+compositions Lieutenant Spalding would only state: "I felt that I had
+something to say and, therefore, tried to say it. Whether what I have to
+say is of any interest to others is not for me to judge.
+
+
+                         PLAYING WHILE IN SERVICE
+
+"Do I play at all while in Service? I gave up all playing in public when
+entering the Army a year ago, and to a great extent all private playing
+as well. I have on one or two occasions played at charity concerts
+during the past year, once in Rome, and once in the little town in Italy
+near the aviation camp at which I was stationed at the time. I have
+purposely refused all other requests to play because one cannot do two
+things at once, and do them properly. My time now belongs to my country:
+When we have peace again I shall hope once more to devote it to Art."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXII
+
+
+                           THEODORE SPIERING
+
+                  THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO
+                         THE STUDY OF KREUTZER
+
+
+A. Walter Kramer has said: "Mr. Spiering knows how serious a study can
+be made of the violin, because he has made it. He has investigated the
+'how' and 'why' of every detail, and what he has to say about the violin
+is the utterance of a big musician, one who has mastered the
+instrument." And Theodore Spiering, solo artist and conductor, as a
+teacher has that wider horizon which has justified the statement made
+that "he is animated by the thoughts and ideals which stimulate a
+Godowsky or Busoni." Such being the case, it was with unmixed
+satisfaction that the writer found Mr. Spiering willing to give him the
+benefit of some of those constructive ideas of his as regards violin
+study which have established his reputation so prominently in that
+field.
+
+
+                          TWO TYPES OF STUDENTS
+
+"There are certain underlying principles which govern every detail of
+the violinist's Art," said Mr. Spiering, "and unless the violinist fully
+appreciates their significance, and has the intelligence and patience to
+apply them in everything he does, he will never achieve that absolute
+command over his instrument which mastery implies.
+
+"It is a peculiar fact that a large percentage of students--probably
+believing that they can reach their goal by a short cut--resent the
+mental effort required to master these principles, the passive
+resistance, evident in their work, preventing them from deriving true
+benefit from their studies. They form that large class which learns
+merely by imitation, and invariably retrograde the moment they are no
+longer under the teacher's supervision.
+
+"The smaller group, with an analytical bent of mind, largely subject
+themselves to the needed mental drill and thus provide for themselves
+that inestimable basic quality that makes them independent and capable
+of developing their talent to its full fruition.
+
+       [Illustration: THEODORE SPIERING, with hand-written note]
+
+
+               MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROCESSES CO�RDINATED
+
+"The conventional manner of teaching provided an inordinate number of
+mechanical exercises in order to overcome so called 'technical
+difficulties.' Only the _prima facie_ disturbance, however, was thus
+taken into consideration--not its actual cause. The result was, that
+notwithstanding the great amount of labor thus expended, the effort had
+to be repeated each time the problem was confronted. Aside from the
+obviously uncertain results secured in this manner, it meant deadening
+of the imagination and cramping of interpretative possibilities. It is
+only possible to reduce to a minimum the element of chance by
+scrupulously carrying out the dictates of the laws governing vital
+principles. Analysis and the severest self-criticism are the means of
+determination as to whether theory and practice conform with one
+another.
+
+"_Mental preparedness_ (Marcus Aurelius calls it 'the good ordering of
+the mind') is the keynote of technical control. Together with the
+principle of _relaxation_ it provides the player with the most effective
+means of establishing precise and sensitive co�peration between mental
+and physical processes. Muscular relaxation at will is one of the
+results of this co�peration. It makes sustained effort possible
+(counteracting the contraction ordinarily resulting therefrom), and it
+is freedom of movement more than anything else that tends to establish
+confidence.
+
+
+             THE TWO-FOLD VALUE OF CELEBRATED STUDY WORKS
+
+"The study period of the average American is limited. It has been
+growing less year by year. Hence the teacher has had to redouble his
+efforts. The desire to give my pupils the essentials of technical
+control in their most concentrated and immediately applicable form, have
+led me to evolve a series of 'bow exercises,' which, however, do not
+merely pursue a mechanical purpose. Primarily enforcing the carrying out
+of basic principles as pertaining to the bow--and establishing or
+correcting (as the case may be) arm and hand (right arm) positions, they
+supply the means of creating a larger interpretative style.
+
+"I use the Kreutzer studies as the medium of these bow-exercises, since
+the application of new technical ideas is easier when the music itself
+is familiar to the student. I have a two-fold object in mind when I
+review these studies in my particular manner, technic and appreciation.
+I might add that not only Kreutzer, but Fiorillo and Rode--in fact all
+the celebrated 'Caprices,' with the possible exception of those of
+Paganini--are viewed almost entirely from the purely technical side, as
+belonging to the classroom, because their musical qualities have not
+been sufficiently pointed out. Rode, in particular, is a veritable
+musical treasure trove.
+
+
+                 THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO THE
+                            STUDY OF KREUTZER
+
+"How do I use the Kreutzer studies to develop style and technic? By
+making the student study them in such wise that the following principles
+are emphasized in his work: _control before action_ (mental direction at
+all times); _relaxation_; and _observance of string levels_; for
+unimpeded movement is more important than pressure as regards the
+carrying tone. These principles are among the most important pertaining
+to right arm technic.
+
+"In Study No. 2 (version 1, up-strokes only, version 2, down-strokes
+only), I have my pupils use the full arm stroke (_grand detach�_). In
+version 1, the bow is taken from the string after completion of
+stroke--but in such a way that the vibrations of the string are not
+interfered with. Complete relaxation is insured by release of the
+thumb--the bow being caught in a casual manner, third and fourth fingers
+slipping from their normal position on stick--and holding, but not
+tightly clasping, the bow.
+
+"Version 2 calls for a _return down-stroke_, the return part of the
+stroke being accomplished over the string, but making no division in
+stroke, no hesitating before the return. Relaxation is secured as
+before. Rapidity of stroke, elimination of impediment (faulty hand or
+arm position and unnecessary upper arm action), is the aim of this
+exercise. The pause between each stroke--caused by relinquishing the
+hold on the bow--reminds the student that mental control should at all
+times be paramount: that analysis of technical detail is of vital
+importance.
+
+"In Study No. 7 I employ the same vigorous full arm strokes as in No. 2:
+the up and down bows as indicated in the original version. The bow is
+raised from the strings after each note, by means of hand (little
+finger, first and thumb) not by arm action. Normal hand position is
+retained: thumb not released.
+
+"The _observance of string levels_ is very essential. While the stroke
+is in progress the arm must not leave its level in an anticipatory
+movement to reach the next level. Especially after the down-stroke is it
+advisable to verify the arm position with regard to this feature.
+
+"No. 8 affords opportunity for a _r�sum�_ of the work done in Nos. 2 and
+7:
+
+                    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"It is evident that the tempo of this study must be very much reduced in
+speed. The _return_ down-stroke as in No. 2: the _second_ down-stroke as
+in No. 7: the up-strokes as in No. 2.
+
+"In Study No. 5 I use the hand-stroke only--at the frog--arm absolutely
+immobile, with no attempt at tone. This exercise represents the first
+attempt at dissecting the _martel�_ idea: precise timing of pressure,
+movement (stroke), and relaxation. The pause between the strokes is
+utilized to learn the value of left hand preparedness, with the fingers
+in place before bow action.
+
+"In Study No. 13 I develop the principles of string crossing, of the
+extension stroke, and articulation. String crossing is the main feature
+of the exercise. I employ three versions, in order to accomplish my aim.
+In version 1 I consider only the crossing from a higher to a lower
+level:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+version 2:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+version 3 is the original version. In versions 1 and 2 I omit all
+repetitions:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Articulation is one of the main points at issue--the middle note is
+generally inarticulate. For further string crossing analysis I use
+Kreutzer's No. 25. Study No. 10 I carry out as a _martel�_ study, with
+the string crossing very much in evidence; establishing observance of
+the notes occurring on the same string level, consequently compelling a
+more judicious use of the so-called wrist movement (not merely
+developing a supple wrist, with indefinite crossing movements, which in
+many cases are applied by the player without regard to actual string
+crossing) and in consequence securing stability of bow on string when
+string level is not changed, this result being secured even in rapid
+passage work.
+
+"In Studies 11, 19 and 21 I cover shifting and left thumb action: in No.
+9, finger action--flexibility and evenness, the left thumb relaxed--the
+fundamental idea of the trill. After the _interrupted_ types of bowing
+(grand _detach�_, _martel�_, _staccato_) have been carefully studied,
+the _continuous_ types (_detach�_, _legato_ and _spiccato_) are then
+taken up, and in part the same studies again used: 2, 7, 8. Lastly the
+slurred _legato_ comes under consideration (Studies 9, 11, 14, 22, 27,
+29). Shifting, extension and string crossing have all been previously
+considered, and hence the _legato_ should be allowed to take its even
+course.
+
+"Although I do, temporarily, place these studies on a purely mechanical
+level, I am convinced that they thus serve to call into being a broader
+_musical_ appreciation for the whole set. For I have found that in spite
+of the fact that pupils who come to me have all played their Kreutzer,
+with very few exceptions have they realized the musical message which
+it contains. The time when the student body will have learned to depict
+successfully musical character--even in studies and caprices--will mark
+the fulfillment of the teacher's task with regard to the cultivation of
+the right arm--which is essentially the teacher's domain.
+
+
+              SOME OF MR. SPIERING'S OWN STUDY SOUVENIRS
+
+"It may interest you to know," Mr. Spiering said in reply to a question,
+"that I began my teaching career in Chicago immediately following my
+four years with Joachim in Berlin. It was natural that I should first
+commit myself to the pedagogic methods of the _Hochschule_, which to a
+great extent, however, I discarded as my own views crystallized. I found
+that too much emphasis allotted the wrist stroke (a misnomer, by the
+way), was bound to result in too academic a style. By transferring
+primary importance to the control of the full arm-stroke--with the
+hand-stroke incidentally completing the control--I felt that I was
+better able to reflect the larger interpretative ideals which my years
+of musical development were creating for me. Chamber music--a youthful
+passion--led me to interest myself in symphonic work and conducting.
+These activities not only reacted favorably on my solo playing, but
+influenced my development as regards the broader, more dramatic style,
+the grand manner in interpretation. It is this realization that places
+me in a position to earnestly advise the ambitious student not to
+disregard the great artistic benefits to be derived from the cultivation
+of chamber music and symphonic playing.
+
+"I might call my teaching ideals a combination of those of the
+Franco-Belgian and German schools. To the former I attribute my
+preference for the large sweep of the bow-arm, its style and tonal
+superiority; to the latter, vigor of interpretation and attention to
+musical detail.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"How do I define 'Violin Mastery'? The violinist who has succeeded in
+eliminating all superfluous tension or physical resistance, whose mental
+control is such that the technic of the left hand and right arm has
+become coordinate, thus forming a perfect mechanism not working at
+cross-purposes; who, furthermore, is so well poised that he never
+oversteps the boundaries of good taste in his interpretations, though
+vitally alive to the human element; who, finally, has so broad an
+outlook on life and Art that he is able to reveal the transcendent
+spirit characterizing the works of the great masters--such a violinist
+has truly attained mastery!"
+
+
+
+
+                                 XXIII
+
+
+                            JACQUES THIBAUD
+
+                           THE IDEAL PROGRAM
+
+
+Jacques Thibaud, whose gifts as an interpreting artist have brought him
+so many friends and admirers in the United States, is the foremost
+representative of the modern French school of violin-playing. And as
+such he has held his own ever since, at the age of twenty, he resigned
+his rank as concert-master of the Colonne orchestra, to dedicate his
+talents exclusively to the concert stage. So great an authority as the
+last edition of the Riemann _Musik-Lexicon_ cannot forbear, even in
+1915, to emphasize his "technic, absolutely developed in its every
+detail, and his fiery and poetic manner of interpretation."
+
+But Mr. Thibaud does not see any great difference between the ideals of
+_la grande �cole belge_, that of Vieuxtemps, De B�riot, L�onard, Massart
+and Marsick, whose greatest present-day exponent is Eug�ne Ysaye, and
+the French. Himself a pupil of Marsick, he inherited the French
+traditions of Alard through his father, who was Alard's pupil and handed
+them on to his son. "The two schools have married and are as one,"
+declared Mr. Thibaud. "They may differ in the interpretation of music,
+but to me they seem to have merged so far as their systems of finger
+technic, bowing and tone production goes.
+
+
+                  THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY TO OVERCOME
+
+"You ask me what is most difficult in playing the violin? It is bowing.
+Bowing makes up approximately eighty per cent. of the sum total of
+violinistic difficulties. One reason for it is that many teachers with
+excellent ideas on the subject present it to their pupils in too
+complicated a manner. The bow must be used in an absolutely natural way,
+and over elaboration in explaining what should be a simple and natural
+development often prevents the student from securing a good bowing, the
+end in view. Sarasate (he was an intimate friend of mine) always used
+his bow in the most natural way, his control of it was unsought and
+unconscious. Were I a teacher I should not say: 'You must bow as I do';
+but rather: 'Find the way of bowing most convenient and natural to
+you and use it!' Bowing is largely a physical and individual matter. I
+am slender but have long, large fingers; Kreisler is a larger man than I
+am but his fingers are small. It stands to reason that there must be a
+difference in the way in which we hold and use the bow. The difference
+between a great and a mediocre teacher lies in the fact that the first
+recognizes that bowing is an individual matter, different in the case of
+each individual pupil; and that the greatest perfection is attained by
+the development of the individual's capabilities within his own norm.
+
+            [Illustration: JACQUES THIBAUD, with signature]
+
+
+                          MARSICK AS A TEACHER
+
+"Marsick was a teacher of this type. At each of the lessons I took from
+him at the _Conservatoire_ (we went to him three days a week), he would
+give me a new _�tude_--Gavinies, Rode, Fiorillo, Dont--to prepare for
+the next lesson. We also studied all of Paganini, and works by Ernst and
+Spohr. For our bow technic he employed difficult passages made into
+_�tudes_. Scales--the violinist's daily bread--we practiced day in, day
+out. Marsick played the piano well, and could improvise marvelous
+accompaniments on his violin when his pupils played. I continued my
+studies with Marsick even after I left the _Conservatoire_. With him I
+believe that three essentials--absolute purity of pitch, equality of
+tone and sonority of tone, in connection with the bow--are the base on
+which everything else rests.
+
+
+            THE MECHANICAL VERSUS THE NATURAL IN VIOLIN PLAYING
+
+"Sevcik's purely soulless and mechanical system has undoubtedly produced
+a number of excellent mechanicians of the violin. But it has just as
+unquestionably killed real talent. Kubelik--there was a genuinely
+talented violinist! If he had had another teacher instead of Sevcik he
+would have been great, for he had great gifts. Even as it was he played
+well, but I consider him one of Sevcik's victims. As an illustration of
+how the technical point of view is thrust to the fore by this system I
+remember some fifteen years ago Kubelik and I were staying at the same
+villa in Monte-Carlo, where we were to play the Beethoven concerto, each
+of us, in concert, two days apart. Kubelik spent the live-long day
+before the concert practicing Sevcik exercises. I read and studied
+Beethoven's score, but did not touch my violin. I went to hear Kubelik
+play the concerto, and he played it well; but then, so did I, when my
+turn came. And I feel sure I got more out of it musically and
+spiritually, than I would have if instead of concentrating on its
+meaning, its musical message, I had prepared the concerto as a problem
+in violin mechanics whose key was contained in a number of dry technical
+exercises arbitrarily laid down.
+
+"Technic, in the case of the more advanced violinist, should not have a
+place in the foreground of his consciousness. I heard Rubinstein play
+when a boy--what did his false notes amount to compared with his
+wonderful manner of disclosing the spirit of the things he played!
+Plant�, the Parisian pianist, a kind of keyboard cyclone, once expressed
+the idea admirably to an English society lady. She had told him he was a
+greater pianist than Rubinstein, because the latter played so many wrong
+notes. 'Ah, Madame,' answered Plant�, 'I would rather be able to play
+Rubinstein's wrong notes than all my own correct ones.' A violinist's
+natural manner of playing is the one he should cultivate; since it is
+individual, it really represents him. And a teacher or a colleague of
+greater fame does him no kindness if he encourages him to distrust his
+own powers by too good naturedly 'showing' him how to do this, that or
+the other. I mean, when the student can work out his problem himself at
+the expense of a little initiative.
+
+"When I was younger I once had to play Bach's G minor fugue at a concert
+in Brussels. I was living at Ysaye's home, and since I had never played
+the composition in public before, I began to worry about its
+interpretation. So I asked Ysaye (thinking he would simply show me),
+'How ought I to play this fugue?' The Master reflected a moment and then
+dashed my hopes by answering: _'Tu m'emb�tes!'_ (You bore me!) 'This
+fugue should be played well, that's all!' At first I was angry, but
+thinking it over, I realized that if he had shown me, I would have
+played it just as he did; while what he wanted me to do was to work out
+my own version, and depend on my own initiative--which I did, for I had
+no choice. It is by means of concentration on the higher, the
+interpretative phases of one's Art that the technical side takes its
+proper, secondary place. Technic does not exist for me in the sense of a
+certain quantity of mechanical work which I must do. I find it out of
+the question to do absolutely mechanical technical work of any length of
+time. In realizing the three essentials of good violin playing which I
+have already mentioned, Ysaye and Sarasate are my ideals.
+
+
+                                SARASATE
+
+"All really good violinists are good artists. Sarasate, whom I knew so
+intimately and remember so well, was a pupil of Alard (my father's
+teacher). He literally sang on the violin, like a nightingale. His
+purity of intonation was remarkable; and his technical facility was the
+most extraordinary that I have ever seen. He handled his bow with
+unbelievable skill. And when he played, the unassuming grace of his
+movements won the hearts of his audiences and increased the enthusiasm
+awakened by his tremendous talent.
+
+"We other violinists, all of us, occasionally play a false note, for we
+are not infallible; we may flat a little or sharp a little. But never,
+as often as I have heard Sarasate play, did I ever hear him play a wrong
+note, one not in perfect pitch. His Spanish things he played like a god!
+And he had a wonderful gift of phrasing which gave a charm hard to
+define to whatever he played. And playing in quartet--the greatest solo
+violinist does not always shine in this _genre_--he was admirable.
+Though he played all the standard repertory, Bach, Beethoven, etc., I
+can never forget his exquisite rendering of modern works, especially of
+a little composition by Raff, called _La F�e d'Amour_. He was the first
+to play the violin concertos of Saint-Sa�ns, Lalo and Max Bruch. They
+were all written for him, and I doubt whether they would have been
+composed had not Sarasate been there to play them. Of course, in his own
+Spanish music he was unexcelled--a whole school of violin playing was
+born and died with him! He had a hobby for collecting canes. He had
+hundreds of them of all kinds, and every sovereign in Europe had
+contributed to his collection. I know Queen Christina of Spain gave him
+no less than twenty. He once gave me a couple of his canes, a great sign
+of favor with him. I have often played quartet with Sarasate, for he
+adored quartet playing, and these occasions are among my treasured
+memories.
+
+
+                  STRADIVARIUS AND GUARNERIUS PLAYERS
+
+"My violin? It is a Stradivarius--the same which once belonged to the
+celebrated Baillot. I think it is good for a violin to rest, so during
+the three months when I am not playing in concert, I send my
+Stradivarius away to the instrument maker's, and only take it out about
+a month before I begin to play again in public. What do I use in the
+meantime? Caressa, the best violin maker in Paris, made me an exact copy
+of my own Strad, exact in every little detail. It is so good that
+sometimes, when circumstances compelled me to, I have used it in
+concert, though it lacks the tone-quality of the original. This
+under-study violin I can use for practice, and when I go back to the
+original, as far as the handling of the instrument is concerned, I never
+know the difference.
+
+"But I do not think that every one plays to the best advantage on a
+Strad. I'm a believer in the theory that there are natural Guarnerius
+players and natural Stradivarius players; that certain artists do their
+best with the one, and certain others with the other. And I also believe
+that any one who is 'equally' good in both, is great on neither. The
+reason I believe in Guarnerius players and Stradivarius players as
+distinct is this. Some years ago I had a sudden call to play in Ostende.
+It was a concert engagement which I had overlooked, and when it was
+recalled to me I was playing golf in Brittany. I at once hurried to
+Paris to get my violin from Caressa, with whom I had left it, but--his
+safe, in which it had been put, and to which he only had the
+combination, was locked. Caressa himself was in Milan. I telegraphed him
+but found that he could not get back in time before the concert to
+release my violin. So I telegraphed Ysaye at Namur, to ask if he could
+loan me a violin for the concert. 'Certainly' he wired back. So I
+hurried to his home and, with his usual generosity, he insisted on my
+taking both his treasured Guarnerius and his 'Hercules' Strad
+(afterwards stolen from him in Russia), in order that I might have my
+choice. His brother-in-law and some friends accompanied me from Namur to
+Ostende--no great distance--to hear the concert. Well, I played the
+Guarnerius at rehearsal, and when it was over, every one said to me,
+'Why, what is the matter with your fiddle? (It was the one Ysaye always
+used.) It has no tone at all.' At the concert I played the Strad and
+secured a big tone that filled the hall, as every one assured me. When
+I brought back the violins to Ysaye I mentioned the circumstance to him,
+and he was so surprised and interested that he took them from the cases
+and played a bit, first on one, then on the other, a number of times.
+And invariably when he played the Strad (which, by the way, he had not
+used for years) he, Ysaye--imagine it!--could develop only a small tone;
+and when he played the Guarnerius, he never failed to develop that
+great, sonorous tone we all know and love so well. Take Sarasate, when
+he lived, Elman, myself--we all have the habit of the Stradivarius: on
+the other hand Ysaye and Kreisler are Guarnerius players _par
+excellence_!
+
+"Yes, I use a wire E string. Before I found out about them I had no end
+of trouble. In New Orleans I snapped seven gut strings at a single
+concert. Some say that you can tell the difference, when listening,
+between a gut and a wire E. I cannot, and I know a good many others who
+cannot. After my last New York recital I had tea with Ysaye, who had
+done me the honor of attending it. 'What strings do you use?' he asked
+me, _� propos_ to nothing in particular. When I told him I used a wire E
+he confessed that he could not have told the difference. And, in fact,
+he has adopted the wire E just like Kreisler, Maud Powell and others,
+and has told me that he is charmed with it--for Ysaye has had a great
+deal of trouble with his strings. I shall continue to use them even
+after the war, when it will be possible to obtain good gut strings
+again.
+
+
+                            THE IDEAL PROGRAM
+
+"The whole question of programs and program-making is an intricate one.
+In my opinion the usual recital program, piano, song or violin, is too
+long. The public likes the recital by a single vocal or instrumental
+artist, and financially and for other practical reasons the artist, too,
+is better satisfied with them. But are they artistically altogether
+satisfactory? I should like to hear Paderewski and Ysaye, Bauer and
+Casals, Kreisler and Hofmann all playing at the same recital. What a
+variety, what a wealth of contrasting artistic enjoyment such a concert
+would afford. There is nothing that is so enjoyable for the true artist
+as _ensemble_ playing with his peers. Solo playing seems quite
+unimportant beside it.
+
+"I recall as the most perfect and beautiful of all my musical memories,
+a string quartet and quintet (with piano) session in Paris, in my own
+home, where we played four of the loveliest chamber music works ever
+written in the following combination: Beethoven's 7th quartet (Ysaye,
+Vo. I, myself, Vo. II, Kreisler, viola--he plays it remarkably well--and
+Casals, 'cello); the Schumann quartet (Kreisler, Vo. I, Ysaye, Vo. II,
+myself, viola and Casals, 'cello); and the Mozart G major quartet
+(myself, Vo. I, Kreisler, Vo. II, Ysaye, viola and Casals, 'cello). Then
+we telephoned to Pugno, who came over and joined us and, after an
+excellent dinner, we played the C�sar Franck piano quintet. It was the
+most enjoyable musical day of my life. A concert manager offered us a
+fortune to play in this combination--just two concerts in every capital
+in Europe.
+
+"We have not enough variety in our concert programs--not enough
+collaboration. The truth is our form of concert, which usually
+introduces only one instrument or one group of instruments, such as the
+string quartet, is too uniform in color. I can enjoy playing a recital
+program of virtuose violin pieces well enough; but I cannot help fearing
+that many find it too unicolored. Practical considerations do not do
+away with the truth of an artistic contention, though they may often
+prevent its realization. What I enjoy most, musically, is to play
+together with another good artist. That is why I have had such great
+artistic pleasure in the joint recitals I have given with Harold Bauer.
+We could play things that were really worth while for each of us--for
+the piano parts of the modern sonatas call for a virtuose technical and
+musical equipment, and I have had more satisfaction from this _ensemble_
+work than I would have had in playing a long list of solo pieces.
+
+"The ideal violin program, to play in public, as I conceive it, is one
+that consists of absolute music, or should it contain virtuose pieces,
+then these should have some definite musical quality of soul, character,
+elegance or charm to recommend them. I think one of the best programs I
+have ever played in America is that which I gave with Harold Bauer at
+�olian Hall, New York, during the season of 1917-1918:
+
+
+             Sonata in B flat .  .  .  .  .  . _Mozart_
+                            BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+             Scenes from Childhood .  .  .  .  _Schumann_
+                              H. BAUER
+
+             Po�me  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _E. Chausson_
+                             J. THIBAUD
+
+             Sonata  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . _C�sar Franck_
+                            BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+
+Or perhaps this other, which Bauer and I played in Boston, during
+November, 1913:
+
+
+             Kreutzer Sonata  .  .  .  .  . .  _Beethoven_
+                             BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+             Sarabanda }
+             Giga      }  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _J.S. Bach_
+             Chaconne  }
+                              J. THIBAUD
+
+             Kreisleriana  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _Schumann_
+                               H. BAUER
+
+             Sonata  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _C�sar Franck_
+                             BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+
+Either of these programs is artistic from the standpoint of the
+compositions represented. And even these programs are not too
+short--they take almost two hours to play; while for my ideal program an
+hour-and-a-half of beautiful music would suffice. You will notice that I
+believe in playing the big, fine things in music; in serving roasts
+rather than too many _hors d'oeuvres_ and pastry.
+
+"On a solo program, of course, one must make some concessions. When I
+play a violin concerto it seems fair enough to give the public three or
+four nice little things, but--always pieces which are truly musical, not
+such as are only 'ear-ticklers.' Kreisler--he has a great talent for
+transcription--has made charming arrangements. So has Tivadar Nach�z, of
+older things, and Arthur Hartmann. These one can play as well as shorter
+numbers by Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski that are delightful, such as the
+former's _Ballade et Polonaise_, though I know of musical purists who
+disapprove of it. I consider this _Polonaise_ on a level with Chopin's.
+Or take, in the virtuoso field, Sarasate's _Gypsy Airs_--they are equal
+to any Liszt Rhapsody. I have only recently discovered that Ysaye--my
+life-long friend--has written some wonderful original compositions: a
+_Po�me �l�giaque_, a _Chant d'hiver_, an _Extase_ and a ms. trio for two
+violins and alto that is marvelous. These pieces were an absolute find
+for me, with the exception of the lovely _Chant d'hiver_, which I have
+already played in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin, and expect to
+make a feature of my programs this winter. You see, Ysaye is so modest
+about his own compositions that he does not attempt to 'push' them, even
+with his friends, hence they are not nearly as well known as they
+should be.
+
+"I never play operatic transcriptions and never will. The music of the
+opera, no matter how fine, appears to me to have its proper place on the
+stage--it seems out of place on the violin recital program. The artist
+cannot be too careful in the choice of his shorter program pieces. And
+he can profit by the example set by some of the foremost violinists of
+the day. Ysaye, that great apostle of the truly musical, is a shining
+example. It is sad to see certain young artists of genuine talent
+disregard the remarkable work of their great contemporary, and secure
+easily gained triumphs with compositions whose musical value is _nil_.
+
+"Sometimes the wish to educate the public, to give it a high standard* of
+appreciation, leads an artist astray. I heard a well-known German
+violinist play in Berlin five years ago, and what do you suppose he
+played? Beethoven's _Trios_ transcribed for violin and piano! The last
+thing in the world to play! And there was, to my astonishment, no
+critical disapproval of what he did. I regard it as little less than a
+crime.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "standad".
+
+"But this whole question of programs and repertory is one without end.
+Which of the great concertos do I prefer? That is a difficult question
+to answer off-hand. But I can easily tell you which I like least. It is
+the Tschaikovsky* violin concerto--I would not exchange the first ten
+measures of Vieuxtemps's Fourth concerto for the whole of
+Tschaikovsky's, that is from the musical point of view. I have heard the
+Tschaikovsky played magnificently by Auer and by Elman; but I consider
+it the worst thing the composer has written."
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Tchaikovsky".
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXIV
+
+
+                             GUSTAV SAENGER
+
+                THE EDITOR AS A FACTOR IN "VIOLIN MASTERY"
+
+
+The courts of editorial appeal presided over by such men as Wm. Arms
+Fisher, Dr. Theodore Baker, Gustav Saenger and others, have a direct
+relation to the establishment and maintenance of standards of musical
+mastery in general and, in the case of Gustav Saenger, with "Violin
+Mastery" in particular. For this editor, composer and violinist is at
+home with every detail of the educational and artistic development of
+his instrument, and a considerable portion of the violin music published
+in the United States represents his final and authoritative revision.
+
+"Has the work of the editor any influence on the development of 'Violin
+Mastery'?" was the first question put to Mr. Saenger when he found time
+to see the writer in his editorial rooms. "In a larger sense I think it
+has," was the reply. "Mastery of any kind comes as a result of striving
+for a definite goal. In the case of the violin student the road of
+progress is long, and if he is not to stray off into the numerous
+by-paths of error, it must be liberally provided with sign-posts. These
+sign-posts, in the way of clear and exact indications with regard to
+bowing, fingering, interpretation, it is the editor's duty to erect. The
+student himself must provide mechanical ability and emotional instinct,
+the teacher must develop and perfect them, and the editor must neglect
+nothing in the way of explanation, illustration and example which will
+help both teacher and pupil to obtain more intimate insight into the
+musical and technical values. Yes, I think the editor may claim to be a
+factor in the attainment of 'Violin Mastery.'
+
+
+                         OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES
+
+"The work of the responsible editor of modern violin music must have
+constructive value, it must suggest and stimulate. When Kreutzer,
+Gavinies and Rode first published their work, little stress was laid on
+editorial revision. You will find little in the way of fingering
+indicated in the old editions of Kreutzer. It was not till long after
+Kreutzer's death that his pupil, Massart, published an excellent
+little book, which he called 'The Art of Studying R. Kreutzer's �tudes'
+and which I have translated. It contains no less than four hundred and
+twelve examples specially designed to aid the student to master the
+_�tudes_ in the spirit of their composer. Yet these studies, as
+difficult to-day as they were when first written, are old wine that need
+no bush, though they have gained by being decanted into new bottles of
+editorial revision.
+
+          [Illustration: GUSTAV SAENGER, with hand-written note]
+
+"They have such fundamental value, that they allow of infinite variety
+of treatment and editorial presentation. Every student who has reached a
+certain degree of technical proficiency takes them up. Yet when studying
+them for the first time, as a rule it is all he can do to master them in
+a purely superficial way. When he has passed beyond them, he can return
+to them with greater technical facility and, because of their infinite
+variety, find that they offer him any number of new study problems. As
+with Kreutzer--an essential to 'Violin Mastery'--so it is with Rode,
+Fiorillo, and Gavinies. Editorial care has prepared the studies in
+distinct editions, such as those of Hermann and Singer, specifically for
+the student, and that of Emil Kross, for the advanced player. These
+editions give the work of the teacher a more direct proportion of
+result. The difference between the two types is mainly in the fingering.
+In the case of the student editions a simple, practical fingering of
+positive educational value is given; and the student should be careful
+to use editions of this kind, meant for him. Kross provides many of the
+_�tudes_ with fingerings which only the virtuoso player is able to
+apply. Aside from technical considerations the absolute musical beauty
+of many of these studies is great, and they are well suited for solo
+performance. Rode's _Caprices_, for instance, are particularly suited
+for such a purpose, and many of Paganini's famous _Caprices_ have found
+a lasting place in the concert repertory, with piano accompaniments by
+artists like Kreisler, Eddy Brown, Edward Behm and Max Vogrich--- the
+last-named composer's three beautiful 'Characteristic Pieces' after
+Paganini are worth any violinist's attention.
+
+
+                        AMERICAN EDITORIAL IDEALS
+
+"In this country those intrusted with editorial responsibility as
+regards violin music have upheld a truly American standard of
+independent judgment. The time has long since passed when foreign
+editions were accepted on their face value, particularly older works. In
+a word, the conscientious American editor of violin music reflects in
+his editions the actual state of progress of the art of violin playing
+as established by the best teachers and teaching methods, whether the
+works in question represent a higher or lower standard of artistic
+merit.
+
+"And this is no easy task. One must remember that the peculiar
+construction of the violin with regard to its technical possibilities
+makes the presentation of a violin piece difficult from an editorial
+standpoint. A composition may be so written that a beginner can play it
+in the first position; and the same number may be played with beautiful
+effects in the higher positions by an artist. This accounts for the fact
+that in many modern editions of solo music for violin, double
+fingerings, for student and advanced players respectively, are
+indicated--an essentially modern editorial development. Modern
+instructive works by such masters as Sevcik, Eberhardt and others have
+made technical problems more clearly and concisely get-at-able than did
+the older methods. Yet some of these older works are by no means
+negligible, though of course, in all classic violin literature, from
+Tartini on, Kreutzer, Spohr, Paganini, Ernst, each individual artist
+represents his own school, his own method to the exclusion of any other.
+Spohr was one of the first to devote editorial attention to his own
+method, one which, despite its age, is a valuable work, though most
+students do not know how to use it. It is really a method for the
+advanced player, since it presupposes a good deal of preliminary
+technical knowledge, and begins at once with the higher positions. It is
+rather a series of study pieces for the special development of certain
+difficult phases, musical and technical, of the violinist's art, than a
+method. I have translated and edited the American edition of this work,
+and the many explanatory notes with which Spohr has provided* it--as in
+his own 9th, and the Rode concerto (included as representative of what
+violin concertos really should be), the measures being provided with
+group numbers for convenience in reference--are not obsolete. They are
+still valid, and any one who can appreciate the ideals of the
+_Gesangsscene_, its beautiful _cantilene_ and pure serenity, may profit
+by them. I enjoyed editing this work because I myself had studied with
+Carl Richter, a Spohr pupil, who had all his master's traditions.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "provied".
+
+
+                    THE MASTER VIOLINIST AS AN EDITOR
+
+"That the editorial revisions of a number of our greatest living
+violinists and teachers have passed through my editorial rooms, on their
+way to press, is a fact of which I am decidedly proud. Leopold Auer, for
+instance, is one of the most careful, exact and practical of editors,
+and the fact is worth dwelling on since sometimes the great artist or
+teacher quite naturally forgets that those for whom he is editing a
+composition have neither his knowledge nor resources. Auer never loses
+sight of the composer's _own ideas_.
+
+"And when I mention great violinists with whom I have been associated as
+an editor, Mischa Elman must not be forgotten. I found it at first a
+difficult matter to induce an artist like Elman, for whom no technical
+difficulties exist, to seriously consider the limitations of the average
+player in his fingerings and interpretative demands. Elman, like every
+great _virtuoso_ of his caliber, is influenced in his revisions by the
+manner in which he himself does things. I remember in one instance I
+could see no reason why he should mark the third finger for a
+_cantilena_ passage where a certain effect was desired, and questioned
+it. Catching up his violin he played the note preceding it with his
+second finger, then instead of slipping the second finger down the
+string, he took the next note with the third, in such a way that a most
+exquisite _legato_ effect, like a breath, the echo of a sigh, was
+secured. And the beauty of tone color in this instance not only proved
+his point, but has led me invariably to examine very closely a fingering
+on the part of a master violinist which represents a departure from the
+conventional--it is often the technical key to some new beauty of
+interpretation or expression.
+
+"Fritz Kreisler's individuality is also reflected in his markings and
+fingerings. Of course those in his 'educational' editions are strictly
+meant for study needs. But in general they are difficult and based on
+his own manner and style of playing. As he himself has remarked: 'I
+could play the violin just as well with three as with four fingers.'
+Kreisler is fond of 'fingered' octaves, and these, because of his
+abnormal hand, he plays with the first and third fingers, where virtuose
+players, as a rule, are only too happy if they can play them with the
+first and fourth. To verify this individual character of his revisions,
+one need only glance at his edition of Godowsky's '12 Impressions' for
+violin--in every case the fingerings indicated are difficult in the
+extreme; yet they supply the key to definite effects, and since this
+music is intended for the advance player, are quite in order.
+
+"The ms. and revisions of many other distinguished artists have passed
+through my hands. Theodore Spiering has been responsible for the
+educational detail of classic and modern works; Arthur Hartmann--a
+composer of marked originality--Albert Spalding, Eddy Brown, Francis
+MacMillan, Max Pilzer, David Hochstein, Richard Czerwonky, Cecil
+Burleigh, Edwin Grasse, Edmund Severn, Franz C. Bornschein, Leo
+Ornstein, Rubin Goldmark, Louis Pershinger, Louis Victor Saar--whose ms.
+always look as though engraved--have all given me opportunities of
+seeing the best the American violin composer is creating at the present
+time.
+
+
+                        EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES
+
+"The revisional work of the master violinist is of very great
+importance, but often great artists and distinguished teachers hold
+radically different views with regard to practically every detail of
+their art. And it is by no means easy for an editor like myself, who is
+finally responsible for their editions, to harmonize a hundred
+conflicting views and opinions. The fiddlers best qualified to speak
+with authority will often disagree absolutely regarding the use of a
+string, position, up-bow or down-bow. And besides meeting the needs of
+student and teacher, an editor-in-chief must bear in mind the artistic
+requirements of the music itself. In many cases the divergence in
+teaching standards reflects the personal preferences for the editions
+used. Less ambitious teachers choose methods which make the study of the
+violin as _easy_ as possible for _them_; rather than those which--in the
+long run--may be most advantageous for the _pupil_. The best editions of
+studies are often cast aside for trivial reasons, such as are embodied
+in the poor excuse that 'the fourth finger is too frequently indicated.'
+According to the old-time formulas, it was generally accepted that
+ascending passages should be played on the open strings and descending
+ones using the fourth finger. It stands to reason that the use of the
+fourth finger involves more effort, is a greater tax of strength, and
+that the open string is an easier playing proposition. Yet a really
+perfected technic demands that the fourth finger be every bit as strong
+and flexible as any of the others. By nature it is shorter and weaker,
+and beginners usually have great trouble with it--which makes perfect
+control of it all the more essential! And yet teachers, contrary to all
+sound principle and merely to save effort--temporarily--for themselves
+and their pupils, will often reject an edition of a method or book of
+studies merely because in its editing the fourth finger has not been
+deprived of its proper chance of development. I know of cases where,
+were it not for the guidance supplied by editorial revision, the average
+teacher would have had no idea of the purpose of the studies he was
+using. One great feature of good modern editions of classical study
+works, from Kreutzer to Paganini, is the double editorial numeration:
+one giving the sequence as in the original editions; the other numbering
+the studies in order of technical difficulty, so that they may be
+practiced progressively.
+
+
+                 A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF VIOLIN STUDIES
+
+"What special editorial work of mine has given me the greatest personal
+satisfaction in the doing? That is a hard question to answer. Off-hand
+I might say that, perhaps, the collection of progressive orchestral
+studies for advanced violinists which I have compiled and annotated for
+the benefit of the symphony orchestra player is something that has meant
+much to me personally. Years ago, when I played professionally--long
+before the days of 'miniature' orchestra scores--it was almost
+impossible for an ambitious young violinist to acquaint himself with the
+first and second violin parts of the great symphonic works. Prices of
+scores were prohibitive--and though in such works as the Brahms
+symphonies, for instance, the 'concertmaster's' part should be studied
+from score, in its relation to the rest of the _partitura_--often,
+merely to obtain a first violin part, I had to acquire the entire set of
+strings. So when I became an editor I determined, in view of my own
+unhappy experiences and that of many others, to give the aspiring
+fiddler who really wanted to 'get at' the violin parts of the best
+symphonic music, from Bach to Brahms and Richard Strauss, a chance to do
+so. And I believe I solved the problem in the five books of the 'Modern
+Concert-Master,' which includes all those really difficult and important
+passages in the great repertory works of the symphony orchestra that
+offer violinistic problems. My only regret is that the grasping attitude
+of European publishers prevented the representation of certain important
+symphonic numbers. Yet, as it stands, I think I may say that the five
+encyclopedic books of the collection give the symphony concertmaster
+every practical opportunity to gain orchestral routine, and orchestral
+mastery.
+
+
+              A NEW CLASSIFICATION OF VIOLIN LITERATURE
+
+"What I am inclined to consider, however, as even more important, in a
+sense, than my editorial labors is a new educational classification of
+violin literature, one which practically covers the entire field of
+violin music, and upon which I have been engaged for several years.
+Insomuch as an editor's work helps in the acquisition of 'Violin
+Mastery,' I am tempted to think this catalogue will be a contribution of
+real value.
+
+"As far as I know there does not at present exist any guide or hand-book
+of violin literature in which the fundamental question of grading has
+been presented _au fond_. This is not strange, since the task of
+compiling a really valid and logically graded guide-book of violin
+literature is one that offers great difficulties from almost every
+point of view.
+
+"Yet I have found the work engrossing, because the need of a book of the
+kind which makes it easy for the teacher to bring his pupils ahead more
+rapidly and intelligently by giving him an oversight of the entire
+teaching-material of the violin and under clear, practical heads in
+detail order of progression is making itself more urgently felt every
+day. In classification (there are seven grades and a preparatory grade),
+I have not chosen an easier and conventional plan of _general_
+consideration of difficulties; but have followed a more systematic
+scheme, one more closely related to the study of the instrument itself.
+Thus, my 'Preparatory Grade' contains only material which could be
+advantageously used with children and beginners, those still struggling
+with the simplest elementary problems--correct drawing of the bow across
+the open strings, in a certain rhythmic order, and the first use of the
+fingers. And throughout the grades are special sub-sections for special
+difficulties, special technical and other problems. In short, I cannot
+help but feel that I have compiled a real guide, one with a definite
+educational value, and not a catalogue, masquerading as a violinistic
+Baedeker.
+
+
+                 VIOLIN EDITIONS "MADE IN AMERICA"
+
+"One of the most significant features of the violin guide I have
+mentioned is, perhaps, the fact that its contents largely cover the
+whole range of violin literature in American editions. There was a time,
+years ago, when 'made in Germany' was accepted as a certificate of
+editorial excellence and mechanical perfection. Those days have long
+since passed, and the American edition has come into its own. It has
+reached a point of development where it is of far more practical and
+musically stimulating value than any European edition. For American
+editions of violin music do not take so much for granted! They reflect
+in the highest degree the needs of students and players in smaller
+places throughout the country, and where teachers are rare or
+non-existent they do much to supply instruction by meticulous regard for
+all detail of fingering, bowing, phrasing, expression, by insisting in
+explanatory annotation on the correct presentation of authoritative
+teaching ideas and principles. In a broader sense 'Violin Mastery' knows
+no nationality; but yet we associate the famous artists of the day with
+individual and distinctively national trends of development and
+'schools.' In this connection I am convinced that one result of this
+great war of world liberation we have waged, one by-product of the
+triumph of the democratic truth, will be a notably 'American' ideal of
+'Violin Mastery,' in the musical as well as the technical sense. And in
+the development of this ideal I do not think it is too much to claim
+that American editions of violin music, and those who are responsible
+for them, will have done their part."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 15535-8.txt or 15535-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/3/15535/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/15535-8.zip b/15535-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ac4756
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-8.zip
diff --git a/15535-h.zip b/15535-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..95a5d6a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h.zip
diff --git a/15535-h/15535-h.htm b/15535-h/15535-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f501d42
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/15535-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,9362 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1">
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens.
+    </title>
+
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .linenum  {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .pagenum  {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */
+    .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+               padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em;
+               float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em;
+               font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;}
+
+    .bb       {border-bottom: solid 2px;}
+    .bl       {border-left: solid 2px;}
+    .bt       {border-top: solid 2px;}
+    .br       {border-right: solid 2px;}
+    .bbox     {border: solid 2px;}
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    .figcenter   {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+
+    .figleft     {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top:
+                 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
+
+    .figright    {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;
+                 margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
+
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: super; font-size: .6em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span        {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 2em;}
+    .poem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 4em;}
+
+
+    div.centered       {text-align: center;}
+    div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;}
+
+    ins.correction {border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: red; border-bottom-width: 1px;}
+    .return {text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent: 0; font-size: 85%}
+    .copyright {text-align: left; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em; font-size: 70%}
+
+    .sig { /* author signature at end of letter */
+            margin-left: 45%;
+            font-variant: small-caps;
+            }
+
+
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Violin Mastery
+       Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
+
+Author: Frederick H. Martens
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15535]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of Eugene Ysaye -->
+
+<a name="Frontispiece_a" id="Frontispiece_a"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p000a_m.jpg" width="559" height="700" alt="Frontispiece_a" title="EUG&Egrave;NE YSAYE" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Eug&egrave;ne Ysaye</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<!-- Signature of Eugene Ysaye -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p000b_m.jpg" width="559" height="168" alt="Frontispiece_b" title="EUG&Egrave;NE YSAYE SIGNATURE" />
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h1>VIOLIN MASTERY</h1>
+
+<h3><i><br />TALKS WITH MASTER VIOLINISTS<br />AND TEACHERS</i></h3>
+
+
+<h4><br />COMPRISING INTERVIEWS WITH YSAYE, KREISLER,<br />ELMAN, AUER, THIBAUD, HEIFETZ, HARTMANN,<br />MAUD POWELL AND OTHERS</h4>
+
+<h3><br /><br />BY</h3>
+
+<h2>FREDERICK H. MARTENS</h2>
+
+<h5>WITH SIXTEEN PORTRAITS<br /><br /></h5>
+
+
+<!-- Frontispiece -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p002a_h.png" width="94" height="120" alt="Frontispiece_c" title="Logo" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><b>NEW YORK</b></p>
+
+<p class="center"><big>FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</big></p>
+
+<p class="center"><b>PUBLISHERS</b></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><br /><i>Copyright, 1919, by</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 35%;margin-top: 0em;margin-bottom: 0em;' />
+
+<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved, including that of translation<br />into foreign languages</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Page_-8" id="Page_-8"></a>FOREWORD</h2>
+
+
+<p>The appreciation accorded Miss Harriette
+Brower's admirable books on <span class="smcap">Piano Mastery</span>
+has prompted the present volume of intimate
+<i>Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers</i>,
+in which a number of famous artists and instructors
+discuss esthetic and technical phases
+of the art of violin playing in detail, their concept
+of what Violin Mastery means, and how
+it may be acquired. Only limitation of space
+has prevented the inclusion of numerous other
+deserving artists and teachers, yet practically
+all of the greatest masters of the violin now in
+this country are represented. That the lessons
+of their artistry and experience will be
+of direct benefit and value to every violin student
+and every lover of violin music may be
+accepted as a foregone conclusion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sig">Frederick H. Martens.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;171 Orient Way,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rutherford N.J.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="centered"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="ToC">
+<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER</td><td align='left' width="190"></td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Foreward</span></b></td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_-8">v</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Eug&egrave;ne Ysaye</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Tools of Violin Mastery</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Leopold Auer</span></b></td><td align='left'>A Method without Secrets</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Eddy Brown</span></b></td><td align='left'>Hubay and Auer: Technic: Hints to the Student</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Mischa Elman</span></b></td><td align='left'>Life and Color in Interpretation. Technical Phases</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Samuel Gardner</span></b></td><td align='left'>Technic and Musicianship</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Arthur Hartmann</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Problem of Technic</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Jascha Heifetz</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Danger of Practicing Too Much. Technical Mastery and Temperament</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">David Hochstein</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Violin as a Means of Expression</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Fritz Kreisler</span></b></td><td align='left'>Personality in Art</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Franz Kneisel</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Perfect String Ensemble</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Adolfo Betti</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Technic of the Modern Quartet</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Hans Letz</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Technic of Bowing</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">David Mannes</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Philosophy of Violin Teaching</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Tivadar Nach&eacute;z</span></b></td><td align='left'>Joachim and L&eacute;onard as Teachers</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Maximilian Pilzer</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Singing Tone and the Vibrato</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Maud Powell</span></b></td><td align='left'>Technical Difficulties: Some Hints for the Concert Player</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Leon Sametini</span></b></td><td align='left'>Harmonics</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Alexander Saslavsky</span></b></td><td align='left'>What the Teacher Can and Cannot Do</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Toscha Seidel</span></b></td><td align='left'>How to Study</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Edmund Severn</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Joachim Bowing and Others</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Albert Spalding</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Most Important Factor in the Development of an Artist</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Theodore Spiering</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Application of Bow Exercises to the Study of Kreutzer</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Jacques Thibaud</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Ideal Program</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><span class="smcap">Gustav Saenger</span></b></td><td align='left'>The Editor as a Factor in &quot;Violin Mastery&quot;</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS<br /></h2>
+
+<div class="centered"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illus">
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Eug&egrave;ne Ysaye</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#Frontispiece_a"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left' width="250"></td><td align='right'><small><small>FACING PAGE</small></small></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Leopold Auer</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Mischa Elman</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Arthur Hartmann</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Jascha Heifetz</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Fritz Kreisler</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Franz Kneisel</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Adolfo Betti</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>David Mannes</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Tivadar Nach&eacute;z</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Maud Powell</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_184">184</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Toscha Seidel</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_220">220</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Albert Spalding</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_240">240</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Theodore Spiering</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_248">248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Jacques Thibaud</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Gustav Saenger</b></td><td align='right'><a href="#F_Page_278">278</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>VIOLIN MASTERY</h2>
+
+<h2><br /><br />EUG&Egrave;NE YSAYE</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY</h3>
+
+<p><br />Who is there among contemporary masters
+of the violin whose name stands for more at
+the present time than that of the great Belgian
+artist, his &quot;extraordinary temperamental
+power as an interpreter&quot; enhanced by a hundred
+and one special gifts of tone and technic,
+gifts often alluded to by his admiring colleagues?
+For Ysaye is the greatest exponent
+of that wonderful Belgian school of violin
+playing which is rooted in his teachers Vieuxtemps
+and Wieniawski, and which as Ysaye
+himself says, &quot;during a period covering seventy
+years reigned supreme at the <i>Conservatoire</i>
+in Paris in the persons of Massart, Remi,
+Marsick, and others of its great interpreters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>What most impresses one who meets Ysaye
+and talks with him for the first time is the mental
+breadth and vision of the man; his kindness
+and amiability; his utter lack of small vanity.
+When the writer first called on him in New
+York with a note of introduction from his
+friend and admirer Adolfo Betti, and later at
+Scarsdale where, in company with his friend
+Thibaud, he was dividing his time between music
+and tennis, Ysaye made him entirely at
+home, and willingly talked of his art and its
+ideals. In reply to some questions anent his
+own study years, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strange to say, my father was my very
+first teacher&mdash;it is not often the case. I studied
+with him until I went to the Li&egrave;ge Conservatory
+in 1867, where I won a second prize,
+sharing it with Ovide Musin, for playing Viotti's
+22d Concerto. Then I had lessons from
+Wieniawski in Brussels and studied two years
+with Vieuxtemps in Paris. Vieuxtemps was
+a paralytic when I came to him; yet a wonderful
+teacher, though he could no longer play.
+And I was already a concertizing artist when
+I met him. He was a very great man, the
+grandeur of whose tradition lives in the whole
+'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at
+his seven concertos&mdash;of course they are written
+with an eye to effect, from the virtuoso's
+standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are
+built up! How interesting is their working-out:
+and the orchestral score is far more than
+a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose
+effect only Paganini's music compares with
+his, and Paganini, of course, did not play it as
+it is now played. In wealth of technical development,
+in true musical expressiveness
+Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof is the fact
+that his works have endured forty to fifty
+years, a long life for compositions.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Joachim, L&eacute;onard, Sivori, Wieniawski&mdash;all
+admired Vieuxtemps. In Paganini's and
+Locatelli's works the effect, comparatively
+speaking, lies in the mechanics; but Vieuxtemps
+is the great artist who made the instrument
+take the road of romanticism which
+Hugo, Balzac and Gauthier trod in literature.
+And before all the violin was made to charm,
+to move, and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like
+Rubinstein, he held that the artist must first
+of all have ideas, emotional power&mdash;his technic
+must be so perfected that he does not have
+to think of it! Incidentally, speaking of
+schools of violin playing, I find that there is a
+great tendency to confuse the Belgian and
+French. This should not be. They are distinct,
+though the latter has undoubtedly been
+formed and influenced by the former. Many
+of the great violin names, in fact,&mdash;Vieuxtemps,
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'Leonard'">L&eacute;onard</ins>, Marsick, Remi, Parent, de
+Broux, Musin, Thomson,&mdash;are all Belgian.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />YSAYE'S REPERTORY</h4>
+
+<p>Ysaye spoke of Vieuxtemps's repertory&mdash;only
+he did not call it that: he spoke of the
+Vieuxtemps compositions and of Vieuxtemps
+himself. &quot;Vieuxtemps wrote in the grand
+style; his music is always rich and sonorous. If
+his violin is really to sound, the violinist must
+play Vieuxtemps, just as the 'cellist plays Servais.
+You know, in the Catholic Church, at
+Vespers, whenever God's name is spoken, we
+bow the head. And Wieniawski would always
+bow his head when he said: 'Vieuxtemps is the
+master of us all!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have often played his <i>Fifth Concerto</i>, so
+warm, brilliant and replete with temperament,
+always full-sounding, rich in an almost unbounded
+strength. Of course, since Vieuxtemps
+wrote his concertos, a great variety of
+fine modern works has appeared, the appreciation
+of chamber-music has grown and developed,
+and with it that of the sonata. And
+the modern violin sonata is also a vehicle for
+violin virtuosity in the very best meaning of
+the word. The sonatas of C&eacute;sar Franck,
+d'Indy, Th&eacute;odore Dubois, Lekeu, Vierne, Ropartz,
+Lazarri&mdash;they are all highly expressive,
+yet at the same time virtuose. The violin
+parts develop a lovely song line, yet their technic
+is far from simple. Take Lekeu's splendid
+Sonata in G major; rugged and massive,
+making decided technical demands&mdash;it yet has
+a wonderful breadth of melody, a great expressive
+quality of song.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These works&mdash;those who have heard the
+Master play the beautiful Lazarri sonata this
+season will not soon forget it&mdash;are all dedicated
+to Ysaye. And this holds good, too, of
+the C&eacute;sar Franck sonata. As Ysaye says:
+&quot;Performances of these great sonatas call for
+<i>two</i> artists&mdash;for their piano parts are sometimes
+very elaborate. C&eacute;sar Franck sent me
+his sonata on September 26, 1886, my wedding
+day&mdash;it was his wedding present! I cannot
+complain as regards the number of works,
+really important works, inscribed to me. There
+are so many&mdash;by Chausson (his symphony),
+Ropartz, Dubois (his sonata&mdash;one of the best
+after Franck), d'Indy (the <i>Istar</i> variations
+and other works), Gabriel Faur&eacute; (the Quintet),
+Debussy (the Quartet)! There are
+more than I can recall at the moment&mdash;violin
+sonatas, symphonic music, chamber-music,
+choral works, compositions of every kind!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Debussy, as you know, wrote practically
+nothing originally for the violin and piano&mdash;with
+the exception, perhaps, of a work published
+by Durand during his last illness. Yet
+he came very near writing something for me.
+Fifteen years ago he told me he was composing
+a 'Nocturne' for me. I went off on a concert
+tour and was away a long time. When I
+returned to Paris I wrote to Debussy to find
+out what had become of my 'Nocturne.' And
+he replied that, somehow, it had shaped itself
+up for orchestra instead of a violin solo. It
+is one of the <i>Trois Nocturnes</i> for orchestra.
+Perhaps one reason why so much has been inscribed
+to me is the fact that as an interpreting
+artist, I have never cultivated a 'specialty.' I
+have played everything from Bach to Debussy,
+for real art should be international!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ysaye himself has an almost marvelous
+right-arm and fingerboard control, which enables
+him to produce at will the finest and most
+subtle tonal nuances in all bowings. Then,
+too, he overcomes the most intricate mechanical
+problems with seemingly effortless ease.
+And his tone has well been called &quot;golden.&quot;
+His own definition of tone is worth recording.
+He says it should be &quot;In music what the heart
+suggests, and the soul expresses!&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;With regard to mechanism,&quot; Ysaye continued,
+&quot;at the present day the tools of violin
+mastery, of expression, technic, mechanism, are
+far more necessary than in days gone by. In
+fact they are indispensable, if the spirit is to
+express itself without restraint. And the
+greater mechanical command one has the less
+noticeable it becomes. All that suggests effort,
+awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener,
+who more than anything else delights
+in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often
+said: <i>Pas de trait pour le trait&mdash;chantez,
+chantez</i>! (Not runs for the sake of runs&mdash;sing,
+sing!)</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Too many of the technicians of the present
+day no longer sing. Their difficulties&mdash;they
+surmount them more or less happily; but the
+effect is too apparent, and though, at times,
+the listener may be astonished, he can never be
+charmed. Agile fingers, sure of themselves,
+and a perfect bow stroke are essentials; and
+they must be supremely able to carry along the
+rhythm and poetic action the artist desires.
+Mechanism becomes, if anything, more accessible
+in proportion as its domain is enriched
+by new formulas. The violinist of to-day
+commands far greater technical resources than
+did his predecessors. Paganini is accessible
+to nearly all players: Vieuxtemps no longer
+offers the difficulties he did thirty years ago.
+Yet the wood-wind, brass and even the string
+instruments subsist in a measure on the heritage
+transmitted by the masters of the past.
+I often feel that violin teaching to-day endeavors
+to develop the esthetic sense at too early a
+stage. And in devoting itself to the <i>head</i> it
+forgets the <i>hands</i>, with the result that the
+young soldiers of the violinistic army, full of
+ardor and courage, are ill equipped for the
+great battle of art.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In this connection there exists an excellent
+set of <i>&Eacute;tudes-Caprices</i> by E. Chaumont,
+which offer the advanced student new elements
+and formulas of development. Though in
+some of them 'the frame is too large for the
+picture,' and though difficult from a violinistic
+point of view, 'they lie admirably well up the
+neck,' to use one of Vieuxtemps's expressions,
+and I take pleasure in calling attention to
+them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I said that the string instruments,
+including the violin, subsist in a measure on
+the heritage transmitted by the masters of the
+past, I spoke with special regard to technic.
+Since Vieuxtemps there has been hardly one
+new passage written for the violin; and this
+has retarded the development of its technic.
+In the case of the piano, men like Godowsky
+have created a new technic for their instrument;
+but although Saint-Sa&euml;ns, Bruch, Lalo
+and others have in their works endowed the
+violin with much beautiful music, music itself
+was their first concern, and not music for the
+violin. There are no more concertos written
+for the solo flute, trombone, etc.&mdash;as a result
+there is no new technical material added to the
+resources of these instruments.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a way the same holds good of the
+violin&mdash;new works conceived only from the musical
+point of view bring about the stagnation of
+technical discovery, the invention of new passages,
+of novel harmonic wealth of combination
+is not encouraged. And a violinist owes
+it to himself to exploit the great possibilities
+of his own instrument. I have tried to find
+new technical ways and means of expression in
+my own compositions. For example, I have
+written a <i>Divertiment</i> for violin and orchestra
+in which I believe I have embodied new
+thoughts and ideas, and have attempted to give
+violin technic a broader scope of life and vigor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the days of Viotti and Rode the harmonic
+possibilities were more limited&mdash;they
+had only a few chords, and hardly any chords
+of the ninth. But now harmonic material for
+the development of a new violin technic is
+there: I have some violin studies, in ms., which
+I may publish some day, devoted to that end.
+I am always somewhat hesitant about publishing&mdash;there
+are many things I might publish,
+but I have seen so much brought out that was
+banal, poor, unworthy, that I have always been
+inclined to mistrust the value of my own creations
+rather than fall into the same error. We
+have the scale of Debussy and his successors
+to draw upon, their new chords and successions
+of fourths and fifths&mdash;for new technical
+formulas are always evolved out of and follow
+after new harmonic discoveries&mdash;though
+there is as yet no violin method which gives a
+fingering for the whole-tone scale. Perhaps
+we will have to wait until Kreisler or I will
+have written one which makes plain the new
+flowering of technical beauty and esthetic development
+which it brings the violin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As to teaching violin, I have never taught
+violin in the generally accepted sense of the
+phrase. But at Godinne, where I usually
+spent my summers when in Europe, I gave a
+kind of traditional course in the works of
+Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and other masters to
+some forty or fifty artist-students who would
+gather there&mdash;the same course I look forward
+to giving in Cincinnati, to a master class of
+very advanced pupils. This was and will be a
+labor of love, for the compositions of Vieuxtemps
+and Wieniawski especially are so inspiring
+and yet, as a rule, they are so badly
+played&mdash;without grandeur or beauty, with no
+thought of the traditional interpretation&mdash;that
+they seem the piecework of technic factories!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;When I take the whole history of the
+violin into account I feel that the true inwardness
+of 'Violin Mastery' is best expressed
+by a kind of threefold group of great artists.
+First, in the order of romantic expression, we
+have a trinity made up of Corelli, Viotti and
+Vieuxtemps. Then there is a trinity of mechanical
+perfection, composed of Locatelli,
+Tartini and Paganini or, a more modern
+equivalent, C&eacute;sar Thomson, Kubelik and Burmeister.
+And, finally, what I might call in
+the order of lyric expression, a quartet comprising
+Ysaye, Thibaud, Mischa Elman and
+Sametini of Chicago, the last-named a wonderfully
+fine artist of the lyric or singing type.
+Of course there are qualifications to be made.
+Locatelli was not altogether an exponent of
+technic. And many other fine artists besides
+those mentioned share the characteristics of
+those in the various groups. Yet, speaking in
+a general way, I believe that these groups of
+attainment might be said to sum up what
+'Violin Mastery' really is. And a violin master?
+He must be a violinist, a thinker, a poet,
+a human being, he must have known hope, love,
+passion and despair, he must have run the
+gamut of the emotions in order to express them
+all in his playing. He must play his violin as
+Pan played his flute!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion Ysaye sounded a note of warning
+for the too ambitious young student and
+player. &quot;If Art is to progress, the technical
+and mechanical element must not, of course, be
+neglected. But a boy of eighteen cannot expect
+to express that to which the serious student
+of thirty, the man who has actually lived,
+can give voice. If the violinist's art is truly a
+great art, it cannot come to fruition in the artist's
+'teens. His accomplishment then is no
+more than a promise&mdash;a promise which finds
+its realization in and by life itself. Yet Americans
+have the brains as well as the spiritual
+endowment necessary to understand and appreciate
+beauty in a high degree. They can
+already point with pride to violinists who emphatically
+deserve to be called artists, and another
+quarter-century of artistic striving may
+well bring them into the front rank of violinistic
+achievement!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>II</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />LEOPOLD AUER</h2>
+
+<h3>A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />When that celebrated laboratory of budding
+musical genius, the Petrograd Conservatory,
+closed its doors indefinitely owing to the disturbed
+political conditions of Russia, the famous
+violinist and teacher Professor Leopold
+Auer decided to pay the visit to the United
+States which had so repeatedly been urged on
+him by his friends and pupils. His fame, owing
+to such heralds as Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa
+Elman, Kathleen Parlow, Eddy Brown, Francis
+MacMillan, and more recently Sascha
+Heifetz, Toscha Seidel, and Max Rosen, had
+long since preceded him; and the reception accorded
+him in this country, as a soloist and one
+of the greatest exponents and teachers of his
+instrument, has been one justly due to his authority
+and pre&euml;minence.</p>
+
+<p>It was not easy to have a heart-to-heart talk
+with the Master anent his art, since every minute
+of his time was precious. Yet ushered into
+his presence, the writer discovered that he had
+laid aside for the moment other preoccupations,
+and was amiably responsive to all questions,
+once their object had been disclosed.
+Naturally, the first and burning question in
+the case of so celebrated a pedagogue was:
+&quot;How do you form such wonderful artists?
+What is the secret of your method?&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of LEOPOLD AUER, Facing Page 14-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_14" id="F_Page_14"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p014a_m.jpg" width="457" height="700" alt="F_Page_14" title="LEOPOLD AUER" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Leopold Auer</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h4><br />A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I know,&quot; said Professor Auer, &quot;that there
+is a theory somewhat to the effect that I make
+a few magic passes with the bow by way of illustration
+and&mdash;<i>presto</i>&mdash;you have a Zimbalist
+or a Heifetz! But the truth is I have no
+method&mdash;unless you want to call purely natural
+lines of development, based on natural
+principles, a method&mdash;and so, of course, there
+is no secret about my teaching. The one great
+point I lay stress on in teaching is never to
+kill the individuality of my various pupils.
+Each pupil has his own inborn aptitudes, his
+own personal qualities as regards tone and interpretation.
+I always have made an individual
+study of each pupil, and given each pupil
+individual treatment. And always, always I
+have encouraged them to develop freely in
+their own way as regards inspiration and
+ideals, so long as this was not contrary to esthetic
+principles and those of my art. My
+idea has always been to help bring out what
+nature has already given, rather than to use
+dogma to force a student's natural inclinations
+into channels I myself might prefer. And
+another great principle in my teaching, one
+which is productive of results, is to demand as
+much as possible of the pupil. Then he will
+give you something!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course the whole subject of violin teaching
+is one that I look at from the standpoint
+of the teacher who tries to make what is already
+excellent perfect from the musical and artistic
+standpoint. I insist on a perfected technical
+development in every pupil who comes to me.
+Art begins where technic ends. There can be
+no real art development before one's technic is
+firmly established. And a great deal of technical
+work has to be done before the great
+works of violin literature, the sonatas and concertos,
+may be approached. In Petrograd my
+own assistants, who were familiar with my
+ideas, prepared my pupils for me. And in my
+own experience I have found that one cannot
+teach by word, by the spoken explanation,
+alone. If I have a point to make I explain it;
+but if my explanation fails to explain I take
+my violin and bow, and clear up the matter beyond
+any doubt. The word lives, it is true, but
+often the word must be materialized by action
+so that its meaning is clear. There are always
+things which the pupil must be shown literally,
+though explanation should always supplement
+illustration. I studied with Joachim
+as a boy of sixteen&mdash;it was before 1866, when
+there was still a kingdom of Hanover in existence&mdash;and
+Joachim always illustrated his
+meaning with bow and fiddle. But he never
+explained the technical side of what he illustrated.
+Those more advanced understood
+without verbal comment; yet there were some
+who did not.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As regards the theory that you can tell who
+a violinist's teacher is by the way in which he
+plays, I do not believe in it. I do not believe
+that you can tell an Auer pupil by the manner
+in which he plays. And I am proud of it since
+it shows that my pupils have profited by my
+encouragement of individual development, and
+that they become genuine artists, each with a
+personality of his own, instead of violinistic
+automats, all bearing a marked family resemblance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Questioned as to how his various pupils reflected
+different phases of his teaching ideals,
+Professor Auer mentioned that he had long
+since given over passing final decisions on his
+pupils. &quot;I could express no such opinions
+without unconsciously implying comparisons.
+And so few comparisons really compare!
+Then, too, mine would be merely an individual
+opinion. Therefore, as has been my custom
+for years, I will continue to leave any ultimate
+decisions regarding my pupils' playing to the
+public and the press.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />HOURS OF PRACTICE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;How long should the advanced pupil practice?&quot;
+Professor Auer was asked. &quot;The right
+kind of practice is not a matter of hours,&quot; he
+replied. &quot;Practice should represent the utmost
+concentration of brain. It is better to
+play with concentration for two hours than to
+practice eight without. I should say that
+four hours would be a good maximum practice
+time&mdash;I never ask more of my pupils&mdash;and
+that during each minute of the time the brain
+be as active as the fingers.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />NATIONALITY VERSUS THE CONSERVATORY SYSTEM</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I think there is more value in the idea of
+a national conservatory than in the idea of nationality
+as regards violin playing. No matter
+what his birthplace, there is only one way in
+which a student can become an artist&mdash;and
+that is to have a teacher who can teach! In
+Europe the best teachers are to be found in
+the great national conservatories. Thibaud,
+Ysaye&mdash;artists of the highest type&mdash;are products
+of the conservatory system, with its splendid
+teachers. So is Kreisler, one of the greatest
+artists, who studied in Vienna and Paris.
+Eddy Brown, the brilliant American violinist,
+finished at the Budapest Conservatory. In
+the Paris Conservatory the number of pupils
+in a class is strictly limited; and from these pupils
+each professor chooses the very best&mdash;who
+may not be able to pay for their course&mdash;for
+free instruction. At the Petrograd Conservatory,
+where Wieniawski preceded me, there
+were hundreds of free scholarships available.
+If a really big talent came along he always had
+his opportunity. We took and taught those
+less talented at the Conservatory in order to
+be able to give scholarships to the deserving of
+limited means. In this way no real violinistic
+genius, whom poverty might otherwise have
+kept from ever realizing his dreams, was deprived
+of his chance in life. Among the pupils
+there in my class, having scholarships, were
+Kathleen Parlow, Elman, Zimbalist, Heifetz
+and Seidel.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin mastery? To me it represents the
+sum total of accomplishment on the part of
+those who live in the history of the Art. All
+those who may have died long since, yet the
+memory of whose work and whose creations
+still lives, are the true masters of the violin,
+and its mastery is the record of their accomplishment.
+As a child I remember the well-known
+composers of the day were Marschner,
+Hiller, Nicolai and others&mdash;yet most of what
+they have written has been forgotten. On the
+other hand there are Tartini, Nardini, Paganini,
+Kreutzer, Dont and Rode&mdash;they still
+live; and so do Ernst, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps
+and Wieniawski. Joachim (incidentally the
+only great German violinist of whom I know&mdash;and
+he was a Hungarian!), though he had
+but few great pupils, and composed but little,
+will always be remembered because he, together
+with David, gave violin virtuosity a nobler
+trend, and introduced a higher ideal in the
+music played for violin. It is men such as
+these who always will remain violin 'masters,'
+just as 'violin mastery' is defined by what they
+have done.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE BACH VIOLIN SONATAS AND OTHER COMPOSITIONS</h4>
+
+<p>Replying to a question as to the value of the
+Bach violin sonatas, Professor Auer said:
+&quot;My pupils always have to play Bach. I have
+published my own revision of them with a New
+York house. The most impressive thing about
+these Bach solo sonatas is they do not need an
+accompaniment: one feels it would be superfluous.
+Bach composed so rapidly, he wrote
+with such ease, that it would have been no
+trouble for him to supply one had he felt it
+necessary. But he did not, and he was right.
+And they still must be played as he has written
+them. We have the 'modern' orchestra,
+the 'modern' piano, but, thank heaven, no
+'modern' violin! Such indications as I have
+made in my edition with regard to bowing, fingering,
+<i>nuances</i> of expression, are more or less
+in accord with the spirit of the times; but not
+a single note that Bach has written has been
+changed. The sonatas are technically among
+the most difficult things written for the violin,
+excepting Ernst and Paganini. Not that
+they are hard in a modern way: Bach knew
+nothing of harmonics, <i>pizzicati</i>, scales in octaves
+and tenths. But his counterpoint, his
+fugues&mdash;to play them well when the principal
+theme is sometimes in the outer voices, sometimes
+in the inner voices, or moving from one
+to the other&mdash;is supremely difficult! In the
+last sonatas there is a larger number of small
+movements&mdash;- but this does not make them any
+easier to play.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have also edited the Beethoven sonatas
+together with Rudolph Ganz. He worked at
+the piano parts in New York, while I studied
+and revised the violin parts in Petrograd and
+Norway, where I spent my summers during
+the war. There was not so much to do,&quot; said
+Professor Auer modestly, &quot;a little fingering,
+some bowing indications and not much else.
+No reviser needs to put any indications for
+<i>nuance</i> and shading in Beethoven. He was
+quite able to attend to all that himself. There
+is no composer who shows such refinement of
+<i>nuance</i>. You need only to take his quartets
+or these same sonatas to convince yourself of
+the fact. In my Brahms revisions I have supplied
+really needed fingerings, bowings, and
+other indications! Important compositions
+on which I am now at work include Ernst's
+fine Concerto, Op. 23, the Mozart violin concertos,
+and Tartini's <i>Trille du diable</i>, with a
+special cadenza for my pupil, Toscha Seidel.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />AS REGARDS &quot;PRODIGIES&quot;</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Prodigies?&quot; said Professor Auer. &quot;The
+word 'prodigy' when applied to some youthful
+artist is always used with an accent of reproach.
+Public and critics are inclined to regard
+them with suspicion. Why? After all,
+the important thing is not their youth, but their
+artistry. Examine the history of music&mdash;you
+will discover that any number of great masters,
+great in the maturity of their genius, were
+great in its infancy as well. There are Mozart,
+Beethoven, Liszt, Rubinstein, d'Albert,
+Hofmann, Scriabine, Wieniawski&mdash;they were
+all 'infant prodigies,' and certainly not in any
+objectionable sense. Not that I wish to claim
+that every <i>prodigy</i> necessarily becomes a great
+master. That does not always follow. But I
+believe that a musical prodigy, instead of being
+regarded with suspicion, has a right to be
+looked upon as a striking example of a pronounced
+natural predisposition for musical art.
+Of course, full mental development of artistic
+power must come as a result of the maturing
+processes of life itself. But I firmly believe
+that every prodigy represents a valuable
+musical phenomenon, one deserving of the
+keenest interest and encouragement. It does
+not seem right to me that when the art of the
+prodigy is incontestably great, that the mere
+fact of his youth should serve as an excuse to
+look upon him with prejudice, and even with
+a certain degree of distrust.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>III</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />EDDY BROWN</h2>
+
+<h3>HUBAY AND AUER: TECHNIC:<br />
+HINTS TO THE STUDENT</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Notwithstanding the fact that Eddy
+Brown was born in Chicago, Ill., and that he
+is so great a favorite with concert audiences
+in the land of his birth, the gifted violinist hesitates
+to qualify himself as a strictly &quot;American&quot;
+violinist. As he expresses it: &quot;Musically
+I was altogether educated in Europe&mdash;I never
+studied here, because I left this country at the
+age of seven, and only returned a few years
+ago. So I would not like to be placed in the
+position of claiming anything under false pretenses!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />HUBAY AND AUER: SOME COMPARISONS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;With whom did I study? With two famous
+masters; by a strange coincidence both
+Hungarians. First with Jen&ouml; Hubay, at the
+National Academy of Music in Budapest,
+later with Leopold Auer in Petrograd. Hubay
+had been a pupil of Vieuxtemps in Brussels,
+and is a justly celebrated teacher, very
+thorough and painstaking in explaining to his
+pupils how to do things; but the great difference
+between Hubay and Auer is that while
+Hubay tells a student how to do things, Auer,
+a temperamental teacher, literally drags out
+of him whatever there is in him, awakening latent
+powers he never knew he possessed. Hubay
+is a splendid builder of virtuosity, and has
+a fine sense for phrasing. For a year and a
+half I worked at nothing but studies with him,
+giving special attention to technic. He did
+not believe in giving too much time to left hand
+development, when without adequate bow technic
+finger facility is useless. Here he was in
+accord with Auer, in fact with every teacher
+seriously deserving of the name. Hubay was
+a first-class pedagog, and under his instruction
+one could not help becoming a well-balanced
+and musicianly player. But there is a higher
+ideal in violin playing than mere correctness,
+and Auer is an inspiring teacher. Hubay has
+written some admirable studies, notably
+twelve studies for the right hand, though he
+never stressed technic too greatly. On the
+other hand, Auer's most notable contributions
+to violin literature are his revisions of such
+works as the Bach sonatas, the Tschaikovsky
+Concerto, etc. In a way it points the difference
+in their mental attitude: Hubay more concerned
+with the technical educational means,
+one which cannot be overlooked; Auer more
+interested in the interpretative, artistic educational
+end, which has always claimed his attention.
+Hubay personally was a <i>grand seigneur</i>,
+a multi-millionaire, and married to an
+Hungarian countess. He had a fine ear for
+phrasing, could improvise most interesting
+violin accompaniments to whatever his pupils
+played, and beside Rode, Kreutzer and Fiorillo
+I studied the concertos and other repertory
+works with him. Then there were the conservatory
+lessons! Attendance at a European
+conservatory is very broadening musically.
+Not only does the individual violin pupil, for
+example, profit by listening to his colleagues
+play in class: he also studies theory, musical
+history, the piano, <i>ensemble</i> playing, chamber-music
+and orchestra. I was concertmaster of
+the conservatory orchestra while studying with
+Hubay. There should be a national conservatory
+of music in this country; music in general
+would advance more rapidly. And it would
+help teach American students to approach the
+art of violin playing from the right point of
+view. As it is, too many want to study abroad
+under some renowned teacher not, primarily,
+with the idea of becoming great artists; but in
+the hope of drawing great future commercial
+dividends from an initial financial investment.
+In Art the financial should always be a secondary
+consideration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It stands to reason that no matter how
+great a student's gifts may be, he can profit
+by study with a great teacher. This, I think,
+applies to all. After I had already appeared
+in concert at Albert Hall, London, in 1909,
+where I played the Beethoven Concerto with
+orchestra, I decided to study with Auer. When
+I first came to him he wanted to know why I
+did so, and after hearing me play, told me that
+I did not need any lessons from him. But I
+knew that there was a certain 'something'
+which I wished to add to my violinistic make-up,
+and instinctively felt that he alone could
+give me what I wanted. I soon found that in
+many essentials his ideas coincided with those
+of Hubay. But I also discovered that Auer
+made me develop my individuality unconsciously,
+placing no undue restrictions whatsoever
+upon my manner of expression, barring,
+of course, unmusicianly tendencies. When he
+has a really talented pupil the Professor gives
+him of his best. I never gave a thought to
+technic while I studied with him&mdash;the great
+things were a singing tone, bowing, interpretation!
+I studied Brahms and Beethoven, and
+though Hubay always finished with the Bach
+sonatas, I studied them again carefully with Auer.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TECHNIC: SOME HINTS TO THE STUDENT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;At the bottom of all technic lies the scale.
+And scale practice is the ladder by means of
+which all must climb to higher proficiency.
+Scales, in single tones and intervals, thirds,
+sixths, octaves, tenths, with the incidental
+changes of position, are the foundation of technic.
+They should be practiced slowly, always
+with the development of tone in mind, and not
+too long a time at any one session. No one
+can lay claim to a perfected technic who has
+not mastered the scale. Better a good tone,
+even though a hundred mistakes be made in
+producing it, than a tone that is poor, thin and
+without quality. I find the Singer <i>Finger&uuml;bungen</i>
+are excellent for muscular development
+in scale work, for imparting the great
+strength which is necessary for the fingers to
+have; and the Kreutzer <i>&eacute;tudes</i> are indispensable.
+To secure an absolute <i>legato</i> tone, a
+true singing tone on the violin, one should play
+scales with a perfectly well sustained and
+steady bow, in whole notes, slowly and <i>mezzo-forte</i>,
+taking care that each note is clear and
+pure, and that its volume does not vary during
+the stroke. The quality of tone must be equalized,
+and each whole note should be 'sung' with
+a single bowing. The change from up-bow to
+down-bow and <i>vice versa</i> should be made without
+a break, exclusively through skillful manipulation
+of the wrist. To accomplish this unbroken
+change of bow one should cultivate a
+loose wrist, and do special work at the extreme
+ends, nut and tip.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>vibrato</i> is a great tone beautifier. Too
+rapid or too slow a <i>vibrato</i> defeats the object
+desired. There is a happy medium of <i>tempo</i>,
+rather faster than slower, which gives the best
+results. Carl Flesch has some interesting theories
+about vibration which are worth investigating.
+A slow and a moderately rapid <i>vibrato,
+from the wrist</i>, is best for practice, and
+the underlying idea while working must be
+tone, and not fingerwork.</p>
+
+<p><i>Staccato</i> is one of the less important
+branches of bow technic. There is a knack in
+doing it, and it is purely pyrotechnical. <i>Staccato</i>
+passages in quantity are only to be found
+in solos of the virtuoso type. One never meets
+with extended <i>staccato</i> passages in Beethoven,
+Brahms, Bruch or Lalo. And the Saint-Sa&euml;ns's
+violin concerto, if I remember rightly,
+contains but a single <i>staccato</i> passage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Spiccato</i> is a very different matter from
+<i>staccato</i>: violinists as a rule use the middle of
+the bow for <i>spiccato</i>: I use the upper third of
+the bow, and thus get most satisfactory results,
+in no matter what <i>tempo</i>. This question as
+to what portion of the bow to use for <i>spiccato</i>
+each violinist must decide for himself, however,
+through experiment. I have tried both ways
+and find that by the last mentioned use of the
+bow I secure quicker, cleaner results. Students
+while practicing this bowing should take
+care that the wrist, and never the arm, be used.
+Hubay has written some very excellent studies
+for this form of 'springing bow.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The trill, when it rolls quickly and evenly,
+is a trill indeed! I never had any difficulty in
+acquiring it, and can keep on trilling indefinitely
+without the slightest unevenness or
+slackening of speed. Auer himself has assured
+me that I have a trill that runs on and
+on without a sign of fatigue or uncertainty.
+The trill has to be practiced very slowly at
+first, later with increasing rapidity, and always
+with a firm pressure of the fingers. It is a
+very beautiful embellishment, and one much
+used; one finds it in Beethoven, Mendelssohn,
+Brahms, etc.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Double notes never seemed hard to me, but
+harmonics are not as easily acquired as some
+of the other violin effects. I advise pressing
+down the first finger on the strings <i>inordinately</i>,
+especially in the higher positions, when
+playing artificial harmonics. The higher the
+fingers ascend on the strings, the more firmly
+they should press them, otherwise the harmonics
+are apt to grow shrill and lose in clearness.
+The majority of students have trouble with
+their harmonics, because they do not practice
+them in this way. Of course the quality of the
+harmonics produced varies with the quality of
+the strings that produce them. First class
+strings are an absolute necessity for the production
+of pure harmonics. Yet in the case
+of the artist, he himself is held responsible, and
+not his strings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Octaves? Occasionally, as in Auer's
+transcript of Beethoven's <i>Dance of the Dervishes</i>,
+or in the closing section of the Ernst
+Concerto, when they are used to obtain a certain
+weird effect, they sound well. But ordinarily,
+if cleanly played, they sound like one-note
+successions. In the examples mentioned,
+the so-called 'fingered octaves,' which are very
+difficult, are employed. Ordinary octaves are
+not so troublesome. After all, in octave playing
+we simply double the notes for the purpose
+of making them more powerful.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As regards the playing of tenths, it seems
+to me that the interval always sounds constrained,
+and hardly ever euphonious enough
+to justify its difficulty, especially in rapid passages.
+Yet Paganini used this awkward interval
+very freely in his compositions, and one
+of his 'Caprices' is a variation in tenths, which
+should be played more often than it is, as it
+is very effective. In this connection change
+of position, which I have already touched on
+with regard to scale playing, should be so
+smooth that it escapes notice. Among special
+effects the <i>glissando</i> is really beautiful when
+properly done. And this calls for judgment.
+It might be added, though, that the <i>glissando</i>
+is an effect which should not be overdone. The
+<i>portamento</i>&mdash;gliding from one note to another&mdash;is
+also a lovely effect. Its proper and
+timely application calls for good judgment and
+sound musical taste.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A SPANISH VIOLIN</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I usually play a 'Strad,' but very often turn
+to my beautiful 'Guillami,'&quot; said Mr. Brown
+when asked about his violins. &quot;It is an old
+Spanish violin, made in Barcelona, in 1728,
+with a tone that has a distinct Stradivarius
+character. In appearance it closely resembles
+a Guadagnini, and has often been taken for
+one. When the dealer of whom I bought it
+first showed it to me it was complete&mdash;but in
+four distinct pieces! Kubelik, who was in
+Budapest at the time, heard of it and wanted
+to buy it; but the dealer, as was only right,
+did not forget that my offer represented a
+prior claim, and so I secured it. The Guadagnini,
+which I have played in all my concerts
+here, I am very fond of&mdash;it has a Stradivarius
+tone rather than the one we usually associate
+with the make.&quot; Mr. Brown showed the
+writer his Grancino, a beautiful little instrument
+about to be sent to the repair shop, since
+exposure to the damp atmosphere of the sea-shore
+had opened its seams&mdash;and the rare and
+valuable Simon bow, now his, which had once
+been the property of Sivori. Mr. Brown has
+used a wire E ever since he broke six gut
+strings in one hour while at Seal Harbor,
+Maine. &quot;A wire string, I find, is not only
+easier to play, but it has a more brilliant quality
+of tone than a gut string; and I am now
+so accustomed to using a wire E, that I would
+feel ill at ease if I did not have one on my instrument.
+Contrary to general belief, it does
+not sound 'metallic,' unless the string itself is
+of very poor quality.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />PROGRAMS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;In making up a recital program I try to
+arrange it so that the first half, approximately,
+may appeal to the more specifically musical
+part of my audience, and to the critics. In the
+second half I endeavor to remember the general
+public; at the same time being careful to
+include nothing which is not really <i>musical</i>.
+This (Mr. Brown found one of his recent programs
+on his desk and handed it to me) represents
+a logical compromise between the
+strictly artistic and the more general taste:&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h5>PROGRAM</h5>
+
+<h5>
+I. Beethoven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Sonata Op. 47 (dedicated to Kreutzer)<br />
+II. Bruch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Concerto (G minor)<br />
+III. (a) Beethoven  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Romance (in G major)<br />
+(b) Beethoven-Auer . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . Chorus of the Dervishes<br />
+(c) Brown. . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rondino (on a Cramer theme)<br />
+(d) Arbos. . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tango<br />
+IV. (a) Kreisler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . La Gitana<br />
+(Arabo-Spanish Gipsy Dance of the 18th Century)<br />
+(b) Cui. . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Orientale<br />
+(c) Bazzini . . . . . . . . . . . .  . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . La Ronde des Lutins<br />
+</h5>
+
+
+<p>&quot;As you see there are two extended serious
+works, followed by two smaller 'groups' of
+pieces. And these have also been chosen with
+a view to contrast. The <i>finale</i> of the Bruch
+concerto is an <i>allegro energico</i>: I follow it with
+a Beethoven <i>Romance</i>, a slow movement. The
+second group begins with a taking Kreisler
+novelty, which is succeeded by another slow
+number; but one very effective in its working-up;
+and I end my program with a brilliant virtuoso number.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;My own personal conception of violin mastery,&quot;
+concluded Mr. Brown, &quot;might be defined
+as follows: 'An individual tone production,
+or rather tone quality, consummate musicianship
+in phrasing and interpretation, ability
+to rise above all mechanical and intellectual
+effort, and finally the power to express that
+which is dictated by one's imagination and
+emotion, with the same natural simplicity and
+spontaneity with which the thought of a really
+great orator is expressed in the easy, unconstrained
+flow of his language.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>IV</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />MISCHA ELMAN</h2>
+
+<h3>LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION.<br />
+TECHNICAL PHASES</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />To hear Mischa Elman on the concert platform,
+to listen to him play, &quot;with all that
+wealth of tone, emotion and impulse which
+places him in the very foremost rank of living
+violinists,&quot; should be joy enough for any
+music lover. To talk with him in his own
+home, however, gives one a deeper insight into
+his art as an interpreter; and in the pleasant
+intimacy of familiar conversation the writer
+learned much that the serious student of the
+violin will be interested in knowing.</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of MISCHA ELMAN, Facing Page 38-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_38" id="F_Page_38"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p038a_m.jpg" width="534" height="700" alt="F_Page_38" title="MISCHA ELMAN" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Mischa Elman</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h4><br />MANNERISMS IN PLAYING</h4>
+
+<p>We all know that Elman, when he plays in
+public, moves his head, moves his body, sways
+in time to the music; in a word there are certain
+mannerisms associated with his playing
+which critics have on occasion mentioned with
+grave suspicion, as evidences of sensationalism.
+Half fearing to insult him by asking whether
+he was &quot;sincere,&quot; or whether his motions were
+&quot;stage business&quot; carefully rehearsed, as had
+been implied, I still ventured the question.
+He laughed boyishly and was evidently much amused.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no,&quot; he said. &quot;I do not study up any
+'stage business' to help out my playing! I do
+not know whether I ought to compare myself
+to a dancer, but the appeal of the dance is in
+all musical movement. Certain rhythms and
+musical combinations affect me subconsciously.
+I suppose the direct influence of the
+music on me is such that there is a sort of emotional
+reflex: I move with the music in an unconscious
+translation of it into gesture. It is
+all so individual. The French violinists as a
+rule play very correctly in public, keeping
+their eye on finger and bow. And this appeals
+to me strongly in theory. In practice I seem
+to get away from it. It is a matter of temperament
+I presume. I am willing to believe I'm
+not graceful, but then&mdash;I do not know whether
+I move or do not move! Some of my friends
+have spoken of it to me at various times, so I
+suppose I do move, and sway and all the rest;
+but any movements of the sort must be unconscious,
+for I myself know nothing of them.
+And the idea that they are 'prepared' as 'stage
+effects' is delightful!&quot; And again Elman laughed.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;For that matter,&quot; he continued, &quot;every real
+artist has some mannerisms when playing, I
+imagine. Yet more than mannerisms are
+needed to impress an American audience. Life
+and color in interpretation are the true secrets
+of great art. And beauty of interpretation
+depends, first of all, on variety of color. Technic
+is, after all, only secondary. No matter
+how well played a composition be, its performance
+must have color, <i>nuance</i>, movement, life!
+Each emotional mood of the moment must be
+fully expressed, and if it is its appeal is sure.
+I remember when I once played for Don Manuel,
+the young ex-king of Portugal, in London,
+I had an illustration of the fact. He was
+just a pathetic boy, very democratic, and personally
+very likable. He was somewhat neglected
+at the time, for it is well known and not
+altogether unnatural, that royalty securely established
+finds 'kings in exile' a bit embarrassing.
+Don Manuel was a music-lover, and especially
+fond of Bach. I had had long talks
+with the young king at various times, and my
+sympathies had been aroused in his behalf. On
+the evening of which I speak I played a Chopin
+<i>Nocturne</i>, and I know that into my playing
+there went some of my feeling for the
+pathos of the situation of this young stranger
+in a strange land, of my own age, eating the
+bitter bread of exile. When I had finished,
+the Marchioness of Ripon touched my arm:
+'Look at the King!' she whispered. Don Manuel
+had been moved to tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course the purely mechanical must always
+be dominated by the artistic personality
+of the player. Yet technic is also an important
+part of interpretation: knowing exactly
+how long to hold a bow, the most delicate inflections
+of its pressure on the strings. There
+must be perfect sympathy also with the composer's
+thought; his spirit must stand behind
+the personality of the artist. In the case of
+certain famous compositions, like the Beethoven
+concerto, for instance, this is so well established
+that the artist, and never the composer,
+is held responsible if it is not well
+played. But too rigorous an adherence to
+'tradition' in playing is also an extreme. I
+once played privately for Joachim in Berlin:
+it was the Bach <i>Chaconne</i>. Now the edition
+I used was a standard one: and Joachim was
+extremely reverential as regards traditions.
+Yet he did not hesitate to indicate some
+changes which he thought should be made in
+the version of an authoritative edition, because
+'they sounded better.' And 'How does it
+sound?' is really the true test of all interpretation.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />ABSOLUTE PITCH THE FIRST ESSENTIAL OF A<br />
+PERFECTED TECHNIC</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the fundamental of a perfected
+violin technic?&quot; was a natural question at this
+point. &quot;Absolute pitch, first of all,&quot; replied
+Elman promptly. &quot;Many a violinist plays a
+difficult passage, sounding every note; and yet
+it sounds out of tune. The first and second
+movements of the Beethoven concerto have no
+double-stops; yet they are extremely difficult
+to play. Why? Because they call for absolute
+pitch: they must be played in perfect tune
+so that each tone stands out in all its fullness
+and clarity like a rock in the sea. And without
+a fundamental control of pitch such a master
+work will always be beyond the violinist's
+reach. Many a player has the facility; but
+without perfect intonation he can never attain
+the highest perfection. On the other hand,
+any one who can play a single phrase in absolute
+pitch has the first and great essential.
+Few artists, not barring some of the greatest,
+play with perfect intonation. Its control depends
+first of all on the ear. And a sensitive
+ear finds differences and shading; it bids the
+violinist play a trifle sharper, a trifle flatter,
+according to the general harmonic color of the
+accompaniment; it leads him to observe a difference,
+when the harmonic atmosphere demands
+it, between a C sharp in the key of E
+major and a D flat in the same key.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TECHNICAL PHASES</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Every player finds some phases of technic
+easy and others difficult. For instance, I have
+never had to work hard for quality of tone&mdash;when
+I wish to get certain color effects they
+come: I have no difficulty in expressing my
+feelings, my emotions in tone. And in a technical
+way <i>spiccato</i> bowing, which many find so
+hard, has always been easy to me. I have
+never had to work for it. Double-stops, on
+the contrary, cost me hours of intensive work
+before I played them with ease and facility.
+What did I practice? Scales in double-stops&mdash;they
+give color and variety to tone. And
+I gave up a certain portion of my regular practice
+time to passages from concertos and sonatas.
+There is wonderful work in double-stops
+in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini
+<i>&Eacute;tudes</i>, for instance. With octaves and
+tenths I have never had any trouble: I have a
+broad hand and a wide stretch, which accounts
+for it, I suppose.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there are harmonics, flageolets&mdash;I,
+have never been able to understand why they
+should be considered so difficult! They should
+not be white, colorless; but call for just as
+much color as any other tones (and any one
+who has heard Mischa Elman play harmonics
+knows that this is no mere theory on his part).
+I never think of harmonics as 'harmonics,' but
+try to give them just as much expressive quality
+as the notes of any other register. The
+mental attitude should influence their production&mdash;too
+many violinists think of them only
+as incidental to pyrotechnical display.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And fingering? Fingering in general
+seems to me to be an individual matter. A
+concert artist may use a certain fingering for
+a certain passage which no pupil should use,
+and be entirely justified if he can thus secure
+a certain effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not&mdash;speaking out of my own experience&mdash;believe
+much in methods: and never to
+the extent that they be allowed to kill the student's
+individuality. A clear, clean tone
+should always be the ideal of his striving. And
+to that end he must see that the up and down
+bows in a passage like the following from the
+Bach sonata in A minor (and Mr. Elman hastily
+jotted down the subjoined) are absolutely</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p060_1a.png" width="396" height="101" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p>even, and of the same length, played with the
+same strength and length of bow, otherwise
+the notes are swallowed. In light <i>spiccato</i>
+and <i>staccato</i> the detached notes should be
+played always with a single stroke of the bow.
+Some players, strange to say, find <i>staccato</i>
+notes more difficult to play at a moderate
+tempo than fast. I believe it to be altogether
+a matter of control&mdash;if proper control be there
+the tempo makes no difference. Wieniawski,
+I have read, could only play his <i>staccati</i> at a
+high rate of speed. <i>Spiccato</i> is generally held
+to be more difficult than <i>staccato</i>; yet I myself
+find it easier.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />PROPORTION IN PRACTICE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;To influence a clear, singing tone with the
+left hand, to phrase it properly with the bow
+hand, is most important. And it is a matter
+of proportion. Good phrasing is spoiled by
+an ugly tone: a beautiful singing tone loses
+meaning if improperly phrased. When the
+student has reached a certain point of technical
+development, technic must be a secondary&mdash;yet
+not neglected&mdash;consideration, and he
+should devote himself to the production of a
+good tone. Many violinists have missed their
+career by exaggerated attention to either bow
+or violin hand. Both hands must be watched
+at the same time. And the question of proportion
+should always be kept in mind in practicing
+studies and passages: pressure of fingers
+and pressure of bow must be equalized, coordinated.
+The teacher can only do a certain
+amount: the pupil must do the rest.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />AUER AS A TEACHER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Take Auer for example. I may call myself
+the first real exponent of his school, in the
+sense of making his name widely known. Auer
+is a great teacher, and leaves much to the individuality
+of his pupils. He first heard me
+play at the Imperial Music School in Odessa,
+and took me to Petrograd to study with him,
+which I did for a year and four months. And
+he could accomplish wonders! That one year
+he had a little group of four pupils each one
+better than the other&mdash;a very stimulating situation
+for all of them. There was a magnetism
+about him: he literally hypnotized his
+pupils into doing better than their best&mdash;though
+in some cases it was evident that once
+the support of his magnetic personality was
+withdrawn, the pupil fell back into the level
+from which he had been raised for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet Auer respected the fact that temperamentally
+I was not responsive to this form of
+appeal. He gave me of his best. I never
+practiced more than two or three hours a day&mdash;just
+enough to keep fresh. Often I came
+to my lesson unprepared, and he would have
+me play things&mdash;sonatas, concertos&mdash;which I
+had not touched for a year or more. He was a
+severe critic, but always a just one.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can recall how proud I was when he sent
+me to beautiful music-loving Helsingfors, in
+Finland&mdash;where all seems to be bloodshed and
+confusion now&mdash;to play a recital in his own
+stead on one occasion, and how proud he was
+of my success. Yet Auer had his little peculiarities.
+I have read somewhere that the
+great fencing-masters of the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries were very jealous of the
+secrets of their famous feints and <i>ripostes</i>, and
+only confided them to favorite pupils who
+promised not to reveal them. Auer had his
+little secrets, too, with which he was loth to
+part. When I was to make my <i>d&eacute;but</i> in Berlin,
+I remember, he was naturally enough interested&mdash;since
+I was his pupil&mdash;in my scoring
+a triumph. And he decided to part with
+some of his treasured technical thrusts and parries.
+And when I was going over the Tschaikovsky
+<i>D minor concerto</i> (which I was to
+play), he would select a passage and say:
+'Now I'll play this for you. If you catch it,
+well and good; if not it is your own fault!' I
+am happy to say that I did not fail to 'catch'
+his meaning on any occasion. Auer really has
+a wonderful intellect, and some secrets well
+worth knowing. That he is so great an artist
+himself on the instrument is the more remarkable,
+since physically he was not exceptionally
+favored. Often, when he saw me, he'd say
+with a sigh: 'Ah, if I only had your hand!'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Auer was a great virtuoso player. He
+held a unique place in the Imperial Ballet.
+You know in many of the celebrated ballets,
+Tschaikovsky's for instance, there occur beautiful
+and difficult solos for the violin. They
+call for an artist of the first rank, and Auer
+was accustomed to play them in Petrograd.
+In Russia it was considered a decided honor
+to be called upon to play one of those ballet
+solos; but in London it was looked on as something
+quite incidental. I remember when
+Diaghilev presented Tschaikovsky's <i>Lac des
+Cygnes</i> in London, the Grand-Duke Andrew
+Vladimirev (who had heard me play), an amiable
+young boy, and a patron of the arts, requested
+me&mdash;and at that time the request of
+a Romanov was still equivalent to a command&mdash;to
+play the violin solos which accompany the
+love scenes. It was not exactly easy, since
+I had to play and watch dancers and conductor
+at the same time. Yet it was a novelty for
+London, however; everybody was pleased and
+the Grand-Duke presented me with a handsome
+diamond pin as an acknowledgment.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me what I understand by 'Violin
+Mastery'? Well, it seems to me that the artist
+who can present anything he plays as a distinct
+picture, in every detail, framing the composer's
+idea in the perfect beauty of his plastic
+rendering, with absolute truth of color and
+proportion&mdash;he is the artist who deserves to
+be called a master!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course, the instrument the artist uses is
+an important factor in making it possible for
+him to do his best. My violin? It is an authentic
+Strad&mdash;dated 1722. I bought it of
+Willy Burmester in London. You see he did
+not care much for it. The German style of
+playing is not calculated to bring out the tone
+beauty, the quality of the old Italian fiddles.
+I think Burmester had forced the tone, and it
+took me some time to make it mellow and
+truly responsive again, but now....&quot; Mr.
+Elman beamed. It was evident he was satisfied
+with his instrument. &quot;As to strings,&quot; he continued,
+&quot;I never use wire strings&mdash;they have
+no color, no quality!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />WHAT TO STUDY AND HOW</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;For the advanced student there is a wealth
+of study material. No one ever wrote more
+beautiful violin music than Haendel, so rich in
+invention, in harmonic fullness. In Beethoven
+there are more ideas than tone&mdash;but such ideas!
+Schubert&mdash;all genuine, spontaneous! Bach is
+so gigantic that the violin often seems inadequate
+to express him. That is one reason why
+I do not play more Bach in public.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The study of a sonata or concerto should
+entirely absorb the attention of the student to
+such a degree that, as he is able to play it, it
+has become a part of him. He should be able
+to play it as though it were an improvisation&mdash;of
+course without doing violence to the composer's
+idea. If he masters the composition in
+the way it should be mastered it becomes a
+portion of himself. Before I even take up my
+violin I study a piece thoroughly in score. I
+read and reread it until I am at home with
+the composer's thought, and its musical balance
+and proportion. Then, when I begin to
+play it, its salient points are already memorized,
+and the practicing gives me a kind of
+photographic reflex of detail. After I have
+not played a number for a long time it fades
+from my memory&mdash;like an old negative&mdash;but I
+need only go over it once or twice to have a
+clear mnemonic picture of it once more.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I believe in transcriptions for the violin&mdash;with
+certain provisos,&quot; said Mr. Elman, in
+reply to another question. &quot;First of all the
+music to be transcribed must lend itself naturally
+to the instrument. Almost any really
+good melodic line, especially a <i>cantilena</i>, will
+sound with a fitting harmonic development.
+Violinists of former days like Spohr, Rode and
+Paganini were more intent on composing music
+<i>out of the violin</i>! The modern idea lays stress
+first of all on the <i>idea</i> in music. In transcribing
+I try to forget I am a violinist, in order
+to form a perfect picture of the musical idea&mdash;its
+violinistic development must be a natural,
+subconscious working-out. If you will look
+at some of my recent transcripts&mdash;the Albaniz
+<i>Tango</i>, the negro melody <i>Deep River</i> and
+Amani's fine <i>Orientale</i>&mdash;you will see what I
+mean. They are conceived as pictures&mdash;I have
+not tried to analyze too much&mdash;and while so
+conceiving them their free harmonic background
+shapes itself for me without strain or effort.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A REMINISCENCE OF COLONNE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Conductors with whom I have played?
+There are many: Hans Richter, who was a
+master of the baton; Nikisch, one of the greatest
+in conducting the orchestral accompaniment
+to a violin solo number; Colonne of Paris,
+and many others. I had an amusing experience
+with Colonne once. He brought his orchestra
+to Russia while I was with Auer, and was
+giving a concert at Pavlovsk, a summer resort
+near Petrograd. Colonne had a perfect horror
+of 'infant prodigies,' and Auer had arranged
+for me to play with his orchestra without
+telling him my age&mdash;I was eleven at the
+time. When Colonne saw me, violin in hand,
+ready to step on the stage, he drew himself
+up and said with emphasis: 'I play with a
+prodigy! Never!' Nothing could move him,
+and I had to play to a piano accompaniment.
+After he had heard me play, though, he came
+over to me and said: 'The best apology I can
+make for what I said is to ask you to do me the
+honor of playing with the <i>Orchestre Colonne</i>
+in Paris.' He was as good as his word. Four
+months later I went to Paris and played the
+Mendelssohn concerto for him with great success.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>V</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />SAMUEL GARDNER</h2>
+
+<h3>TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Samuel Gardner, though born in Jelisavetgrad,
+Cherson province, in Southern Russia,
+in 1891, is to all intents and purposes an
+American, since his family, fleeing the tyranny
+of an Imperialistic regime of &quot;pogroms&quot;
+and &quot;Black Hundreds,&quot; brought him
+to this country when a mere child; and here in
+the United States he has become, to quote
+Richard Aldrich, &quot;the serious and accomplished
+artist,&quot; whose work on the concert
+stage has given such pleasure to lovers of violin
+music at its best. The young violinist, who in
+the course of the same week had just won two
+prizes in composition&mdash;the Pulitzer Prize
+(Columbia) for a string quartet, and the Loeb
+Prize for a symphonic poem&mdash;was amiably
+willing to talk of his study experience for the
+benefit of other students.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />CHARLES MARTIN LOEFFLER AND<br />
+FELIX WINTERNITZ AS TEACHERS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I took up the study of the violin at
+the age of seven, and when I was nine I
+went to Charles Martin Loeffler and really
+began to work seriously. Loeffler was a very
+strict teacher and very exacting, but he
+achieved results, for he had a most original
+way of making his points clear to the student.
+He started off with the Sev&#269;ik studies, laying
+great stress on the proper finger articulation.
+And he taught me absolute smoothness in
+change of position when crossing the strings.
+For instance, in the second book of Sev&#269;ik's
+'Technical Exercises,' in the third exercise,
+the bow crosses from G to A, and from D to E,
+leaving a string between in each crossing. Well,
+I simply could not manage to get to the second
+string to be played without the string in between
+sounding! Loeffler showed me what every
+good fiddler <i>must</i> learn to do: to leap from
+the end of the down-bow to the up-bow and
+<i>vice versa</i> and then hesitate the fraction of a
+moment, thus securing a smooth, clean-cut
+tone, without any vibration of the intermediate
+string. Loeffler never gave a pupil any rest
+until he came up to his requirements. I know
+when I played the seventh and eighth Kreutzer
+studies for him&mdash;they are trill studies&mdash;he
+said: 'You trill like an electric bell, but not fast
+enough!' And he kept at me to speed up my
+tempo without loss of clearness or tone-volume,
+until I could do justice to a rapid trill.
+It is a great quality in a teacher to be literally
+able to <i>enforce</i> the pupil's progress in certain
+directions; for though the latter may not appreciate
+it at the time, later on he is sure to do
+so. I remember once when he was trying to
+explain the perfect <i>crescendo</i> to me, fire-engine
+bells began to ring in the distance, the
+sound gradually drawing nearer the house in
+Charles Street where I was taking my lesson.
+'There you have it!' Loeffler cried: 'There's
+your ideal <i>crescendo</i>! Play it like that and I
+will be satisfied!' I remained with Loeffler a
+year and a half, and when he went to Paris began
+to study with Felix Winternitz.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Felix Winternitz was a teacher who allowed
+his pupils to develop individuality. 'I
+care nothing for theories,' he used to say, 'so
+long as I can see something original in your
+work!' He attached little importance to the
+theory of technic, but a great deal to technical
+development along individual lines. And he
+always encouraged me to express myself freely,
+within my limitations, stressing the musical
+side of my work. With him I played through
+the concertos which, after a time, I used for
+technical material, since every phase of technic
+and bowing is covered in these great works. I
+was only fifteen when I left Winternitz and
+still played by instinct rather than intellectually.
+I still used my bow arm somewhat
+stiffly, and did not think much about phrasing.
+I instinctively phrased whatever the music itself
+made clear to me, and what I did not understand
+I merely played.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />KNEISEL'S TEACHING METHODS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;But when I came to Franz Kneisel, my last
+teacher, I began to work with my mind.
+Kneisel showed me that I had to think when I
+played. At first I did not realize why he kept
+at me so insistently about phrasing, interpretation,
+the exact observance of expression marks;
+but eventually it dawned on me that he was
+teaching me to read a soul into each composition
+I studied.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I practiced hard, from four to five hours
+a day. Fortunately, as regards technical equipment,
+I was ready for Kneisel's instruction.
+The first thing he gave me to study was, not a
+brilliant virtuoso piece, but the Bach concerto
+in E major, and then the Viotti concerto. In
+the beginning, until Kneisel showed me, I did
+not know what to do with them. This was
+music whose notes in themselves were easy, and
+whose difficulties were all of an individual order.
+But intellectual analysis, interpretation,
+are Kneisel's great points. A strict teacher, I
+worked with him for five years, the most remarkable
+years of all my violin study.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kneisel knows how to develop technical
+perfection without using technical exercises.
+I had already played the Mendelssohn, Bruch
+and Lalo concertos with Winternitz, and these
+I now restudied with Kneisel. In interpretation
+he makes clear every phrase in its relation
+to every other phrase and the movement as a
+whole. And he insists on his pupils studying
+theory and composition&mdash;something I had
+formerly not been inclined to take seriously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some teachers are satisfied if the student
+plays his <i>notes</i> correctly, in a general way.
+With Kneisel the very least detail, a trill, a
+scale, has to be given its proper tone-color and
+dynamic shading in absolute proportion with
+the balancing harmonies. This trill, in the
+first movement of the Beethoven concerto&mdash;(and
+Mr. Gardner jotted it down)</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p074_1a.png" width="600" height="130" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+<p>Kneisel kept me at during the entire lesson,
+till I was able to adjust its tone-color and
+<i>nuances</i> to the accompanying harmony. Then,
+though many teachers do not know it, it is a
+tradition in the orchestra to make a <i>diminuendo</i>
+in the sixth measure, before the change of key
+to C major, and this <i>diminuendo</i> should, of
+course, be observed by the solo instrument as
+well. Yet you will hear well-known artists
+play the trill throughout with a loud, brilliant
+tone and no dynamic change!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kneisel makes it a point to have all his
+pupils play chamber music because of its truly
+broadening influence. And he is unexcelled
+in taking apart structurally the Beethoven,
+Brahms, Tschaikovsky and other quartets, in
+analyzing and explaining the wonderful planning
+and building up of each movement. I
+had the honor of playing second violin in the
+Kneisel Quartet from September to February
+(1914-1915), at the outbreak of the war, a
+most interesting experience. The musicianship
+Kneisel had given me; I was used to his style
+and at home with his ideas, and am happy to
+think that he was satisfied. A year later as
+assistant concertmaster in the Chicago Symphony
+Orchestra, I had a chance to become
+practically acquainted with the orchestral
+works of Strauss, d'Indy and other moderns,
+and enjoy the Beethoven, Brahms and Tschaikovsky
+symphonies as a performer.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;How do I regard technic now? I think of
+it in the terms of the music itself. Music should
+dictate the technical means to be used. The
+composition and its phrases should determine
+bowing and the tone quality employed. One
+should not think of down-bows or up-bows.
+In the Brahms concerto you can find many
+long phrases: they cannot be played with one
+bow; yet there must be no apparent change of
+bow. If the player does not know what the
+phrase means; how to interpret it, how will
+he be able to bow it correctly?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And there are so many different <i>nuances</i>,
+especially in <i>legato</i>. It is as a rule produced
+by a slurred bow; yet it may also be produced
+by other bowings. To secure a good <i>legato</i>
+tone watch the singer. The singer can establish
+the perfect smoothness that <i>legato</i> calls
+for to perfection. To secure a like effect the
+violinist should convey the impression that
+there is no point, no frog, that the bow he uses
+is of indefinite length. And the violinist should
+never think: 'I must play this up-bow or down-bow.'
+Artists of the German school are more
+apt to begin a phrase with a down-bow; the
+French start playing a good deal at the point.
+Up or down, both are secondary to finding out,
+first of all, what quality, what balance of tone
+the phrase demands. The conductor of a symphonic
+orchestra does not care how, technically,
+certain effects are produced by the violins,
+whether they use an up-bow or a down-bow.
+He merely says: 'That's too heavy: give me
+less tone!' The result to be achieved is always
+more important than the manner of achievement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;All phases of technical accomplishment, if
+rightly acquired, tend to become second nature
+to the player in the course of time: <i>staccato</i>, a
+brilliant trick; <i>spiccato</i>, the reiteration of notes
+played from the wrist, etc. The <i>martellato</i>, a
+<i>nuance</i> of <i>spiccato</i>, should be played with a
+firm bowing at the point. In a very broad
+<i>spiccato</i>, the arm may be brought into play;
+but otherwise not, since it makes rapid playing
+impossible. Too many amateurs try to
+play <i>spiccato</i> from the arm. And too many
+teachers are contented with a trill that is
+merely brilliant. Kneisel insists on what he
+calls a 'musical trill,' of which Kreisler's beautiful
+trill is a perfect example. The trill of some
+violinists is <i>invariably</i> brilliant, whether brilliancy
+is appropriate or not. Brilliant trills
+in Bach always seem out of place to me; while
+in Paganini and in Wieniawski's <i>Carnaval de
+Venise</i> a high brilliant trill is very effective.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As to double-stops&mdash;Edison once said that
+violin music should be written only in double-stops&mdash;I
+practice them playing first the single
+notes and then the two together, and can
+recommend this mode of practice from personal
+experience. Harmonics, where clarity is
+the most important thing, are mainly a matter
+of bowing, of a sure attack and sustaining by
+the bow. Of course the harmonics themselves
+are made by the fingers; but their tone quality
+rests altogether with the bow.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />EDISON AND OCTAVES</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The best thing I've ever heard said of octaves
+was Edison's remark to me that 'They
+are merely a nuisance and should not be
+played!' I was making some records for him
+during the experimental stage of the disk record,
+when he was trying to get an absolutely
+smooth <i>legato</i> tone, one that conformed to
+Loeffler's definition of it as 'no breaks' in the
+tone. He had had Schubert's <i>Ave Maria</i> recorded
+by Flesch, MacMillan and others, and
+wanted me to play it for him. The records
+were all played for me, and whenever he came
+to the octave passages Edison would say:
+'Listen to them! How badly they sound!' Yet
+the octaves were absolutely in tune! 'Why do
+they sound so badly?' I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then Edison explained to me that according
+to the scientific theory of vibration, the
+vibrations of the higher tone of the octaves
+should be exactly twice those of the lower note.
+'But here,' he continued, 'the vibrations of the
+notes all vary.' 'Yet how can the player control
+his fingers in the <i>vibrato</i> beyond playing
+his octaves in perfect tune?' I asked. 'Well,
+if he cannot do so,' said Edison, 'octaves are
+merely a nuisance, and should not be played at
+all.' I experimented and found that by simply
+pressing down the fingers and playing without
+any <i>vibrato</i>, I could come pretty near securing
+the exact relation between the vibrations
+of the upper and lower notes but&mdash;they
+sounded dreadful! Of course, octaves sound
+well in <i>ensemble</i>, especially in the orchestra,
+because each player plays but a single note.
+And tenths sound even better than octaves
+when two people play them.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />WIRE AND GUT STRINGS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask about my violin? It belonged to
+the famous Hawley collection, and is a Giovanni
+Baptista Guadignini, made in 1780, in
+Turin. The back is a single piece of maple-wood,
+having a broadish figure extending
+across its breadth. The maple-wood sides
+match the back. The top is formed of a very
+choice piece of spruce, and it is varnished a
+deep golden-red. It has a remarkably fine
+tone, very vibrant and with great carrying
+power, a tone that has all that I can ask for as
+regards volume and quality.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think that wire strings are largely used
+now-a-days because gut strings are hard to
+obtain&mdash;not because they are better. I do not
+use wire strings. I have tried them and find
+them thin in tone, or so brilliant that their tone
+is too piercing. Then, too, I find that the use
+of a wire E reduces the volume of tone of the
+other strings. No wire string has the quality
+of a fine gut string; and I regard them only
+as a substitute in the case of some people, and
+a convenience for lazy ones.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin Mastery? Off-hand I might say the
+phrase stands for a life-time of effort with its
+highest aims unattained. As I see it the achievement
+of violin mastery represents a combination
+of 90 per cent. of toil and 10 per cent. of
+talent or inspiration. Goetschius, with whom
+I studied composition, once said to me: 'I do
+not congratulate you on having talent. That
+is a gift. But I do congratulate you on being
+able to work hard!' The same thing applies
+to the fiddle. It seems to me that only by keeping
+everlastingly at it can one become a master
+of the instrument.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>VI</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />ARTHUR HARTMANN</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Arthur Hartmann is distinctly and unmistakably
+a personality. He stands out even
+in that circle of distinguished contemporary
+violinists which is so largely made up of personalities.
+He is a composer&mdash;not only of
+violin pieces, but of symphonic and choral
+works, chamber music, songs and piano numbers.
+His critical analysis of Bach's <i>Chaconne</i>,
+translated into well-nigh every tongue, is probably
+the most complete and exhaustive study
+of &quot;that triumph of genius over matter&quot; written.
+And besides being a master of his own instrument
+he plays the <i>viola d'amore</i>, that
+sweet-toned survival, with sympathetic strings,
+of the 17th century viol family, and the Hungarian
+<i>czimbalom</i>. Nor is his mastery of the
+last-named instrument &quot;out of drawing,&quot; for
+we must remember that Mr. Hartmann was
+born in Mat&eacute; Szalka, in Southern Hungary.
+Then, too, Mr. Hartmann is a genial and original
+thinker, a <i>litt&eacute;rateur</i> of no mean ability,
+a bibliophile, the intimate of the late Claude
+Debussy, and of many of the great men of
+musical Europe. Yet from the reader's standpoint
+the interest he inspires is, no doubt,
+mainly due to the fact that not only is he a
+great interpreting artist&mdash;but a great artist
+doubled by a great teacher, an unusual combination.</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of ARTHUR HARTMANN, Facing Page 66-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_66" id="F_Page_66"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p066a_m.jpg" width="602" height="700" alt="F_Page_66" title="ARTHUR HARTMANN" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Arthur Hartmann</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p>Characteristic of Mr. Hartmann's hospitality
+(the writer had passed a pleasant hour with
+him some years before, but had not seen him
+since), was the fact that he insisted in brewing
+Turkish coffee, and making his caller feel quite
+at home before even allowing him to broach the
+subject of his visit. And when he learned
+that its purpose was to draw on his knowledge
+and experience for information which would
+be of value to the serious student and lover of
+his art, he did not refuse to respond.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />WHAT VIOLIN PLAYING REALLY IS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin playing is really no abstract mystery.
+It's as clear as geography in a way: one
+might say the whole art is bounded on the
+South by the G string, on the North by the E
+string, on the West by the string hand&mdash;and
+that's about as far as the comparison may be
+carried out. The point is, there are definite
+boundaries, whose technical and esthetic limits
+may be extended, and territorial annexations
+made through brain power, mental control. To
+me 'Violin Mastery' means taking this little
+fiddle-box in hand [and Mr. Hartmann suited
+action to word by raising the lid of his violin-case
+and drawing forth his beautiful 1711
+Strad], and doing just what I want with it.
+And that means having the right finger on the
+right place at the right time&mdash;but don't forget
+that to be able to do this you must have forgotten
+to think of your fingers as fingers. They
+should be simply unconscious slaves of the
+artist's psychic expression, absolutely subservient
+to his ideal. Too many people reverse
+the process and become slaves to their fingers.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Technic, for instance, in its mechanical
+sense, is a much exaggerated microbe of <i>Materia
+musica</i>. All technic must conform to its
+instrument.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The violin was made to suit the
+hand, not the hand to suit the violin, hence its
+technic must be based on a natural logic of
+hand movement. The whole problem of technical
+control is encountered in the first change
+of position on the violin. If we violinists could
+play in but one position there would be no
+technical problem. The solution of this problem
+means, speaking broadly, the ability to
+play the violin&mdash;for there is only one way of
+playing it&mdash;with a real, full, singing 'violin'
+tone. It's not a question of a method, but
+just a process based on pure reason, the working
+out of rational principles.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This is the idea which underlies my system for ear-training
+and absolute pitch, &quot;Arthur Hartmann's System,&quot; as I call it,
+which I have published. A.H.</p></div>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the secret of this singing tone?
+Well, you may call it a secret, for many of my
+pupils have no inkling of it when they first
+come here, though it seems very much of an
+'open secret' to me. The finished beauty of the
+violin 'voice' is a round, sustained, absolutely
+smooth <i>cantabile</i> tone. Now [Mr. Hartmann
+took up his Strad], I'll play you the scale of
+G as the average violin student plays it. You
+see&mdash;each slide from one tone to the next, a
+break&mdash;a rosary of lurches! How can there
+be a round, harmonious tone when the fingers
+progress by jerks? Shifting position must not
+be a continuous movement of effort, but a continuous
+movement in which effort and relaxation&mdash;that
+of dead weight&mdash;alternate. As an
+illustration, when we walk we do not consciously
+set down one foot, and then swing forward
+the other foot and leg with a jerk. The
+forward movement is smooth, unconscious, coordinated:
+in putting the foot forward it carries
+the weight of the entire body, the movement
+becomes a matter of instinct. And the
+same applies to the progression of the fingers
+in shifting the position of the hand. Now,
+playing the scale as I now do&mdash;only two fingers
+should be used&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p087_1a.png" width="554" height="175" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>I prepare every shift. Absolute accuracy of
+intonation and a singing legato is the result.
+These guiding notes indicated are merely a
+test to prove the scientific spacing of the violin;
+they are not sounded once control of the hand
+has been obtained. <i>They serve only to accustom
+the fingers to keep moving in the direction
+in which they are going.</i></p>
+
+<p>&quot;The tone is produced by the left hand, by
+the weight of the fingers plus an undercurrent
+of sustained effort. Now, you see, <i>if in
+the moment of sliding you prepare the bow for
+the next string, the slide itself is lost in the
+crossing of the bow</i>. To carry out consistently
+this idea of effort and relaxation in the downward
+progression of the scale, you will find
+that when you are in the third position, the position
+of the hand is practically the same as in
+the first position. Hence, in order to go down
+from third to first position with the hand in
+what might be called a 'block' position, another
+movement is called for to bridge over this
+space (between third and first position), and
+this movement is the function of the thumb.
+The thumb, preceding the hand, relaxes the
+wrist and helps draw the hand back to first
+position. But great care must be taken that
+the thumb is not moved until the first finger
+will have been played; otherwise there will be
+a tendency to flatten. In the illustration the
+indication for the thumb is placed after the
+note played by the first finger.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The inviolable law of beautiful playing is
+that there must be no angles. As I have shown
+you, right and left hand co&ouml;rdinate. The fiddle
+hand is preparing the change of position, while
+the change of strings is prepared by the right
+hand. And always the slides in the left hand
+are prepared by the last played finger&mdash;<i>the
+last played finger is the true guide to smooth
+progression</i>&mdash;just as the bow hand prepares
+the slides in the last played bowing. There
+should be no such thing as jumping and trusting
+in Providence to land right, and a curse
+ought to be laid on those who let their fingers
+leave the fingerboard. None who develop this
+fundamental aspect of all good playing lose
+the perfect control of position.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course there are a hundred <i>nuances</i> of
+technic (into which the quality of good taste
+enters largely) that one could talk of at
+length: phrasing, and the subtle things happening
+in the bow arm that influence it; <i>spiccato</i>,
+whose whole secret is finding the right
+point of balance in the bow and, with light
+finger control, never allowing it to leave the
+string. I've never been able to see the virtue
+of octaves or the logic of double-stops. Like
+tenths, one plays or does not play them. But
+do they add one iota of beauty to violin music?
+I doubt it! And, after all, it is the poetry of
+playing that counts. All violin playing in its
+essence is the quest for color; its perfection,
+that subtle art which hides art, and which is
+so rarely understood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Could you give me a few guiding rules, a
+few Beatitudes, as it were, for the serious
+student to follow?&quot; I asked Mr. Hartmann.
+Though the artist smiled at the idea of Beatitudes
+for the violinist, yet he was finally
+amiable enough to give me the following, telling
+me I would have to take them for what
+they were worth:</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />NINE BEATITUDES FOR VIOLINISTS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who early in life approach
+Bach, for their love and veneration for music
+will multiply with the years.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who remember their own
+early struggles, for their merciful criticism will
+help others to a greater achievement and furtherance
+of the Divine Art.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who know their own limitations,
+for they shall have joy in the accomplishment
+of others.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who revere the teachers&mdash;their
+own or those of others&mdash;and who remember
+them with credit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who, revering the old masters,
+seek out the newer ones and do not begrudge
+them a hearing or two.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who work in obscurity,
+nor sound the trumpet, for Art has ever been
+for the few, and shuns the vulgar blare of ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they whom men revile as futurists
+and modernists, for Art can evolve only
+through the medium of iconoclastic spirits.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who unflinchingly serve
+their Art, for thus only is their happiness to
+be gained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Blessed are they who have many enemies,
+for square pegs will never fit into round holes.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />ARRANGING VERSUS TRANSCRIBING</h4>
+
+<p>Arthur Hartmann, like Kreisler, Elman,
+Maud Powell and others of his colleagues, has
+enriched the literature of the violin with some
+notably fine transcriptions. And it is a subject
+on which he has well-defined opinions and
+regarding which he makes certain distinctions:
+&quot;An 'arrangement,'&quot; he said, &quot;as a rule, is a
+purely commercial affair, into which neither art
+nor &aelig;sthetics enter. It usually consists in
+writing off the melody of a song&mdash;in other
+words, playing the 'tune' on an instrument instead
+of hearing it sung with words&mdash;or in the
+case of a piano composition, in writing off the
+upper voice, leaving the rest intact, regardless
+of sonority, tone-color or even effectiveness,
+and, furthermore, without consideration of the
+idiomatic principles of the instrument to which
+the adaptation was meant to fit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A 'transcription,' on the other hand, can be
+raised to the dignity of an art-work. Indeed,
+at times it may even surpass the original, in
+the quality of thought brought into the work,
+the delicate and sympathetic treatment and
+by the many <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'subleties'">subtleties</ins> which an artist can introduce
+to make it thoroughly a <i>re-creation</i> of
+his chosen instrument.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is the transcriber's privilege&mdash;providing
+he be sufficiently the artist to approach the
+personality of another artist with reverence&mdash;to
+donate his own gifts of ingenuity, and to
+exercise his judgment in either adding, omitting,
+harmonically or otherwise embellishing
+the work (<i>while preserving the original idea
+and characteristics</i>), so as to thoroughly <i>re-create</i>
+it, so completely destroying the very
+sensing of the original <i>timbre</i> that one involuntarily
+exclaims, 'Truly, this never was anything
+but a violin piece!' It is this, the blending and
+fusion of two personalities in the achievement
+of an art-ideal, that is the result of a true
+adaptation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Among the transcriptions I have most enjoyed
+making were those of Debussy's <i>Il
+pleure dans mon c&#339;ur</i>, and <i>La Fille aux
+cheveaux de lin</i>. Debussy was my cherished
+friend, and they represent a labor of love.
+Though Debussy was not, generally speaking,
+an advocate of transcriptions, he liked these,
+and I remember when I first played <i>La Fille
+aux cheveaux de lin</i> for him, and came to a bit
+of counterpoint I had introduced in the violin
+melody, whistling the harmonics, he nodded approvingly
+with a '<i>pas b&ecirc;te &ccedil;a!</i>' (Not stupid, that!)</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />DEBUSSY'S PO&Egrave;ME FOR VIOLIN</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Debussy came near writing a violin piece
+for me once!&quot; continued Mr. Hartmann, and
+brought out a folio containing letters the great
+impressionist had written him. They were a
+delightful revelation of the human side of
+Debussy's character, and Mr. Hartmann
+kindly consented to the quotation of one bearing
+on the <i>Po&egrave;me</i> for violin which Debussy had
+promised to write for him, and which, alas, owing
+to his illness and other reasons, never
+actually came to be written:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>&quot;Dear Friend:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I am working a great deal now, because
+I feel the need of writing music, and would find it difficult
+to build an aeroplane; yet at times Music is ill-natured,
+even toward those who love her most! Then I
+take my little daughter and my hat and go walking in
+the Bois de Boulogne, where one meets people who have
+come from afar to bore themselves in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think of you, I might even say I am in need of you
+(assume an air of exaltation and bow, if you please!)
+As to the <i>Po&egrave;me</i> for violin, you may rest assured that I
+will write it. Only at the present moment I am so preoccupied
+with the 'Fall of the House of Usher!' They
+talk too much to me about it. I'll have to put an end to
+all that or I will go mad. Once more I want to write it,
+and above all <i>on your account</i>. And I believe you will be
+the only one to play the <i>Po&egrave;me</i>. Others will attempt it,
+and then quickly return to the Mendelssohn Concerto!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Believe me always your sincere friend,</p>
+<p><span class="sig">&quot;Claude Debussy.&quot;</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><br />&quot;He never did write it,&quot; said Mr. Hartmann,
+&quot;but it was not for want of good will.
+As to other transcriptions, I have never done
+any that I did not feel instinctively would make
+good fiddle pieces, such as MacDowell's <i>To
+a Wild Rose</i> and others of his compositions.
+And recently I have transcribed some fine
+Russian things&mdash;Gretchaninoff's <i>Chant d'Automne</i>,
+Karagitscheff's <i>Exaltation</i>, Tschaikovsky's
+<i>Humoresque</i>, Balakirew's <i>Chant du
+Pech&ecirc;ur</i>, and Poldini's little <i>Poup&eacute;e valsante</i>,
+which Maud Powell plays so delightfully on
+all her programs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>VII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />JASCHA HEIFETZ</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH.<br />
+TECHNICAL MASTERY AND<br />
+TEMPERAMENT</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Mature in virtuosity&mdash;the modern virtuosity
+which goes so far beyond the mere technical
+mastery that once made the term a reproach&mdash;though
+young in years, Jascha Heifetz, when
+one makes his acquaintance &quot;off-stage,&quot; seems
+singularly modest about the great gifts which
+have brought him international fame. He is
+amiable, unassuming and&mdash;the best proof, perhaps,
+that his talent is a thing genuine and inborn,
+not the result of a forcing process&mdash;he
+has that broad interest in art and in life going
+far beyond his own particular medium, the
+violin, without which no artist may become
+truly great. For Jascha Heifetz, with his
+wonderful record of accomplishment achieved,
+and with triumphs still to come before him,
+does not believe in &quot;all work and no play.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of JASCHA HEIFETZ, Facing Page 78-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_78" id="F_Page_78"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p078a_m.jpg" width="460" height="700" alt="F_Page_78" title="JASCHA HEIFETZ" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Jascha Heifetz</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH</h4>
+
+<p>He laughed when I put forward the theory
+that he worked many hours a day, perhaps as
+many as six or eight? &quot;No,&quot; he said, &quot;I do not
+think I could ever have made any progress if
+I had practiced six hours a day. In the first
+place I have never believed in practicing too
+much&mdash;it is just as bad as practicing too little!
+And then there are so many other things I
+like to do. I am fond of reading and I like
+sport: tennis, golf, bicycle riding, boating,
+swimming, etc. Often when I am supposed to
+be practicing hard I am out with my camera,
+taking pictures; for I have become what is
+known as a 'camera fiend.' And just now I
+have a new car, which I have learned to drive,
+and which takes up a good deal of my time.
+I have never believed in grinding. In fact I
+think that if one has to work very hard to get
+his piece, it will show in the execution. To interpret
+music properly, it is necessary to
+eliminate mechanical difficulty; the audience
+should not feel the struggle of the artist with
+what are considered hard passages. I hardly
+ever practice more than three hours a day on
+an average, and besides, I keep my Sunday
+when I do not play at all, and sometimes I
+make an extra holiday. As to six or seven
+hours a day, I would not have been able to
+stand it at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I implied that what Mr. Heifetz said might
+shock thousands of aspiring young violinists
+for whom he pointed a moral: &quot;Of course,&quot; his
+answer was, &quot;you must not take me too literally.
+Please do not think because I do not
+favor overdoing practicing that one can do
+without it. I'm quite frank to say I could not
+myself. But there is a happy medium. I
+suppose that when I play in public it looks
+easy, but before I ever came on the concert
+stage I worked very hard. And I do yet&mdash;but
+always putting the two things together, mental
+work and physical work. And when a certain
+point of effort is reached in practice, as in
+everything else, there must be relaxation.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUOSE TECHNIC</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Have I what is called a 'natural' technic?
+It is hard for me to say, perhaps so. But if
+such is the case I had to develop it, to assure
+it, to perfect it. If you start playing at three,
+as I did, with a little violin one-quarter of the
+regular size, I suppose violin playing becomes
+second nature in the course of time. I was able
+to find my way about in all seven positions
+within a year's time, and could play the Kayser
+<i>&eacute;tudes</i>; but that does not mean to say I
+was a virtuoso by any means.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My first teacher? My first teacher was my
+father, a good violinist and concertmaster of
+the Vilna Symphony Orchestra. My first appearance
+in public took place in an overcrowded
+auditorium of the Imperial Music
+School in Vilna, Russia, when I was not quite
+five. I played the <i>Fantaisie Pastorale</i> with
+piano accompaniment. Later, at the age of six,
+I played the Mendelssohn concerto in Kovno
+to a full house. Stage-fright? No, I cannot
+say I have ever had it. Of course, something
+may happen to upset one before a concert,
+and one does not feel quite at ease when first
+stepping on the stage; but then I hope that
+is not stage-fright!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the Imperial Music School in Vilna, and
+before, I worked at all the things every violinist
+studies&mdash;I think that I played almost everything.
+I did not work too hard, but I worked
+hard enough. In Vilna my teacher was Malkin,
+a pupil of Professor Auer, and when I
+had graduated from the Vilna school I went to
+Auer. Did I go directly to his classes? Well,
+no, but I had only a very short time to wait
+before I joined the classes conducted by Auer
+personally.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />PROFESSOR AUER AS A TEACHER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he is a wonderful and an incomparable
+teacher; I do not believe there is one in the
+world who can possibly approach him. Do not
+ask me just how he does it, for I would not
+know how to tell you. But he is different with
+each pupil&mdash;perhaps that is one reason he is
+so great a teacher. I think I was with Professor
+Auer about six years, and I had both
+class lessons and private lessons of him, though
+toward the end my lessons were not so regular.
+I never played exercises or technical works of
+any kind for the Professor, but outside of
+the big things&mdash;the concertos and sonatas, and
+the shorter pieces which he would let me prepare&mdash;I
+often chose what I wanted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Professor Auer was a very active and
+energetic teacher. He was never satisfied with
+a mere explanation, unless certain it was understood.
+He could always show you himself
+with his bow and violin. The Professor's pupils
+were supposed to have been sufficiently
+advanced in the technic necessary for them to
+profit by his wonderful lessons in interpretation.
+Yet there were all sorts of technical
+<i>finesses</i> which he had up his sleeve, any number
+of fine, subtle points in playing as well as
+interpretation which he would disclose to his
+pupils. And the more interest and ability the
+pupil showed, the more the Professor gave him
+of himself! He is a very great teacher! Bowing,
+the true art of bowing, is one of the greatest
+things in Professor Auer's teaching. I
+know when I first came to the Professor, he
+showed me things in bowing I had never
+learned in Vilna. It is hard to describe in
+words (Mr. Heifetz illustrated with some of
+those natural, unstrained movements of arm
+and wrist which his concert appearances have
+made so familiar), but bowing as Professor
+Auer teaches it is a very special thing; the
+movements of the bow become more easy,
+graceful, less stiff.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In class there were usually from twenty-five
+to thirty pupils. Aside from what we each
+gained individually from the Professor's criticism
+and correction, it was interesting to hear
+the others who played before one's turn came,
+because one could get all kinds of hints from
+what Professor Auer told them. I know I always
+enjoyed listening to Poliakin, a very
+talented violinist, and C&eacute;cile Hansen, who attended
+the classes at the same time I did. The
+Professor was a stern and very exacting, but
+a sympathetic, teacher. If our playing was
+not just what it should be he always had a fund
+of kindly humor upon which to draw. He
+would anticipate our stock excuses and say:
+'Well, I suppose you have just had your bow
+rehaired!' or 'These new strings are very trying,'
+or 'It's the weather that is against you
+again, is it not?' or something of the kind. Examinations
+were not so easy: we had to show
+that we were not only soloists, but also sight
+readers of difficult music.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A DIFFICULTY OVERCOME</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The greatest technical difficulty I had when
+I was studying?&quot; Jascha Heifetz tried to
+recollect, which was natural, seeing that it must
+have been one long since overcome. Then he
+remembered, and smiled: &quot;<i>Staccato</i> playing.
+To get a good <i>staccato</i>, when I first tried
+seemed very hard to me. When I was younger,
+really, at one time I had a very poor <i>staccato</i>!&quot;
+[I assured the young artist that any one who
+heard him play here would find it hard to believe
+this.] &quot;Yes, I did,&quot; he insisted, &quot;but one
+morning, I do not know just how it was&mdash;I
+was playing the <i>cadenza</i> in the first movement
+of Wieniawski's F&#9839; minor concerto,&mdash;it is full
+of <i>staccatos</i> and double stops&mdash;the right way
+of playing <i>staccato</i> came to me quite suddenly,
+especially after Professor Auer had shown me
+his method.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin Mastery? To me it means the ability
+to make the violin a perfectly controlled
+instrument guided by the skill and intelligence
+of the artist, to compel it to respond in movement
+to his every wish. The artist must always
+be superior to his instrument, it must be
+his servant, one that he can do with what he will.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TECHNICAL MASTERY AND TEMPERAMENT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;It appears to me that mastery of the technic
+of the violin is not so much of a mechanical
+accomplishment as it is of mental nature. It
+may be that scientists can tell us how through
+persistency the brain succeeds in making the
+fingers and the arms produce results through
+the infinite variety of inexplicable vibrations.
+The sweetness of tone, its melodiousness, its
+<i>legatos</i>, octaves, trills and harmonics all bear
+the mark of the individual who uses his strings
+like his vocal chords. When an artist is working
+over his harmonics, he must not be impatient
+and force purity, pitch, or the right
+intonation. He must coax the tone, try it again
+and again, seek for improvements in his fingering
+as well as in his bowing at the same
+time, and sometimes he may be surprised
+how, quite suddenly, at the time when
+he least expects it, the result has come.
+More than one road leads to Rome! The
+fact is that when you get it, you have it,
+that's all! I am perfectly willing to disclose
+to the musical profession all the secrets of the
+mastery of violin technic; but are there any
+secrets in the sense that some of the uninitiated
+take them? If an artist happens to excel in
+some particular, he is at once suspected of
+knowing some secret means of so doing. However,
+that may not be the case. He does it
+just because it is in him, and as a rule he accomplishes
+this through his mental faculties
+more than through his mechanical abilities. I
+do not intend to minimize the value of great
+teachers who prove to be important factors in
+the life of a musician; but think of the vast
+army of pupils that a master teacher brings
+forth, and listen to the infinite variety of their
+<i>spiccatos</i>, octaves, <i>legatos</i>, and trills! For the
+successful mastery of violin technic let each
+artist study carefully his own individuality, let
+him concentrate his mental energy on the
+quality of pitch he intends to produce, and
+sooner or later he will find his way of expressing
+himself. Music is not only in the fingers
+or in the elbow. It is in that mysterious EGO
+of the man, it is his soul; and his body is like
+his violin, nothing but a tool. Of course, the
+great master must have the tools that suit him
+best, and it is the happy combination that
+makes for success.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;By the vibrations and modulations of the
+notes one may recognize the violinist as easily
+as we recognize the singer by his voice. Who
+can explain how the artist harmonizes the
+trilling of his fingers with the emotions of his soul?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;An artist will never become great through
+mere imitation, and never will he be able to attain
+the best results only by methods adopted
+by others. He must have his own initiative,
+although he will surely profit by the experience
+of others. Of course there are standard ways
+of approaching the study of violin technic; but
+these are too well known to dwell upon them:
+as to the niceties of the art, they must come
+from within. You can make a musician but
+not an artist!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />REPERTORY AND PROGRAMS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Which of the master works do I like best?
+Well, that is rather hard to answer. Each
+master work has its own beauties. Naturally
+one likes best what one understands best, I
+prefer to play the classics like Brahms, Beethoven,
+Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, etc. However,
+I played Bruch's G minor in 1913 at the
+Leipzig Gewandhouse with Nikisch, where
+I was told that Joachim was the only other
+violinist as young as myself to appear there
+as soloist with orchestra; there is the Tschaikovsky
+concerto which I played in Berlin in
+1912, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
+with Nikisch. Alsa Bruch's D minor and
+many more. I played the Mendelssohn concerto
+in 1914, in Vienna, with Safonoff as conductor.
+Last season in Chicago I played the
+Brahms concerto with a fine and very elaborate
+<i>cadenza</i> by Professor Auer. I think the
+Brahms concerto for violin is like Chopin's
+music for piano, in a way, because it stands
+technically and musically for something quite
+different and distinct from other violin music,
+just as Chopin does from other piano music.
+The Brahms concerto is not technically as
+hard as, say, Paganini&mdash;but in interpretation!...
+And in the Beethoven concerto, too,
+there is a simplicity, a kind of clear beauty
+which makes it far harder to play than many
+other things technically more advanced. The
+slightest flaw, the least difference in pitch, in
+intonation, and its beauty suffers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, there are other Russian concertos besides
+the Tschaikovsky. There is the Glazounov
+concerto and others. I understand that Zimbalist
+was the first to introduce it in this country,
+and I expect to play it here next season.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course one cannot always play concertos,
+and one cannot always play Bach and Beethoven.
+And that makes it hard to select programs.
+The artist can always enjoy the great
+music of his instrument; but an audience wants
+variety. At the same time an artist cannot
+play only just what the majority of the audience
+wants. I have been asked to play Schubert's
+<i>Ave Maria</i>, or Beethoven's <i>Chorus of
+Dervishes</i> at every one of my concerts, but I
+simply cannot play them all the time. I am
+afraid if program making were left altogether
+to audiences the programs would become far
+too popular in character; though audiences are
+just as different as individuals. I try hard to
+balance my programs, so that every one can
+find something to understand and enjoy. I
+expect to prepare some American compositions
+for next season. Oh, no, not as a matter
+of courtesy, but because they are really fine,
+especially some smaller pieces by Spalding,
+Cecil Burleigh and Grasse!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On concluding our interview Mr. Heifetz
+made a remark which is worth repeating, and
+which many a music lover who is <i>plus royaliste
+que le roi</i> might do well to remember: &quot;After
+all,&quot; he said, &quot;much as I love music, I cannot
+help feeling that music is not the only thing
+in life. I really cannot imagine anything more
+terrible than always to hear, think and make
+music! There is so much else to know and appreciate;
+and I feel that the more I learn and
+know of other things the better artist I will
+be!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />DAVID HOCHSTEIN</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION<br />
+AND EXPRESSIVE PLAYING</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />The writer talked with Lieutenant David
+Hochstein, whose death in the battle of the Argonne
+Forest was only reported toward the
+end of January, while the distinguished young
+violinist, then only a sergeant, was on the eve
+of departure to France with his regiment and,
+as he modestly said, his &quot;thoughts on music
+were rather scattered.&quot; Yet he spoke with keen
+insight and authority on various phases of his
+art, and much of what he said gains point from
+his own splendid work as a concert violinist;
+for Lieutenant Hochstein (whose standing has
+been established in numerous European as
+well as American recitals) could play what he
+preached.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SEV&#268;IK AND AUER: A CONTRAST IN TEACHING</h4>
+
+<p>Knowing that in the regimental band he was,
+quite appropriately, a clarinetist, &quot;the clarinet
+in the military band being the equivalent of the
+violin in the orchestra&quot;&mdash;and a scholarship pupil
+of the Vienna <i>Meisterschule</i>, it seemed
+natural to ask him concerning his teachers.
+And the interesting fact developed that he had
+studied with the celebrated Bohemian pedagog
+Sev&#269;ik and with Leopold Auer as well, two
+teachers whose ideas and methods differ materially.
+&quot;I studied with Sev&#269;ik for two years,&quot;
+said the young violinist. &quot;It was in 1909,
+when a class of ten pupils was formed
+for him in the <i>Meisterschule</i>, at Vienna, that
+I went to him. Sev&#269;ik was in many ways a
+wonderful teacher, yet inclined to overemphasize
+the mechanical side of the art. He literally
+<i>taught</i> his pupils how to practice, how to develop
+technical control by the most slow and
+painstaking study. In addition to his own fine
+method and exercises, he also used Gavinies,
+Dont, Rode, Kreutzer, applying in their
+studies ideas of his own.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Auer as a teacher I found altogether different.
+Where Sev&#269;ik taught his pupils the
+technic of their art by means of a system
+elaborately worked out, Auer demonstrated
+his ideas through sheer personality, mainly
+from the interpretative point of view. Any
+ambitious student could learn much of value
+from either; yet in a general way one might
+express the difference between them by saying
+that Sev&#269;ik could take a pupil of medium talent
+and&mdash;at least from the mechanical standpoint&mdash;make
+an excellent violinist of him. But Auer
+is an ideal teacher for the greatly gifted. And
+he is especially skilled in taking some student
+of the violin while his mind is still plastic and
+susceptible and molding it&mdash;supplying it
+with lofty concepts of interpretation and expression.
+Of course Auer (I studied with him
+in Petrograd and Dresden) has been especially
+fortunate as regards his pupils, too, because
+active in a land like Russia, where
+musical genius has almost become a commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sev&#269;ik, though an admirable teacher, personally
+is of a reserved and reflective type,
+quite different from Auer, who is open and
+expansive. I might recall a little instance
+which shows Sev&#269;ik's cautious nature, the care
+he takes not to commit himself too unreservedly.
+When I took leave of him&mdash;it was
+after I had graduated and won my prize&mdash;I
+naturally (like all his pupils) asked him for
+his photo. Several other pupils of his were in
+the room at the time. He took up his pen (I
+was looking over his shoulder), commenced to
+write <i>Meinem best</i>.... And then he stopped,
+glanced at the other pupils in the room, and
+wrote over the <i>best</i> ... he had already written,
+the word <i>liebsten</i>. But though I would, of
+course, have preferred the first inscription,
+had Sev&#269;ik completed it, I can still console
+myself that the other, even though I value it,
+was an afterthought. But it was a characteristic
+thing for him to do!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What is my idea of the violin as a medium
+of expression? It seems to me that it is that
+of any other valid artistic medium. It is not
+so much a question of the violin as of the violinist.
+A great interpreter reveals his inner-most
+soul through his instrument, whatever it
+may be. Most people think the violin is more
+expressive than any other instrument, but this
+is open to question. It may be that most people
+respond more readily to the appeal made
+by the violin. But genuine expression, expressive
+playing, depends on the message the
+player has to deliver far more than on the instrument
+he uses as a means. I have been as
+much moved by some piano playing I have
+heard as by the violin playing of some of the
+greatest violinists.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And variety, <i>nuance</i> in expressive playing,
+is largely a matter of the player's mental attitude.
+Bach's <i>Chaconne</i> or <i>Sicilienne</i> calls for
+a certain humility on the part of the artist.
+When I play Bach I do it reverentially; a
+definite spiritual quality in my tone and expression
+is the result. And to select a composer
+who in many ways is Bach's exact opposite,
+Wieniawski, a certain audacious brilliancy
+cannot help but make itself felt tonally,
+if this music is to be played in character. The
+mental and spiritual attitude directly influences
+its own mechanical transmission. No one
+artist should criticize another for differences
+in interpretation, in expression, so long as they
+are justified by larger concepts of art. Individuality
+is one of the artist's most precious
+possessions, and there are always a number of
+different angles from which the interpretation
+of an art work may be approached.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin mastery? There have been only
+three violinists within my own recollection,
+whom I would call masters of the violin. These
+are Kubelik (when at his best), Franz von
+Vecsey, Hubay's pupil, whom I heard abroad,
+and Heifetz, with his cameo-like perfection
+of technic. These I would call masters of the
+violin, as an instrument, since they have mastered
+every intricacy of the instrument. But
+I could name several others who are greater
+musicians, and whose playing and interpretation,
+to say nothing of tone, I prefer.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TONE PRODUCTION: RHYTHM</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;In one sense true violin mastery is a question
+of tone production and rhythm. And I
+believe that tone production depends principally
+upon the imaginative ear of the player.
+This statement may seem somewhat ambiguous,
+and one might ask, 'What is an imaginative
+ear?' My ear, for instance, demands of
+my violin a certain quality of tone, which varies
+according to the music I am playing. But before
+I think of playing the music, I already
+know from reading it what I want it to sound
+like: that is to say, the quality of the tone I
+wish to secure in each principal phrase.
+Rhythm is perhaps the greatest factor in interpretation.
+Every good musician has a 'good
+sense of rhythm' (that much abused phrase).
+But it is only the <i>great</i> musician who makes
+so striking and individual an application of
+rhythm that his playing may be easily distinguished
+by his use of it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is not much to tell you as regards my
+method of work. I usually work directly upon
+a program which has been previously mapped
+out. If I have been away from my violin for
+more than a week or two I begin by practicing
+scales, but ordinarily I find my technical work
+in the programs I am preparing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Asked about his band experiences at Camp
+Upton, Sergeant Hochstein was enthusiastic.
+&quot;No violinist could help but gain much from
+work with a military band at one of the
+camps,&quot; he said. &quot;For instance, I had a more
+or less theoretical knowledge of wind instruments
+before I went to Camp Upton. Now
+I have a practical working knowledge of them.
+I have already scored a little violin composition
+of mine, a 'Minuet in Olden Style' for
+full band, and have found it possible by the
+right manipulation to preserve its original
+dainty and graceful character, in spite of the
+fact that it is played by more than forty military
+bandsmen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, too,&quot; he said in conclusion, &quot;I have
+organized a real orchestra of twenty-one players,
+strings, brass, wood-wind, etc., which I
+hope is going to be of real use on the other
+side during our training period in France.
+You see, 'over there' the soldier boys' chances
+for leave are limited and we will have to depend
+a good deal on our own selves for amusement
+and recreation. I hope and believe my
+orchestra is not only going to take its place as
+one of the most enjoyable features of our army
+life; but also that it will make propaganda of
+the right sort for the best music in a broad,
+catholic sense of the word!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to know that this patriotic
+young officer found opportunities in camp and
+in the towns of France of carrying out his wish
+to &quot;make propaganda of the right sort for the
+best music&quot; before he gave his life to further
+the greater purpose which had called him overseas.</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>IX</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />FRITZ KREISLER</h2>
+
+<h3>PERSONALITY IN ART</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />The influence of the artist's personality in
+his art finds a most striking exemplification in
+the case of Fritz Kreisler. Some time before
+the writer called on the famous violinist
+to get at first hand some of his opinions
+with regard to his art, he had already
+met him under particularly interesting circumstances.
+The question had come up of
+writing text-poems for two song-adaptations
+of Viennese folk-themes, airs not unattractive
+in themselves; but which Kreisler's personal
+touch, his individual gift of harmonization had
+lifted from a lower plane to the level of the
+art song. Together with the mss. of his own
+beautiful transcript, Mr. Kreisler in the one
+instance had given me the printed original
+which suggested it&mdash;frankly a &quot;popular&quot; song,
+clumsily harmonized in a &quot;four-square&quot; manner
+(though written in 3/4 time) with nothing
+to indicate its latent possibilities. I compared it
+with his mss. and, lo, it had been transformed!
+Gone was the clumsiness, the vulgar and obvious
+harmonic treatment of the melody&mdash;Kreisler
+had kept the melodic outline, but
+etherealized, spiritualized it, given it new
+rhythmic <i>contours</i>, a deeper and more expressive
+meaning. And his rich and subtle harmonization
+had lent it a quality of distinction
+that justified a comparison between the grub
+and the butterfly. In a small way it was an
+illuminating glimpse of how the personality of
+a true artist can metamorphose what at first
+glance might seem something quite negligible,
+and create beauty where its possibilities alone
+had existed before.</p>
+
+<p>It is this personal, this individual, note in
+all that Fritz Kreisler does&mdash;when he plays,
+when he composes, when he transcribes&mdash;that
+gives his art-effort so great and unique a
+quality of appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Talking to him in his comfortable sitting-room
+in the Hotel Wellington&mdash;Homer and
+Juvenal (in the original) ranked on the piano-top
+beside De Vere Stackpole novels and other
+contemporary literature called to mind that
+though Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos
+are among his favorites, he does not disdain to
+play a Granados <i>Spanish Dance</i>&mdash;it seemed
+natural to ask him how he came to make those
+adaptations and transcripts which have been so
+notable a feature of his programs, and which
+have given such pleasure to thousands.</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of FRITZ KREISLER, Facing Page 100-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_100" id="F_Page_100"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p100a_m.jpg" width="548" height="700" alt="F_Page_100" title="FRITZ KREISLER" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Fritz Kreisler</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<h4><br />HOW KREISLER CAME TO COMPOSE AND ARRANGE</h4>
+
+<p>He said: &quot;I began to compose and arrange
+as a young man. I wanted to create a repertory
+for myself, to be able to express through
+my medium, the violin, a great deal of beautiful
+music that had first to be adapted for the instrument.
+What I composed and arranged
+was for my own use, reflected my own musical
+tastes and preferences. In fact, it was not
+till years after that I even thought of publishing
+the pieces I had composed and arranged.
+For I was very diffident as to the outcome of
+such a step. I have never written anything
+with the commercial idea of making it 'playable.'
+And I have always felt that anything
+done in a cold-blooded way for purely mercenary
+considerations somehow cannot be good.
+It cannot represent an artist's best.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />AT THE VIENNA CONSERVATORY</h4>
+
+<p>In reply to another query Mr. Kreisler reverted
+to the days when as a boy he studied at
+the Vienna Conservatory. &quot;I was only seven
+when I attended the Conservatory and was
+much more interested in playing in the park,
+where my boy friends would be waiting for
+me, than in taking lessons on the violin. And
+yet some of the most lasting musical impressions
+of my life were gathered there. Not so
+much as regards study itself, as with respect to
+the good music I heard. Some very great
+men played at the Conservatory when I was
+a pupil. There were Joachim, Sarasate in
+his prime, Hellmesberger, and Rubinstein,
+whom I heard play the first time he came to
+Vienna. I really believe that hearing Joachim
+and Rubinstein play was a greater event in my
+life and did more for me than five years of
+study!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course you do not regard technic as
+the main essential of the concert violinist's
+equipment?&quot; I asked him. &quot;Decidedly not.
+Sincerity and personality are the first main essentials.
+Technical equipment is something
+which should be taken for granted. The <i>virtuoso</i>
+of the type of Ole Bull, let us say, has
+disappeared. The 'stunt' player of a former
+day with a repertory of three or four bravura
+pieces was not far above the average music-hall
+'artist.' The modern <i>virtuoso</i>, the true
+concert artist, is not worthy of the title unless
+his art is the outcome of a completely unified
+nature.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not believe that any artist is truly a
+master of his instrument unless his control of
+it is an integral part of a whole. The musician
+is born&mdash;his medium of expression is often a
+matter of accident. I believe one may be intended
+for an artist prenatally; but whether
+violinist, 'cellist or pianist is partly a matter
+of circumstance. Violin mastery, to my mind,
+still falls short of perfection, in spite of the
+completest technical and musical equipment,
+if the artist thinks only of the instrument he
+plays. After all, it is just a single medium of
+expression. The true musician is an artist with
+a special instrument. And every real artist
+has the feeling for other forms and mediums
+of expression if he is truly a master of his own.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TECHNIC VERSUS IMAGINATION</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I think the technical element in the artist's
+education is often unduly stressed. Remember,&quot;
+added Mr. Kreisler, with a smile, &quot;I am
+not a teacher, and this is a purely personal
+opinion I am giving you. But it seems to me
+that absolute sincerity of effort, actual impossibility
+<i>not</i> to react to a genuine musical impulse
+are of great importance. I firmly believe
+that if one is destined to become an artist
+the technical means find themselves. The necessity
+of expression will follow the line of
+least resistance. Too great a manual equipment
+often leads to an exaggeration of the
+technical and tempts the artist to stress it unduly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have worked a great deal in my life, but
+have always found that too large an amount of
+purely technico-musical work fatigued me and
+reacted unfavorably on my imagination. As a
+rule I only practice enough to keep my fingers
+in trim; the nervous strain is such that doing
+more is out of the question. And for a concert-violinist
+when on tour, playing every day,
+the technical question is not absorbing. Far
+more important is it for him to keep himself
+mentally and physically fresh and in the right
+mood for his work. For myself I have to enjoy
+whatever I play or I cannot play it. And
+it has often done me more good to dip my
+finger-tips in hot water for a few seconds before
+stepping out on the platform than to
+spend a couple of hours practicing. But I
+should not wish the student to draw any deductions
+from what I say on this head. It is
+purely personal and has no general application.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Technical exercises I use very moderately.
+I wish my imagination to be responsive, my interest
+fresh, and as a rule I have found that
+too much work along routine channels does not
+accord with the best development of my Art.
+I feel that technic should be in the player's
+head, it should be a mental picture, a sort of
+'master record.' It should be a matter of will
+power to which the manual possibilities should
+be subjected. Technic to me is a mental and
+not a manual thing.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />MENTAL TECHNIC: ITS DRAWBACK AND ITS ADVANTAGE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The technic thus achieved, a technic whose
+controlling power is chiefly mental, is not perfect&mdash;I
+say so frankly&mdash;because it is more or
+less dependent on the state of the artist's
+nervous system. Yet it is the one and only
+kind of technic that can adequately and completely
+express the musician's every instinct,
+wish and emotion. Every other form of technic
+is stiff, unpliable, since it cannot entirely
+subordinate itself to the individuality of the
+artist.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />PRACTICE HOURS FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT</h4>
+
+<p>Mr. Kreisler gives no lessons and hence referred
+this question in the most amiable manner
+to his boyhood friend and fellow-student
+Felix Winternitz, the well-known Boston violin
+teacher, one of the faculty of the New England
+Conservatory of Music, who had come in
+while we were talking. Mr. Winternitz did
+not refuse an answer: &quot;The serious student,
+in my opinion, should not practice less than
+four hours a day, nor need he practice more
+than five. Other teachers may demand more.
+Sev&#269;ik, I know, insists that his pupils practice
+eight and ten hours a day. To do so one must
+have the constitution of an ox, and the results
+are often not equal to those produced by four
+hours of concentrated work. As Mr. Kreisler
+intimated with regard to technic, practice
+calls for brain power. Concentration in itself
+is not enough. There is only one way to
+work and if the pupil can find it he can cover
+the labor of weeks in an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And turning to me, Mr. Winternitz added:
+&quot;You must not take Mr. Kreisler too seriously
+when he lays no stress on his own practicing.
+During the concert season he has his violin in
+hand for an hour or so nearly every day. He
+does not call it practicing, and you and I would
+consider it playing and great playing at that.
+But it is a genuine illustration of what I meant
+when I said that one who knew how could cover
+the work of weeks in an hour's time.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />AN EXPLANATION BY MR. WINTERNITZ</h4>
+
+<p>I tried to draw from the famous violinist
+some hint as to the secret of the abiding popularity
+of his own compositions and transcripts
+but&mdash;as those who know him are aware&mdash;Kreisler
+has all the modesty of the truly great. He
+merely smiled and said: &quot;Frankly, I don't
+know.&quot; But Mr. Winternitz' comment
+(when a 'phone call had taken Kreisler from
+the room for a moment) was, &quot;It is the touch
+given by his accompaniments that adds so
+much: a harmonic treatment so rich in design
+and coloring, and so varied that melodies were
+never more beautifully set off.&quot; Mr. Kreisler,
+as he came in again, remarked: &quot;I don't mind
+telling you that I enjoyed very much writing
+my <i>Tambourin Chinois</i>.<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> The idea for it
+came to me after a visit to the Chinese theater
+in San Francisco&mdash;not that the music there
+suggested any theme, but it gave me the impulse
+to write a free fantasy in the Chinese
+manner.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_2"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> It is interesting to note that Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor
+of the San Francisco Philharmonic, returning from a tour of
+the American and French army camps in France, some time
+ago, said: &quot;My most popular number was Kreisler's <i>Tambourin
+Chinois.</i> Invariably I had to repeat that.&quot; A strong indorsement
+of the internationalism of Art by the actual fighter in the
+trenches.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4><br />STYLE, INTERPRETATION AND THE ARTISTIC IDEAL</h4>
+
+<p>The question of style now came up. &quot;I am
+not in favor of 'labeling' the concert artist, of
+calling him a 'lyric' or a 'dramatic' or some
+other kind of a player. If he is an artist in
+the real sense he controls all styles.&quot; Then,
+in answer to another question: &quot;Nothing
+can express music but music itself. Tradition
+in interpretation does not mean a cut-and-dried
+set of rules handed down; it is, or should
+be, a matter of individual sentiment, of inner
+conviction. What makes one man an artist
+and keeps another an amateur is a God-given
+instinct for the artistically and musically right.
+It is not a thing to be explained, but to be felt.
+There is often only a narrow line of demarcation
+between the artistically right and wrong.
+Yet nearly every real artist will be found to
+agree as to when and when not that boundary
+has been overstepped. Sincerity and personality
+as well as disinterestedness, an expression
+of himself in his art that is absolutely honest,
+these, I believe, are ideals which every artist
+should cherish and try to realize. I believe,
+furthermore, that these ideals will come more
+and more into their own; that after the war
+there will be a great uplift, and that Art will
+realize to the full its value as a humanizing
+factor in life.&quot; And as is well known, no great
+artist of our day has done more toward the
+actual realization of these ideals he cherishes
+than Fritz Kreisler himself.</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>X</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />FRANZ KNEISEL</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PERFECT STRING ENSEMBLE</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Is there a lover of chamber music unfamiliar
+with Franz Kneisel's name? It may be
+doubted. After earlier European triumphs
+the gifted Roumanian violinist came to this
+country (1885), and aside from his activities
+in other directions&mdash;as a solo artist he was the
+first to play the Brahms and Goldmark violin
+concertos, and the C&eacute;sar Franck sonata in this
+country&mdash;organized his famous quartet. And,
+until his recent retirement as its director and
+first violin, it has been perhaps the greatest
+single influence toward stimulating appreciation
+for the best in chamber music that the
+country has known. Before the Flonzaley
+was, the Kneisels were. They made plain how
+much of beauty the chamber music repertory
+offered the amateur string player; not only in
+the classic repertory&mdash;Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
+Spohr; in Schubert, Schumann,
+Brahms; but in Smetana, Dvo&#345;&aacute;k and Tschaikovsky;
+in C&eacute;sar Franck, Debussy and Ravel.
+Not the least among Kneisel's achievements is,
+that while the professional musicians in the
+cities in which his organization played attended
+its concerts as a matter of course, the average
+music lover who played a string instrument
+came to them as well, and carried away with
+him a message delivered with all the authority
+of superb musicianship and sincerity, one
+which bade him &quot;go and do likewise,&quot; in so
+far as his limitations permitted. And the
+many excellent professional chamber music organizations,
+trios, quartets and <i>ensembles</i> of
+various kinds which have come to the fore since
+they began to play offer eloquent testimony
+with regard to the cultural work of Kneisel
+and his fellow artists.</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of FRANZ KNEISEL, Facing Page 110-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_110" id="F_Page_110"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p110a_m.jpg" width="526" height="700" alt="F_Page_110" title="FRANZ KNEISEL" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Franz Kneisel</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p>A cheery grate fire burned in the comfortable
+study in Franz Kneisel's home; the autographed&mdash;in
+what affectionate and appreciative
+terms&mdash;pictures of great fellow artists
+looked down above the book-cases which hold
+the scores of those masters of what has been
+called &quot;the noblest medium of music in existence,&quot;
+whose beauties the famous quartet has
+so often disclosed on the concert stage. And
+Mr. Kneisel was amiability personified when
+I asked him to give me his theory of the perfect
+string <i>ensemble</i>, and the part virtuosity
+played in it.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />&quot;THE ARTIST RANKS THE VIRTUOSO IN CHAMBER MUSIC&quot;</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The artist, the <i>Tonk&uuml;nstler</i>, to use a foreign
+phrase, ranks the virtuoso in chamber music.
+Joachim was no virtuoso, he did not stress
+technic, the less important factor in <i>ensemble</i>
+playing. Sarasate was a virtuoso in the best
+sense of the word; and yet as an <i>ensemble</i>
+music player he fell far short of Joachim. As
+I see it 'virtuoso' is a kind of flattering title,
+no more. But a <i>Tonk&uuml;nstler</i>, a 'tone-artist,'
+though he must have the virtuoso technic in order
+to play Brahms and Beethoven concertos,
+needs besides a spiritual insight, a deep concept
+of their nobility to do them justice&mdash;the mere
+technic demanded for a virtuoso show piece is
+not enough.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me what 'Violin Mastery' means
+in the string quartet. It has an altogether
+different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the
+violin virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string
+<i>ensemble</i> is as much mastery of self as of technical
+means. The artist must sink his identity
+completely in that of the work he plays, and
+though the last Beethoven quartets are as difficult
+as many violin concertos, they are polyphony,
+the combination and interweaving of
+individual melodies, and they call for a mastery
+of repression as well as expression. I
+realized how keenly alive the musical listener
+is to this fact once when our quartet had played
+in Alma-Tadema's beautiful London home, for
+the great English painter was also a music-lover
+and a very discriminating one. He had
+a fine piano in a beautifully decorated case,
+and it was an open secret that at his musical
+evenings, after an artist had played, the lid
+of the piano was raised, and Sir Lawrence
+asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft
+white wood of its inner surface&mdash;<i>but only if he
+thought the compliment deserved</i>. There were
+some famous names written there&mdash;Joachim,
+Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention
+a few. Naturally an artist playing at
+Alma-Tadema's home for the first time could
+not help speculating as to his chances. Many
+were called, but comparatively few were
+chosen. We were guests at a dinner given by
+Sir Lawrence. There were some fifty people
+prominent in London's artistic, musical and
+social world present, and we had no idea of being
+asked to play. Our instruments were at
+our hotel and we had to send for them. We
+played the Schubert quartet in A minor and
+Dvo&#345;&aacute;k's 'American' quartet and, of course,
+my colleagues and myself forgot all about the
+piano lid the moment we began to play. Yet,
+I'm free to confess, that when the piano lid
+was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was
+no empty compliment coming from Sir Lawrence,
+and I have been told that some very
+distinguished artists have not had it extended
+to them. And I know that on that evening
+the phrase 'Violin Mastery' in an <i>ensemble</i>
+sense, as the outcome of ceaseless striving for
+co&ouml;rdination in expression, absolute balance,
+and all the details that go to make up the perfect
+<i>ensemble</i>, seemed to us to have a very definite
+color and meaning.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE FIRST VIOLIN IN THE STRING QUARTET</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What exactly does the first violin represent?&quot;
+Mr. Kneisel went on in answer to another
+question. &quot;The first violin might be
+called the chairman of the string meeting. His
+is the leading voice. Not that he should be an
+autocrat, no, but he must hold the reins of
+discipline. Many think that the four string
+players in a quartet have equal rights. First
+of all, and above all, are the rights of the composer,
+Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,&mdash;as
+the case may be. But from the standpoint
+of interpretation the first violin has some seventy
+per cent. of the responsibility as compared
+with thirty per cent. for the remaining
+voices. In all the famous quartet organizations,
+Joachim, Hellmesberger, etc., the first
+violin has been the directing instrument and
+has set the pace. As chairman it has been his
+duty to say when second violin, viola and 'cello
+were entitled to hold the floor. Hellmesberger,
+in fact, considered himself the <i>whole</i> quartet.&quot;
+Mr. Kneisel smiled and showed me a
+little book of Hellmesberger's Vienna programs.
+Each program was headed:</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />HELLMESBERGER QUARTET</h4>
+<h6>with the assistance of</h6>
+<h4>MESSRS. MATH. DURST, CARL HEISSLER,<br />
+CARL SCHLESINGER</h4>
+
+
+<p><br />&quot;In other words, Hellmesberger was the
+quartet himself, the other three artists merely
+'assisted,' which, after all, is going too far!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course, quartets differ. Just as we have
+operas in which the alto solo <i>r&ocirc;le</i> is the most
+important, so we have quartets in which the
+'cello or the viola has a more significant part.
+Mozart dedicated quartets to a King of
+Prussia, who played 'cello, and he was careful
+to make the 'cello part the most important.
+And in Smetana's quartet <i>Aus meinem Leben</i>,
+the viola plays a most important r&ocirc;le. Even
+the second violin often plays themes introducing
+principal themes of the first violin, and it
+has its brief moments of prominence. Yet,
+though the second violin or the 'cellist may be,
+comparatively speaking, a better player than
+the first violin, the latter is and must be the
+leader. Practically every composer of chamber
+music recognizes the fact in his compositions.
+He, the first violin, should not command
+three slaves, though; but guide three associates,
+and do it tactfully with regard to their
+individuality and that of their instruments.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />&quot;ENSEMBLE&quot; REHEARSING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask what are the essentials of <i>ensemble</i>
+practice on the part of the artists? Real
+reverence, untiring zeal and punctuality at rehearsals.
+And then, an absolute sense of
+rhythm. I remember rehearsing a Volkmann
+quartet once with a new second violinist.&quot;
+[Mr. Kneisel crossed over to his bookcase and
+brought me the score to illustrate the rhythmic
+point in question, one slight in itself yet as difficult,
+perhaps, for a player without an absolute
+sense of rhythm as &quot;perfect intonation&quot;
+would be for some others.] &quot;He had a lovely
+tone, a big technic and was a prize pupil of
+the Vienna Conservatory. We went over this
+two measure phrase some sixteen times, until
+I felt sure he had grasped the proper accentuation.
+And he was most amiable and willing
+about it, too. But when we broke up he
+pointed to the passage and said to me with a
+smile: 'After all, whether you play it <i>this</i> way,
+or <i>that</i> way, what's the difference?' Then I
+realized that he had stressed his notes correctly
+a few times by chance, and that his own
+sense of rhythm did not tell him that there
+were no two ways about it. The rhythmic and
+tonal <i>nuances</i> in a quartet cannot be marked
+too perfectly in order to secure a beautiful and
+finished performance. And such a violinist as
+the one mentioned, in spite of his tone and technic,
+was never meant for an <i>ensemble</i> player.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have never believed in a quartet getting
+together and 'reading' a new work as a preparation
+for study. As first violin I have always
+made it my business to first study the
+work in score, myself, to study it until I knew
+the whole composition absolutely, until I had
+a mental picture of its meaning, and of the interrelation
+of its four voices in detail. Thirty-two
+years of experience have justified my theory.
+Once the first violin knows the work the
+practicing may begin; for he is in a position
+gradually and tactfully to guide the working-out
+of the interpretation without losing time
+in the struggle to correct faults in balance
+which are developed in an unprepared 'reading'
+of the work. There is always one important
+melody, and it is easier to find it studying
+the score, to trace it with eye and mind in its
+contrapuntal web, than by making voyages of
+discovery in actual playing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every player has his own qualities, every
+instrument its own advantages. Certain passages
+in a second violin or viola part may be
+technically better suited to the hand of the
+player, to the nature of the instrument, and&mdash;they
+will sound better than others. Yet from
+the standpoint of the composition the passages
+that 'lie well' are often not the more important.
+This is hard for the player&mdash;what is easy
+for him he unconsciously is inclined to stress,
+and he must be on his guard against it. This
+is another strong argument in favor of a thorough
+preliminary study on the part of the leading
+violin of the construction of the work.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE FIRST VIOLIN IN CHAMBER MUSIC VERSUS<br />
+THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR</h4>
+
+<p>The comparison which I asked Mr. Kneisel
+to make is one which he could establish with
+authority. Aside from his experience as director
+of his quartet, he has been the <i>concert-meister</i>
+of such famous foreign orchestras as
+Bilse's and that of the <i>Hofburg Theater</i> in
+Vienna and, for eighteen years, of the Boston
+Symphony Orchestra in this country. He has
+also conducted over one hundred concerts of
+the Boston Symphony, and was director of the
+Worcester Music Festivals.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nikisch once said to me, after he had heard
+us play the Schumann A minor quartet in Boston:
+'Kneisel, it was beautiful, and I felt that
+you had more difficulty in developing it than I
+have with an orchestral score!' And I think
+he was right. First of all the symphonic conductor
+is an autocrat. There is no appeal
+from the commands of his baton. But the
+first violin of a quartet is, in a sense, only the
+'first among peers.' The velvet glove is an
+absolute necessity in his case. He must gain
+his art ends by diplomacy and tact, he must
+always remember that his fellow artists are
+solo players. If he is arbitrary, no matter how
+right he may be, he disturbs that fine feeling
+of artistic fellowship, that delicate balance of
+individual temperaments harmonized for and
+by a single purpose. In this connection I do
+not mind confessing that though I enjoy a
+good game of cards, I made it a rule never to
+play cards with my colleagues during the hours
+of railroad traveling involved in keeping our
+concert engagements. I played chess. In
+chess the element of luck does not enter. Each
+player is responsible for what he does or leaves
+undone. And defeat leaves no such sting as
+it does when all may be blamed on chance. In
+an <i>ensemble</i> that strives for perfection there
+must be no undercurrents of regret, of dissatisfaction&mdash;nothing
+that interferes with the
+sympathy and good will which makes each individual
+artist do his best. And so I have
+never regretted giving cards the go-by!&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />HINTS TO THE SERIOUS VIOLIN STUDENT</h4>
+
+<p>Of late years Mr. Kneisel's activity as a
+teacher has added to his reputation. Few
+teachers can point to a galaxy of artist pupils
+which includes such names as Samuel Gardner,
+Sascha Jacobsen, Breskin, Helen Jeffry
+and Olive Meade (who perpetuates the ideals
+of his great string <i>ensemble</i> in her own quartet).
+&quot;What is the secret of your method?&quot;
+I asked him first of all. &quot;Method is hardly
+the word,&quot; he told me. &quot;It sounds too cut-and-dried.
+I teach according to principles,
+which must, of course, vary in individual cases;
+yet whose foundation is fixed. And like Joachim,
+or Leschetiszky, I have preparatory
+teachers.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE GENERAL FAULT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;My experience has shown me that the fundamental
+fault of most pupils is that they do
+not know how to hold either the bow or the
+violin. Here in America the violin student
+as a rule begins serious technical study too
+late, contrary to the European practice. It is
+a great handicap to begin really serious work
+at seventeen or eighteen, when the flexible
+bones of childhood have hardened, and have not
+the pliability needed for violin gymnastics. It
+is a case of not bending the twig as you want
+the tree to grow in time. And those who
+study professionally are often more interested
+in making money as soon as possible than in
+bending all their energies on reaching the
+higher levels of their art. Many a promising
+talent never develops because its possessor at
+seventeen or eighteen is eager to earn money
+as an orchestra or 'job' player, instead of sacrificing
+a few years more and becoming a true
+artist. I've seen it happen time and again: a
+young fellow really endowed who thinks he can
+play for a living and find time to study and
+practice 'after hours.' And he never does!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But to return to the general fault of the
+violin student. There is a certain angle at
+which the bow should cross the strings in order
+to produce those vibrations which give the
+roundest, fullest, most perfect tone [he took
+his own beautiful instrument out of its case to
+illustrate the point], and the violin must be so
+held that the bow moves straight across the
+strings in this manner. A deviation from the
+correct attack produces a scratchy tone. And
+it is just in the one fundamental thing: the
+holding of the violin in exactly the same position
+when it is taken up by the player, never
+varying by so much as half-an-inch, and the
+correct attack by the bow, in which the majority
+of pupils are deficient. If the violin is not
+held at the proper angle, for instance, it is just
+as though a piano were to stand on a sloping
+floor. Too many students play 'with the violin'
+on the bow, instead of holding the violin
+steady, and letting the bow play.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And in beginning to study, this apparently
+simple, yet fundamentally important, principle
+is often overlooked or neglected. Joachim,
+when he studied as a ten-year-old boy under
+Hellmesberger in Vienna, once played a part
+in a concerto by Maurer, for four violins and
+piano. His teacher was displeased: 'You'll
+never be a fiddler!' he told him, 'you use your
+bow too stiffly!' But the boy's father took him
+to B&ouml;hm, and he remained with this teacher
+for three years, until his fundamental fault
+was completely overcome. And if Joachim
+had not given his concentrated attention to
+his bowing while there was still time, he would
+never have been the great artist he later became.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE ART OF THE BOW</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he continued, &quot;the secret of
+really beautiful violin playing lies in the bow.
+A Blondin crossing Niagara finds his wire
+hard and firm where he first steps on it. But
+as he progresses it vibrates with increasing intensity.
+And as the tight-rope walker knows
+how to control the vibrations of his wire, so
+the violinist must master the vibrations of his
+strings. Each section of the string vibrates
+with a different quality of tone. Most pupils
+think that a big tone is developed by pressure
+with the bow&mdash;yet much depends on what part
+of the string this pressure is applied. Fingering
+is an art, of course, but the great art is the
+art of the bow, the 'art of bowing,' as Tartini
+calls it. When a pupil understands it he has
+gone far.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every pupil may be developed to a certain
+degree without ever suspecting how important
+a factor the manipulation of the bow will be in
+his further progress. He thinks that if the
+fingers of his left hand are agile he has gained
+the main end in view. But then he comes to
+a stop&mdash;his left hand can no longer aid him,
+and he finds that if he wants to play with real
+beauty of expression the bow supplies the only
+true key. Out of a hundred who reach this
+stage,&quot; Mr. Kneisel went on, rather sadly,
+&quot;only some five or six, or even less, become
+great artists. They are those who are able to
+control the bow as well as the left hand. All
+real art begins with phrasing, and this, too, lies
+altogether in the mastery of bow&mdash;the very
+soul of the violin!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I asked Mr. Kneisel how he came to write his
+own &quot;Advanced Exercises&quot; for the instrument.
+&quot;I had an idea that a set of studies, in
+which each single study presented a variety of
+technical figures might be a relief from the
+exercises in so many excellent methods, where
+pages of scales are followed by pages of arpeggios,
+pages of double-notes and so forth.
+It is very monotonous to practice pages and
+pages of a single technical figure,&quot; he added.
+&quot;Most pupils simply will not do it!&quot; He
+brought out a copy of his &quot;Exercises&quot; and
+showed me their plan. &quot;Here, for instance,
+I have scales, trills, arpeggios&mdash;all in the same
+study, and the study is conceived as a musical
+composition instead of a technical formula.
+This is a study in finger position, with all possible
+bowings. My aim has been to concentrate
+the technical material of a whole violin
+school in a set of <i>&eacute;tudes</i> with musical interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And he showed me the second book of the
+studies, in ms., containing exercises in every
+variety of scale, and trill, bowing, <i>nuance</i>, etc.,
+combined in a single musical movement. This
+volume also contains his own cadenza to the
+Beethoven violin concerto. In conclusion Mr.
+Kneisel laid stress on the importance of the
+student's hearing the best music at concert and
+recital as often as possible, and on the value
+and incentive supplied by a musical atmosphere
+in the home and, on leaving him, I could
+not help but feel that what he had said in our
+interview, his reflections and observations
+based on an artistry beyond cavil, and an authoritative
+experience, would be well worth
+pondering by every serious student of the instrument.
+For Franz Kneisel speaks of what
+he knows.</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>XI</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />ADOLFO BETTI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TECHNIC OF THE MODERN QUARTET</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />What lover of chamber music in its more
+perfect dispensations is not familiar with the
+figure of Adolfo Betti, the guiding brain and
+bow of the Flonzaley Quartet? Born in Florence,
+he played his first public concert at the
+age of six, yet as a youth found it hard to
+choose between literature, for which he had
+decided aptitude,<a name="FNanchor_A_3" id="FNanchor_A_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_3" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> and music. Fortunately
+for American concert audiences of to-day, he
+finally inclined to the latter. An exponent of
+what many consider the greatest of all violinistic
+schools, the Belgian, he studied for four
+years with C&eacute;sar Thomson at Li&egrave;ge, spent four
+more concertizing in Vienna and elsewhere,
+and returned to Thomson as the latter's assistant
+in the Brussels Conservatory, three years
+before he joined the Flonzaleys, in 1903.
+With pleasant recollections of earlier meetings
+with this gifted artist, the writer sought him
+out, and found him amiably willing to talk
+about the modern quartet and its ideals, ideals
+which he personally has done so much to realize.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_3" id="Footnote_A_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_3"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> M. Betti has published a number of critical articles in the
+<i>Guide Musical</i> of Brussels, the <i>Rivista Musicale</i> of Turin, etc.</p></div>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE MODERN QUARTET</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me how the modern quartet differs
+from its predecessors?&quot; said Mr. Betti.
+&quot;It differs in many ways. For one thing the
+modern quartet has developed in a way that
+makes its inner voices&mdash;second violin and viola&mdash;much
+more important than they used to be.
+Originally, as in Haydn's early quartets, we
+have a violin solo with three accompanying instruments.
+In Beethoven's last quartets the
+intermediate voices have already gained a
+freedom and individuality which before him
+had not even been suspected. In these last
+quartets Beethoven has already set forth the
+principle which was to become the basis of
+modern polyphony: '<i>first of all</i> to allow each
+voice to express itself freely and fully, and
+<i>afterward</i> to see what the relations were of one
+to the other.' In fact, no one has exercised a
+more revolutionary effect on the quartet than
+Beethoven&mdash;no one has made it attain so great
+a degree of progress. And surely the distance
+separating the quartet as Beethoven
+found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand
+Fugue, Op. 131, Op. 132), is greater than
+that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132,
+and the most advanced modern quartet, let us
+say, for instance, Sch&ouml;nberg's Op. 7. Sch&ouml;nberg,
+by the way, has only applied and developed
+the principles established by Beethoven
+in the latter's last quartets. But in the modern
+quartet we have a new element, one which
+tends more and more to become preponderant,
+and which might be called <i>orchestral</i> rather
+than <i>da camera</i>. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky
+were the first to follow this path, in which
+the majority of the moderns, including Franck
+and Debussy, have followed them. And in
+addition, many among the most advanced modern
+composers <i>strive for orchestral effects that
+often lie outside the natural capabilities of the
+strings</i>!</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of ADOLFO BETTI, Facing Page 128-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_128" id="F_Page_128"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p128a_m.jpg" width="465" height="700" alt="F_Page_128" title="ADOLFO BETTI" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Adolfo Betti</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+<!-- Signature of ADOLFO BETTI -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p128b_m.jpg" width="465" height="142" alt="F_Page_129" title="ADOLFO BETTI SIGNATURE" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his
+three impressionistic sketches for quartet
+(which we have played), has the first violin
+play <i>ponticello</i> throughout, not the natural
+<i>ponticello</i>, but a quite special one, to produce
+an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance.
+I had to try again and again till I found the
+right technical means to produce the effect desired.
+Then, the 'cello is used to imitate the
+drum; there are special technical problems for
+the second violin&mdash;a single sustained D, with
+an accompanying <i>pizzicato</i> on the open
+strings&mdash;while the viola is required to suggest
+the tramp of marching feet. And, again, in
+other modern quartets we find special technical
+devices undreamt of in earlier days.
+Borodine, for instance, is the first to systematically
+employ successions of harmonics. In
+the trio of his first quartet the melody is successively
+introduced by the 'cello and the first
+violin, altogether in harmonics.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE MODERN QUARTET AND AMATEUR PLAYERS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me whether the average quartet
+of amateurs, of lovers of string music, can get
+much out of the more modern quartets. I
+would say yes, but with some serious reservations.
+There has been much beautiful music
+written, but most of it is complicated. In the
+case of the older quartets, Haydn, Mozart,
+etc., even if they are not played well, the performers
+can still obtain an idea of the music,
+of its thought content. But in the modern
+quartets, unless each individual player has mastered
+every technical difficulty, the musical
+idea does not pierce through, there is no effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember when we rehearsed the first
+Sch&ouml;nberg quartet. It was in 1913, at a Chicago
+hotel, and we had no score, but only the
+separate parts. The results, at our first attempt,
+were so dreadful that we stopped after
+a few pages. It was not till I had secured a
+score, studied it and again tried it that we began
+to see a light. Finally there was not one
+measure which we did not understand. But
+Sch&ouml;nberg, Reger, Ravel quartets make too
+great a demand on the technical ability of the
+average quartet amateur.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE TECHNIC OF QUARTET PLAYING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Naturally, the first violin is the leader, the
+Conductor of the quartet, as in its early days,
+although the 'star' system, with one virtuose
+player and three satellites, has disappeared.
+Now the quartet as a whole has established itself
+in the <i>virtuoso</i> field&mdash;using the word <i>virtuoso</i>
+in its best sense. The M&uuml;ller quartet
+(Hanover), 1845-1850, was the first to travel
+as a chamber music organization, and the famous
+<i>Florentiner</i> Quartet the first to realize
+what could be done in the way of finish in
+playing. As <i>premier violiniste</i> of the Flonzaley's
+I study and prepare the interpretation
+of the works we are to play before any rehearsing
+is done.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;While the first violin still holds first place
+in the modern quartet, the second violin has
+become much more important than formerly;
+it has gained in individuality. In many of the
+newer quartets it is quite as important as the
+first. In Hugo Wolf's quartet, for example,
+first and second violins are employed as though
+in a concerto for two violins.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The viola, especially in modern French
+works&mdash;Ravel, Debussy, Samazeuil&mdash;has a
+prominent part. In the older quartets one
+reason the viola parts are simple is because the
+alto players as a rule were technically less
+skillful. As a general thing they were violinists
+who had failed&mdash;'the refugees of the G
+clef,' as Edouard Colonne, the eminent conductor,
+once wittily said. But the reason
+modern French composers give the viola special
+attention is because France now is ahead
+of the other nations in virtuose viola playing.
+It is practically the only country which may
+be said to have a 'school' of viola playing. In
+the Smetana quartet the viola plays a most important
+part, and Dvo&#345;&aacute;k, who himself played
+viola, emphasized the instrument in his quartets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mozart showed what the 'cello was able to
+do in the quartets he dedicated to the ''cellist
+king,' Frederick William of Prussia. And
+then, the 'cello has always the musical importance
+which attaches to it as the lower of the
+two 'outer voices' of the quartet <i>ensemble</i>.
+Like the second violin and viola, it has experienced
+a technical and musical development beyond
+anything Haydn or Mozart would have
+dared to write.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />REHEARSING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Realization of the Art aims of the modern
+quartet calls for endless rehearsal. Few people
+realize the hard work and concentrated effort
+entailed. And there are always new
+problems to solve. After preparing a new
+score in advance, we meet and establish its general
+idea, its broad outlines in actual playing.
+And then, gradually, we fill in the details. Ordinarily
+we rehearse three hours a day, less
+during the concert season, of course; but always
+enough to keep absolutely in trim. And
+we vary our practice programs in order to keep
+mentally fresh as well as technically fit.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />INTONATION</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Perfect intonation is a great problem&mdash;one
+practically unknown to the average amateur
+quartet player. Four players may each one
+of them be playing in tune, in pitch; yet their
+chords may not be truly in tune, because of the
+individual bias&mdash;a trifle sharp, a trifle flat&mdash;in
+interpreting pitch. This individual bias
+may be caused by the attraction existing between
+certain notes, by differences of register
+and <i>timbre</i>, or any number of other reasons&mdash;too
+many to recount. The true beauty of
+the quartet tone cannot be obtained unless
+there is an exact adjustment, a tempering of
+the individual pitch of each instrument, till
+perfect accordance exists. This is far more
+difficult and complicated than one might at first
+believe. For example, let us take one of the
+simplest violin chords,&quot; said Mr. Betti [and he
+rapidly set it down in pencil].</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p159_1a.png" width="106" height="84" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;Now let us begin by fixing the B so that
+it is perfectly in tune with the E, then <i>without
+at all changing</i> the B, take the interval D-B.
+You will see that the sixth will not be in tune.
+Repeat the experiment, inverting the notes: the
+result will still be the same. Try it yourself
+some time,&quot; added Mr. Betti with a smile,
+&quot;and you will see. What is the reason? It
+is because the middle B has not been adjusted,
+tempered! Give the same notes to the first
+and second violins and the viola and you will
+have the same result. Then, when the 'cello
+is added, the problem is still more complicated,
+owing to the difference in <i>timbre</i> and register.
+Yet it is a problem which can be solved, and
+is solved in practically everything we play.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Another difficulty, especially in the case of
+some of the <i>very daring</i> chords encountered in
+modern compositions, is the matter of balance
+between the individual notes. There are
+chords which only <i>sound well</i> if certain notes
+are thrown into relief; and others only if
+played very softly (almost as though they
+were overtones). To overcome such difficulties
+means a great deal of work, real musical
+instinct and, above all, great familiarity with
+the composer's harmonic processes. Yet with
+time and patience the true balance of tone can
+be obtained.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TEMPO</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;All four individual players must be able
+to <i>feel</i> the tempo they are playing in the same
+way. I believe it was Mahler who once gave
+out a beat very distinctly&mdash;one, two, three&mdash;told
+his orchestra players to count the beat
+silently for twenty measures and then stop.
+As each <i>felt</i> the beat differently from the
+other, every one of them stopped at a different
+time. So <i>tempo</i>, just like intonation,
+must be 'tempered' by the four quartet players
+in order to secure perfect rhythmic inflection.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />DYNAMICS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Modern composers have wonderfully improved
+dynamic expression. Every little
+shade of meaning they make clear with great
+distinctness. The older composers, and occasionally
+a modern like Emanuel Moor, do not
+use expression marks. Moor says, 'If the performers
+really have something to put into my
+work the signs are not needed.' Yet this has
+its disadvantages. I once had an entirely unmarked
+Sonata by Sammartini. As most first
+movements in the sonatas of that composer
+are <i>allegros</i> I tried the beginning several times
+as an <i>allegro</i>, but it sounded radically wrong.
+Then, at last, it occurred to me to try it as a
+<i>largo</i> and, behold, it was beautiful!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />INTERPRETATION</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;If the leader of the quartet has lived himself
+into and mastered a composition, together
+with his associates, the result is sure. I must
+live in the music I play just as an actor must
+live the character he represents. All higher
+interpretation depends on solving technical
+problems in a way which is not narrowly mechanical.
+And while the <i>ensemble</i> spirit must
+be preserved, the freedom of the individual
+should not be too much restrained. Once the
+style and manner of a modern composer are
+familiar, it is easier to present his works: when
+we first played the Reger quartet here some
+twenty years ago, we found pages which at first
+we could not at all understand. If one has
+fathomed Debussy, it is easier to play Milhaud,
+Roger-Ducasse, Samazeuil&mdash;for the music of
+the modern French school has much in common.
+One great cultural value the professional
+quartet has for the musical community
+is the fact that it gives a large circle a measure
+of acquaintance with the mode of thought
+and style of composers whose symphonic and
+larger works are often an unknown quantity.
+This applies to Debussy, Reger, the modern
+Russians, Bloch and others. When we played
+the Stravinsky pieces here, for instance, his
+<i>P&eacute;trouschka</i> and <i>Firebird</i> had not yet been
+heard.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SOME IDEALS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;We try, as an organization, to be absolutely
+catholic in taste. Nor do we neglect the older
+music, because we play so much of the new.
+This year we are devoting special attention
+to the American composers. Formerly the
+Kneisels took care of them, and now we feel
+that we should assume this legacy. We have
+already played Daniel Gregory Mason's fine
+<i>Intermezzo</i>, and the other American numbers
+we have played include David Stanley Smith's
+<i>Second Quartet</i>, and movements from quartets
+by Victor Kolar and Samuel Gardner. We
+are also going to revive Charles Martin Loeffler's
+<i>Rhapsodies</i> for viola, oboe and piano.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been for some time making a collection
+of sonatas <i>a tre</i>, two violins and 'cello&mdash;delightful
+old things by Sammartini, Leclair,
+the Englishman Boyce, Friedemann
+Bach and others. This is material from which
+the amateur could derive real enjoyment and
+profit. The Leclair sonata in D minor we
+have played some three hundred times; and its
+slow movement is one of the most beautiful
+<i>largos</i> I know of in all chamber music. The
+same thing could be done in the way of transcription
+for chamber music which Kreisler has
+already done so charmingly for the solo violin.
+And I would dearly love to do it! There
+are certain 'primitives' of the quartet&mdash;Johann
+Christian Bach, Gossec, Telemann, Michel
+Haydn&mdash;who have written music full of the
+rarest melodic charm and freshness. I have
+much excellent material laid by, but as you
+know,&quot; concluded Mr. Betti with a sigh, &quot;one
+has so little time for anything in America.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>XII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />HANS LETZ</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TECHNIC OF BOWING</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Hans Letz, the gifted Alsatian violinist, is
+well fitted to talk on any phase of his Art. A
+pupil of Joachim (he came to this country in
+1908), he was for three years concertmaster
+of the Thomas orchestra, appearing as a solo
+artist in most of our large cities, and was not
+only one of the Kneisels (he joined that organization
+in 1912), but the leader of a quartet
+of his own. As a teacher, too, he is active in
+giving others an opportunity to apply the lessons
+of his own experience.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>When asked for his definition of the term,
+Mr. Letz said: &quot;There can be no such thing
+as an <i>absolute</i> mastery of the violin. Mastery
+is a relative term. The artist is first of all
+more or less dependent on circumstances which
+he cannot control&mdash;his mood, the weather,
+strings, a thousand and one incidentals. And
+then, the nearer he gets to his ideal, the more
+apt his ideal is to escape him. Yet, discounting
+all objections, I should say that a master
+should be able to express perfectly the composer's
+idea, reflected by his own sensitive soul.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE KEY TO INTERPRETATION</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The bow is the key to this mastery in expression,
+in interpretation: in a lesser degree
+the left hand. The average pupil does not
+realize this but believes that mere finger facility
+is the whole gist of technic. Yet the richest
+color, the most delicate <i>nuance</i>, is mainly a
+matter of bowing. In the left hand, of course,
+the <i>vibrato</i> gives a certain amount of color effect,
+the intense, dramatic tone quality of the
+rapid <i>vibrato</i> is comparable on the violin to the
+<i>tremulando</i> of the singer. At the same time
+the <i>vibrato</i> used to excess is quite as bad as an
+excessive <i>tremulando</i> in the voice. But control
+of the bow is the key to the gates of the
+great field of declamation, it is the means of
+articulation and accent, it gives character, comprising
+the entire scale of the emotions. In
+fact, declamation with the violin bow is very
+much like declamation in dramatic art. And
+the attack of the bow on the string should be
+as incisive as the utterance of the first accented
+syllable of a spoken word. The bow is emphatically
+the means of expression, but only
+the advanced pupil can develop its finer, more
+delicate expressional possibilities.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE TECHNIC OF BOWING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Genius does many things by instinct. And
+it sometimes happens that very great performers,
+trying to explain some technical function,
+do not know how to make their meaning clear.
+With regard to bowing, I remember that Joachim
+(a master colorist with the bow) used
+to tell his students to play largely with the
+wrist. What he really meant was with an elbow-joint
+movement, that is, moving the bow,
+which should always be connected with a movement
+of the forearm by means of the elbow-joint.
+The ideal bow stroke results from
+keeping the joints of the right arm loose, and
+at the same time firm enough to control each
+motion made. A difficult thing for the student
+is to learn to draw the bow across the strings
+<i>at a right angle</i>, the only way to produce a
+good tone. I find it helps my pupils to tell
+them not to think of the position of the bow-arm
+while drawing the bow across the strings,
+but merely to follow with the tips of the fingers
+of the right hand an imaginary line running
+at a right angle across the strings. The
+whole bow then moves as it should, and the arm
+motions unconsciously adjust themselves.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />RHYTHM AND COLOR</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Rhythm is the foundation of all music&mdash;not
+rhythm in its metronomic sense, but in the
+broader sense of proportion. I lay the greatest
+stress on the development of rhythmic sensibility
+in the student. Rhythm gives life to
+every musical phrase.&quot; Mr. Letz had a
+Brahms' quartet open on his music stand.
+Playing the following passage, he said:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p168_1a.png" width="381" height="80" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<p>&quot;In order to give this phrase its proper
+rhythmic value, to express it clearly, plastically,
+there must be a very slight separation
+between the sixteenths and the eighth-note following
+them. This&mdash;the bow picked up a
+trifle from the strings&mdash;throws the sixteenths
+into relief. As I have already said, tone color
+is for the main part controlled by the bow. If
+I draw the bow above the fingerboard instead
+of keeping it near the bridge, I have a decided
+contrast in color. This color contrast may always
+be established: playing near the bridge
+results in a clear and sharp tone, playing near
+the fingerboard in a veiled and velvety one.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I find that, aside from the personal illustration
+absolutely necessary when teaching,
+that an appeal to the pupil's imagination usually
+bears fruit. In developing tone-quality,
+let us say, I tell the pupil his phrases should
+have a golden, mellow color, the tonal equivalent
+of the hues of the sunrise. I vary my
+pictures according to the circumstances and
+the pupil, in most cases, reacts to them. In
+fast bowings, for instance, I make three color
+distinctions or rather sound distinctions.
+There is the 'color of rain,' when a fast bow
+is pushed gently over the strings, while not allowed
+to jump; the 'color of snowflakes' produced
+when the hairs of the bow always touch
+the strings, and the wood dances; and 'the color
+of hail' (which seldom occurs in the classics),
+when in the real characteristic <i>spiccato</i> the
+whole bow leaves the string.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE ART AND THE SCHOOLS</h4>
+
+<p>In reply to another question, Mr. Letz
+added: &quot;Great violin playing is great violin
+playing, irrespective of school or nationality.
+Of course the Belgians and French have
+notable elegance, polish, finish in detail. The
+French lay stress on sensuous beauty of tone.
+The German temperament is perhaps broader,
+neglecting sensuous beauty for beauty of idea,
+developing the scholarly side. Sarasate, the
+Spaniard, is a unique national figure. The
+Slavs seem to have a natural gift for the violin&mdash;perhaps
+because of centuries of repression&mdash;and
+are passionately temperamental.
+In their playing we find that melancholy, combined
+with an intense craving for joy, which
+runs through all Slavonic music and literature.
+Yet, all said and done, Art is and remains
+first of all international, and the great
+violinist is a great artist, no matter what his
+native land.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>XIII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />DAVID MANNES</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />That David Mannes, the well-known violinist
+and conductor, so long director of the
+New York Music School Settlement, would
+be able to speak in an interesting and authoritative
+manner on his art, was a foregone conclusion
+in the writer's mind. A visit to the
+educator's own beautiful &quot;Music School&quot; confirmed
+this conviction. In reply to some
+questions concerning his own study years Mr.
+Mannes spoke of his work with Heinrich de
+Ahna, Karl Halir and Eug&egrave;ne Ysaye. &quot;When
+I came to de Ahna in Berlin, I was, unfortunately,
+not yet ready for him, and so did not
+get much benefit from his instruction. In the
+case of Halir, to whom I went later, I was in
+much better shape to take advantage of what
+he could give me, and profited accordingly.
+It is a point any student may well note&mdash;that
+when he thinks of studying with some famous
+teacher he be technically and musically
+equipped to take advantage of all that the latter
+may be able to give him. Otherwise it is
+a case of love's labor lost on the part of both.
+Karl Halir was a sincere and very thorough
+teacher. He was a Spohr player <i>par excellence</i>,
+and I have never found his equal in the
+playing of Spohr's <i>Gesangsscene</i>. With him
+I studied Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo; and to
+know Halir as a teacher was to know him at
+his best; since as a public performer&mdash;great
+violinist as he was&mdash;he did not do himself justice,
+because he was too nervous and high-strung.</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of DAVID MANNES, Facing Page 146-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_146" id="F_Page_146"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p146a_m.jpg" width="362" height="700" alt="F_Page_128" title="DAVID MANNES" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">David Mannes</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h4><br />STUDYING WITH YSAYE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;It was while sitting among the first violins
+in the New York Symphony Orchestra that
+I first heard Ysaye. And for the first time
+in my life I heard a man with whom I fervently
+<i>wanted</i> to study; an artist whose whole
+attitude with regard to tone and sound reproduction
+embodied my ideals.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I worked with Ysaye in Brussels and in
+his cottage at Godinne. Here he taught much
+as Liszt did at Weimar, a group of from ten
+to twenty disciples. Early in the morning he
+went fishing in the Meuse, then back to breakfast
+and then came the lessons: not more than
+three or four a day. Those who studied drew
+inspiration from him as the pianists of the
+Weimar circle did from their Master. In
+fact, Ysaye's standpoint toward music had a
+good deal in common with Rubinstein's and
+he often said he wished he could play the violin
+as Rubinstein did the piano. Ysaye is an
+artist who has transcended his own medium&mdash;he
+has become a poet of sound. And unless
+the one studying with him could understand
+and appreciate this fact he made a poor
+teacher. But to me, in all humility, he was
+and will always remain a wonderful inspiration.
+As an influence in my career his marvelous
+genius is unique. In my own teaching
+I have only to recall his tone, his playing
+in his little cottage on the banks of the Meuse
+which the tide of war has swept away, to realize
+in a cumulative sense the things he tried to
+make plain to me then. Ysaye taught the
+technic of expression as against the expression
+of technic. He gave the lessons of a thousand
+teachers in place of the lessons of one. The
+greatest technical development was required
+by Ysaye of a pupil; and given this pre-requisite,
+he could open up to him ever enlarging
+horizons of musical beauty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nor did he think that the true beauty of
+violin playing must depend upon six to eight
+hours of daily practice work. I absolutely believe
+with Ysaye that unless a student can
+make satisfactory progress with three hours of
+practice a day, he should not attempt to play
+the violin. Inability to do so is in itself a confession
+of failure at the outset. Nor do I
+think it possible to practice the violin intensively
+more than three-quarters of an hour at
+a time. In order to utilize his three hours of
+practice to the best advantage the student
+should divide them into four periods, with intervals
+of rest between each, and these rest
+periods might simply represent a transfer of
+energy&mdash;which is a rest in itself&mdash;to reading
+or some other occupation not necessarily germane
+to music, yet likely to stimulate interest
+in some other art.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SOME INITIAL PRINCIPLES OF VIOLIN STUDY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The violin student first and foremost
+should accustom himself to practicing purely
+technical exercises without notes. The scales
+and arpeggios should never be played otherwise
+and books of scales should be used only
+as a reference. Quite as important as scale
+practice are broken chords. On the violin
+these cannot be played <i>solidly</i>, as on the piano;
+but must be studied as arpeggios, in the most
+exhaustive way, harmonically and technically.
+Their great value lies in developing an innate
+musical sense, in establishing an idea of tonality
+and harmony that becomes so deeply
+rooted that every other key is as natural to the
+player as is the key of C. Work of this kind
+can never be done ideally in class. But every
+individual student must himself come to realize
+the necessity of doing technical work without
+notes as a matter of daily exercise, even
+though his time be limited. Perhaps the most
+difficult of all lessons is learning to hold the
+violin. There are pupils to whom holding the
+instrument presents insurmountable obstacles.
+Such pupils, instead of struggling in vain with
+a physical difficulty, might rather take up the
+study of the 'cello, whose weight rests on the
+floor. That many a student was not intended
+to be a violin player by nature is proved by
+the various inventions, chin-rests, braces, intended
+to supply what nature has not supplied.
+The study of the violin should never
+be allowed if it is going to result in actual
+physical deformity: raising of the left shoulder,
+malformation of the back, or eruptions
+resulting from chin-rest pressure. These are
+all evidences of physical unfitness, or of incorrect
+teaching.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Class study is for the advanced student,
+not the beginner. In the beginning only the
+closest personal contact between the individual
+pupil and the teacher is desirable. To
+borrow an analogy from nature, the student
+may be compared to the young bird whose untrained
+wings will not allow him to take any
+trial flights unaided by his natural guardian.
+For the beginning violinist the principal
+thing to do is to learn the 'voice placing' of the
+violin. This goes hand in hand with the
+proper&mdash;which is the easy and natural&mdash;manner
+of holding the violin, bow study, and an
+appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument.
+The student's attention should at once
+be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities
+of the violin tone, and he should at once
+familiarize himself with the development of
+those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and
+relaxation which are instrumental in its production.
+The analogies between the violin
+voice and the human voice should also be developed.
+The violin itself must to all intents
+become a part of the player himself, just as
+the vocal chords are part of the human body.
+It should not be considered a foreign tone-producing
+instrument adjusted to the body of
+the performer; but an extension, a projection
+of his physical self. In a way it is easier for
+the violinist to get at the chords of the violin
+and make them sound, since they are all exposed,
+which is not the case with the singer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are two dangerous points in present-day
+standards of violin teaching. One is
+represented by the very efficient European
+professional standards of technic, which may
+result in an absolute failure of poetic musical
+comprehension. These should not be transplanted
+here from European soil. The other
+is the non-technical, sentimental, formless species
+of teaching which can only result in emotional
+enervation. Yet if forced to choose between
+the two the former would be preferable
+since without tools it is impossible to carve
+anything of beauty. The final beauty of the
+violin tone, the pure <i>legato</i>, remains in the beginning
+as in the end a matter of holding the
+violin and bow. Together they 'place' the
+tone just as the physical <i>media</i> in the throat
+'place' the tone of the voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Piano teachers have made greater advances
+in the tone developing technic of their instrument
+than the violin teachers. One reason is,
+that as a class they are more intellectual. And
+then, too, violin teaching is regarded too often
+as a mystic art, an occult science, and one into
+which only those specially gifted may hope to
+be initiated. This, it seems to me, is a fallacy.
+Just as a gift for mathematics is a special
+talent not given to all, so a <i>natural</i> technical
+talent exists in relatively few people.
+Yet this does not imply that the majority are
+shut off from playing the violin and playing
+it well. Any student who has music in his
+soul may be taught to play simple, and even
+relatively more difficult music with beauty,
+beauty of expression and interpretation.
+This he may be taught to do even though not
+endowed with a <i>natural</i> technical facility
+for the violin. A proof that natural technical
+facility is anything but a guarantee
+of higher musicianship is shown in that the
+musical weakness of many brilliant violinists,
+hidden by the technical elaboration of virtuoso
+pieces, is only apparent when they attempt to
+play a Beethoven <i>adagio</i> or a simple Mozart
+<i>rondo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a number of cases the unsuccessful solo
+player has a bad effect on violin teaching.
+Usually the soloist who has not made a success
+as a concert artist takes up teaching as a
+last resort, without enthusiasm or the true vocational
+instinct. The false standards he sets
+up for his pupils are a natural result of his
+own ineffectual worship of the fetish of virtuosity&mdash;those
+of the musical mountebank of
+a hundred years ago. Of course such false
+prophets of the virtuose have nothing in common
+with such high-priests of public utterance
+as Ysaye, Kreisler and others, whose virtuosity
+is a true means for the higher development
+of the musical. The encouragement of musicianship
+in general suffers for the stress laid
+on what is obviously technical <i>impedimenta</i>.
+But more and more, as time passes, the playing
+of such artists as those already mentioned, and
+others like them, shows that the real musician
+is the lover of beautiful sound, which technic
+merely develops in the highest degree.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-day technic in a cumulative sense often
+is a confession of failure. For technic does
+not do what it so often claims to&mdash;produce the
+artist. Most professional teaching aims to
+prepare the student for professional life, the
+concert stage. Hence there is an intensive
+<i>technical</i> study of compositions that even if
+not wholly intended for display are primarily
+and principally projected for its sake. It is
+a well-known fact that few, even among gifted
+players, can sit down to play chamber music
+and do it justice. This is not because they
+cannot grasp or understand it; or because their
+technic is insufficient. It is because their
+whole violinistic education has been along the
+line of solo playing; they have literally been
+brought up, not to play <i>with</i> others, but to be
+accompanied <i>by</i> others.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet despite all this there has been a notable
+development of violin study in the direction
+of <i>ensemble</i> work with, as a result, an attitude
+on the part of the violinists cultivating
+it, of greater humility as regards music in general,
+a greater appreciation of the charm of
+artistic collaboration: and&mdash;I insist&mdash;a technic
+both finer and more flexible. Chamber music&mdash;originally
+music written for the intimate
+surroundings of the home, for a small circle
+of listeners&mdash;carries out in its informal way
+many of the ideals of the larger orchestral
+<i>ensemble</i>. And, as regards the violinist, he is
+not dependent only on the literature of the
+string quartet; there are piano quintets and
+quartets, piano trios, and the duos for violin
+and piano. Some of the most beautiful instrumental
+thoughts of the classic and modern
+composers are to be found in the duo for
+violin and piano, mainly in the sonata form.
+Amateurs&mdash;violinists who love music for its
+own sake, and have sufficient facility to perform
+such works creditably&mdash;do not do nearly
+enough <i>ensemble</i> playing with a pianist. It is
+not always possible to get together the four
+players needed for the string quartet, but a
+pianist is apt to be more readily found.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The combination of violin and piano is as
+a rule obtainable and the literature is particularly
+rich. Aside from sonatas by Corelli,
+Locatelli, Tartini, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
+Haendel, Brahms and Schumann, nearly all
+the romantic and modern composers have contributed
+to it. And this music has all been
+written so as to show the character of each instrument
+at its best&mdash;the piano, harmonic in
+its nature; the violin, a natural melodic voice,
+capable of every shade of <i>nuance</i>.&quot; That Mr.
+Mannes, as an artist, has made a point of
+&quot;practicing what he preaches&quot; to the student
+as regards the <i>ensemble</i> of violin and piano will
+be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata
+Recitals' he has given together with Mrs.
+Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist
+his views regarding the moot question of gut
+<i>versus</i> wire strings are of interest.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />GUT VERSUS WIRE STRINGS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;My own violin, a Maggini of more than the
+usual size, dates from the year 1600. It
+formerly belonged to Dr. Leopold Damrosch.
+Which strings do I use on it? The whole question
+as to whether gut or wire strings are to be
+preferred may, in my opinion, be referred to
+the violin itself for decision. What I mean is
+that if Stradivarius, Guarnerius, Amati, Maggini
+and others of the old-master builders of
+violins had ever had wire strings in view, they
+would have built their fiddles in accordance,
+and they would not be the same we now possess.
+First of all there are scientific reasons against
+using the wire strings. They change the tone
+of the instrument. The rigidity of tension of
+the wire E string where it crosses the bridge
+tightens up the sound of the lower strings.
+Their advantages are: reliability under adverse
+climatic conditions and the incontestable
+fact that they make things easier technically.
+They facilitate purity of intonation. Yet I
+am willing to forgo these advantages when I
+consider the wonderful pliability of the gut
+strings for which Stradivarius built his violins.
+I can see the artistic retrogression of those who
+are using the wire E, for when materially
+things are made easier, spiritually there is a
+loss.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />CHIN RESTS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;And while we are discussing the physical
+aspects of the instrument there is the 'chin
+rest.' None of the great violin makers ever
+made a 'chin rest.' Increasing technical demands,
+sudden pyrotechnical flights into the
+higher octaves brought the 'chin rest' into being.
+The 'chin rest' was meant to give the
+player a better grasp of his instrument. I absolutely
+disapprove, in theory, of chin rest,
+cushion or pad. Technical reasons may be adduced
+to justify their use, never artistic ones.
+I admit that progress in violin study is infinitely
+slower without the use of the pad; but
+the more close and direct a contact with his
+instrument the player can develop, the more
+intimately expressive his playing becomes.
+Students with long necks and thin bodies claim
+they have to use a 'chin rest,' but the study of
+physical adjustments could bring about a better
+co&ouml;rdination between them and the instrument.
+A thin pad may be used without much
+danger, yet I feel that the thicker and higher
+the 'chin rest' the greater the loss in expressive
+rendering. The more we accustom ourselves
+to mechanical aids, the more we will
+come to rely on them.... But the question
+you ask anent 'Violin Mastery' leads altogether
+away from the material!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;To me it signifies technical efficiency
+coupled with poetic insight, freedom from conventionally
+accepted standards, the attainment
+of a more varied personal expression along individual
+lines. It may be realized, of course,
+only to a degree, since the possessor of absolute
+'Violin Mastery' would be forever glorified.
+As it is the violin master, as I conceive
+him, represents the embodier of the greatest
+intimacy between himself, the artist, and his
+medium of expression. Considered in this light
+Pablo Casals and his 'cello, perhaps, most
+closely comply with the requirements of the
+definition. And this is not as paradoxical as
+it may seem, since all string instruments are
+brethren, descended from the ancient viol, and
+the 'cello is, after all, a variant of the violin!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>XIV</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />TIVADAR NACH&Eacute;Z</h2>
+
+<h3>JOACHIM AND L&Eacute;ONARD AS TEACHERS</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Tivadar Nach&eacute;z, the celebrated violin
+virtuoso, is better known as a concertizing
+artist in Europe, where he has played with all
+the leading symphonic orchestras, than in this
+country, to which he paid his first visit during
+these times of war, and which he was about
+to leave for his London home when the writer
+had the pleasure of meeting him. Yet, though
+he has not appeared in public in this country
+(if we except some Red Cross concerts in California,
+at which he gave his auditors of his
+best to further our noblest war charity), his
+name is familiar to every violinist. For is not
+Mr. Nach&eacute;z the composer of the &quot;Gypsy
+Dances&quot; for violin and piano, which have made
+him famous?</p>
+
+<p>Genuinely musical, effective and largely successful
+as they have been, however, as any one
+who has played them can testify, the composer
+of the &quot;Gypsy Dances&quot; regards them with
+mixed feelings. &quot;I have done other work that
+seems to me, relatively, much more important,&quot;
+said Mr. Nach&eacute;z, &quot;but when my name happens
+to be mentioned, echo always answers 'Gypsy
+Dances,' my little rubbishy 'Gypsy Dances!'
+It is not quite fair. I have published thirty-five
+works, among them a 'Requiem Mass,'
+an orchestral overture, two violin concertos,
+three rhapsodies for violin and orchestra, variations
+on a Swiss theme, Romances, a Polonaise
+(dedicated to Ysaye), and Evening
+Song, three <i>Po&egrave;mes hongrois</i>, twelve classical
+masterworks of the 17th century&mdash;to say nothing
+of songs, etc.&mdash;and the two concertos of
+Vivaldi and Nardini which I have edited, practically
+new creations, owing to the addition of
+the piano accompaniments and orchestral
+score. I wrote the 'Gypsy Dances' as a mere
+boy when I was studying with H. L&eacute;onard in
+Paris, and really at his suggestion. In one of
+my lessons I played Sarasate's 'Spanish
+Dances,' which chanced to be published at the
+time, and at once made a great hit. So L&eacute;onard
+said to me: 'Why not write some <i>Hungarian</i>
+Gypsy dances&mdash;there must be wonderful material
+at hand in the music of the <i>Tziganes</i> of
+Hungary. You should do something with it!'
+I took him at his word, and he liked my
+'Dances' so well that he made me play them at
+his musical evenings, which he gave often during
+the winter, and which were always attended
+by the musical <i>Tout Paris!</i> I may say that
+during these last thirty years there has been
+scarcely a violinist before the public who at
+one time or the other has <i>not</i> played these
+'Gypsy Dances.' Besides the <i>original</i> edition,
+there are two (pirated!) editions in America
+and six in Europe.</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of TIVADAR NACHEZ, Facing Page 160-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_160" id="F_Page_160"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p160a_m.jpg" width="431" height="700" alt="F_Page_128" title="TIVADAR NACH&Eacute;Z" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Tivadar Nach&eacute;z</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<!-- Signature of TIVADAR NACHEZ -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p160b_m.jpg" width="431" height="161" alt="F_Page_161" title="TIVADAR NACH&Eacute;Z SIGNATURE" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h4><br />THE BEGINNING OF A VIOLINISTIC CAREER:<br />
+PLAYING WITH LISZT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;No, L&eacute;onard was not my first teacher. I
+took up violin work when a boy of five years
+of age, and for seven years practiced from
+eight to ten hours a day, studying with Sabathiel,
+the leader of the Royal Orchestra in
+Budapest, where I was born, though England,
+the land of my adoption, in which I have
+lived these last twenty-six years, is the land
+where I have found all my happiness, and
+much gratifying honor, and of which I have
+been a devoted, ardent and loyal naturalized
+citizen for more than a quarter of a century.
+Sabathiel was an excellent routine teacher, and
+grounded me well in the fundamentals&mdash;good
+tone production and technical control. Later
+I had far greater teachers, and they taught me
+much, but&mdash;in the last analysis, most of the
+little I have achieved I owe to myself, to hard,
+untiring work: I had determined to be a violinist
+and I trust I became one. No serious
+student of the instrument should ever forget
+that, no matter who his teacher may be, he
+himself must supply the determination, the
+continued energy and devotion which will lead
+him to success.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Playing with Liszt&mdash;he was an intimate
+friend of my father&mdash;is my most precious musical
+recollection of Budapest. I enjoyed it a
+great deal more than my regular lesson work.
+He would condescend to play with me some
+evenings and you can imagine what rare musical
+enjoyment, what happiness there was in
+playing with such a genius! I was still a boy
+when with him I played the Grieg F major
+sonata, which had just come fresh from the
+press. He played with me the D minor sonata
+of Schumann and introduced me to the mystic
+beauties of the Beethoven sonatas. I can still
+recall how in the Beethoven C minor sonata, in
+the first movement, Liszt would bring out a
+certain broken chromatic passage in the left
+hand, with a mighty <i>crescendo</i>, an effect of
+melodious thunder, of enormous depth of tone,
+and yet with the most exquisite regard for the
+balance between the violin and his own instrument.
+And there was not a trace of condescension
+in his attitude toward me; but always
+encouragement, a tender affectionate and
+paternal interest in a young boy, who at <i>that
+moment</i> was a brother artist.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Through Liszt I came to know the great
+men of Hungarian music of that time: Erkel,
+Hans Richter, Robert Volkmann, Count
+Geza Zichy, and eventually I secured a scholarship,
+which the King had founded for music,
+to study with Joachim in Berlin, where I remained
+nearly three years. Hubay was my
+companion there; but afterward we separated,
+he going to Vieuxtemps, while I went to
+L&eacute;onard.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />JOACHIM AS A TEACHER AND INTERPRETER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Joachim was, perhaps, the most celebrated
+teacher of his time. Yet it is one of the greatest
+ironies of fate that when he died there was
+not one of his pupils who was considered by
+the German authorities 'great' enough to take
+the place the Master had held. Henri Marteau,
+who was not his pupil, and did not even exemplify
+his style in playing, was chosen to
+succeed him! Henri Petri, a Vieuxtemps pupil
+who went to Joachim, played just as well when
+he came to him as when he left him. The same
+might be said of Willy Burmester, Hess, Kes
+and Halir, the latter one of those Bohemian
+artists who had a tremendous 'Kubelik-like'
+execution. Teaching is and always will be a
+special gift. There are many minor artists
+who are wonderful 'teachers,' and <i>vice versa</i>!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet if Joachim may be criticized as regards
+the way of imparting the secrets of technical
+phases in his violin teaching, as a teacher of
+interpretation he was incomparable! As an
+interpreter of Beethoven and of Bach in particular,
+there has never been any one to equal
+Joachim. Yet he never played the same Bach
+composition twice in the same way. We were
+four in our class, and Hubay and I used to
+bring our copies of the sonatas with us, to
+make marginal notes while Joachim played to
+us, and these instantaneous musical 'snapshots'
+remain very interesting. But no matter how
+Joachim played Bach, it was always with a big
+tone, broad chords of an organ-like effect.
+There is no greater discrepancy than the edition
+of the Bach sonatas published (since his
+death) by Moser, and which is supposed to embody
+Joachim's interpretation. Sweeping
+chords, which Joachim always played with the
+utmost breadth, are 'arpeggiated' in Moser's
+edition! Why, if any of his pupils had ever
+attempted to play, for instance, the end of the
+<i>Bour&eacute;e</i> in the B minor <i>Partita</i> of Bach <i>&agrave; la
+Moser</i>, Joachim would have broken his bow
+over their heads!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />STUDYING WITH L&Eacute;ONARD</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;After three years' study I left Joachim
+and went to Paris. Liszt had given me letters of
+introduction to various French artists, among
+them Saint-Sa&euml;ns. One evening I happened
+to hear L&eacute;onard play Corelli's <i>La Folia</i> in the
+<i>Salle Pleyel</i>, and the liquid clarity and beauty
+of his tone so impressed me that I decided I
+must study with him. I played for him and
+he accepted me as a pupil. I am free to admit
+that my tone, which people seem to be pleased
+to praise especially, I owe entirely to L&eacute;onard,
+for when I came to him I had the so-called
+'German tone' (<i>son allemand</i>), of a harsh,
+rasping quality, which I tried to abandon absolutely.
+L&eacute;onard often would point to his
+ears while teaching and say: '<i>Ouvrez vos oreilles:
+&eacute;cout&eacute;z la beaut&eacute; du son!</i>' ('Open your
+ears, listen for beauty of sound!'). Most Joachim
+pupils you hear (unless they have reformed)
+attack a chord with the nut of the bow,
+the German method, which unduly stresses the
+attack. L&eacute;onard, on the contrary, insisted with
+his pupils on the attack being made with such
+smoothness as to be absolutely unobtrusive.
+Being a nephew of Mme. Malibran, he attached
+special importance to the 'singing' tone, and
+advised his pupils to hear great singers, to
+<i>listen</i> to them, and to try and reproduce their
+<i>bel canto</i> on the violin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was most particular in his observance
+of every <i>nuance</i> of shading and expression. He
+told me that when he played Mendelssohn's
+concerto (for the first time) at the Leipsic
+<i>Gewandhaus</i>, at a rehearsal, Mendelssohn himself
+conducting, he began the first phrase with
+a full <i>mezzo-forte</i> tone. Mendelssohn laid his
+hand on his arm and said: 'But it begins <i>piano!</i>'
+In reply L&eacute;onard merely pointed with his bow
+to the score&mdash;the <i>p</i> which is now indicated in
+all editions had been omitted by some printer's
+error, and he had been quite within his rights
+in playing <i>mezzo-forte</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;L&eacute;onard paid a great deal of attention
+to scales and the right way to practice them.
+He would say, <i>'Il faut filer les sons: c'est l'art
+des ma&icirc;tres</i>. ('One must spin out the tone:
+that is the art of the masters.') He taught his
+pupils to play the scales with long, steady
+bowings, counting sixty to each bow. Himself
+a great classical violinist, he nevertheless paid
+a good deal of attention to <i>virtuoso</i> pieces; and
+always tried to prepare his pupils for <i>public
+life</i>. He had all sorts of wise hints for the
+budding concert artist, and was in the habit
+of saying: 'You must plan a program as you
+would the <i>m&eacute;nu</i> of a dinner: there should be
+something for every one's taste. And, especially,
+if you are playing on a long program,
+together with other artists, offer nothing indigestible&mdash;let
+<i>your</i> number be a relief!'</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SIVORI</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;While studying with L&eacute;onard I met Sivori,
+Paganini's only pupil (if we except Catarina
+Caleagno), for whom Paganini wrote a concerto
+and six short sonatas. L&eacute;onard took me
+to see him late one evening at the <i>H&ocirc;tel de
+Havane</i> in Paris, where Sivori was staying.
+When we came to his room we heard the sound
+of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from
+behind the closed door. We peered through
+the keyhole, and there he sat on his bed stringing
+his scale tones like pearls. He was a little
+chap and had the tiniest hands I have ever
+seen. Was this a drawback? If so, no one
+could tell from his playing; he had a flawless
+technic, and a really pearly quality of tone. He
+was very jolly and amiable, and he and L&eacute;onard
+were great friends, each always going to
+hear the other whenever he played in concert.
+My four years in Paris were in the main years
+of storm and stress&mdash;plain living and hard,
+very hard, concentrated work. I gave some accompanying
+lessons to help keep things going.
+When I left Paris I went to London and then
+began my public life as a concert violinist.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />GREAT MOMENTS IN AN ARTIST'S LIFE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the happiest remembrance of my
+career as a <i>virtuoso</i>? Some of the great moments
+in my life as an artist? It is hard to say.
+Of course some of my court appearances before
+the crowned heads of Europe are dear
+to me, not so much because they were <i>court</i>
+appearances, but because of the graciousness
+and appreciation of the highly placed personages
+for whom I played.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, what I count a signal honor, I have
+played no less than <i>three</i> times as a solo artist
+with the Royal Philharmonic Society of London,
+the oldest symphonic society in Europe,
+for whom Beethoven composed his immortal
+IXth symphony (once under Sir Arthur Sullivan's
+baton; once under that of Sir A.C.
+Mackenzie, and once with Sir Frederick
+Cowen as conductor&mdash;on this last occasion I
+was asked to introduce my new Second concerto
+in B minor, Op. 36, at the time still in
+ms.) Then there is quite a number of great
+conductors with whom I have appeared, a few
+among them being Liszt, Rubinstein, Brahms,
+Pasdeloup, Sir August Manns, Sir Charles
+Hall&eacute;, L. Mancinelli, Weingartner and Hans
+Richter, etc. Perhaps, as a violinist, what I
+like best to recall is that as a boy I was invited
+by Richter to go with him to Bayreuth
+and play at the foundation of the Bayreuth
+festival theater, which however my parents
+would <i>not</i> permit owing to my tender age. I
+also remember with pleasure an episode at
+the famous Pasdeloup Concerts in the <i>Cirque
+d'hiver</i> in Paris, on an occasion when I performed
+the F sharp minor concerto of Ernst.
+After I had finished, two ladies came to the
+green room: they were in deep mourning, and
+one of them greatly moved, asked me to 'allow
+her to thank me' for the manner in which I had
+played this concerto&mdash;she said: <i>'I am the
+widow of Ernst!'</i> She also told me that since
+his death she had never heard the concerto
+played as I had played it! In presenting to
+me her companion, the Marquise de Gallifet
+(wife of the General de Gallifet who led the
+brigade of the <i>Chasseurs d'Afrique</i> in the
+heroic charge of General Margueritte's cavalry
+division at Sedan, which excited the admiration
+of the old king of Prussia), I had the honor
+of meeting the once world famous violinist
+Mlle. Millanollo, as she was before her marriage.
+Mme. Ernst often came to hear me
+play her late husband's music, and as a parting
+gift presented me with his beautiful
+'Tourte' bow, and an autographed copy of the
+first edition of Ernst's transcription for solo
+violin of Schubert's 'Erlking.' It is so incredibly
+difficult to play with proper balance
+of melody and accompaniment&mdash;I never heard
+any one but Kubelik play it&mdash;that it is almost
+impossible. It is so difficult, in fact, that it
+should not be played!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLINS AND STRINGS: SARASATE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;My violin? I am a Stradivarius player,
+and possess two fine Strads, though I also have
+a beautiful Joseph Guarnerius. Ysaye, Thibaud
+and Caressa, when they lunched with me
+not long ago, were enthusiastic about them.
+My favorite Strad is a 1716 instrument&mdash;I
+have used it for twenty-five years. But I cannot
+use the wire strings that are now in such
+vogue here. I have to have Italian gut strings.
+The wire E cuts my fingers, and besides I notice
+a perceptible difference in sound quality.
+Of course, wire strings are practical; they do
+not 'snap' on the concert stage. Speaking of
+strings that 'snap,' reminds me that the first
+time I heard Sarasate play the Saint-Sa&euml;ns
+concerto, at Frankfort, he twice forgot his
+place and stopped. They brought him the
+music, he began for the third time and then&mdash;the
+E string snapped! I do not think <i>any</i>
+other than Sarasate could have carried off these
+successive mishaps and brought his concert to
+a triumphant conclusion. He was a great
+friend of mine and one of the most <i>perfect</i>
+players I have ever known, as well as one of
+the greatest <i>grand seigneurs</i> among violinists.
+His rendering of romantic works, Saint-Sa&euml;ns,
+Lalo, Bruch, was exquisite&mdash;I have never,
+never heard them played as beautifully. On
+the other hand, his Bach playing was excruciating&mdash;he
+played Bach sonatas as though they
+were virtuoso pieces. It made one think of
+Hans von B&uuml;low's <i>mot</i> when, in speaking of
+a certain famous pianist, he said: 'He plays
+Beethoven with velocity and Czerny with expression.'
+But to hear Sarasate play romantic
+music, his own 'Spanish Dances' for instance,
+was all like glorious birdsong and
+golden sunshine, a lark soaring heavenwards!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE NARDINI CONCERTO IN A</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask about my compositions? Well,
+Eddy Brown is going to play my Second violin
+concerto, Op. 36 in B flat, which I wrote
+for the London Philharmonic Society, next
+season; Elman the Nardini concerto in A,
+which was published only shortly before the
+outbreak of the war. Thirty years ago I found,
+by chance, three old Nardini concertos for
+violin and bass in the composer's <i>original</i> ms.,
+in Bologna. The best was the one in A&mdash;a
+beautiful work! But the bass was not even
+figured, and the task of reconstructing the accompaniment
+for piano, as well as for orchestra,
+and reverently doing justice to the composer's
+original intent and idea; while at the
+same time making its beauties clearly and expressively
+available from the standpoint of
+the violinist of to-day, was not easy. Still,
+I think I may say I succeeded.&quot; And Mr.
+Nach&eacute;z showed me some letters from famous
+contemporaries who had made the acquaintance
+of this Nardini concerto in A major. Auer,
+Thibaud, Sir Hubert Parry (who said that he
+had &quot;infused the work with new life&quot;), Pollak,
+Switzerland's ranking fiddler, Carl Flesch,
+author of the well-known <i>Urstudien</i>&mdash;all expressed
+their admiration. One we cannot forbear
+quoting a letter in part. It was from Ottokar
+Sev&#269;ik. The great Bohemian pedagogue is
+usually regarded as the apostle of mechanism
+in violin playing: as the inventor of an inexorably
+logical system of development, which
+stresses the technical at the expense of the
+musical. The following lines show him in
+quite a different light:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&quot;I would not be surprised if Nardini, Vivaldi and
+their companions were to appear to you at the midnight
+hour in order to thank the master for having given new
+life to their works, long buried beneath the mold of
+figured basses; works whose vital, pulsating possibilities
+these old gentlemen probably never suspected. Nardini
+emerges from your alchemistic musical laboratory with
+so fresh and lively a quality of charm that starving
+fiddlers will greet him with the same pleasure with which
+the bee greets the first honeyed blossom of spring.&quot;</p></div>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;And now you want my definition of 'Violin
+Mastery'? To me the whole art of playing
+violin is contained in the reverent and respectful
+interpretation of the works of the great
+masters. I consider the artist only their messenger,
+singing the message they give us. And
+the more one realizes this, the greater becomes
+one's veneration especially for Bach's creative
+work. For twenty years I never failed to play
+the Bach solo sonatas for violin every day of
+my life&mdash;a violinist's 'daily prayer' in its truest
+sense! Students of Bach are apt, in the beginning,
+to play, say, the <i>finale</i> of the G minor
+sonata, the final <i>Allegro</i> of the A minor
+sonata, the <i>Gigue</i> of the B minor, or the <i>Preludio</i>
+of the E major sonata like a mechanical
+exercise: it takes <i>constant</i> study to disclose
+their intimate harmonic melodious conception
+and poetry! One should always remember
+that technic is, after all, only a <i>means</i>. It must
+be acquired in order to be an unhampered
+master of the instrument, as a medium for presenting
+the thoughts of the great creators&mdash;but
+<i>these thoughts</i>, and not their medium of expression,
+are the chief objects of the true and
+great artist, whose aim in life is to serve his
+Art humbly, reverently and faithfully! You
+remember these words:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'In the very torrent, tempest, and, as I
+may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must
+acquire and beget a temperance that may give
+it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to
+hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a
+passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the
+ears of the groundlings, who for the most part
+are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows
+and noise!...'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>XV</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />MAXIMILIAN PILZER</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SINGING TONE AND THE VIBRATO</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Maximilian Pilzer is deservedly prominent
+among younger American concert violinists.
+A pupil of Joachim, Shradieck, Gustav
+Hollander, he is, as it has already been picturesquely
+put, &quot;a graduate of the rock and
+thorn university,&quot; an artist who owes his success
+mainly to his own natural gifts plus an infinite
+capacity for taking pains. Though
+primarily an interpreter his interlocutor yet
+had the good fortune to happen on Mr. Pilzer
+when he was giving a lesson. Essentially a
+solo violinist, Mr. Pilzer nevertheless has the
+born teacher's wish to impart, to share, where
+talent justifies it, his own knowledge. He himself
+did not have to tell the listener this&mdash;the
+lesson he was giving betrayed the fact.</p>
+
+<p>It was Kreisler's <i>Tambourin Chinois</i> that
+the student played. And as Mr. Pilzer illustrated
+the delicate shades of <i>nuance</i>, of
+phrasing, of bowing, with instant rebuke for
+an occasional lack of &quot;warmth&quot; in tone, the
+improvement was instantaneous and unmistakable.
+The lesson over, he said:</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE SINGING TONE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The singing tone is the ideal one, it is the
+natural violin tone. Too many violin students
+have the technical bee in their bonnet and neglect
+it. And too many believe that speed is
+brilliancy. When they see the black notes they
+take for granted that they must 'run to beat
+the band.' Yet often it is the teacher's fault if
+a good singing tone is not developed. Where
+the teacher's playing is cold, that of the pupil
+is apt to be the same. Warmth, rounded fullness,
+the truly beautiful violin tone is more difficult
+to call forth than is generally supposed.
+And, in a manner of speaking, the soul of this
+tone quality is the <i>vibrato</i>, though the individual
+instrument also has much to do with
+the tone.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE VIBRATO</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;But not,&quot; Mr. Pilzer continued, &quot;not as it
+is too often mistakenly employed. Of course,
+any trained player will draw his bow across
+the strings in a smooth, even way, but that is
+not enough. There must be an inner, emotional
+instinct, an electric spark within the player
+himself that sets the <i>vibrato</i> current in motion.
+It is an inner, psychic vibration which
+should be reflected by the intense, rapid vibration
+in the fingers of the left hand on the
+strings in order to give fluent expression to
+emotion. The <i>vibrato</i> can not be used,
+naturally, on the open strings, but otherwise it
+represents the true means for securing warmth
+of expression. Of course, some decry the <i>vibrato</i>&mdash;but
+the reason is often because the <i>vibrato</i>
+is too slow. One need only listen to
+Ysaye, Elman, Kreisler: artists such as these
+employ the quick, intense <i>vibrato</i> with ideal
+effect. An exaggerated <i>vibrato</i> is as bad as
+what I call 'the sentimental slide,' a common
+fault, which many violinists cultivate under the
+impression that they are playing expressively.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY AND ITS ATTAINMENT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin mastery expresses more or less the
+aspiration to realize an ideal. It is a hope, a
+prayer, rather than an actual fact, since nothing
+human is absolutely perfect. Ysaye, perhaps,
+with his golden tone, comes nearest to
+my idea of what violin mastery should be, both
+as regards breadth and delicacy of interpretation.
+And guide-posts along the long road
+that leads to mastery of the instrument? Individuality
+in teaching, progress along natural
+lines, surety in bowing, a tone-production without
+forcing, cultivating a sense of rhythm and
+accent. I always remember what Moser once
+wrote in my autograph album: 'Rhythm and
+accent are the soul of music!'</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE SHINING GOAL</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;And what a shining goal is waiting to be
+reached! The correct interpretation of Bach,
+Haendel and the old Italian and French classics,
+and of the vast realm of <i>ensemble</i> music
+under which head come the Mozart and Beethoven
+violin sonatas, and those of their successors,
+Schumann, Brahms, etc. And aside
+from the classics, the moderns. And then
+there are the great violin concertos, in a class
+by themselves. They represent, in a degree,
+the utmost that the composer has done for the
+interpreting artist. Yet they differ absolutely
+in manner, style, thought, etc. Take Joachim's
+own Hungarian concerto, which I played for
+the composer, of which I still treasure the
+recollection of his patting me on the shoulder
+and saying: 'There is nothing for me to correct!'
+It is a work deliberately designed for
+technical display, and is tremendously difficult.
+But the wonderful Brahms concerto, those
+of Beethoven and Max Bruch; of Mozart and
+Mendelssohn&mdash;it is hard to express a preference
+for works so different in the quality of
+their beauty. The Russian Conus has a fine
+concerto in E, and Sinding a most effective
+one in A major. Edmund Severn, the American
+composer and violinist, has also written a
+notably fine violin concerto which I have played,
+with the Philharmonic, one that ought to be
+heard oftener.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />PLAYING BACH</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Bach is one of the most difficult of the great
+masters to interpret on the violin. His polyphonic
+style and interweaving themes demand
+close study in order to make the meaning clear.
+In the Bach <i>Chaconne</i>, for instance, some very
+great violinists do not pay enough attention to
+making a distinction between principal and
+secondary notes of a chord. Here [Mr. Pilzer
+took up a new Strad he has recently acquired
+and illustrated his meaning] in this four-note
+chord there is one important melody note
+which must stand out. And it can be done,
+though not without some study. Bach abounds
+in such pitfalls, and in studying him the closest
+attention is necessary. Once the problems involved
+overcome, his music gains its true
+clarity and beauty and the enjoyment of artist
+and listener is doubled.</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>XVI</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />MAUD POWELL</h2>
+
+<h3>TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: SOME HINTS<br />
+FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Maud Powell is often alluded to as our
+representative &quot;American <i>woman</i> violinist&quot;
+which, while true in a narrower sense, is not altogether
+just in a broader way. It would be
+decidedly more fair to consider her a representative
+American violinist, without stressing
+the term &quot;woman&quot;; for as regards Art in its
+higher sense, the artist comes first, sex being
+incidental, and Maud Powell is first and foremost&mdash;an
+artist. And her infinite capacity for
+taking pains, her willingness to work hard
+have had no small part in the position she
+has made for herself, and the success she has
+achieved.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONCERT VIOLINIST</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Too many Americans who take up the
+violin professionally,&quot; Maud Powell told the
+writer, &quot;do not realize that the mastery of the
+instrument is a life study, that without hard,
+concentrated work they cannot reach the higher
+levels of their art. Then, too, they are too
+often inclined to think that if they have a good
+tone and technic that this is all they need. They
+forget that the musical instinct must be cultivated;
+they do not attach enough importance
+to musical surroundings: to hearing and understanding
+music of every kind, not only that
+written for the violin. They do not realize
+the value of <i>ensemble</i> work and its influence
+as an educational factor of the greatest artistic
+value. I remember when I was a girl of eight,
+my mother used to play the Mozart violin
+sonatas with me; I heard all the music I possibly
+could hear; I was taught harmony and
+musical form in direct connection with my
+practical work, so that theory was a living
+thing to me and no abstraction. In my home
+town I played in an orchestra of twenty pieces&mdash;Oh,
+no, not a 'ladies orchestra'&mdash;the other
+members were men grown! I played chamber
+music as well as solos whenever the opportunity
+offered, at home and in public. In fact
+music was part of my life.</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of MAUD POWELL, Facing Page 184-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_184" id="F_Page_184"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p184a_m.jpg" width="448" height="700" alt="F_Page_184" title="MAUD POWELL" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Maud Powell</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;No student who looks on music primarily
+as a thing apart in his existence, as a bread-winning
+tool, as a craft rather than an art, can
+ever mount to the high places. So often girls
+[who sometimes lack the practical vision of
+boys], although having studied but a few years,
+come to me and say: 'My one ambition is to
+become a great <i>virtuoso</i> on the violin! I want
+to begin to study the great concertos!' And I
+have to tell them that their first ambition
+should be to become musicians&mdash;to study, to
+know, to understand music before they venture
+on its interpretation. Virtuosity without
+musicianship will not carry one far these days.
+In many cases these students come from small
+inland towns, far from any music center, and
+have a wrong attitude of mind. They crave
+the glamor of footlights, flowers and applause,
+not realizing that music is a speech, an idiom,
+which they must master in order to interpret
+the works of the great composers.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course, all artistic playing represents essentially
+the mental control of technical means.
+But to acquire the latter in the right way, while
+at the same time developing the former, calls
+for the best of teachers. The problem of the
+teacher is to prevent his pupils from being too
+imitative&mdash;all students are natural imitators&mdash;and
+furthering the quality of musical imagination
+in them. Pupils generally have something
+of the teacher's tone&mdash;Auer pupils have the
+Auer tone, Joachim pupils have a Joachim
+tone, an excellent thing. But as each pupil
+has an individuality of his own, he should never
+sink it altogether in that of his teacher. It is
+this imitative trend which often makes it hard
+to judge a young player's work. I was very
+fortunate in my teachers. William Lewis of
+Chicago gave me a splendid start. Then I
+studied in turn with Schradieck in Leipsic&mdash;Schradieck
+himself was a pupil of Ferdinand
+David and of L&eacute;onard&mdash;Joachim in Berlin,
+and Charles Dancla in Paris. I might say that
+I owe most, in a way, to William Lewis, a born
+fiddler. Of my three European masters
+Dancla was unquestionably the greatest as a
+teacher&mdash;of course I am speaking for myself.
+It was no doubt an advantage, a decided advantage
+for me in my artistic development,
+which was slow&mdash;a family trait&mdash;to enjoy the
+broadening experience of three entirely different
+styles of teaching, and to be able to assimilate
+the best of each. Yet Joachim was a
+far greater violinist than teacher. His method
+was a cramping one, owing to his insistence on
+pouring all his pupils into the same mold, so
+to speak, of forming them all on the Joachim
+lathe. But Dancla was inspiring. He taught
+me De B&eacute;riot's wonderful method of attack;
+he showed me how to develop purity of style.
+Dancla's method of teaching gave his pupils a
+technical equipment which carried bowing
+right along, 'neck and neck' with the finger
+work of the left hand, while the Germans are
+apt to stress finger development at the expense
+of the bow. And without ever neglecting technical
+means, Dancla always put the purely
+musical before the purely virtuoso side of playing.
+And this is always a sign of a good teacher.
+He was unsparing in taking pains and very
+fair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember that I was passed first in a
+class of eighty-four at an examination, after
+only three private lessons in which to prepare
+the concerto movement to be played. I was
+surprised and asked him why Mlle.&mdash;&mdash; who,
+it seemed to me, had played better than I, had
+not passed. 'Ah,' he said, 'Mlle.&mdash;&mdash; studied
+that movement for six months; and in comparison,
+you, with only three lessons, play it better!'
+Dancla switched me right over in his
+teaching from German to French methods, and
+taught me how to become an artist, just as I
+had learned in Germany to become a musician.
+The French school has taste, elegance, imagination;
+the German is more conservative,
+serious, and has, perhaps, more depth.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps it is because I belong to an older
+school, or it may be because I laid stress on
+technic because of its necessity as a means of
+expression&mdash;at any rate I worked hard at it.
+Naturally, one should never practice any technical
+difficulty too long at a stretch. Young
+players sometimes forget this. I know that
+<i>staccato</i> playing was not easy for me at one
+time. I believe a real <i>staccato</i> is inborn; a
+knack. I used to grumble about it to Joachim
+and he told me once that musically <i>staccato</i>
+did not have much value. His own, by the
+way, was very labored and heavy. He admitted
+that he had none. Wieniawski had such a
+wonderful <i>staccato</i> that one finds much of it
+in his music. When I first began to play his D
+minor concerto I simply made up my mind to
+get a <i>staccato</i>. It came in time, by sheer force
+of will. After that I had no trouble. An artistic
+<i>staccato</i> should, like the trill, be plastic
+and under control; for different schools of composition
+demand different styles of treatment
+of such details.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Octaves&mdash;the unison, not broken&mdash;I did
+not find difficult; but though they are supposed
+to add volume of tone they sound hideous to
+me. I have used them in certain passages of
+my arrangement of 'Deep River,' but when I
+heard them played, promised myself I would
+never repeat the experiment. Wilhelmj has
+committed even a worse crime in taste by putting
+six long bars of Schubert's lovely <i>Ave
+Maria</i> in octaves. Of course they represent
+skill; but I think they are only justified in
+show pieces. Harmonics I always found easy;
+though whether they ring out as they should
+always depends more or less on atmospheric
+conditions, the strings and the amount of rosin
+on the bow. On the concert stage if the player
+stands in a draught the harmonics are sometimes
+husky.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE AMERICAN WOMAN VIOLINIST AND AMERICAN MUSIC</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The old days of virtuoso 'tricks' have passed&mdash;I
+should like to hope forever. Not that
+some of the old type virtuosos were not fine
+players. Remenyi played beautifully. So did
+Ole Bull. I remember one favorite trick of
+the latter's, for instance, which would hardly
+pass muster to-day. I have seen him draw out
+a long <i>pp</i>, the audience listening breathlessly,
+while he drew his bow way beyond the string,
+and then looked innocently at the point of the
+bow, as though wondering where the tone had
+vanished. It invariably brought down the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet an artist must be a virtuoso in the
+modern sense to do his full duty. And here in
+America that duty is to help those who are
+groping for something higher and better
+musically; to help without rebuffing them.
+When I first began my career as a concert
+violinist I did pioneer work for the cause of
+the American woman violinist, going on with
+the work begun by Mme. Camilla Urso. A
+strong prejudice then existed against women
+fiddlers, which even yet has not altogether been
+overcome. The very fact that a Western manager
+recently told Mr. Turner with surprise
+that he 'had made a success of a woman artist'
+proves it. When I first began to play here in
+concert this prejudice was much stronger. Yet
+I kept on and secured engagements to play
+with orchestra at a time when they were difficult
+to obtain. Theodore Thomas liked my
+playing (he said I had brains), and it was with
+his orchestra that I introduced the concertos
+of Saint-Sa&euml;ns (C min.), Lalo (F min.), and
+others, to American audiences.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fact that I realized that my sex was
+against me in a way led me to be startlingly
+authoritative and convincing in the masculine
+manner when I first played. This is a mistake
+no woman violinist should make. And from
+the moment that James Huneker wrote that
+I 'was not developing the feminine side of my
+work,' I determined to be just myself, and
+play as the spirit moved me, with no further
+thought of sex or sex distinctions which, in Art,
+after all, are secondary. I never realized this
+more forcibly than once, when, sitting as a
+judge, I listened to the competitive playing of
+a number of young professional violinists and
+pianists. The individual performers, unseen
+by the judges, played in turn behind a screen.
+And in three cases my fellow judges and myself
+guessed wrongly with regard to the sex
+of the players. When we thought we had
+heard a young man play it happened to be a
+young woman, and <i>vice versa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To return to the question of concert-work.
+You must not think that I have played only
+foreign music in public. I have always believed
+in American composers and in American
+composition, and as an American have tried
+to do justice as an interpreting artist to the
+music of my native land. Aside from the violin
+concertos by Harry Rowe Shelly and Henry
+Holden Huss, I have played any number of
+shorter original compositions by such representative
+American composers as Arthur
+Foote, Mrs. H.H.A. Beach, Victor Herbert,
+John Philip Sousa, Arthur Bird, Edwin
+Grasse, Marion Bauer, Cecil Burleigh, Harry
+Gilbert, A. Walter Kramer, Grace White,
+Charles Wakefield Cadman and others. Then,
+too, I have presented transcriptions by Arthur
+Hartmann, Francis Macmillan and Sol Marcosson,
+as well as some of my own. Transcriptions
+are wrong, theoretically; yet some songs,
+like Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Song of India' and
+some piano pieces, like the Dvo&#345;&aacute;k <i>Humoresque</i>,
+are so obviously effective on the violin
+that a transcription justifies itself. My
+latest temptative in that direction is my 'Four
+American Folk Songs,' a simple setting of
+four well-known airs with connecting cadenzas&mdash;no
+variations, no special development! I
+used them first as <i>encores</i>, but my audiences
+seemed to like them so well that I have played
+them on all my recent programs.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SOME HINTS FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The very first thing in playing in public is
+to free oneself of all distrust in one's own powers.
+To do this, nothing must be left to chance.
+One should not have to give a thought to
+strings, bow, etc. All should be in proper condition.
+Above all the violinist should play with
+an accompanist who is used to accompanying
+him. It seems superfluous to emphasize that
+one's program numbers must have been mastered
+in every detail. Only then can one defy
+nervousness, turning excess of emotion into
+inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Acoustics play a greater part in the success
+of a public concert than most people realize.
+In some halls they are very good, as in
+the case of the Cleveland Hippodrome, an
+enormous place which holds forty-three hundred
+people. Here the acoustics are perfect,
+and the artist has those wonderful silences
+through which his slightest tones carry clearly
+and sweetly. I have played not only solos, but
+chamber music in this hall, and was always
+sorry to stop playing. In most halls the acoustic
+conditions are best in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there is the matter of the violin. I
+first used a Joseph Guarnerius, a deeper toned
+instrument than the Jean Baptista Guadagnini
+I have now played for a number of years. The
+Guarnerius has a tone that seems to come more
+from within the instrument; but all in all I
+have found my Guadagnini, with its glassy
+clearness, its brilliant and limpid tone-quality,
+better adapted to American concert halls. If
+I had a Strad in the same condition as my
+Guadagnini the instrument would be priceless.
+I regretted giving up my Guarnerius, but I
+could not play the two violins interchangeably;
+for they were absolutely different in size and
+tone-production, shape, etc. Then my hand
+is so small that I ought to use the instrument
+best adapted to it, and to use the same instrument
+always. Why do I use no chin-rest? I
+use no chin-rest on my Guadagnini simply because
+I cannot find one to fit my chin. One
+should use a chin-rest to prevent perspiration
+from marring the varnish. My Rocca violin
+is an interesting instance of wood worn in
+ridges by the stubble on a man's chin.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Strings? Well, I use a wire E string. I
+began to use it twelve years ago one humid,
+foggy summer in Connecticut. I had had such
+trouble with strings snapping that I cried:
+'Give me anything but a gut string.' The
+climate practically makes metal strings a necessity,
+though some kind person once said that I
+bought wire strings because they were cheap!
+If wire strings had been thought of when Theodore
+Thomas began his career, he might never
+have been a conductor, for he told me he gave
+up the violin because of the E string. And most
+people will admit that hearing a wire E you
+cannot tell it from a gut E. Of course, it is unpleasant
+on the open strings, but then the open
+strings never do sound well. And in the highest
+registers the tone does not spin out long
+enough because of the tremendous tension:
+one has to use more bow. And it cuts the hairs:
+there is a little surface nap on the bow-hairs
+which a wire string wears right out. I had to
+have my four bows rehaired three times last
+season&mdash;an average of every three months. But
+all said and done it has been a God-send to the
+violinist who plays in public. On the wire A
+one cannot get the harmonics; and the aluminum
+D is objectionable in some violins, though
+in others not at all.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The main thing&mdash;no matter what strings
+are used&mdash;is for the artist to get his audience
+into the concert hall, and give it a program
+which is properly balanced. Theodore Thomas
+first advised me to include in my programs
+short, simple things that my listeners could
+'get hold of'&mdash;nothing inartistic, but something
+selected from their standpoint, not from mine,
+and played as artistically as possible. Yet
+there must also be something that is beyond
+them, collectively. Something that they may
+need to hear a number of times to appreciate.
+This enables the artist to maintain his dignity
+and has a certain psychological effect in that
+his audience holds him in greater respect. At
+big conservatories where music study is the
+most important thing, and in large cities,
+where the general level of music culture is
+high, a big solid program may be given, where
+it would be inappropriate in other places.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet I remember having many recalls at El
+Paso, Texas, once, after playing the first movement
+of the Sibelius concerto. It is one of
+those compositions which if played too literally
+leaves an audience quite cold; it must be rendered
+temperamentally, the big climaxing effects
+built up, its Northern spirit brought out,
+though I admit that even then it is not altogether
+easy to grasp.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin mastery or mastery of any instrument,
+for that matter, is the technical power to
+say exactly what you want to say in exactly
+the way you want to say it. It is technical
+equipment that stands at the service of your
+musical will&mdash;a faithful and competent servant
+that comes at your musical bidding. If your
+spirit soars 'to parts unknown,' your well
+trained servant 'technic' is ever at your elbow
+to prevent irksome details from hampering
+your progress. Mastery of your instrument
+makes mastery of your Art a joy instead of a
+burden. Technic should always be the hand-maid
+of the spirit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I believe that one result of the war
+will be to bring us a greater self-knowledge,
+to the violinist as well as to every other artist,
+a broader appreciation of what he can do to
+increase and elevate appreciation for music
+in general and his Art in particular. And with
+these I am sure a new impetus will be given
+to the development of a musical culture truly
+American in thought and expression.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>XVII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />LEON SAMETINI</h2>
+
+<h3>HARMONICS</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Leon Sametini, at present director of the
+violin department of the Chicago Music College,
+where Sauret, Heermann and Sebald
+preceded him, is one of the most successful
+teachers of his instrument in this country. It
+is to be regretted that he has not played in
+public in the United States as often as in
+Europe, where his extensive <i>tourn&eacute;es</i> in Holland&mdash;Leon
+Sametini is a Hollander by birth&mdash;Belgium,
+England and Austria have established
+his reputation as a virtuoso, and the
+quality of his playing led Ysaye to include him
+in a quartet of artists &quot;in order of lyric expression&quot;
+with himself and Thibaud. Yet, the
+fact remains that this erstwhile <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</i> of
+Queen Wilhelmina&mdash;she gave him his beautiful
+Santo Serafin (1730) violin, whose golden
+varnish back &quot;is a genuine picture,&quot;&mdash;to quote
+its owner&mdash;is a distinguished interpreting
+artist besides having a real teaching gift, which
+lends additional weight to his educational
+views.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />REMINISCENCES OF SEV&#268;IK</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I began to study violin at the age of six,
+with my uncle. From him I went to Eldering
+in Amsterdam, now Willy Hess's successor
+at the head of the Cologne Conservatory,
+and then spent a year with Sev&#269;ik in Prague.
+Yet&mdash;without being his pupil&mdash;I have learned
+more from Ysaye than from any of my teachers.
+It is rather the custom to decry Sev&#269;ik
+as a teacher, to dwell on his absolutely mechanical
+character of instruction&mdash;and not without
+justice. First of all Sev&#269;ik laid all the stress
+on the left hand and not on the bow&mdash;an absolute
+inversion of a fundamental principle.
+Eldering had taken great pains with my bow
+technic, for he himself was a pupil of Hubay,
+who had studied with Vieuxtemps and had his
+tradition. But Sev&#269;ik's teaching as regards
+the use of the bow was very poor; his pupils&mdash;take
+Kubelik with all his marvelous finger
+facility&mdash;could never develop a big bow technic.
+Their playing lacks strength, richness of
+sound. Sev&#269;ik soon noticed that my bowing
+did not conform to his theories; yet since he
+could not legitimately complain of the results
+I secured, he did not attempt to make me
+change it. Musical beauty, interpretation, in
+Sev&#269;ik's case were all subordinated to mechanical
+perfection. With him the study of some inspired
+masterpiece was purely a mathematical
+process, a problem in technic and mental arithmetic,
+without a bit of spontaneity. Ysaye
+used to roar with laughter when I would tell
+him how, when a boy of fifteen, I played the
+Beethoven concerto for Sev&#269;ik&mdash;a work which
+I myself felt and knew it was then out of the
+question for me to play with artistic maturity&mdash;the
+latter's only criticisms on my performance
+were that one or two notes were a little
+too high, and a certain passage not quite clear.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sev&#269;ik did not like the Dvo&#345;&aacute;k concerto
+and never gave it to his pupils. But I lived
+next door to Dvo&#345;&aacute;k at Prague, and meeting
+him in the street one day, asked him some questions
+anent its interpretation, with the result
+that I went to his home various times and he
+gave me his own ideas as to how it should be
+played. Sev&#269;ik never pointed his teachings by
+playing himself. I never saw him take up the
+fiddle while I studied with him. While I was
+his pupil he paid me the compliment of selecting
+me to play Sinigaglia's engaging violin
+concerto, at short notice, for the first time in
+Prague. Sinigaglia had asked Sev&#269;ik to play
+it, who said: 'I no longer play violin, but I
+have a pupil who can play it for you,' and introduced
+me to him. Sinigaglia became a good
+friend of mine, and I was the first to introduce
+his <i>Rapsodia Piedmontese</i> for violin and
+orchestra in London. To return to Sev&#269;ik&mdash;with
+all the deficiencies of his teaching
+methods, he had one great gift. He taught
+his pupils <i>how to practice</i>! And&mdash;aside from
+bowing&mdash;he made all mechanical problems,
+especially finger problems, absolutely clear and
+lucid.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A QUARTET OF GREAT TEACHERS WITH WHOM<br />
+ALL MAY STUDY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Still, all said and done, it was after I had
+finished with all my teachers that I really began
+to learn to play violin: above all from
+Ysaye, whom I went to hear play wherever
+and whenever I could. I think that the most
+valuable lessons I have ever had are those unconsciously
+given me by four of the greatest
+violinists I know: Ysaye, Kreisler, Elman and
+Thibaud. Each of these artists is so different
+that no one seems altogether to replace the
+other. Ysaye with his unique personality, the
+immense breadth and sweep of his interpretation,
+his dramatic strength, stands alone.
+Kreisler has a certain sparkling scintillance in
+his playing that is his only. Elman might be
+called the Caruso among violinists, with the
+perfected sensuous beauty of his tone; while
+Thibaud stands for supreme elegance and distinction.
+I have learned much from each member
+of this great quartet. And if the artist can
+profit from hearing and seeing them play, why
+not the student? Every recital given by such
+masters offers the earnest violin student priceless
+opportunities for study and comparison.
+My special leaning toward Ysaye is due, aside
+from his wonderful personality, to the fact that
+I feel music in the same way that he does.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TEACHING PRINCIPLES</h4>
+
+<p>'My teaching principles are the results of
+my own training period, my own experience as
+a concert artist and teacher&mdash;before I came to
+America I taught in London, where Isolde
+Menges, among others, studied with me&mdash;and
+what either directly or indirectly I have learned
+from my great colleagues. In the Music College
+I give the advanced pupils their individual
+lessons; but once a week the whole class assembles&mdash;as
+in the European conservatories&mdash;and
+those whose turn it is to play do so while
+the others listen. This is of value to every
+student, since it gives him an opportunity of
+'hearing himself as others hear him.' Then, to
+stimulate appreciation and musical development
+there are <i>ensemble</i> and string quartet
+classes. I believe that every violinist should be
+able to play viola, and in quartet work I make
+the players shift constantly from one to the
+other instrument in order to hear what they
+play from a different angle.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For left hand work I stick to the excellent
+Sev&#269;ik exercises and for some pupils I use the
+Carl Flesch <i>Urstudien</i>. For studies of real
+<i>musical</i> value Rode, of course, is unexcelled.
+His studies are the masterpieces of their kind,
+and I turn them into concert pieces. Thibaud
+and Elman have supplied some of them with
+interesting piano accompaniments.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;For bowing, with the exception of a few
+purely mechanical exercises, I used Kreutzer
+and Rode, and Gavinies. Ninety-nine per
+cent. of pupils' faults are faults of bowing. It
+is an art in itself. Sev&#269;ik was able to develop
+Kubelik's left hand work to the last degree of
+perfection&mdash;but not his bowing. In the case
+of Kocian, another well-known Sev&#269;ik pupil
+whom I have heard play, his bowing was by no
+means an outstanding feature. I often have
+to start pupils on the open strings in order to
+correct fundamental bow faults.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When watching a great artist play the
+student should not expect to secure similar results
+by slavish imitation&mdash;another pupil fault.
+The thing to do is to realize the principle behind
+the artist's playing, and apply it to one's
+own physical possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every one holds, draws and uses the bow
+in a different way. If no two thumb-prints
+are alike, neither are any two sets of fingers
+and wrists. This is why not slavish imitation,
+but intelligent adaptation should be applied
+to the playing of the teacher in the class-room
+or the artist on the concert-stage. For instance,
+the little finger of Ysaye's left hand
+bends inward somewhat&mdash;as a result it is perfectly
+natural for him to make less use of the
+little finger, while it might be very difficult or
+almost impossible for another to employ the
+same fingering. And certain compositions and
+styles of composition are more adapted to one
+violinist than to another. I remember when I
+was a student, that Wieniawski's music seemed
+to lie just right for my hand. I could read
+difficult things of his at sight.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />DOUBLE HARMONICS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Would I care to discuss any special feature
+of violin technic? I might say something anent
+double harmonics&mdash;a subject too often taught
+in a mechanical way, and one I have always
+taken special pains to make absolutely plain to
+my own pupils&mdash;for every violinist should be
+able to play double harmonics out of a clear
+understanding of how to form them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are only two kinds of harmonics:
+natural and artificial. Natural harmonics may
+be formed on the major triad of each open
+string, using the open string as the tonic. As,
+for example, on the G string [and Mr. Sametini
+set down the following illustration]:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p236_1a.png" width="501" height="134" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>Then there are four kinds of artificial harmonics,
+only three of which are used: harmonics
+on the major third (1); harmonics on the perfect
+fourth (2); harmonics on the perfect fifth
+(3); and harmonics&mdash;never used&mdash;on the octave:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p237_1a.png" width="303" height="111" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>Where does the harmonic sound in each case?
+Two octaves and a third higher (1); two octaves
+higher (2); one octave and a fifth higher
+(3) respectively, than the pressed-down note.
+If the harmonic on the octave (4) were played,
+it would sound just an octave higher than the
+pressed-down note.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now say we wished to combine different
+double harmonics. The whole principle is
+made clear if we take, let us say, the first
+double-stop in the scale of C major in thirds
+as an example:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p237_1b.png" width="120" height="76" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;Beginning with the lower of these
+two notes, the C, we find that it cannot
+not be taken as a natural harmonic</p>
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p237_1c.png" width="211" height="78" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>because natural harmonics
+on the open strings run as follows: G, B, D on
+the G string; D, F&#9839;, A on the D string; A, C&#9839;,
+E on the A string; and E, G&#9839;, B on the E
+string. There are three ways of taking the C
+before mentioned as an artificial harmonic.
+The E may be taken in the following manner:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p class="figcenter"><b>&nbsp;Nat. harmonic</b></p>
+<img src="images/p237_1d.png" width="103" height="70" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p class="figcenter"><b>Artificial harmonic</b></p>
+<img src="images/p237_1e.png" width="140" height="55" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Now we have to combine the C and E as well
+as we are able. Rejecting the following combinations
+as <i>impossible</i>&mdash;any violinist will see
+why&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p238_1a.png" width="252" height="90" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p>we have a choice of the two <i>possible</i> combinations
+remaining, with the fingering indicated:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p238_1b.png" width="190" height="87" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;With regard to the <i>actual execution</i> of
+these harmonics, I advise all students to try
+and play them with every bit as much expressive
+feeling as ordinary notes. My experience
+has been that pupils do not pay nearly enough
+attention to the intonation of harmonics. In
+other words, they try to produce the harmonics
+<i>immediately</i>, instead of first making sure that
+both fingers are on the right spot before they
+loosen one finger on the string. For instance
+in the following:
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p238_1c.png" width="49" height="57" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>first play</p>
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p238_1d.png" width="39" height="57" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>and then</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p238_1e.png" width="35" height="52" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>then loosen the fourth finger, and play</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p238_1f.png" width="49" height="57" alt="Music notation" />
+</div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;The same principle holds good when playing
+double harmonics. Nine tenths of the
+'squeaking' heard when harmonics are played
+is due to the fact that the finger-placing is not
+properly prepared, and that the fingers are not
+on the right spot.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never, when playing a harmonic with an
+up-bow [Symbol: up-bow], at the point, smash down the bow
+on the string; but have it already <i>on</i> the string
+<i>before</i> playing the harmonic. The process is
+reversed when playing a down-bow [Symbol: down-bow] harmonic.
+When beginning a harmonic at the
+frog, have the harmonic ready, then let the
+bow <i>drop</i> gently on the string.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Triple and quadruple harmonics may be
+combined in exactly the same way. Students
+should never get the idea that you press down
+the string as you press a button and&mdash;presto&mdash;the
+magic harmonics appear! They are a
+simple and natural result of the proper application
+of scientific principles; and the sooner
+the student learns to form and combine harmonics
+himself instead of learning them by
+rote, the better will he play them. Too often
+a student can give the fingering of certain
+double harmonics and cannot use it. Of course,
+harmonics are only a detail of the complete
+mastery of the violin; but mastery of all details
+leads to mastery of the whole.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;And what is mastery of the whole? Mastery
+of the whole, real violin mastery, I think,
+lies in the control of the interpretative problem,
+the power to awaken emotion by the use of the
+instrument. Many feel more than they can
+express, have more left hand than bow technic
+and, like Kubelik, have not the perfected technic
+for which perfected playing calls. The
+artist who feels beauty keenly and deeply and
+whose mechanical equipment allows him to
+make others feel and share the beauty he himself
+feels is in my opinion worthy of being
+called a master of the violin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>XVIII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY</h2>
+
+<h3>WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Alexander Saslavsky is probably best
+known as a solo artist, as the concertmaster of
+a great symphonic orchestra, as the leader of
+the admirable quartet which bears his name.
+Yet, at the same time, few violinists can speak
+with more authority anent the instructive
+phases of their Art. Not only has he been active
+for years in the teaching field; but as a
+pedagog he rounds out the traditions of
+Ferdinand David, Massard, Auer, and Gr&uuml;n
+(Vienna <i>Hochschule</i>), acquired during his
+&quot;study years,&quot; with the result of his own long
+and varied experience.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning at the beginning, I asked Mr.
+Saslavsky to tell me something about methods,
+his own in particular. &quot;Method is a flexible
+term,&quot; he answered. &quot;What the word should
+mean is the cultivation of the pupil's individuality
+along the lines best suited to it. Not
+that a guide which may be employed to develop
+common-sense principles is not valuable.
+But even here, the same guide (violin-method)
+will not answer for every pupil. Personally I
+find De B&eacute;riot's 'Violin School' the most generally
+useful, and for advanced students,
+Ferdinand David's second book. Then, for
+scales&mdash;I insist on my pupils being able to play,
+a perfect scale through three octaves&mdash;the
+Hrimaly book of scales. Many advanced violinists
+cannot play a good scale simply because
+of a lack of fundamental work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As soon as the pupil is able, he should take
+up Kreutzer and stick to him as the devotee
+does to his Bible. Any one who can play the
+'42 Exercises' as they should be played may be
+called a well-balanced violinist. There are
+too many purely mechanical exercises&mdash;and the
+circumstance that we have Kreutzer, Rode,
+Fiorillo, Rovelli and Dont emphasizes the fact.
+And there are too many elaborate and complicated
+violin methods. Sev&#269;ik, for instance,
+has devised a purely mechanical system of this
+kind, perfect from a purely mechanical standpoint,
+but one whose consistent use, in my opinion,
+kills initiative and individuality. I have
+had experience with Sev&#269;ik pupils in quartet
+playing, and have found that they have no expression.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;After all, the teacher can only supply the
+pupil with the violinistic equipment. The pupil
+must use it. There is tone, for instance. The
+teacher cannot <i>make</i> tone for the pupil&mdash;he
+can only show him how tone can be made.
+Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes
+it almost impossible for the pupil to produce
+a good natural tone. If the finger-tips are
+not adequately equipped with 'cushions,' and a
+pupil wishes to use the <i>vibrato</i> there is nothing
+with which he can vibrate. There is real meaning,
+speaking of the violinist's tone, in the
+phrase 'he has it at his fingers' tips.' Then
+there is the matter of <i>slow</i> practice. It rests
+with the pupil to carry out the teacher's injunctions
+in this respect. The average pupil practices
+too fast, is too eager to develop his Art as
+a money maker. And too many really gifted
+students take up orchestra playing, which no
+one can do continuously and hope to be a solo
+player. Four hours of study work may be
+nullified by a single hour of orchestra playing.
+Musically it is broadening, of course, but I am
+speaking from the standpoint of the student
+who hopes to become a solo artist. An opera
+orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the
+symphonic <i>ensemble</i> more care is used; but in
+the opera orchestra they employ the <i>right</i> arm
+for tremolo! There is a good deal of <i>camouflage</i>
+as regards string playing in an opera
+orchestra, and much of the music&mdash;notably
+Wagner's&mdash;is quite impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And lessons are often made all too short.
+A teacher in common honesty cannot really
+give a pupil much in half-an-hour&mdash;it is not
+a real lesson. There is a good deal to be said
+for class teaching as it is practiced at the
+European conservatories, especially as regards
+interpretation. In my student days I learned
+much from listening to others play the concertos
+they had prepared, and from noting
+the teacher's corrections. And this even in a
+purely technical way: I can recall Kubelik
+playing Paganini as a wonderful display of
+the <i>technical</i> points of violin playing.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A GREAT DEFECT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Most pupils seem to lack an absolute sense
+of rhythm&mdash;a great defect. Yet where latent
+it may be developed. Here Kreutzer is invaluable,
+since he presents every form of rhythmic
+problem, scales in various rhythms and bowings.
+Kreutzer's 'Exercise No. 2,' for example,
+may be studied with any number of
+bowings. To produce a broad tone the bow
+must move slowly, and in rapid passages should
+never seem to introduce technical exercises in
+a concert number. The student should
+memorize Kreutzer and Fiorillo. Flesch's
+<i>Urstudien</i> offer the artist or professional
+musician who has time for little practice excellent
+material; but are not meant for the pupil,
+unless he be so far advanced that he may be
+trusted to use them alone.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TONE: PRACTICE TIME</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Broad playing gives the singing tone&mdash;the
+true violin tone&mdash;a long bow drawn its full
+length. Like every general rule though, this
+one must be modified by the judgment of the
+individual player. Violin playing is an art
+of many mysteries. Some pupils grasp a point
+at once; others have to have it explained seven
+or eight different ways before grasping it.
+The serious student should practice not less
+than four hours, preferably in twenty minute
+intervals. After some twenty minutes the
+brain is apt to tire. And since the fingers are
+controlled by the brain, it is best to relax for
+a short time before going on. Mental and
+physical control must always go hand in hand.
+Four hours of intelligent, consistent practice
+work are far better than eight or ten of
+fatigued effort.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A NATIONAL CONSERVATORY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Some five years ago too many teachers gave
+their pupils the Mendelssohn and Paganini
+concertos to play before they knew their
+Kreutzer. But there has been a change for the
+better during recent years. Kneisel was one
+of the first to produce pupils here who played
+legitimately, according to standard violinistic
+ideals. One reason why Auer has had such
+brilliant pupils is that poor students were received
+at the Petrograd Conservatory free of
+charge. All they had to supply was talent;
+and I look forward to the time when we will
+have a National conservatory in this country,
+supported by the Government. Then the poor,
+but musically gifted, pupil will have the same
+opportunities that his brother, who is well-to-do,
+now has.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SOME PERSONAL VIEWS AND REFLECTIONS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me to tell you something of my
+own musical preferences. Well, take the concertos.
+I have reached a point where the
+Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and
+Brahms concertos seen to sum up what is truly
+worth while. The others begin to bore me;
+even Bruch! Paganini, Wieniawski, etc., are
+mainly mediums of display. Most of the great
+violinists, Ysaye, Thibaud, etc., during recent
+years are reverting to the violin sonatas.
+Ysaye, for instance, has recently been playing
+the Lazzari sonata, a very powerful and beautiful
+work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My experiences as a 'concertmaster'? I
+have played with Weingartner; Saint-Sa&euml;ns
+(whose amiability to me, when he first visited
+this country, I recall with pleasure); Gustav
+Mahler, Tschaikovsky, Safonoff, Seidel,
+Bauer, and Walter Damrosch, whose friend
+and associate I have been for the last twenty-two
+years. He is a wonderful man, many-sided
+and versatile; a notably fine pianist; and
+playing chamber music with him during successive
+summers is numbered among my pleasantest
+recollections.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In speaking of concertos some time ago, I
+forgot to mention one work well worth studying.
+This is the Russian Mlynarski's concerto
+in D, which I played with the Russian Symphony
+Orchestra some eight years ago for the
+first time in this country, as well as a fine
+'Romance and Caprice' by Rubinstein.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is the music a concertmaster is called upon
+to play always violinistic? Far from it.
+Symphonic music&mdash;in as much as the concertmaster
+is concerned, is usually not idiomatic
+violin music. Richard Strauss's violin concerto
+can really be played by the violinist. The
+<i>obbligatos</i> in his symphonies are a very different
+matter; they go beyond accepted technical
+boundaries. With Stravinsky it is the same.
+The violin <i>obbligato</i> in Rimsky-Korsakov's
+<i>Sch&eacute;h&eacute;razade</i>, though, is real violin music. Debussy
+and Ravel are most subtle; they call for
+a particularly good ear, since the harmonic
+balance of their music is very delicate. The
+concertmaster has to develop his own interpretations,
+subject, of course, to the conductor's
+ideas.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Violin Mastery? It means to me complete
+control of the fingerboard, a being at home in
+every position, absolute sureness of fingering,
+absolute equality of tone under all circumstances.
+I remember Ysaye playing Tschaikovsky's
+<i>S&eacute;r&eacute;nade M&eacute;lancolique</i>, and using a
+fingering for certain passages which I liked
+very much. I asked him to give it to me in
+detail, but he merely laughed and said: 'I'd
+like to, but I cannot, because I really do not
+remember which fingers I used!' That is
+mastery&mdash;a control so complete that fingering
+was unconscious, and the interpretation of the
+thought was all that was in the artist's mind!
+Sev&#269;ik's 'complete technical mastery' is after
+all not perfect, since it represents mechanical
+and not mental control.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>XIX</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />TOSCHA SEIDEL</h2>
+
+<h3>HOW TO STUDY</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Toscha Seidel, though one of the more
+recent of the young Russian violinists who represent
+the fruition of Professor Auer's formative
+gifts, has, to quote H.F. Peyser, &quot;the
+transcendental technic observed in the greatest
+pupils of his master, a command of mechanism
+which makes the rough places so plain that the
+traces of their roughness are hidden to the unpracticed
+eye.&quot; He commenced to study the
+violin seriously at the age of seven in Odessa,
+his natal town, with Max Fiedemann, an Auer
+pupil. A year and a half later Alexander
+Fiedemann heard him play a De B&eacute;riot concerto
+in public, and induced him to study at
+the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, with Brodsky,
+a pupil of Joachim, with whom he remained
+for two years.</p>
+
+<p>It was in Berlin that the young violinist
+reached the turning point of his career. &quot;I was
+a boy of twelve,&quot; he said, &quot;when I heard Jascha
+Heifetz play for the first time. He played the
+Tschaikovsky concerto, and he played it wonderfully.
+His bowing, his fingering, his whole
+style and manner of playing so greatly impressed
+me that I felt I <i>must</i> have his teacher,
+that I would never be content unless I studied
+with Professor Auer! In 1912 I at length
+had an opportunity to play for the Professor in
+his home at Loschivitz, in Dresden, and to
+my great joy he at once accepted me as a pupil.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />STUDYING WITH PROFESSOR AUER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Studying with Professor Auer was a
+revelation. I had private lessons from him,
+and at the same time attended the classes at
+the Petrograd Conservatory. I should say
+that his great specialty, if one can use the word
+specialty in the case of so universal a master
+of teaching as the Professor, was bowing. In
+all violin playing the left hand, the finger hand,
+might be compared to a perfectly adjusted
+technical machine, one that needs to be kept
+well oiled to function properly. The right
+hand, the bow hand, is the direct opposite&mdash;it
+is the painter hand, the artist hand, its phrasing
+outlines the pictures of music; its <i>nuances</i>
+fill them with beauty of color. And while the
+Professor insisted as a matter of course on
+the absolute development of finger mechanics,
+he was an inspiration as regards the right
+manipulation of the bow, and its use as a
+medium of interpretation. And he made his
+pupils think. Often, when I played a passage
+in a concerto or sonata and it lacked clearness,
+he would ask me: 'Why is this passage not
+clear?' Sometimes I knew and sometimes I
+did not. But not until he was satisfied that
+I could not myself answer the question, would
+he show me how to answer it. He could make
+every least detail clear, illustrating it on his
+own violin; but if the pupil could 'work out his
+own salvation' he always encouraged him to do
+so.</p>
+
+
+<!-- Picture of TOSCHA SEIDEL, Facing Page 220-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_220" id="F_Page_220"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p220a_m.jpg" width="544" height="700" alt="F_Page_220" title="TOSCHA SEIDEL" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Toscha Seidel</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;Most teachers make bowing a very complicated
+affair, adding to its difficulties. But Professor
+Auer develops a <i>natural</i> bowing, with
+an absolutely free wrist, in all his pupils; for
+he teaches each student along the line of his
+individual aptitudes. Hence the length of
+the fingers and the size of the hand make no
+difference, because in the case of each pupil
+they are treated as separate problems, capable
+of an individual solution. I have known of
+pupils who came to him with an absolutely stiff
+wrist; and yet he taught them to overcome it.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />ARTIST PUPILS AND AMATEUR STUDENTS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;As regards difficulties, technical and other,
+a distinction might be made between the artist
+and the average amateur. The latter does not
+make the violin his life work: it is an incidental.
+While he may reasonably content himself with
+playing well, the artist-pupil <i>must</i> achieve perfection.
+It is the difference between an accomplishment
+and an art. The amateur plays
+more or less for the sake of playing&mdash;the 'how'
+is secondary; but for the artist the 'how' comes
+first, and for him the shortest piece, a single
+scale, has difficulties of which the amateur is
+quite ignorant. And everything is difficult in
+its perfected sense. What I, as a student,
+found to be most difficult were double harmonics&mdash;I
+still consider them to be the most
+difficult thing in the whole range of violin technic.
+First of all, they call for a large hand,
+because of the wide stretches. But harmonics
+were one of the things I had to master before
+Professor Auer would allow me to appear in
+public. Some find tenths and octaves their
+stumbling block, but I cannot say that they
+ever gave me much trouble. After all, the
+main thing with any difficulty is to surmount
+it, and just <i>how</i> is really a secondary matter.
+I know Professor Auer used to say: 'Play with
+your feet if you must, but make the violin
+sound!' With tenths, octaves, sixths, with any
+technical frills, the main thing is to bring them
+out clearly and convincingly. And, rightly
+or wrongly, one must remember that when
+something does not sound out convincingly on
+the violin, it is not the fault of the weather, or
+the strings or rosin or anything else&mdash;it is always
+the artist's own fault!</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />HOW TO STUDY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Scale study&mdash;all Auer pupils had to practice
+scales every day, scales in all the intervals&mdash;is
+a most important thing. And following
+his idea of stimulating the pupil's self-development,
+the Professor encouraged us to
+find what we needed ourselves. I remember
+that once&mdash;we were standing in a corridor of
+the Conservatory&mdash;when I asked him, 'What
+should I practice in the way of studies?' he answered:
+'Take the difficult passages from the
+great concertos. You cannot improve on them,
+for they are as good, if not better, as any
+studies written.' As regards technical work
+we were also encouraged to think out our own
+exercises. And this I still do. When I feel
+that my thirds and sixths need attention I practice
+scales and original figurations in these
+intervals. But genuine, resultful practice is
+something that should never be counted by
+'hours.' Sometimes I do not touch my violin
+all day long; and one hour with head work is
+worth any number of days without it. At the
+most I never practice more than three hours a
+day. And when my thoughts are fixed on other
+things it would be time lost to try to practice
+seriously. Without technical control a violinist
+could not be a great artist; for he could not
+express himself. Yet a great artist can give
+even a technical study, say a Rode <i>&eacute;tude</i>, a
+quality all its own in playing it. That technic,
+however, is a means, not an end, Professor
+Auer never allowed his pupils to forget. He is
+a wonderful master of interpretation. I
+studied the great concertos with him&mdash;Beethoven,
+Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tschaikovsky, <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'Dvor&aacute;k'">Dvo&#345;&aacute;k</ins>,
+the Brahms concerto (which I prefer to
+any other); the Vieuxtemps Fifth and Lalo
+(both of which I have heard Ysaye, that supreme
+artist who possesses all that an artist
+should have, play in Berlin); the Elgar concerto
+(a fine work which I once heard Kreisler,
+an artist as great as he is modest, play wonderfully
+in Petrograd), as well as other concertos
+of the standard repertory. And Professor Auer
+always sought to have us play as individuals;
+and while he never allowed us to overstep the
+boundaries of the musically esthetic, he gave
+our individuality free play within its limits.
+He never insisted on a pupil accepting his own
+<i>nuances</i> of interpretation because they were
+his. I know that when playing for him, if I
+came to a passage which demanded an especially
+beautiful <i>legato</i> rendering, he would say:
+'Now show how you can sing!' The exquisite
+<i>legato</i> he taught was all a matter of perfect
+bowing, and as he often said: 'There must be
+no such thing as strings or hair in the pupil's
+consciousness. One must not play violin, one
+must sing violin!'</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />FIDDLE AND STRINGS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not see how any artist can use an instrument
+which is quite new to him in concert.
+I never play any but my own Guadagnini,
+which is a fine fiddle, with a big, sonorous tone.
+As to wire strings, I hate them! In the first
+place, a wire E sounds distinctly different to
+the artist than does a gut E. And it is a difference
+which any violinist will notice. Then,
+too, the wire E is so thin that the fingers have
+nothing to take hold of, to touch firmly. And
+to me the metallic vibrations, especially on the
+open strings, are most disagreeable. Of
+course, from a purely practical standpoint
+there is much to be said for the wire E.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What is violin mastery as I understand it?
+First of all it means talent, secondly technic,
+and in the third place, tone. And then one
+must be musical in an all-embracing sense to
+attain it. One must have musical breadth and
+understanding in general, and not only in a
+narrowly violinistic sense. And, finally, the
+good God must give the artist who aspires to
+be a master good hands, and direct him to a
+good teacher!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>XX</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />EDMUND SEVERN</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JOACHIM BOWING AND OTHERS:<br />
+THE LEFT HAND</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Edmund Severn's activity in the field of
+violin music is a three-fold one: he is a composer,
+an interpreting artist and a teacher, and
+his fortuitous control of the three vital phases
+of his Art make his views as regards its study
+of very real value. The lover of string music
+in general would naturally attach more importance
+to his string quartet in D major,
+his trio for violin, 'cello and piano, his violin
+concerto in D minor, the sonata, the &quot;Oriental,&quot;
+&quot;Italian,&quot; &quot;New England&quot; suites for violin,
+and the fine suite in A major, for two violins
+and piano, than to his symphonic poems
+for orchestra, his choral works and his songs.
+And those in search of hints to aid them to
+master the violin would be most interested in
+having the benefit of his opinions as a teacher,
+founded on long experience and keen observation.
+Since Mr. Severn is one of those teachers
+who are born, not made, and is interested
+heart and soul in this phase of his musical work,
+it was not difficult to draw him out.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE JOACHIM BOWING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;My first instructor in the violin was my
+father, the pioneer violin teacher of Hartford,
+Conn., where my boyhood was passed, and then
+I studied with Franz Milcke and Bernard
+Listemann, concertmaster of the Boston
+Symphony Orchestra. But one day I happened
+to read a few lines reprinted in the <i>Metronome</i>
+from some European source, which
+quoted Wilhelmj as saying that Emanuel
+Wirth, Joachim's first assistant at the Berlin
+<i>Hochschule</i>, 'was the best teacher of his generation.'
+This was enough for me: feeling
+that the best could be none too good, I made
+up my mind to go to him. And I did. Wirth
+was the viola of the Joachim Quartet, and
+probably a better teacher than was Joachim
+himself. Violin teaching was a cult with him,
+a religion; and I think he believed God had
+sent him to earth to teach fiddle. Like all the
+teachers at the <i>Hochschule</i> he taught the regular
+'Joachim' bowing&mdash;they were obliged to
+teach it&mdash;as far as it could be taught, for it
+could not be taught every one. And that is
+the real trouble with the 'Joachim' bowing. It
+is impossible to make a general application of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Joachim had a very long arm and when he
+played at the point of the bow his arm position
+was approximately the same as that of the
+average player at the middle of the bow.
+Willy Hess was a perfect exponent of the Joachim
+method of bowing. Why? Because he
+had a very long arm. But at the <i>Hochschule</i>
+the Joachim bowing was compulsory: they
+taught, or tried to teach, all who came there
+to use it without exception; boys or girls whose
+arms chanced to be long enough could acquire
+it, but big men with short arms had no chance
+whatever. Having a medium long arm, by
+dint of hard work I managed to get my bowing
+to suit Wirth; yet I always felt at a disadvantage
+at the point of the bow, in spite of the
+fact that after my return to the United States
+I taught the Joachim bowing for fully eight
+years.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, when he first came here, I heard and
+saw Ysaye play, and I noticed how greatly
+his bowing differed from that of Joachim, the
+point being that his first finger was always in
+a position to press <i>naturally</i> without the least
+stiffness. This led me to try to find a less
+constrained bowing for myself, working along
+perfectly natural lines. The Joachim bowing
+demands a high wrist; but in the case of the
+Belgian school an easy position at the point is
+assumed naturally. And it is not hard to understand
+that if the bow be drawn parallel
+with the bridge, allowing for the least possible
+movement of hands and wrist, the greatest
+economy of motion, there is no contravention
+of the laws of nature and playing is natural
+and unconstrained.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this applies to every student of the instrument,
+whether or no he has a long arm.
+While I was studying in Berlin, Sarasate
+played there in public, with the most natural
+and unhampered grace and freedom in the use
+of his bow. Yet the entire <i>Hochschule</i> contingent
+unanimously condemned his bowing
+as being 'stiff'&mdash;merely because it did not conform
+to the Joachim tradition. Of course,
+there is no question but that Joachim was the
+greatest quartet player of his time; and with
+regard to the interpretation of the classics he
+was not to be excelled. His conception of
+Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms was wonderful.
+The insistence at the <i>Hochschule</i> on
+forcing the bowing which was natural to him
+on all others, irrespective of physical adaptability,
+is a matter of regret. Wirth was somewhat
+deficient in teaching left hand technic,
+as compared with, let us say, Schradieck.
+Wirth's real strength lay in his sincerity and
+his ability to make clear the musical contents
+of the works of the great masters. In a Beethoven
+or Spohr concerto he made a pupil give
+its due emphasis to every single note.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A PRE-TEACHING REQUISITE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Before the violin student can even begin
+to study, there are certain pre-teaching requisites
+which are necessary if the teacher is
+to be of any service to him. The violin is a
+singing instrument, and therefore the first
+thing called for is a good singing tone. That
+brings up an important point&mdash;the proper adjustment
+of the instrument used by the student.
+If his lessons are to be of real benefit
+to him, the component parts of the instrument,
+post, bridge, bass-bar, strings, etc., must be
+accurately adjusted, in order that the sound
+values are what they should be.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From the teaching standpoint it is far more
+important that whatever violin the student has
+is one properly built and adjusted, than that
+it be a fine instrument. And the bow must
+have the right amount of spring, of elasticity
+in its stick. A poor bow will work more harm
+than a poor fiddle, for if the bow is poor, if it
+lacks the right resilience, the student cannot
+acquire the correct bow pressure. He cannot
+play <i>spiccato</i> or any of the 'bouncing' bowings,
+including various forms of arpeggios, with a
+poor stick.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />DRAWING A LONG BOW</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;When I say that the student should 'draw
+a long bow,'&quot; continued Mr. Severn with a
+smile, &quot;I do not say so at a venture. If his
+instrument and bow are in proper shape, this
+is the next thing for the student to do. Ever
+since Tartini's time it has been acknowledged
+that nothing can take the place of the study
+of the long bow, playing in all shades of dynamics,
+from <i>pp</i> to <i>ff</i>, and with all the inflections
+of <i>crescendo</i> and <i>diminuendo</i>. Part of
+this study should consist of 'mute' exercises&mdash;not
+playing, but drawing the bow <i>above the
+strings</i>, to its full length, resting at either end.
+This ensures bow control. One great difficulty
+is that as a rule the teacher cannot induce
+pupils to practice these 'mute' exercises,
+in spite of their unquestionable value. All the
+great masters of the violin have used them.
+Viotti thought so highly of them that he taught
+them only to his favorite pupils. And even
+to-day some distinguished violinists play
+dumb exercises before stepping on the recital
+stage. They are one of the best means that
+we have for control of the violinistic nervous
+system.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />WRIST-BOWING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Wrist-bowing is one of the bowings in
+which the student should learn to feel absolutely
+and naturally at home. To my thinking
+the German way of teaching wrist-bowing
+is altogether wrong. Their idea is to keep
+the fingers neutral, and let the stick move the
+fingers! Yet this is wrong&mdash;for the player
+holds his bow at the finger-tips, that terminal
+point of the fingers where the tactile nerves
+are most highly developed, and where their
+direct contact with the bow makes possible the
+greatest variety of dynamic effect, and also
+allows the development of far greater speed
+in short bowings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Though the Germans say 'Think of the
+wrist!' I think with the Belgians: Put your
+mind where you touch and hold the bow, concentrate
+on your fingers. In other words,
+when you make your bow change, do not make
+it according to the Joachim method, with the
+wrist, but in the natural way, with the fingers
+always in command. In this manner only will
+you get the true wrist motion.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />STACCATO AND OTHER BOWINGS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;After all, there are only two general principles
+in violin playing, the long and short bow,
+<i>legato</i> and <i>staccato</i>. Many a teacher finds it
+very difficult to teach <i>staccato</i> correctly, which
+may account for the fact that many pupils find
+it hard to learn. The main reason is that, in
+a sense, <i>staccato</i> is opposed to the nature of
+the violin as a singing instrument. To produce
+a true <i>staccato</i> and not a 'scratchato' it
+is absolutely necessary, while exerting the
+proper pressure and movement, to keep the
+muscles loose. I have evolved a simple
+method for quickly achieving the desired result
+in <i>staccato</i>. First I teach the attack in
+the middle of the bow, without drawing the
+bow and as though pressing a button: I have
+pupils press up with the thumb and down with
+the first finger, with all muscles relaxed. This,
+when done correctly, produces a sudden sharp
+attack.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, I have the pupil place his bow in the
+middle, in position to draw a down-stroke from
+the wrist, the bow-hair being pressed and held
+against the string. A quick down-bow follows
+with an immediate release of the string.
+Repeating the process, use the up-stroke. The
+finished product is merely the combination of
+these two exercises&mdash;drawing and attacking
+simultaneously. I have never failed to give a
+pupil a good <i>staccato</i> by this exercise, which
+comprises the principle of all genuine <i>staccato</i>
+playing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the most difficult of all bowings is
+the simple up-and-down stroke used in the second
+Kreutzer <i>&eacute;tude</i>, that is to say, the bowing
+between the middle and point of the bow, <i>t&ecirc;te
+d'archet</i>, as the French call it. This bowing
+is played badly on the violin more often than
+any other. It demands constant rapid changing
+and, as most pupils play it, the <i>legato</i> quality
+is noticeably absent. Too much emphasis
+cannot be laid on the truth that the 'singing
+stroke' should be employed for all bowings,
+long or short. Often pupils who play quite
+well show a want of true <i>legato</i> quality in their
+tone, because there is no connection between
+their bowing in rapid work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Individual bowings should always be practiced
+separately. I always oblige my pupils
+to practice all bowings on the open strings, and
+in all combinations of the open strings, because
+this allows them to concentrate on the bowing
+itself, to the exclusion of all else; and they advance
+far more quickly. Students should
+never be compelled to learn new bowings while
+they have to think of their fingers at the same
+time: we cannot serve two masters simultaneously!
+All in all, bowing is most important in
+violin technic, for control of the bow means
+much toward mastery of the violin.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE LEFT HAND</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;It is evident, however, that the correct use
+of the left hand is of equal importance. It
+seems not to be generally known that finger-pressure
+has much to do with tone-quality.
+The correct poise of the left hand, as conspicuously
+shown by Heifetz for instance, throws
+the extreme tips of the fingers hammerlike on
+the strings, and renders full pressure of the
+string easy. Correctly done, a brilliance results,
+especially in scale and passage work,
+which can be acquired in no other manner, each
+note partaking somewhat of the quality of the
+open string. As for intonation&mdash;that is
+largely a question of listening. To really listen
+to oneself is as necessary as it is rare. It
+would take a volume to cover that subject
+alone. We hear much about the use of the
+<i>vibrato</i> these days. It was not so when I was
+a student. I can remember when it was
+laughed at by the purists as an Italian evidence
+of bad taste. My teachers decried it, yet if we
+could hear the great players of the past, we
+would be astonished at their frugal use of it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One should remember in this connection
+that there was a conflict among singers for
+many years as to whether the straight tone as
+cultivated by the English oratorio singers, or
+the vibrated tone of the Italians were correct.
+As usual, Nature won out. The correctly vibrated
+voice outlasted the other form of production,
+thus proving its lawful basis. But
+to-day the <i>vibrato</i> is frequently made to cover
+a multitude of violin sins.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is accepted by many as a substitute for
+genuine warmth and it is used as a <i>camouflage</i>
+to 'put over' some very bad art in the shape of
+poor tone-quality, intonation and general sloppiness
+of technic. Why, then, has it come into
+general use during the last twenty-five years?
+Simply because it is based on the correctly
+produced human voice. The old players, especially
+those of the German school, said, and
+some still say, the <i>vibrato</i> should only be used
+at the climax of a melody. If we listen to a
+Sembrich or a Bonci, however, we hear a vibration
+on every tone. Let us not forget that
+the violin is a singing instrument and that even
+Joachim said: 'We must imitate the human
+voice,' This, I think, disposes of the case
+finally and we must admit that every little boy
+or girl with a natural <i>vibrato</i> is more correct
+in that part of his tone-production than many
+of the great masters of the past. As the Negro
+pastor said: 'The world do move!'</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Are 'mastery of the violin' and 'Violin
+Mastery' synonymous in my mind? Yes and
+no: 'Violin Mastery' may be taken to mean
+that technical mastery wherewith one is enabled
+to perform any work in the entire literature
+of the instrument with precision, but not
+necessarily with feeling for its beauty or its
+emotional content. In this sense, in these days
+of improved violin pedagogy, such mastery is
+not uncommon. But 'Violin Mastery' may
+also be understood to mean, not merely a cold
+though flawless technic, but its living, glowing
+product when used to express the emotions
+suggested by the music of the masters. This
+latter kind of violin mastery is rare indeed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One who makes technic an end travels light,
+and should reach his destination more quickly.
+But he whose goal is music with its thousand-hued
+beauties, with its call for the exertion of
+human and spiritual emotion, sets forth on a
+journey without end. It is plain, however,
+that this is the only journey worth taking with
+the violin as a traveling companion. 'Violin
+Mastery', then, means to me technical proficiency
+used to the highest extent possible, for
+artistic ends!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>XXI</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />ALBERT SPALDING</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE<br />
+DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />For the duration of the war Albert Spalding
+the violinist became Albert Spalding
+the soldier. As First Lieutenant in the Aviation
+Service, U.S.A., he maintained the
+ideals of civilization on the Italian front
+with the same devotion he gave to those of Art
+in the piping times of peace. As he himself
+said not so very long ago: &quot;You cannot do two
+things, and do them properly, at the same time.
+At the present moment there is more music
+for me in the factories gloriously grinding out
+planes and motors than in a symphony of Beethoven.
+And to-day I would rather run on
+an office-boy's errand for my country and do
+it as well as I can, if it's to serve my country,
+than to play successfully a Bach Chaconne;
+and I would rather hear a well directed battery
+of American guns blasting the Road of
+Peace and Victorious Liberty than the combined
+applause of ten thousand audiences. For
+it is my conviction that Art has as much at
+stake in this War as Democracy.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of ALBERT SPALDING, Facing Page 240-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_240" id="F_Page_240"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p240a_m.jpg" width="489" height="700" alt="F_Page_240" title="ALBERT SPALDING" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="centered"><table border="0" width="489" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Copyright">
+<tr><td class="copyright"><i>Copyright by Matzene, Chicago</i></td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class="centered"><span class="smcap"><b>Albert Spalding</b></span><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Yet Lieutenant Spalding, despite the arduous
+demands of his patriotic duties, found
+time to answer some questions of the writer in
+the interests of &quot;Violin Mastery&quot; which, representing
+the views and opinions of so eminent
+and distinctively American a violinist, cannot
+fail to interest every lover of the Art. Writing
+from Rome (Sept. 9, 1918), Lieutenant Spalding
+modestly said that his answers to the questions
+asked &quot;will have to be simple and short,
+because my time is very limited, and then, too,
+having been out of music for more than a year,
+I feel it difficult to deal in more than a general
+way with some of the questions asked.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;As to 'Violin Mastery'? To me it means
+effortless mastery of details; the correlating of
+them into a perfect whole; the subjecting of
+them to the expression of an architecture which
+is music. 'Violin Mastery' means technical
+mastery in every sense of the word. It means
+a facility which will enable the interpreter to
+forget difficulties, and to express at once in a
+language that will seem clear, simple and eloquent,
+that which in the hands of others appears
+difficult, obtuse and dull.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT<br />
+OF AN ARTIST</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;As to the processes, mental and technical,
+which make an artist? These different processes,
+mental and technical, are too many, too
+varied and involved to invite an answer in a
+short space of time. Suffice it to say that the
+most <i>important</i> mental process, to my mind, is
+the development of a perception of beauty.
+All the perseverance in the study of music, all
+the application devoted to it, is not worth a
+tinker's dam, unless accompanied by this
+awakening to the perception of beauty. And
+with regard to the influence of teachers? Since
+all teachers vary greatly, the student should
+not limit himself to his own personal masters.
+The true student of Art should be able to derive
+benefit and instruction from every beautiful
+work of Art that he hears or sees; otherwise
+he will be limited by the technical and
+mental limitations of his own prejudices and
+jealousies. One's greatest difficulties may
+turn out to be one's greatest aids in striving
+toward artistic results. By this I mean that
+nothing is more fatally pernicious for the true
+artist than the precocious facility which invites
+cheap success. Therefore I make the statement
+that one's greatest difficulties are one's
+greatest facilities.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A LESS DEVELOPED PHASE OF VIOLIN TECHNIC</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;In the technical field, the phase of violin
+technic which is less developed, it seems to me
+is, in most cases, bowing. One often notes a
+highly developed left hand technic coupled
+with a monotonous and oftentimes faulty bowing.
+The <i>color</i> and <i>variety</i> of a violinist's art
+must come largely from his intimate acquaintance
+with all that can be accomplished by the
+bow arm. The break or change from a down-bow
+to an up-bow, or <i>vice versa</i>, should be under
+such control as to make it perceptible only
+when it may be desirable to use it for color or
+accentuation.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />GOOD AND BAD HANDS: MENTAL STUDY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The influence of the physical conformation
+of bow hand and string hand on actual playing?
+There are no 'good' or 'bad' bow hands
+or string hands (unless they be deformed);
+there are only 'good' and 'bad' heads. By this
+I mean that the finest development of technic
+comes from the head, not from the hand.
+Quickness of thought and action is what distinguishes
+the easy player from the clumsy
+player. Students should develop mental
+study even of technical details&mdash;this, of course,
+in addition to the physical practice; for this
+mental study is of the highest importance in
+developing the student so that he can gain that
+effortless mastery of detail of which I have
+already spoken.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CONCERT ATTENDANCE<br />
+FOR THE STUDENT</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Concerts undoubtedly have great value in
+developing the student technically and mentally;
+but too often they have a directly contrary
+effect. I think there is a very doubtful
+benefit to be derived from the present
+habit, as illustrated in New York, London, or
+other centers, of the student attending concerts,
+sometimes as many as two or three a day.
+This habit dwarfs the development of real appreciation,
+as the student, under these conditions,
+can little appreciate true works of art
+when he has crammed his head so full of truck,
+and worn out his faculties of concentration until
+listening to music becomes a mechanical
+mental process. The <i>indiscriminate</i> attending
+of concerts, to my mind, has an absolutely pernicious
+effect on the student.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />NATIONALITY AS A FORMATIVE INFLUENCE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Nationality and national feeling have a
+very real influence in the development of an
+artist; but this influence is felt subconsciously
+more than consciously, and it reacts more on
+the creative than on the interpretative artist.
+By this I mean that the interpretative artist,
+while reserving the right to his individual expression,
+should subject himself to what he
+considers to have been the artistic impulse, the
+artistic intentions of the composer. As to type
+music to whose appeal I as an American am
+susceptible, I confess to a very sympathetic
+reaction to the syncopated rhythms known as
+'rag-time,' and which appear to be especially
+American in character.&quot; For the benefit of
+those readers who may not chance to know it,
+Lieutenant Spalding's &quot;Alabama,&quot; a Southern
+melody and dance in plantation style, for
+violin and piano, represents a very delightful
+creative exploitation of these rhythms. The
+writer makes mention of the fact since with regard
+to this and other of his own compositions
+Lieutenant Spalding would only state: &quot;I
+felt that I had something to say and, therefore,
+tried to say it. Whether what I have to
+say is of any interest to others is not for me to
+judge.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />PLAYING WHILE IN SERVICE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Do I play at all while in Service? I gave
+up all playing in public when entering the
+Army a year ago, and to a great extent all
+private playing as well. I have on one or two
+occasions played at charity concerts during the
+past year, once in Rome, and once in the little
+town in Italy near the aviation camp at which
+I was stationed at the time. I have purposely
+refused all other requests to play because one
+cannot do two things at once, and do them
+properly. My time now belongs to my country:
+When we have peace again I shall hope
+once more to devote it to Art.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>XXII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />THEODORE SPIERING</h2>
+
+<h3>THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO<br />
+THE STUDY OF KREUTZER</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />A. Walter Kramer has said: &quot;Mr. Spiering
+knows how serious a study can be made of
+the violin, because he has made it. He has investigated
+the 'how' and 'why' of every detail,
+and what he has to say about the violin is the
+utterance of a big musician, one who has mastered
+the instrument.&quot; And Theodore Spiering,
+solo artist and conductor, as a teacher has
+that wider horizon which has justified the
+statement made that &quot;he is animated by the
+thoughts and ideals which stimulate a Godowsky
+or Busoni.&quot; Such being the case, it was
+with unmixed satisfaction that the writer found
+Mr. Spiering willing to give him the benefit
+of some of those constructive ideas of his as regards
+violin study which have established his
+reputation so prominently in that field.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />TWO TYPES OF STUDENTS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;There are certain underlying principles
+which govern every detail of the violinist's
+Art,&quot; said Mr. Spiering, &quot;and unless the violinist
+fully appreciates their significance, and
+has the intelligence and patience to apply them
+in everything he does, he will never achieve
+that absolute command over his instrument
+which mastery implies.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a peculiar fact that a large percentage
+of students&mdash;probably believing that they can
+reach their goal by a short cut&mdash;resent the
+mental effort required to master these principles,
+the passive resistance, evident in their
+work, preventing them from deriving true
+benefit from their studies. They form that
+large class which learns merely by imitation,
+and invariably retrograde the moment they are
+no longer under the teacher's supervision.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The smaller group, with an analytical bent
+of mind, largely subject themselves to the
+needed mental drill and thus provide for themselves
+that inestimable basic quality that
+makes them independent and capable of developing
+their talent to its full fruition.</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of THEODORE SPIERING, Facing Page 248-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_248" id="F_Page_248"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p248a_m.jpg" width="531" height="700" alt="F_Page_248" title="THEODORE SPIERING" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Theodore Spiering</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h4><br />MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROCESSES CO&Ouml;RDINATED</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The conventional manner of teaching provided
+an inordinate number of mechanical exercises
+in order to overcome so called 'technical
+difficulties.' Only the <i>prima facie</i> disturbance,
+however, was thus taken into consideration&mdash;not
+its actual cause. The result
+was, that notwithstanding the great amount of
+labor thus expended, the effort had to be repeated
+each time the problem was confronted.
+Aside from the obviously uncertain results secured
+in this manner, it meant deadening of
+the imagination and cramping of interpretative
+possibilities. It is only possible to reduce
+to a minimum the element of chance by scrupulously
+carrying out the dictates of the laws
+governing vital principles. Analysis and the
+severest self-criticism are the means of determination
+as to whether theory and practice
+conform with one another.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Mental preparedness</i> (Marcus Aurelius
+calls it 'the good ordering of the mind') is the
+keynote of technical control. Together with
+the principle of <i>relaxation</i> it provides the
+player with the most effective means of establishing
+precise and sensitive co&ouml;peration between
+mental and physical processes. Muscular
+relaxation at will is one of the results of
+this co&ouml;peration. It makes sustained effort
+possible (counteracting the contraction ordinarily
+resulting therefrom), and it is freedom
+of movement more than anything else that
+tends to establish confidence.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE TWO-FOLD VALUE OF CELEBRATED STUDY WORKS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The study period of the average American
+is limited. It has been growing less year by
+year. Hence the teacher has had to redouble
+his efforts. The desire to give my pupils the
+essentials of technical control in their most concentrated
+and immediately applicable form,
+have led me to evolve a series of 'bow exercises,'
+which, however, do not merely pursue
+a mechanical purpose. Primarily enforcing
+the carrying out of basic principles as pertaining
+to the bow&mdash;and establishing or correcting
+(as the case may be) arm and hand (right
+arm) positions, they supply the means of creating
+a larger interpretative style.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I use the Kreutzer studies as the medium of
+these bow-exercises, since the application of
+new technical ideas is easier when the music itself
+is familiar to the student. I have a two-fold
+object in mind when I review these studies
+in my particular manner, technic and appreciation.
+I might add that not only Kreutzer,
+but Fiorillo and Rode&mdash;in fact all the celebrated
+'Caprices,' with the possible exception
+of those of Paganini&mdash;are viewed almost entirely
+from the purely technical side, as belonging
+to the classroom, because their musical
+qualities have not been sufficiently pointed out.
+Rode, in particular, is a veritable musical treasure
+trove.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES<br />
+TO THE STUDY OF KREUTZER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;How do I use the Kreutzer studies to develop
+style and technic? By making the student
+study them in such wise that the following
+principles are emphasized in his work:
+<i>control before action</i> (mental direction at all
+times); <i>relaxation</i>; and <i>observance of string
+levels</i>; for unimpeded movement is more important
+than pressure as regards the carrying
+tone. These principles are among the most
+important pertaining to right arm technic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Study No. 2 (version 1, up-strokes only,
+version 2, down-strokes only), I have my pupils
+use the full arm stroke (<i>grand detach&eacute;</i>).
+In version 1, the bow is taken from the string
+after completion of stroke&mdash;but in such a way
+that the vibrations of the string are not interfered
+with. Complete relaxation is insured by
+release of the thumb&mdash;the bow being caught
+in a casual manner, third and fourth fingers
+slipping from their normal position on stick&mdash;and
+holding, but not tightly clasping, the bow.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Version 2 calls for a <i>return down-stroke</i>,
+the return part of the stroke being accomplished
+over the string, but making no division
+in stroke, no hesitating before the return. Relaxation
+is secured as before. Rapidity of
+stroke, elimination of impediment (faulty hand
+or arm position and unnecessary upper arm
+action), is the aim of this exercise. The pause
+between each stroke&mdash;caused by relinquishing
+the hold on the bow&mdash;reminds the student that
+mental control should at all times be paramount:
+that analysis of technical detail is of
+vital importance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Study No. 7 I employ the same vigorous
+full arm strokes as in No. 2: the up and
+down bows as indicated in the original version.
+The bow is raised from the strings after
+each note, by means of hand (little finger, first
+and thumb) not by arm action. Normal hand
+position is retained: thumb not released.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The <i>observance of string levels</i> is very essential.
+While the stroke is in progress the
+arm must not leave its level in an anticipatory
+movement to reach the next level. Especially
+after the down-stroke is it advisable to verify
+the arm position with regard to this feature.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No. 8 affords opportunity for a <i>r&eacute;sum&eacute;</i> of
+the work done in Nos. 2 and 7:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p290_1a.png" width="319" height="104" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>&quot;It is evident that the tempo of this study
+must be very much reduced in speed. The <i>return</i>
+down-stroke as in No. 2: the <i>second</i>
+down-stroke as in No. 7: the up-strokes as in
+No. 2.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Study No. 5 I use the hand-stroke only&mdash;at
+the frog&mdash;arm absolutely immobile, with
+no attempt at tone. This exercise represents
+the first attempt at dissecting the <i>martel&eacute;</i>
+idea: precise timing of pressure, movement
+(stroke), and relaxation. The pause between
+the strokes is utilized to learn the value of left
+hand preparedness, with the fingers in place
+before bow action.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Study No. 13 I develop the principles
+of string crossing, of the extension stroke, and
+articulation. String crossing is the main feature
+of the exercise. I employ three versions,
+in order to accomplish my aim. In version 1
+I consider only the crossing from a higher to
+a lower level:</p>
+
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p291_1a.png" width="330" height="98" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>version 2:</p>
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p291_1b.png" width="240" height="106" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+<p>version 3 is the original version. In versions
+1 and 2 I omit all repetitions:</p>
+
+<!-- [Illustration: Musical Notation] -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p291_1c.png" width="256" height="105" alt="Music notation" />
+
+<br /></div>
+
+
+
+<p>Articulation is one of the main points at issue&mdash;the
+middle note is generally inarticulate.
+For further string crossing analysis I use
+Kreutzer's No. 25. Study No. 10 I carry out
+as a <i>martel&eacute;</i> study, with the string crossing
+very much in evidence; establishing observance
+of the notes occurring on the same string level,
+consequently compelling a more judicious use
+of the so-called wrist movement (not merely
+developing a supple wrist, with indefinite
+crossing movements, which in many cases are
+applied by the player without regard to actual
+string crossing) and in consequence securing
+stability of bow on string when string level is
+not changed, this result being secured even in
+rapid passage work.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In Studies 11, 19 and 21 I cover shifting
+and left thumb action: in No. 9, finger action&mdash;flexibility
+and evenness, the left thumb relaxed&mdash;the
+fundamental idea of the trill. After the
+<i>interrupted</i> types of bowing (grand <i>detach&eacute;</i>,
+<i>martel&eacute;</i>, <i>staccato</i>) have been carefully studied,
+the <i>continuous</i> types (<i>detach&eacute;</i>, <i>legato</i> and <i>spiccato</i>)
+are then taken up, and in part the same
+studies again used: 2, 7, 8. Lastly the slurred
+<i>legato</i> comes under consideration (Studies 9,
+11, 14, 22, 27, 29). Shifting, extension and
+string crossing have all been previously considered,
+and hence the <i>legato</i> should be allowed
+to take its even course.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Although I do, temporarily, place these
+studies on a purely mechanical level, I am convinced
+that they thus serve to call into being
+a broader <i>musical</i> appreciation for the whole
+set. For I have found that in spite of the fact
+that pupils who come to me have all played
+their Kreutzer, with very few exceptions have
+they realized the musical message which it contains.
+The time when the student body will
+have learned to depict successfully musical
+character&mdash;even in studies and caprices&mdash;will
+mark the fulfillment of the teacher's task with
+regard to the cultivation of the right arm&mdash;which
+is essentially the teacher's domain.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SOME OF MR. SPIERING'S OWN STUDY SOUVENIRS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;It may interest you to know,&quot; Mr. Spiering
+said in reply to a question, &quot;that I began my
+teaching career in Chicago immediately following
+my four years with Joachim in Berlin.
+It was natural that I should first commit
+myself to the pedagogic methods of the <i>Hochschule</i>,
+which to a great extent, however, I discarded
+as my own views crystallized. I found
+that too much emphasis allotted the wrist
+stroke (a misnomer, by the way), was bound
+to result in too academic a style. By transferring
+primary importance to the control of
+the full arm-stroke&mdash;with the hand-stroke incidentally
+completing the control&mdash;I felt that
+I was better able to reflect the larger interpretative
+ideals which my years of musical development
+were creating for me. Chamber
+music&mdash;a youthful passion&mdash;led me to interest
+myself in symphonic work and conducting.
+These activities not only reacted favorably on
+my solo playing, but influenced my development
+as regards the broader, more dramatic
+style, the grand manner in interpretation. It
+is this realization that places me in a position
+to earnestly advise the ambitious student not
+to disregard the great artistic benefits to be
+derived from the cultivation of chamber music
+and symphonic playing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I might call my teaching ideals a combination
+of those of the Franco-Belgian and German
+schools. To the former I attribute my
+preference for the large sweep of the bow-arm,
+its style and tonal superiority; to the latter,
+vigor of interpretation and attention to musical
+detail.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN MASTERY</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;How do I define 'Violin Mastery'? The
+violinist who has succeeded in eliminating all
+superfluous tension or physical resistance,
+whose mental control is such that the technic
+of the left hand and right arm has become coordinate,
+thus forming a perfect mechanism
+not working at cross-purposes; who, furthermore,
+is so well poised that he never oversteps
+the boundaries of good taste in his interpretations,
+though vitally alive to the human element;
+who, finally, has so broad an outlook on
+life and Art that he is able to reveal the transcendent
+spirit characterizing the works of the
+great masters&mdash;such a violinist has truly attained
+mastery!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>XXIII</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />JACQUES THIBAUD</h2>
+
+<h3>THE IDEAL PROGRAM</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />Jacques Thibaud, whose gifts as an interpreting
+artist have brought him so many
+friends and admirers in the United States, is
+the foremost representative of the modern
+French school of violin-playing. And as such
+he has held his own ever since, at the age of
+twenty, he resigned his rank as concert-master
+of the Colonne orchestra, to dedicate his talents
+exclusively to the concert stage. So great
+an authority as the last edition of the Riemann
+<i>Musik-Lexicon</i> cannot forbear, even in 1915,
+to emphasize his &quot;technic, absolutely developed
+in its every detail, and his fiery and poetic manner
+of interpretation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Thibaud does not see any great difference
+between the ideals of <i>la grande &eacute;cole
+belge</i>, that of Vieuxtemps, De B&eacute;riot, L&eacute;onard,
+Massart and Marsick, whose greatest
+present-day exponent is Eug&egrave;ne Ysaye, and
+the French. Himself a pupil of Marsick, he
+inherited the French traditions of Alard
+through his father, who was Alard's pupil and
+handed them on to his son. &quot;The two schools
+have married and are as one,&quot; declared Mr.
+Thibaud. &quot;They may differ in the interpretation
+of music, but to me they seem to have
+merged so far as their systems of finger technic,
+bowing and tone production goes.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY TO OVERCOME</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me what is most difficult in playing
+the violin? It is bowing. Bowing makes
+up approximately eighty per cent. of the sum
+total of violinistic difficulties. One reason for
+it is that many teachers with excellent ideas on
+the subject present it to their pupils in too complicated
+a manner. The bow must be used in
+an absolutely natural way, and over elaboration
+in explaining what should be a simple and
+natural development often prevents the student
+from securing a good bowing, the end in
+view. Sarasate (he was an intimate friend of
+mine) always used his bow in the most natural
+way, his control of it was unsought and
+unconscious. Were I a teacher I should not
+say: 'You must bow as I do'; but rather: 'Find
+the way of bowing most convenient and natural
+to you and use it!' Bowing is largely a
+physical and individual matter. I am slender
+but have long, large fingers; Kreisler is a
+larger man than I am but his fingers are small.
+It stands to reason that there must be a difference
+in the way in which we hold and use the
+bow. The difference between a great and a
+mediocre teacher lies in the fact that the first
+recognizes that bowing is an individual matter,
+different in the case of each individual pupil;
+and that the greatest perfection is attained
+by the development of the individual's capabilities
+within his own norm.</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of JACQUES THIBAUD, Facing Page 260-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_260" id="F_Page_260"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p260a_m.jpg" width="475" height="700" alt="F_Page_260" title="JACQUES THIBAUD" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Jacques Thibaud</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<!-- Signature of JACQUES THIBAUD -->
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p260b_m.jpg" width="475" height="86" alt="F_Page_261" title="JACQUES THIBAUD SIGNATURE" />
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<h4><br />MARSICK AS A TEACHER</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Marsick was a teacher of this type. At
+each of the lessons I took from him at the <i>Conservatoire</i>
+(we went to him three days a week),
+he would give me a new <i>&eacute;tude</i>&mdash;Gavinies,
+Rode, Fiorillo, Dont&mdash;to prepare for the next
+lesson. We also studied all of Paganini, and
+works by Ernst and Spohr. For our bow
+technic he employed difficult passages made
+into <i>&eacute;tudes</i>. Scales&mdash;the violinist's daily
+bread&mdash;we practiced day in, day out. Marsick
+played the piano well, and could improvise
+marvelous accompaniments on his violin when
+his pupils played. I continued my studies
+with Marsick even after I left the <i>Conservatoire</i>.
+With him I believe that three essentials&mdash;absolute
+purity of pitch, equality of tone
+and sonority of tone, in connection with the
+bow&mdash;are the base on which everything else
+rests.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE MECHANICAL VERSUS THE NATURAL<br />
+IN VIOLIN PLAYING</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;Sev&#269;ik's purely soulless and mechanical
+system has undoubtedly produced a number
+of excellent mechanicians of the violin. But
+it has just as unquestionably killed real talent.
+Kubelik&mdash;there was a genuinely talented violinist!
+If he had had another teacher instead
+of Sev&#269;ik he would have been great, for he had
+great gifts. Even as it was he played well,
+but I consider him one of Sev&#269;ik's victims.
+As an illustration of how the technical point
+of view is thrust to the fore by this system
+I remember some fifteen years ago Kubelik
+and I were staying at the same villa in Monte-Carlo,
+where we were to play the Beethoven
+concerto, each of us, in concert, two days
+apart. Kubelik spent the live-long day before
+the concert practicing Sev&#269;ik exercises. I
+read and studied Beethoven's score, but did
+not touch my violin. I went to hear Kubelik
+play the concerto, and he played it well; but
+then, so did I, when my turn came. And I
+feel sure I got more out of it musically and
+spiritually, than I would have if instead of concentrating
+on its meaning, its musical message,
+I had prepared the concerto as a problem in
+violin mechanics whose key was contained in a
+number of dry technical exercises arbitrarily
+laid down.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Technic, in the case of the more advanced
+violinist, should not have a place in the foreground
+of his consciousness. I heard Rubinstein
+play when a boy&mdash;what did his false notes
+amount to compared with his wonderful manner
+of disclosing the spirit of the things he
+played! Plant&eacute;, the Parisian pianist, a kind
+of keyboard cyclone, once expressed the idea
+admirably to an English society lady. She
+had told him he was a greater pianist than
+Rubinstein, because the latter played so many
+wrong notes. 'Ah, Madame,' answered
+Plant&eacute;, 'I would rather be able to play Rubinstein's
+wrong notes than all my own correct
+ones.' A violinist's natural manner of playing
+is the one he should cultivate; since it is individual,
+it really represents him. And a
+teacher or a colleague of greater fame does him
+no kindness if he encourages him to distrust
+his own powers by too good naturedly 'showing'
+him how to do this, that or the other. I
+mean, when the student can work out his problem
+himself at the expense of a little initiative.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was younger I once had to play
+Bach's G minor fugue at a concert in Brussels.
+I was living at Ysaye's home, and since
+I had never played the composition in public
+before, I began to worry about its interpretation.
+So I asked Ysaye (thinking he would
+simply show me), 'How ought I to play this
+fugue?' The Master reflected a moment and
+then dashed my hopes by answering: <i>'Tu
+m'emb&ecirc;tes!'</i> (You bore me!) 'This fugue
+should be played well, that's all!' At first I
+was angry, but thinking it over, I realized that
+if he had shown me, I would have played it just
+as he did; while what he wanted me to do was
+to work out my own version, and depend on my
+own initiative&mdash;which I did, for I had no
+choice. It is by means of concentration on the
+higher, the interpretative phases of one's Art
+that the technical side takes its proper, secondary
+place. Technic does not exist for me
+in the sense of a certain quantity of mechanical
+work which I must do. I find it out of
+the question to do absolutely mechanical technical
+work of any length of time. In realizing
+the three essentials of good violin playing
+which I have already mentioned, Ysaye and
+Sarasate are my ideals.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />SARASATE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;All really good violinists are good artists.
+Sarasate, whom I knew so intimately and remember
+so well, was a pupil of Alard (my
+father's teacher). He literally sang on the
+violin, like a nightingale. His purity of intonation
+was remarkable; and his technical
+facility was the most extraordinary that I have
+ever seen. He handled his bow with unbelievable
+skill. And when he played, the unassuming
+grace of his movements won the
+hearts of his audiences and increased the enthusiasm
+awakened by his tremendous talent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We other violinists, all of us, occasionally
+play a false note, for we are not infallible;
+we may flat a little or sharp a little. But
+never, as often as I have heard Sarasate play,
+did I ever hear him play a wrong note, one not
+in perfect pitch. His Spanish things he
+played like a god! And he had a wonderful
+gift of phrasing which gave a charm hard to
+define to whatever he played. And playing in
+quartet&mdash;the greatest solo violinist does not always
+shine in this <i>genre</i>&mdash;he was admirable.
+Though he played all the standard repertory,
+Bach, Beethoven, etc., I can never forget his
+exquisite rendering of modern works, especially
+of a little composition by Raff, called
+<i>La F&eacute;e d'Amour</i>. He was the first to
+play the violin concertos of Saint-Sa&euml;ns,
+Lalo and Max Bruch. They were all written
+for him, and I doubt whether they
+would have been composed had not Sarasate
+been there to play them. Of course, in
+his own Spanish music he was unexcelled&mdash;a
+whole school of violin playing was born and
+died with him! He had a hobby for collecting
+canes. He had hundreds of them of all kinds,
+and every sovereign in Europe had contributed
+to his collection. I know Queen Christina of
+Spain gave him no less than twenty. He once
+gave me a couple of his canes, a great sign of
+favor with him. I have often played quartet
+with Sarasate, for he adored quartet playing,
+and these occasions are among my treasured
+memories.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />STRADIVARIUS AND GUARNERIUS PLAYERS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;My violin? It is a Stradivarius&mdash;the same
+which once belonged to the celebrated Baillot.
+I think it is good for a violin to rest, so during
+the three months when I am not playing in
+concert, I send my Stradivarius away to the
+instrument maker's, and only take it out about
+a month before I begin to play again in public.
+What do I use in the meantime? Caressa, the
+best violin maker in Paris, made me an exact
+copy of my own Strad, exact in every little detail.
+It is so good that sometimes, when circumstances
+compelled me to, I have used it in
+concert, though it lacks the tone-quality of the
+original. This under-study violin I can use
+for practice, and when I go back to the original,
+as far as the handling of the instrument is concerned,
+I never know the difference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I do not think that every one plays to
+the best advantage on a Strad. I'm a believer
+in the theory that there are natural Guarnerius
+players and natural Stradivarius players;
+that certain artists do their best with the one,
+and certain others with the other. And I also
+believe that any one who is 'equally' good in
+both, is great on neither. The reason I believe
+in Guarnerius players and Stradivarius players
+as distinct is this. Some years ago I had
+a sudden call to play in Ostende. It was a
+concert engagement which I had overlooked,
+and when it was recalled to me I was playing
+golf in Brittany. I at once hurried to Paris
+to get my violin from Caressa, with whom I
+had left it, but&mdash;his safe, in which it had been
+put, and to which he only had the combination,
+was locked. Caressa himself was in
+Milan. I telegraphed him but found that he
+could not get back in time before the concert
+to release my violin. So I telegraphed Ysaye
+at Namur, to ask if he could loan me a violin
+for the concert. 'Certainly' he wired back. So
+I hurried to his home and, with his usual generosity,
+he insisted on my taking both his treasured
+Guarnerius and his 'Hercules' Strad
+(afterwards stolen from him in Russia), in
+order that I might have my choice. His brother-in-law
+and some friends accompanied me
+from Namur to Ostende&mdash;no great distance&mdash;to
+hear the concert. Well, I played the Guarnerius
+at rehearsal, and when it was over,
+every one said to me, 'Why, what is the matter
+with your fiddle? (It was the one Ysaye always
+used.) It has no tone at all.' At the
+concert I played the Strad and secured a big
+tone that filled the hall, as every one assured
+me. When I brought back the violins to Ysaye
+I mentioned the circumstance to him, and he
+was so surprised and interested that he took
+them from the cases and played a bit, first on
+one, then on the other, a number of times.
+And invariably when he played the Strad
+(which, by the way, he had not used for years)
+he, Ysaye&mdash;imagine it!&mdash;could develop only a
+small tone; and when he played the Guarnerius,
+he never failed to develop that great,
+sonorous tone we all know and love so well.
+Take Sarasate, when he lived, Elman, myself&mdash;we
+all have the habit of the Stradivarius:
+on the other hand Ysaye and Kreisler are
+Guarnerius players <i>par excellence</i>!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I use a wire E string. Before I
+found out about them I had no end of trouble.
+In New Orleans I snapped seven gut strings
+at a single concert. Some say that you can
+tell the difference, when listening, between a
+gut and a wire E. I cannot, and I know a
+good many others who cannot. After my last
+New York recital I had tea with Ysaye, who
+had done me the honor of attending it. 'What
+strings do you use?' he asked me, <i>&agrave; propos</i> to
+nothing in particular. When I told him I
+used a wire E he confessed that he could not
+have told the difference. And, in fact, he has
+adopted the wire E just like Kreisler, Maud
+Powell and others, and has told me that he is
+charmed with it&mdash;for Ysaye has had a great
+deal of trouble with his strings. I shall continue
+to use them even after the war, when it
+will be possible to obtain good gut strings
+again.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE IDEAL PROGRAM</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The whole question of programs and program-making
+is an intricate one. In my opinion
+the usual recital program, piano, song or
+violin, is too long. The public likes the recital
+by a single vocal or instrumental artist,
+and financially and for other practical reasons
+the artist, too, is better satisfied with them.
+But are they artistically altogether satisfactory?
+I should like to hear Paderewski and
+Ysaye, Bauer and Casals, Kreisler and Hofmann
+all playing at the same recital. What a
+variety, what a wealth of contrasting artistic
+enjoyment such a concert would afford.
+There is nothing that is so enjoyable for the
+true artist as <i>ensemble</i> playing with his peers.
+Solo playing seems quite unimportant beside
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I recall as the most perfect and beautiful
+of all my musical memories, a string quartet
+and quintet (with piano) session in Paris, in
+my own home, where we played four of the
+loveliest chamber music works ever written in
+the following combination: Beethoven's 7th
+quartet (Ysaye, Vo. I, myself, Vo. II, Kreisler,
+viola&mdash;he plays it remarkably well&mdash;and
+Casals, 'cello); the Schumann quartet (Kreisler,
+Vo. I, Ysaye, Vo. II, myself, viola and
+Casals, 'cello); and the Mozart G major quartet
+(myself, Vo. I, Kreisler, Vo. II, Ysaye,
+viola and Casals, 'cello). Then we telephoned
+to Pugno, who came over and joined us and,
+after an excellent dinner, we played the C&eacute;sar
+Franck piano quintet. It was the most enjoyable
+musical day of my life. A concert
+manager offered us a fortune to play in this
+combination&mdash;just two concerts in every capital
+in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have not enough variety in our concert
+programs&mdash;not enough collaboration.
+The truth is our form of concert, which usually
+introduces only one instrument or one
+group of instruments, such as the string quartet,
+is too uniform in color. I can enjoy playing
+a recital program of virtuose violin pieces
+well enough; but I cannot help fearing that
+many find it too unicolored. Practical considerations
+do not do away with the truth of
+an artistic contention, though they may often
+prevent its realization. What I enjoy most,
+musically, is to play together with another
+good artist. That is why I have had such
+great artistic pleasure in the joint recitals I
+have given with Harold Bauer. We could
+play things that were really worth while for
+each of us&mdash;for the piano parts of the modern
+sonatas call for a virtuose technical and musical
+equipment, and I have had more satisfaction
+from this <i>ensemble</i> work than I would
+have had in playing a long list of solo pieces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The ideal violin program, to play in public,
+as I conceive it, is one that consists of absolute
+music, or should it contain virtuose
+pieces, then these should have some definite
+musical quality of soul, character, elegance or
+charm to recommend them. I think one of the
+best programs I have ever played in America
+is that which I gave with Harold Bauer at
+&AElig;olian Hall, New York, during the season of
+1917-1918:</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />
+Sonata in B flat . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<i>Mozart</i><br />
+<small><small>BAUER-THIBAUD</small></small><br />
+<br />
+Scenes from Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <i>Schumann</i><br />
+<small><small>H. BAUER</small></small><br />
+<br />
+Po&egrave;me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . <i>E. Chausson</i><br />
+<small><small>J. THIBAUD</small></small><br />
+<br />
+Sonata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <i>C&eacute;sar Franck</i><br />
+<small><small>BAUER-THIBAUD</small></small><br />
+</h4>
+
+
+<p><br />Or perhaps this other, which Bauer and I
+played in Boston, during November, 1913:</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />
+Kreutzer Sonata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<i>Beethoven</i><br />
+<small><small>BAUER-THIBAUD</small></small><br />
+<br />
+Sarabanda, Giga, Chaconne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<i>J.S. Bach</i><br />
+<small><small>J. THIBAUD</small></small><br />
+<br />
+Kreisleriana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <i>Schumann</i><br />
+<small><small>H. BAUER</small></small><br />
+<br />
+Sonata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <i>C&eacute;sar Franck</i><br />
+<small><small>BAUER-THIBAUD</small></small><br />
+</h4>
+
+
+<p><br />Either of these programs is artistic from the
+standpoint of the compositions represented.
+And even these programs are not too short&mdash;they
+take almost two hours to play; while for
+my ideal program an hour-and-a-half of beautiful
+music would suffice. You will notice that
+I believe in playing the big, fine things in
+music; in serving roasts rather than too many
+<i>hors d'oeuvres</i> and pastry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On a solo program, of course, one must
+make some concessions. When I play a violin
+concerto it seems fair enough to give the
+public three or four nice little things, but&mdash;always
+pieces which are truly musical, not such
+as are only 'ear-ticklers.' Kreisler&mdash;he has a
+great talent for transcription&mdash;has made
+charming arrangements. So has Tivadar Nach&eacute;z,
+of older things, and Arthur Hartmann.
+These one can play as well as shorter numbers
+by Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski that are delightful,
+such as the former's <i>Ballade et Polonaise</i>,
+though I know of musical purists who
+disapprove of it. I consider this <i>Polonaise</i> on
+a level with Chopin's. Or take, in the virtuoso
+field, Sarasate's <i>Gypsy Airs</i>&mdash;they are equal
+to any Liszt Rhapsody. I have only recently
+discovered that Ysaye&mdash;my life-long friend&mdash;has
+written some wonderful original compositions:
+a <i>Po&egrave;me &eacute;l&eacute;giaque</i>, a <i>Chant d'hiver</i>, an
+<i>Extase</i> and a ms. trio for two violins and alto
+that is marvelous. These pieces were an absolute
+find for me, with the exception of the
+lovely <i>Chant d'hiver</i>, which I have already
+played in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and
+Berlin, and expect to make a feature of my
+programs this winter. You see, Ysaye is so
+modest about his own compositions that he does
+not attempt to 'push' them, even with his
+friends, hence they are not nearly as well
+known as they should be.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never play operatic transcriptions and
+never will. The music of the opera, no matter
+how fine, appears to me to have its proper
+place on the stage&mdash;it seems out of place on
+the violin recital program. The artist cannot
+be too careful in the choice of his shorter program
+pieces. And he can profit by the example
+set by some of the foremost violinists
+of the day. Ysaye, that great apostle of the
+truly musical, is a shining example. It is sad
+to see certain young artists of genuine talent
+disregard the remarkable work of their great
+contemporary, and secure easily gained triumphs
+with compositions whose musical value
+is <i>nil</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes the wish to educate the public,
+to give it a high <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'standad'">standard</ins> of appreciation, leads
+an artist astray. I heard a well-known German
+violinist play in Berlin five years ago, and
+what do you suppose played? Beethoven's
+<i>Trios</i> transcribed for violin and piano! The
+last thing in the world to play! And there
+was, to my astonishment, no critical disapproval
+of what he did. I regard it as little less
+than a crime.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But this whole question of programs and
+repertory is one without end. Which of the
+great concertos do I prefer? That is a difficult
+question to answer off-hand. But I can
+easily tell you which I like least. It is the
+Tschaikovsky violin concerto&mdash;- I would not exchange
+the first ten measures of Vieuxtemps's
+Fourth concerto for the whole of Tschaikovsky's,
+that is from the musical point of view.
+I have heard the <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'Tchaikovsky'">Tschaikovsky</ins> played magnificently
+by Auer and by Elman; but I consider
+it the worst thing the composer has written.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>XXIV</h3>
+
+
+<h2><br />GUSTAV SAENGER</h2>
+
+<h3>THE EDITOR AS A FACTOR IN &quot;VIOLIN MASTERY&quot;</h3>
+
+
+<p><br />The courts of editorial appeal presided over
+by such men as Wm. Arms Fisher, Dr. Theodore
+Baker, Gustav Saenger and others, have
+a direct relation to the establishment and maintenance
+of standards of musical mastery in general
+and, in the case of Gustav Saenger, with
+&quot;Violin Mastery&quot; in particular. For this editor,
+composer and violinist is at home with
+every detail of the educational and artistic development
+of his instrument, and a considerable
+portion of the violin music published in the
+United States represents his final and authoritative
+revision.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has the work of the editor any influence
+on the development of 'Violin Mastery'?&quot; was
+the first question put to Mr. Saenger when he
+found time to see the writer in his editorial
+rooms. &quot;In a larger sense I think it has,&quot; was
+the reply. &quot;Mastery of any kind comes as a
+result of striving for a definite goal. In the
+case of the violin student the road of progress
+is long, and if he is not to stray off into the
+numerous by-paths of error, it must be liberally
+provided with sign-posts. These sign-posts, in
+the way of clear and exact indications with regard
+to bowing, fingering, interpretation, it is
+the editor's duty to erect. The student himself
+must provide mechanical ability and emotional
+instinct, the teacher must develop and perfect
+them, and the editor must neglect nothing in
+the way of explanation, illustration and example
+which will help both teacher and pupil to
+obtain more intimate insight into the musical
+and technical values. Yes, I think the editor
+may claim to be a factor in the attainment of
+'Violin Mastery.'</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The work of the responsible editor of modern
+violin music must have constructive value,
+it must suggest and stimulate. When Kreutzer,
+Gavinies and Rode first published their
+work, little stress was laid on editorial revision.
+You will find little in the way of fingering
+indicated in the old editions of Kreutzer.
+It was not till long after Kreutzer's death that
+his pupil, Massart, published an excellent little
+book, which he called 'The Art of Studying R.
+Kreutzer's &Eacute;tudes' and which I have translated.
+It contains no less than four hundred
+and twelve examples specially designed to aid
+the student to master the <i>&Eacute;tudes</i> in the spirit
+of their composer. Yet these studies, as difficult
+to-day as they were when first written,
+are old wine that need no bush, though they
+have gained by being decanted into new bottles
+of editorial revision.</p>
+
+
+
+<!-- Picture of GUSTAV SAENGER, Facing Page 278-->
+
+<a name="F_Page_278" id="F_Page_278"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/p278a_m.jpg" width="473" height="700" alt="F_Page_278" title="GUSTAV SAENGER" />
+<p class="figcenter"><b><span class="smcap">Gustav Saenger</span></b></p>
+<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<p>&quot;They have such fundamental value, that
+they allow of infinite variety of treatment and
+editorial presentation. Every student who has
+reached a certain degree of technical proficiency
+takes them up. Yet when studying them
+for the first time, as a rule it is all he can do to
+master them in a purely superficial way. When
+he has passed beyond them, he can return to
+them with greater technical facility and, because
+of their infinite variety, find that they
+offer him any number of new study problems.
+As with Kreutzer&mdash;an essential to 'Violin Mastery'&mdash;so
+it is with Rode, Fiorillo, and Gavinies.
+Editorial care has prepared the studies in
+distinct editions, such as those of Hermann and
+Singer, specifically for the student, and that of
+Emil Kross, for the advanced player. These
+editions give the work of the teacher a more
+direct proportion of result. The difference between
+the two types is mainly in the fingering.
+In the case of the student editions a simple,
+practical fingering of positive educational value
+is given; and the student should be careful to
+use editions of this kind, meant for him. Kross
+provides many of the <i>&eacute;tudes</i> with fingerings
+which only the virtuoso player is able to apply.
+Aside from technical considerations the absolute
+musical beauty of many of these studies
+is great, and they are well suited for solo performance.
+Rode's <i>Caprices</i>, for instance, are
+particularly suited for such a purpose, and
+many of Paganini's famous <i>Caprices</i> have
+found a lasting place in the concert repertory,
+with piano accompaniments by artists like
+Kreisler, Eddy Brown, Edward Behm and
+Max Vogrich&mdash;- the last-named composer's
+three beautiful 'Characteristic Pieces' after
+Paganini are worth any violinist's attention.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />AMERICAN EDITORIAL IDEALS</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;In this country those intrusted with editorial
+responsibility as regards violin music
+have upheld a truly American standard of independent
+judgment. The time has long since
+passed when foreign editions were accepted on
+their face value, particularly older works. In
+a word, the conscientious American editor of
+violin music reflects in his editions the actual
+state of progress of the art of violin playing
+as established by the best teachers and teaching
+methods, whether the works in question represent
+a higher or lower standard of artistic
+merit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this is no easy task. One must remember
+that the peculiar construction of the
+violin with regard to its technical possibilities
+makes the presentation of a violin piece difficult
+from an editorial standpoint. A composition
+may be so written that a beginner can play it
+in the first position; and the same number may
+be played with beautiful effects in the higher
+positions by an artist. This accounts for the
+fact that in many modern editions of solo music
+for violin, double fingerings, for student and
+advanced players respectively, are indicated&mdash;an
+essentially modern editorial development.
+Modern instructive works by such masters as
+Sev&#269;ik, Eberhardt and others have made technical
+problems more clearly and concisely get-at-able
+than did the older methods. Yet some
+of these older works are by no means negligible,
+though of course, in all classic violin literature,
+from Tartini on, Kreutzer, Spohr, Paganini,
+Ernst, each individual artist represents his own
+school, his own method to the exclusion of any
+other. Spohr was one of the first to devote
+editorial attention to his own method, one
+which, despite its age, is a valuable work,
+though most students do not know how to use
+it. It is really a method for the advanced
+player, since it presupposes a good deal of preliminary
+technical knowledge, and begins at
+once with the higher positions. It is rather a
+series of study pieces for the special development
+of certain difficult phases, musical and
+technical, of the violinist's art, than a method.
+I have translated and edited the American edition
+of this work, and the many explanatory
+notes with which Spohr has <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: The original text reads 'provied'">provided</ins> it&mdash;as in
+his own 9th, and the Rode concerto (included
+as representative of what violin concertos really
+should be), the measures being provided
+with group numbers for convenience in reference&mdash;are
+not obsolete. They are still valid,
+and any one who can appreciate the ideals of
+the <i>Gesangsscene</i>, its beautiful <i>cantilene</i> and
+pure serenity, may profit by them. I enjoyed
+editing this work because I myself had studied
+with Carl Richter, a Spohr pupil, who had all
+his master's traditions.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />THE MASTER VIOLINIST AS AN EDITOR</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;That the editorial revisions of a number of
+our greatest living violinists and teachers have
+passed through my editorial rooms, on their
+way to press, is a fact of which I am decidedly
+proud. Leopold Auer, for instance, is one
+of the most careful, exact and practical of editors,
+and the fact is worth dwelling on since
+sometimes the great artist or teacher quite naturally
+forgets that those for whom he is editing
+a composition have neither his knowledge nor
+resources. Auer never loses sight of the composer's
+<i>own ideas</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when I mention great violinists with
+whom I have been associated as an editor,
+Mischa Elman must not be forgotten. I
+found it at first a difficult matter to induce an
+artist like Elman, for whom no technical difficulties
+exist, to seriously consider the limitations
+of the average player in his fingerings
+and interpretative demands. Elman, like every
+great <i>virtuoso</i> of his caliber, is influenced in his
+revisions by the manner in which he himself
+does things. I remember in one instance I
+could see no reason why he should mark the
+third finger for a <i>cantilena</i> passage where a
+certain effect was desired, and questioned it.
+Catching up his violin he played the note preceding
+it with his second finger, then instead
+of slipping the second finger down the string,
+he took the next note with the third, in such a
+way that a most exquisite <i>legato</i> effect, like a
+breath, the echo of a sigh, was secured. And
+the beauty of tone color in this instance not only
+proved his point, but has led me invariably to
+examine very closely a fingering on the part of
+a master violinist which represents a departure
+from the conventional&mdash;it is often the technical
+key to some new beauty of interpretation or
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fritz Kreisler's individuality is also reflected
+in his markings and fingerings. Of
+course those in his 'educational' editions are
+strictly meant for study needs. But in general
+they are difficult and based on his own manner
+and style of playing. As he himself has remarked:
+'I could play the violin just as well
+with three as with four fingers.' Kreisler is
+fond of 'fingered' octaves, and these, because
+of his abnormal hand, he plays with the first
+and third fingers, where virtuose players, as a
+rule, are only too happy if they can play them
+with the first and fourth. To verify this individual
+character of his revisions, one need only
+glance at his edition of Godowsky's '12 Impressions'
+for violin&mdash;in every case the fingerings
+indicated are difficult in the extreme; yet they
+supply the key to definite effects, and since this
+music is intended for the advance player, are
+quite in order.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The ms. and revisions of many other distinguished
+artists have passed through my
+hands. Theodore Spiering has been responsible
+for the educational detail of classic and
+modern works; Arthur Hartmann&mdash;a composer
+of marked originality&mdash;Albert Spalding,
+Eddy Brown, Francis MacMillan, Max Pilzer,
+David Hochstein, Richard Czerwonky,
+Cecil Burleigh, Edwin Grasse, Edmund Severn,
+Franz C. Bornschein, Leo Ornstein, Rubin
+Goldmark, Louis Pershinger, Louis Victor
+Saar&mdash;whose ms. always look as though engraved&mdash;have
+all given me opportunities of
+seeing the best the American violin composer
+is creating at the present time.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;The revisional work of the master violinist
+is of very great importance, but often great
+artists and distinguished teachers hold radically
+different views with regard to practically
+every detail of their art. And it is by no means
+easy for an editor like myself, who is finally
+responsible for their editions, to harmonize a
+hundred conflicting views and opinions. The
+fiddlers best qualified to speak with authority
+will often disagree absolutely regarding the use
+of a string, position, up-bow or down-bow.
+And besides meeting the needs of student and
+teacher, an editor-in-chief must bear in mind
+the artistic requirements of the music itself.
+In many cases the divergence in teaching
+standards reflects the personal preferences for
+the editions used. Less ambitious teachers
+choose methods which make the study of the
+violin as <i>easy</i> as possible for <i>them</i>; rather than
+those which&mdash;in the long run&mdash;may be most advantageous
+for the <i>pupil</i>. The best editions of
+studies are often cast aside for trivial reasons,
+such as are embodied in the poor excuse that
+'the fourth finger is too frequently indicated.'
+According to the old-time formulas, it was
+generally accepted that ascending passages
+should be played on the open strings and descending
+ones using the fourth finger. It
+stands to reason that the use of the fourth finger
+involves more effort, is a greater tax of
+strength, and that the open string is an easier
+playing proposition. Yet a really perfected
+technic demands that the fourth finger be every
+bit as strong and flexible as any of the others.
+By nature it is shorter and weaker, and beginners
+usually have great trouble with it&mdash;which
+makes perfect control of it all the more essential!
+And yet teachers, contrary to all sound
+principle and merely to save effort&mdash;temporarily&mdash;for
+themselves and their pupils, will often
+reject an edition of a method or book of studies
+merely because in its editing the fourth finger
+has not been deprived of its proper chance of
+development. I know of cases where, were it
+not for the guidance supplied by editorial revision,
+the average teacher would have had no
+idea of the purpose of the studies he was using.
+One great feature of good modern editions of
+classical study works, from Kreutzer to Paganini,
+is the double editorial numeration: one
+giving the sequence as in the original editions;
+the other numbering the studies in order of
+technical difficulty, so that they may be practiced
+progressively.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF VIOLIN STUDIES</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What special editorial work of mine has
+given me the greatest personal satisfaction in
+the doing? That is a hard question to answer.
+Off-hand I might say that, perhaps, the collection
+of progressive orchestral studies for advanced
+violinists which I have compiled and annotated
+for the benefit of the symphony orchestra
+player is something that has meant much
+to me personally. Years ago, when I played
+professionally&mdash;long before the days of 'miniature'
+orchestra scores&mdash;it was almost impossible
+for an ambitious young violinist to acquaint
+himself with the first and second violin parts
+of the great symphonic works. Prices of scores
+were prohibitive&mdash;and though in such works as
+the Brahms symphonies, for instance, the 'concertmaster's'
+part should be studied from score,
+in its relation to the rest of the <i>partitura</i>&mdash;often,
+merely to obtain a first violin part, I
+had to acquire the entire set of strings. So
+when I became an editor I determined, in view
+of my own unhappy experiences and that of
+many others, to give the aspiring fiddler who
+really wanted to 'get at' the violin parts of the
+best symphonic music, from Bach to Brahms
+and Richard Strauss, a chance to do so. And
+I believe I solved the problem in the five books
+of the 'Modern Concert-Master,' which includes
+all those really difficult and important passages
+in the great repertory works of the symphony
+orchestra that offer violinistic problems. My
+only regret is that the grasping attitude of
+European publishers prevented the representation
+of certain important symphonic numbers.
+Yet, as it stands, I think I may say that
+the five encyclopedic books of the collection
+give the symphony concertmaster every practical
+opportunity to gain orchestral routine,
+and orchestral mastery.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />A NEW CLASSIFICATION OF VIOLIN LITERATURE</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;What I am inclined to consider, however,
+as even more important, in a sense, than my
+editorial labors is a new educational classification
+of violin literature, one which practically
+covers the entire field of violin music, and
+upon which I have been engaged for several
+years. Insomuch as an editor's work helps
+in the acquisition of 'Violin Mastery,' I am
+tempted to think this catalogue will be a contribution
+of real value.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As far as I know there does not at present
+exist any guide or hand-book of violin literature
+in which the fundamental question of
+grading has been presented <i>au fond</i>. This is
+not strange, since the task of compiling a really
+valid and logically graded guide-book of violin
+literature is one that offers great difficulties
+from almost every point of view.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet I have found the work engrossing, because
+the need of a book of the kind which
+makes it easy for the teacher to bring his pupils
+ahead more rapidly and intelligently by giving
+him an oversight of the entire teaching-material
+of the violin and under clear, practical
+heads in detail order of progression is
+making itself more urgently felt every day. In
+classification (there are seven grades and a
+preparatory grade), I have not chosen an
+easier and conventional plan of <i>general</i> consideration
+of difficulties; but have followed a
+more systematic scheme, one more closely related
+to the study of the instrument itself.
+Thus, my 'Preparatory Grade' contains only
+material which could be advantageously used
+with children and beginners, those still struggling
+with the simplest elementary problems&mdash;correct
+drawing of the bow across the open
+strings, in a certain rhythmic order, and the
+first use of the fingers. And throughout the
+grades are special sub-sections for special difficulties,
+special technical and other problems.
+In short, I cannot help but feel that I have
+compiled a real guide, one with a definite educational
+value, and not a catalogue, masquerading
+as a violinistic Baedeker.</p>
+
+
+<h4><br />VIOLIN EDITIONS &quot;MADE IN AMERICA&quot;</h4>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the most significant features of the
+violin guide I have mentioned is, perhaps, the
+fact that its contents largely cover the whole
+range of violin literature in American editions.
+There was a time, years ago, when 'made in
+Germany' was accepted as a certificate of editorial
+excellence and mechanical perfection.
+Those days have long since passed, and the
+American edition has come into its own. It
+has reached a point of development where it
+is of far more practical and musically stimulating
+value than any European edition. For
+American editions of violin music do not take
+so much for granted! They reflect in the highest
+degree the needs of students and players
+in smaller places throughout the country, and
+where teachers are rare or non-existent they do
+much to supply instruction by meticulous regard
+for all detail of fingering, bowing, phrasing,
+expression, by insisting in explanatory annotation
+on the correct presentation of authoritative
+teaching ideas and principles. In a
+broader sense 'Violin Mastery' knows no nationality;
+but yet we associate the famous artists
+of the day with individual and distinctively
+national trends of development and 'schools.'
+In this connection I am convinced that one
+result of this great war of world liberation we
+have waged, one by-product of the triumph of
+the democratic truth, will be a notably 'American'
+ideal of 'Violin Mastery,' in the musical
+as well as the technical sense. And in the
+development of this ideal I do not think it is
+too much to claim that American editions of
+violin music, and those who are responsible for
+them, will have done their part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="return"><a href="#contents">[TABLE OF CONTENTS]</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 15535-h.htm or 15535-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/3/15535/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p000a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p000a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e03f89c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p000a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p000b_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p000b_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7740e13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p000b_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p002a_h.png b/15535-h/images/p002a_h.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e64c61
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p002a_h.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p014a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p014a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dbd2043
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p014a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p038a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p038a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5cbf422
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p038a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p060_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p060_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a18ef0f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p060_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p066a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p066a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c572168
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p066a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p074_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p074_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f8dd196
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p074_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p078a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p078a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b6d7589
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p078a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p087_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p087_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca27482
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p087_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p100a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p100a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66c74f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p100a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p110a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p110a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..35544aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p110a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p128a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p128a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a2606c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p128a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p128b_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p128b_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6de35e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p128b_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p146a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p146a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56f43e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p146a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p159_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p159_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f02d1a4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p159_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p160a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p160a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f1d163e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p160a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p160b_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p160b_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..023d2df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p160b_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p168_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p168_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f495ce6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p168_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p184a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p184a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bbbbd20
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p184a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p220a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p220a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c93edb2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p220a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p236_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p236_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8245bc1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p236_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p237_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p237_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..342100a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p237_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p237_1b.png b/15535-h/images/p237_1b.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..abc0044
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p237_1b.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p237_1c.png b/15535-h/images/p237_1c.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d10a3a4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p237_1c.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p237_1d.png b/15535-h/images/p237_1d.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a86b91c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p237_1d.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p237_1e.png b/15535-h/images/p237_1e.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3192f94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p237_1e.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p238_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p238_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90d4783
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p238_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p238_1b.png b/15535-h/images/p238_1b.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c950256
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p238_1b.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p238_1c.png b/15535-h/images/p238_1c.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..874e39b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p238_1c.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p238_1d.png b/15535-h/images/p238_1d.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..321ee2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p238_1d.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p238_1e.png b/15535-h/images/p238_1e.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f80585
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p238_1e.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p238_1f.png b/15535-h/images/p238_1f.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..874e39b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p238_1f.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p240a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p240a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb2f7c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p240a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p248a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p248a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5107daa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p248a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p260a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p260a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0303e77
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p260a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p260b_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p260b_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..52327be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p260b_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p278a_m.jpg b/15535-h/images/p278a_m.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8db9095
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p278a_m.jpg
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p290_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p290_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f3dbab5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p290_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p291_1a.png b/15535-h/images/p291_1a.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce2f67b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p291_1a.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p291_1b.png b/15535-h/images/p291_1b.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf02a6a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p291_1b.png
diff --git a/15535-h/images/p291_1c.png b/15535-h/images/p291_1c.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..03c47b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535-h/images/p291_1c.png
diff --git a/15535.txt b/15535.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ff4dfcb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6500 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Violin Mastery
+       Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
+
+Author: Frederick H. Martens
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15535]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EUGENE YSAYE, with hand-written note]
+
+
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+               _TALKS WITH MASTER VIOLINISTS AND TEACHERS_
+
+
+               COMPRISING INTERVIEWS WITH YSAYE, KREISLER,
+                ELMAN, AUER, THIBAUD, HEIFETZ, HARTMANN,
+                        MAUD POWELL AND OTHERS
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                          FREDERICK H. MARTENS
+
+                         WITH SIXTEEN PORTRAITS
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                      FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+                               PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+                       _Copyright, 1919, by_
+                    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+        _All rights reserved, including that of translation
+                     into foreign languages_
+
+
+
+
+                               FOREWORD
+
+
+The appreciation accorded Miss Harriette Brower's admirable books on
+PIANO MASTERY has prompted the present volume of intimate _Talks with
+Master Violinists and Teachers_, in which a number of famous artists and
+instructors discuss esthetic and technical phases of the art of violin
+playing in detail, their concept of what Violin Mastery means, and how
+it may be acquired. Only limitation of space has prevented the inclusion
+of numerous other deserving artists and teachers, yet practically all of
+the greatest masters of the violin now in this country are represented.
+That the lessons of their artistry and experience will be of direct
+benefit and value to every violin student and every lover of violin
+music may be accepted as a foregone conclusion.
+
+                                      FREDERICK H. MARTENS.
+    171 Orient Way,
+      Rutherford N.J.
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+                                                                   PAGE
+    FOREWORD                                                         v
+
+    EUGENE YSAYE         The Tools of Violin Mastery                 1
+
+    LEOPOLD AUER         A Method without Secrets                   14
+
+    EDDY BROWN           Hubay and Auer: Technic: Hints
+                           to the Student                           25
+
+    MISCHA ELMAN         Life and Color in Interpretation.
+                           Technical Phases                         38
+
+    SAMUEL GARDNER       Technic and Musicianship                   54
+
+    ARTHUR HARTMANN      The Problem of Technic                     66
+
+    JASCHA HEIFETZ       The Danger of Practicing Too
+                           Much. Technical Mastery and
+                           Temperament                              78
+
+    DAVID HOCHSTEIN      The Violin as a Means of Expression
+                           and Expressive Playing                   91
+
+    FRITZ KREISLER       Personality in Art                         99
+
+    FRANZ KNEISEL        The Perfect String Ensemble               110
+
+    ADOLFO BETTI         The Technic of the Modern Quartet         127
+
+    HANS LETZ            The Technic of Bowing                     140
+
+    DAVID MANNES         The Philosophy of Violin Teaching         146
+
+    TIVADAR NACHEZ       Joachim and Leonard as Teachers           160
+
+    MAXIMILIAN PILZER    The Singing Tone and the Vibrato          177
+
+    MAUD POWELL          Technical Difficulties: Some Hints
+                           for the Concert Player                  183
+
+    LEON SAMETINI        Harmonics                                 198
+
+    ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY  What the Teacher Can and Cannot Do        210
+
+    TOSCHA SEIDEL        How to Study                              219
+
+    EDMUND SEVERN        The Joachim Bowing and Others:
+                           The Left Hand                           227
+
+    ALBERT SPALDING      The Most Important Factor in the
+                           Development of an Artist                240
+
+    THEODORE SPIERING    The Application of Bow Exercises
+                           to the Study of Kreutzer                247
+
+    JACQUES THIBAUD      The Ideal Program                         259
+
+    GUSTAV SAENGER       The Editor as a Factor in "Violin
+                           Mastery"                                277
+
+
+
+
+                                ILLUSTRATIONS
+       Eugene Ysaye                                   _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                           FACING
+                                                            PAGE
+       Leopold Auer                                          14
+
+       Mischa Elman                                          38
+
+       Arthur Hartmann                                       66
+
+       Jascha Heifetz                                        78
+
+       Fritz Kreisler                                       100
+
+       Franz Kneisel                                        110
+
+       Adolfo Betti                                         128
+
+       David Mannes                                         146
+
+       Tivadar Nachez                                       160
+
+       Maud Powell                                          184
+
+       Toscha Seidel                                        220
+
+       Albert Spalding                                      240
+
+       Theodore Spiering                                    248
+
+       Jacques Thibaud                                      260
+
+       Gustav Saenger                                       278
+
+
+
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+                               EUGENE YSAYE
+
+                        THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+
+Who is there among contemporary masters of the violin whose name stands
+for more at the present time than that of the great Belgian artist, his
+"extraordinary temperamental power as an interpreter" enhanced by a
+hundred and one special gifts of tone and technic, gifts often alluded
+to by his admiring colleagues? For Ysaye is the greatest exponent of
+that wonderful Belgian school of violin playing which is rooted in his
+teachers Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, and which as Ysaye himself says,
+"during a period covering seventy years reigned supreme at the
+_Conservatoire_ in Paris in the persons of Massart, Remi, Marsick, and
+others of its great interpreters."
+
+What most impresses one who meets Ysaye and talks with him for the
+first time is the mental breadth and vision of the man; his kindness and
+amiability; his utter lack of small vanity. When the writer first called
+on him in New York with a note of introductio from his friend and
+admirer Adolfo Betti, and later at Scarsdale where, in company with his
+friend Thibaud, he was dividing his time between music and tennis, Ysaye
+made him entirely at home, and willingly talked of his art and its
+ideals. In reply to some questions anent his own study years, he said:
+
+"Strange to say, my father was my very first teacher--it is not often
+the case. I studied with him until I went to the Liege Conservatory in
+1867, where I won a second prize, sharing it with Ovide Musin, for
+playing Viotti's 22d Concerto. Then I had lessons from Wieniawski in
+Brussels and studied two years with Vieuxtemps in Paris. Vieuxtemps was
+a paralytic when I came to him; yet a wonderful teacher, though he could
+no longer play. And I was already a concertizing artist when I met him.
+He was a very great man, the grandeur of whose tradition lives in the
+whole 'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at his seven
+concertos--of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the
+virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up!
+How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far
+more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only
+Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, did not
+play it as it is now played. In wealth of technical development, in true
+musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof is the fact that
+his works have endured forty to fifty years, a long life for
+compositions.
+
+"Joachim, Leonard, Sivori, Wieniawski--all admired Vieuxtemps. In
+Paganini's and Locatelli's works the effect, comparatively speaking,
+lies in the mechanics; but Vieuxtemps is the great artist who made the
+instrument take the road of romanticism which Hugo, Balzac and Gauthier
+trod in literature. And before all the violin was made to charm, to
+move, and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like Rubinstein, he held that the artist
+must first of all have ideas, emotional power--his technic must be so
+perfected that he does not have to think of it! Incidentally, speaking
+of schools of violin playing, I find that there is a great tendency to
+confuse the Belgian and French. This should not be. They are distinct,
+though the latter has undoubtedly been formed and influenced by the
+former. Many of the great violin names, in fact,--Vieuxtemps, Leonard*,
+Marsick, Remi, Parent, de Broux, Musin, Thomson,--are all Belgian."
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Leonard".
+
+
+                           YSAYE'S REPERTORY
+
+Ysaye spoke of Vieuxtemps's repertory--only he did not call it that: he
+spoke of the Vieuxtemps compositions and of Vieuxtemps himself.
+"Vieuxtemps wrote in the grand style; his music is always rich and
+sonorous. If his violin is really to sound, the violinist must play
+Vieuxtemps, just as the 'cellist plays Servais. You know, in the
+Catholic Church, at Vespers, whenever God's name is spoken, we bow the
+head. And Wieniawski would always bow his head when he said: 'Vieuxtemps
+is the master of us all!'
+
+"I have often played his _Fifth Concerto_, so warm, brilliant and
+replete with temperament, always full-sounding, rich in an almost
+unbounded strength. Of course, since Vieuxtemps wrote his concertos, a
+great variety of fine modern works has appeared, the appreciation of
+chamber-music has grown and developed, and with it that of the sonata.
+And the modern violin sonata is also a vehicle for violin virtuosity in
+the very best meaning of the word. The sonatas of Cesar Franck, d'Indy,
+Theodore Dubois, Lekeu, Vierne, Ropartz, Lazarri--they are all highly
+expressive, yet at the same time virtuose. The violin parts develop a
+lovely song line, yet their technic is far from simple. Take Lekeu's
+splendid Sonata in G major; rugged and massive, making decided technical
+demands--it yet has a wonderful breadth of melody, a great expressive
+quality of song."
+
+These works--those who have heard the Master play the beautiful Lazarri
+sonata this season will not soon forget it--are all dedicated to Ysaye.
+And this holds good, too, of the Cesar Franck sonata. As Ysaye says:
+"Performances of these great sonatas call for _two_ artists--for their
+piano parts are sometimes very elaborate. Cesar Franck sent me his
+sonata on September 26, 1886, my wedding day--it was his wedding
+present! I cannot complain as regards the number of works, really
+important works, inscribed to me. There are so many--by Chausson (his
+symphony), Ropartz, Dubois (his sonata--one of the best after Franck),
+d'Indy (the _Istar_ variations and other works), Gabriel Faure (the
+Quintet), Debussy (the Quartet)! There are more than I can recall at
+the moment--violin sonatas, symphonic music, chamber-music, choral
+works, compositions of every kind!
+
+"Debussy, as you know, wrote practically nothing originally for the
+violin and piano--with the exception, perhaps, of a work published by
+Durand during his last illness. Yet he came very near writing something
+for me. Fifteen years ago he told me he was composing a 'Nocturne' for
+me. I went off on a concert tour and was away a long time. When I
+returned to Paris I wrote to Debussy to find out what had become of my
+'Nocturne.' And he replied that, somehow, it had shaped itself up for
+orchestra instead of a violin solo. It is one of the _Trois Nocturnes_
+for orchestra. Perhaps one reason why so much has been inscribed to me
+is the fact that as an interpreting artist, I have never cultivated a
+'specialty.' I have played everything from Bach to Debussy, for real art
+should be international!"
+
+Ysaye himself has an almost marvelous right-arm and fingerboard control,
+which enables him to produce at will the finest and most subtle tonal
+nuances in all bowings. Then, too, he overcomes the most intricate
+mechanical problems with seemingly effortless ease. And his tone has
+well been called "golden." His own definition of tone is worth
+recording. He says it should be "In music what the heart suggests, and
+the soul expresses!"
+
+
+                      THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"With regard to mechanism," Ysaye continued, "at the present day the
+tools of violin mastery, of expression, technic, mechanism, are far more
+necessary than in days gone by. In fact they are indispensable, if the
+spirit is to express itself without restraint. And the greater
+mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that
+suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more
+than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often
+said: _Pas de trait pour le trait--chantez, chantez_! (Not runs for the
+sake of runs--sing, sing!)
+
+"Too many of the technicians of the present day no longer sing. Their
+difficulties--they surmount them more or less happily; but the effect is
+too apparent, and though, at times, the listener may be astonished, he
+can never be charmed. Agile fingers, sure of themselves, and a perfect
+bow stroke are essentials; and they must be supremely able to carry
+along the rhythm and poetic action the artist desires. Mechanism
+becomes, if anything, more accessible in proportion as its domain is
+enriched by new formulas. The violinist of to-day commands far greater
+technical resources than did his predecessors. Paganini is accessible to
+nearly all players: Vieuxtemps no longer offers the difficulties he did
+thirty years ago. Yet the wood-wind, brass and even the string
+instruments subsist in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the
+masters of the past. I often feel that violin teaching to-day endeavors
+to develop the esthetic sense at too early a stage. And in devoting
+itself to the _head_ it forgets the _hands_, with the result that the
+young soldiers of the violinistic army, full of ardor and courage, are
+ill equipped for the great battle of art.
+
+"In this connection there exists an excellent set of _Etudes-Caprices_
+by E. Chaumont, which offer the advanced student new elements and
+formulas of development. Though in some of them 'the frame is too large
+for the picture,' and though difficult from a violinistic point of view,
+'they lie admirably well up the neck,' to use one of Vieuxtemps's
+expressions, and I take pleasure in calling attention to them.
+
+"When I said that the string instruments, including the violin, subsist
+in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the masters of the past, I
+spoke with special regard to technic. Since Vieuxtemps there has been
+hardly one new passage written for the violin; and this has retarded the
+development of its technic. In the case of the piano, men like Godowsky
+have created a new technic for their instrument; but although
+Saint-Saens, Bruch, Lalo and others have in their works endowed the
+violin with much beautiful music, music itself was their first concern,
+and not music for the violin. There are no more concertos written for
+the solo flute, trombone, etc.--as a result there is no new technical
+material added to the resources of these instruments.
+
+"In a way the same holds good of the violin--new works conceived only
+from the musical point of view bring about the stagnation of technical
+discovery, the invention of new passages, of novel harmonic wealth of
+combination is not encouraged. And a violinist owes it to himself to
+exploit the great possibilities of his own instrument. I have tried to
+find new technical ways and means of expression in my own compositions.
+For example, I have written a _Divertiment_ for violin and orchestra in
+which I believe I have embodied new thoughts and ideas, and have
+attempted to give violin technic a broader scope of life and vigor.
+
+"In the days of Viotti and Rode the harmonic possibilities were more
+limited--they had only a few chords, and hardly any chords of the ninth.
+But now harmonic material for the development of a new violin technic is
+there: I have some violin studies, in ms., which I may publish some day,
+devoted to that end. I am always somewhat hesitant about
+publishing--there are many things I might publish, but I have seen so
+much brought out that was banal, poor, unworthy, that I have always been
+inclined to mistrust the value of my own creations rather than fall into
+the same error. We have the scale of Debussy and his successors to draw
+upon, their new chords and successions of fourths and fifths--for new
+technical formulas are always evolved out of and follow after new
+harmonic discoveries--though there is as yet no violin method which
+gives a fingering for the whole-tone scale. Perhaps we will have to wait
+until Kreisler or I will have written one which makes plain the new
+flowering of technical beauty and esthetic development which it brings
+the violin.
+
+"As to teaching violin, I have never taught violin in the generally
+accepted sense of the phrase. But at Godinne, where I usually spent my
+summers when in Europe, I gave a kind of traditional course in the works
+of Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski and other masters to some forty or fifty
+artist-students who would gather there--the same course I look forward
+to giving in Cincinnati, to a master class of very advanced pupils. This
+was and will be a labor of love, for the compositions of Vieuxtemps and
+Wieniawski especially are so inspiring and yet, as a rule, they are so
+badly played--without grandeur or beauty, with no thought of the
+traditional interpretation--that they seem the piecework of technic
+factories!
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"When I take the whole history of the violin into account I feel that
+the true inwardness of 'Violin Mastery' is best expressed by a kind of
+threefold group of great artists. First, in the order of romantic
+expression, we have a trinity made up of Corelli, Viotti and Vieuxtemps.
+Then there is a trinity of mechanical perfection, composed of Locatelli,
+Tartini and Paganini or, a more modern equivalent, Cesar Thomson,
+Kubelik and Burmeister. And, finally, what I might call in the order of
+lyric expression, a quartet comprising Ysaye, Thibaud, Mischa Elman and
+Sametini of Chicago, the last-named a wonderfully fine artist of the
+lyric or singing type. Of course there are qualifications to be made.
+Locatelli was not altogether an exponent of technic. And many other fine
+artists besides those mentioned share the characteristics of those in
+the various groups. Yet, speaking in a general way, I believe that these
+groups of attainment might be said to sum up what 'Violin Mastery'
+really is. And a violin master? He must be a violinist, a thinker, a
+poet, a human being, he must have known hope, love, passion and despair,
+he must have run the gamut of the emotions in order to express them all
+in his playing. He must play his violin as Pan played his flute!"
+
+In conclusion Ysaye sounded a note of warning for the too ambitious
+young student and player. "If Art is to progress, the technical and
+mechanical element must not, of course, be neglected. But a boy of
+eighteen cannot expect to express that to which the serious student of
+thirty, the man who has actually lived, can give voice. If the
+violinist's art is truly a great art, it cannot come to fruition in the
+artist's 'teens. His accomplishment then is no more than a promise--a
+promise which finds its realization in and by life itself. Yet Americans
+have the brains as well as the spiritual endowment necessary to
+understand and appreciate beauty in a high degree. They can already
+point with pride to violinists who emphatically deserve to be called
+artists, and another quarter-century of artistic striving may well bring
+them into the front rank of violinistic achievement!"
+
+
+
+
+                                    II
+
+
+                               LEOPOLD AUER
+
+                         A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS
+
+
+When that celebrated laboratory of budding musical genius, the Petrograd
+Conservatory, closed its doors indefinitely owing to the disturbed
+political conditions of Russia, the famous violinist and teacher
+Professor Leopold Auer decided to pay the visit to the United States
+which had so repeatedly been urged on him by his friends and pupils. His
+fame, owing to such heralds as Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Kathleen
+Parlow, Eddy Brown, Francis MacMillan, and more recently Sascha Heifetz,
+Toscha Seidel, and Max Rosen, had long since preceded him; and the
+reception accorded him in this country, as a soloist and one of the
+greatest exponents and teachers of his instrument, has been one justly
+due to his authority and preeminence.
+
+It was not easy to have a heart-to-heart talk with the Master anent his
+art, since every minute of his time was precious. Yet ushered into
+his presence, the writer discovered that he had laid aside for the
+moment other preoccupations, and was amiably responsive to all
+questions, once their object had been disclosed. Naturally, the first
+and burning question in the case of so celebrated a pedagogue was: "How
+do you form such wonderful artists? What is the secret of your method?"
+
+           [Illustration: LEOPOLD AUER, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                         A METHOD WITHOUT SECRETS
+
+"I know," said Professor Auer, "that there is a theory somewhat to the
+effect that I make a few magic passes with the bow by way of
+illustration and--_presto_--you have a Zimbalist or a Heifetz! But the
+truth is I have no method--unless you want to call purely natural lines
+of development, based on natural principles, a method--and so, of
+course, there is no secret about my teaching. The one great point I lay
+stress on in teaching is never to kill the individuality of my various
+pupils. Each pupil has his own inborn aptitudes, his own personal
+qualities as regards tone and interpretation. I always have made an
+individual study of each pupil, and given each pupil individual
+treatment. And always, always I have encouraged them to develop freely
+in their own way as regards inspiration and ideals, so long as this was
+not contrary to esthetic principles and those of my art. My idea has
+always been to help bring out what nature has already given, rather than
+to use dogma to force a student's natural inclinations into channels I
+myself might prefer. And another great principle in my teaching, one
+which is productive of results, is to demand as much as possible of the
+pupil. Then he will give you something!
+
+"Of course the whole subject of violin teaching is one that I look at
+from the standpoint of the teacher who tries to make what is already
+excellent perfect from the musical and artistic standpoint. I insist on
+a perfected technical development in every pupil who comes to me. Art
+begins where technic ends. There can be no real art development before
+one's technic is firmly established. And a great deal of technical work
+has to be done before the great works of violin literature, the sonatas
+and concertos, may be approached. In Petrograd my own assistants, who
+were familiar with my ideas, prepared my pupils for me. And in my own
+experience I have found that one cannot teach by word, by the spoken
+explanation, alone. If I have a point to make I explain it; but if my
+explanation fails to explain I take my violin and bow, and clear up the
+matter beyond any doubt. The word lives, it is true, but often the word
+must be materialized by action so that its meaning is clear. There are
+always things which the pupil must be shown literally, though
+explanation should always supplement illustration. I studied with
+Joachim as a boy of sixteen--it was before 1866, when there was still a
+kingdom of Hanover in existence--and Joachim always illustrated his
+meaning with bow and fiddle. But he never explained the technical side
+of what he illustrated. Those more advanced understood without verbal
+comment; yet there were some who did not.
+
+"As regards the theory that you can tell who a violinist's teacher is by
+the way in which he plays, I do not believe in it. I do not believe that
+you can tell an Auer pupil by the manner in which he plays. And I am
+proud of it since it shows that my pupils have profited by my
+encouragement of individual development, and that they become genuine
+artists, each with a personality of his own, instead of violinistic
+automats, all bearing a marked family resemblance."
+
+Questioned as to how his various pupils reflected different phases of
+his teaching ideals, Professor Auer mentioned that he had long since
+given over passing final decisions on his pupils. "I could express no
+such opinions without unconsciously implying comparisons. And so few
+comparisons really compare! Then, too, mine would be merely an
+individual opinion. Therefore, as has been my custom for years, I will
+continue to leave any ultimate decisions regarding my pupils' playing to
+the public and the press."
+
+
+                            HOURS OF PRACTICE
+
+"How long should the advanced pupil practice?" Professor Auer was asked.
+"The right kind of practice is not a matter of hours," he replied.
+"Practice should represent the utmost concentration of brain. It is
+better to play with concentration for two hours than to practice eight
+without. I should say that four hours would be a good maximum practice
+time--I never ask more of my pupils--and that during each minute of the
+time the brain be as active as the fingers.
+
+
+                NATIONALITY VERSUS THE CONSERVATORY SYSTEM
+
+"I think there is more value in the idea of a national conservatory than
+in the idea of nationality as regards violin playing. No matter what his
+birthplace, there is only one way in which a student can become an
+artist--and that is to have a teacher who can teach! In Europe the best
+teachers are to be found in the great national conservatories. Thibaud,
+Ysaye--artists of the highest type--are products of the conservatory
+system, with its splendid teachers. So is Kreisler, one of the greatest
+artists, who studied in Vienna and Paris. Eddy Brown, the brilliant
+American violinist, finished at the Budapest Conservatory. In the Paris
+Conservatory the number of pupils in a class is strictly limited; and
+from these pupils each professor chooses the very best--who may not be
+able to pay for their course--for free instruction. At the Petrograd
+Conservatory, where Wieniawski preceded me, there were hundreds of free
+scholarships available. If a really big talent came along he always had
+his opportunity. We took and taught those less talented at the
+Conservatory in order to be able to give scholarships to the deserving
+of limited means. In this way no real violinistic genius, whom poverty
+might otherwise have kept from ever realizing his dreams, was deprived
+of his chance in life. Among the pupils there in my class, having
+scholarships, were Kathleen Parlow, Elman, Zimbalist, Heifetz and
+Seidel.
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery? To me it represents the sum total of accomplishment on
+the part of those who live in the history of the Art. All those who may
+have died long since, yet the memory of whose work and whose creations
+still lives, are the true masters of the violin, and its mastery is the
+record of their accomplishment. As a child I remember the well-known
+composers of the day were Marschner, Hiller, Nicolai and others--yet
+most of what they have written has been forgotten. On the other hand
+there are Tartini, Nardini, Paganini, Kreutzer, Dont and Rode--they
+still live; and so do Ernst, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski.
+Joachim (incidentally the only great German violinist of whom I
+know--and he was a Hungarian!), though he had but few great pupils, and
+composed but little, will always be remembered because he, together with
+David, gave violin virtuosity a nobler trend, and introduced a higher
+ideal in the music played for violin. It is men such as these who always
+will remain violin 'masters,' just as 'violin mastery' is defined by
+what they have done."
+
+
+            THE BACH VIOLIN SONATAS AND OTHER COMPOSITIONS
+
+Replying to a question as to the value of the Bach violin sonatas,
+Professor Auer said: "My pupils always have to play Bach. I have
+published my own revision of them with a New York house. The most
+impressive thing about these Bach solo sonatas is they do not need an
+accompaniment: one feels it would be superfluous. Bach composed so
+rapidly, he wrote with such ease, that it would have been no trouble for
+him to supply one had he felt it necessary. But he did not, and he was
+right. And they still must be played as he has written them. We have the
+'modern' orchestra, the 'modern' piano, but, thank heaven, no 'modern'
+violin! Such indications as I have made in my edition with regard to
+bowing, fingering, _nuances_ of expression, are more or less in accord
+with the spirit of the times; but not a single note that Bach has
+written has been changed. The sonatas are technically among the most
+difficult things written for the violin, excepting Ernst and Paganini.
+Not that they are hard in a modern way: Bach knew nothing of harmonics,
+_pizzicati_, scales in octaves and tenths. But his counterpoint, his
+fugues--to play them well when the principal theme is sometimes in the
+outer voices, sometimes in the inner voices, or moving from one to the
+other--is supremely difficult! In the last sonatas there is a larger
+number of small movements--- but this does not make them any easier to
+play.
+
+"I have also edited the Beethoven sonatas together with Rudolph Ganz. He
+worked at the piano parts in New York, while I studied and revised the
+violin parts in Petrograd and Norway, where I spent my summers during
+the war. There was not so much to do," said Professor Auer modestly, "a
+little fingering, some bowing indications and not much else. No reviser
+needs to put any indications for _nuance_ and shading in Beethoven. He
+was quite able to attend to all that himself. There is no composer who
+shows such refinement of _nuance_. You need only to take his quartets
+or these same sonatas to convince yourself of the fact. In my Brahms
+revisions I have supplied really needed fingerings, bowings, and other
+indications! Important compositions on which I am now at work include
+Ernst's fine Concerto, Op. 23, the Mozart violin concertos, and
+Tartini's _Trille du diable_, with a special cadenza for my pupil,
+Toscha Seidel.
+
+
+                          AS REGARDS "PRODIGIES"
+
+"Prodigies?" said Professor Auer. "The word 'prodigy' when applied to
+some youthful artist is always used with an accent of reproach. Public
+and critics are inclined to regard them with suspicion. Why? After all,
+the important thing is not their youth, but their artistry. Examine the
+history of music--you will discover that any number of great masters,
+great in the maturity of their genius, were great in its infancy as
+well. There are Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Rubinstein, d'Albert, Hofmann,
+Scriabine, Wieniawski--they were all 'infant prodigies,' and certainly
+not in any objectionable sense. Not that I wish to claim that every
+_prodigy_ necessarily becomes a great master. That does not always
+follow. But I believe that a musical prodigy, instead of being regarded
+with suspicion, has a right to be looked upon as a striking example of a
+pronounced natural predisposition for musical art. Of course, full
+mental development of artistic power must come as a result of the
+maturing processes of life itself. But I firmly believe that every
+prodigy represents a valuable musical phenomenon, one deserving of the
+keenest interest and encouragement. It does not seem right to me that
+when the art of the prodigy is incontestably great, that the mere fact
+of his youth should serve as an excuse to look upon him with prejudice,
+and even with a certain degree of distrust."
+
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+
+                                EDDY BROWN
+
+                         HUBAY AND AUER: TECHNIC:
+                           HINTS TO THE STUDENT
+
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that Eddy Brown was born in Chicago, Ill., and
+that he is so great a favorite with concert audiences in the land of his
+birth, the gifted violinist hesitates to qualify himself as a strictly
+"American" violinist. As he expresses it: "Musically I was altogether
+educated in Europe--I never studied here, because I left this country at
+the age of seven, and only returned a few years ago. So I would not like
+to be placed in the position of claiming anything under false pretenses!
+
+
+                    HUBAY AND AUER: SOME COMPARISONS
+
+"With whom did I study? With two famous masters; by a strange
+coincidence both Hungarians. First with Jenoe Hubay, at the National
+Academy of Music in Budapest, later with Leopold Auer in Petrograd.
+Hubay had been a pupil of Vieuxtemps in Brussels, and is a justly
+celebrated teacher, very thorough and painstaking in explaining to his
+pupils how to do things; but the great difference between Hubay and Auer
+is that while Hubay tells a student how to do things, Auer, a
+temperamental teacher, literally drags out of him whatever there is in
+him, awakening latent powers he never knew he possessed. Hubay is a
+splendid builder of virtuosity, and has a fine sense for phrasing. For a
+year and a half I worked at nothing but studies with him, giving special
+attention to technic. He did not believe in giving too much time to left
+hand development, when without adequate bow technic finger facility is
+useless. Here he was in accord with Auer, in fact with every teacher
+seriously deserving of the name. Hubay was a first-class pedagog, and
+under his instruction one could not help becoming a well-balanced and
+musicianly player. But there is a higher ideal in violin playing than
+mere correctness, and Auer is an inspiring teacher. Hubay has written
+some admirable studies, notably twelve studies for the right hand,
+though he never stressed technic too greatly. On the other hand, Auer's
+most notable contributions to violin literature are his revisions of
+such works as the Bach sonatas, the Tschaikovsky Concerto, etc. In a way
+it points the difference in their mental attitude: Hubay more concerned
+with the technical educational means, one which cannot be overlooked;
+Auer more interested in the interpretative, artistic educational end,
+which has always claimed his attention. Hubay personally was a _grand
+seigneur_, a multi-millionaire, and married to an Hungarian countess. He
+had a fine ear for phrasing, could improvise most interesting violin
+accompaniments to whatever his pupils played, and beside Rode, Kreutzer
+and Fiorillo I studied the concertos and other repertory works with him.
+Then there were the conservatory lessons! Attendance at a European
+conservatory is very broadening musically. Not only does the individual
+violin pupil, for example, profit by listening to his colleagues play in
+class: he also studies theory, musical history, the piano, _ensemble_
+playing, chamber-music and orchestra. I was concertmaster of the
+conservatory orchestra while studying with Hubay. There should be a
+national conservatory of music in this country; music in general would
+advance more rapidly. And it would help teach American students to
+approach the art of violin playing from the right point of view. As it
+is, too many want to study abroad under some renowned teacher not,
+primarily, with the idea of becoming great artists; but in the hope of
+drawing great future commercial dividends from an initial financial
+investment. In Art the financial should always be a secondary
+consideration.
+
+"It stands to reason that no matter how great a student's gifts may be,
+he can profit by study with a great teacher. This, I think, applies to
+all. After I had already appeared in concert at Albert Hall, London, in
+1909, where I played the Beethoven Concerto with orchestra, I decided to
+study with Auer. When I first came to him he wanted to know why I did
+so, and after hearing me play, told me that I did not need any lessons
+from him. But I knew that there was a certain 'something' which I wished
+to add to my violinistic make-up, and instinctively felt that he alone
+could give me what I wanted. I soon found that in many essentials his
+ideas coincided with those of Hubay. But I also discovered that Auer
+made me develop my individuality unconsciously, placing no undue
+restrictions whatsoever upon my manner of expression, barring, of
+course, unmusicianly tendencies. When he has a really talented pupil the
+Professor gives him of his best. I never gave a thought to technic while
+I studied with him--the great things were a singing tone, bowing,
+interpretation! I studied Brahms and Beethoven, and though Hubay always
+finished with the Bach sonatas, I studied them again carefully with
+Auer.
+
+
+                     TECHNIC: SOME HINTS TO THE STUDENT
+
+"At the bottom of all technic lies the scale. And scale practice is the
+ladder by means of which all must climb to higher proficiency. Scales,
+in single tones and intervals, thirds, sixths, octaves, tenths, with the
+incidental changes of position, are the foundation of technic. They
+should be practiced slowly, always with the development of tone in mind,
+and not too long a time at any one session. No one can lay claim to a
+perfected technic who has not mastered the scale. Better a good tone,
+even though a hundred mistakes be made in producing it, than a tone that
+is poor, thin and without quality. I find the Singer _Fingeruebungen_ are
+excellent for muscular development in scale work, for imparting the
+great strength which is necessary for the fingers to have; and the
+Kreutzer _etudes_ are indispensable. To secure an absolute _legato_
+tone, a true singing tone on the violin, one should play scales with a
+perfectly well sustained and steady bow, in whole notes, slowly and
+_mezzo-forte_, taking care that each note is clear and pure, and that
+its volume does not vary during the stroke. The quality of tone must be
+equalized, and each whole note should be 'sung' with a single bowing.
+The change from up-bow to down-bow and _vice versa_ should be made
+without a break, exclusively through skillful manipulation of the wrist.
+To accomplish this unbroken change of bow one should cultivate a loose
+wrist, and do special work at the extreme ends, nut and tip.
+
+"The _vibrato_ is a great tone beautifier. Too rapid or too slow a
+_vibrato_ defeats the object desired. There is a happy medium of
+_tempo_, rather faster than slower, which gives the best results. Carl
+Flesch has some interesting theories about vibration which are worth
+investigating. A slow and a moderately rapid _vibrato, from the wrist_,
+is best for practice, and the underlying idea while working must be
+tone, and not fingerwork.
+
+_Staccato_ is one of the less important branches of bow technic. There
+is a knack in doing it, and it is purely pyrotechnical. _Staccato_
+passages in quantity are only to be found in solos of the virtuoso type.
+One never meets with extended _staccato_ passages in Beethoven, Brahms,
+Bruch or Lalo. And the Saint-Saens's violin concerto, if I remember
+rightly, contains but a single _staccato_ passage.
+
+"_Spiccato_ is a very different matter from _staccato_: violinists as a
+rule use the middle of the bow for _spiccato_: I use the upper third of
+the bow, and thus get most satisfactory results, in no matter what
+_tempo_. This question as to what portion of the bow to use for
+_spiccato_ each violinist must decide for himself, however, through
+experiment. I have tried both ways and find that by the last mentioned
+use of the bow I secure quicker, cleaner results. Students while
+practicing this bowing should take care that the wrist, and never the
+arm, be used. Hubay has written some very excellent studies for this
+form of 'springing bow.'
+
+"The trill, when it rolls quickly and evenly, is a trill indeed! I never
+had any difficulty in acquiring it, and can keep on trilling
+indefinitely without the slightest unevenness or slackening of speed.
+Auer himself has assured me that I have a trill that runs on and on
+without a sign of fatigue or uncertainty. The trill has to be practiced
+very slowly at first, later with increasing rapidity, and always with a
+firm pressure of the fingers. It is a very beautiful embellishment, and
+one much used; one finds it in Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, etc.
+
+"Double notes never seemed hard to me, but harmonics are not as easily
+acquired as some of the other violin effects. I advise pressing down the
+first finger on the strings _inordinately_, especially in the higher
+positions, when playing artificial harmonics. The higher the fingers
+ascend on the strings, the more firmly they should press them, otherwise
+the harmonics are apt to grow shrill and lose in clearness. The majority
+of students have trouble with their harmonics, because they do not
+practice them in this way. Of course the quality of the harmonics
+produced varies with the quality of the strings that produce them. First
+class strings are an absolute necessity for the production of pure
+harmonics. Yet in the case of the artist, he himself is held
+responsible, and not his strings.
+
+"Octaves? Occasionally, as in Auer's transcript of Beethoven's _Dance of
+the Dervishes_, or in the closing section of the Ernst Concerto, when
+they are used to obtain a certain weird effect, they sound well. But
+ordinarily, if cleanly played, they sound like one-note successions. In
+the examples mentioned, the so-called 'fingered octaves,' which are very
+difficult, are employed. Ordinary octaves are not so troublesome. After
+all, in octave playing we simply double the notes for the purpose of
+making them more powerful.
+
+"As regards the playing of tenths, it seems to me that the interval
+always sounds constrained, and hardly ever euphonious enough to justify
+its difficulty, especially in rapid passages. Yet Paganini used this
+awkward interval very freely in his compositions, and one of his
+'Caprices' is a variation in tenths, which should be played more often
+than it is, as it is very effective. In this connection change of
+position, which I have already touched on with regard to scale playing,
+should be so smooth that it escapes notice. Among special effects the
+_glissando_ is really beautiful when properly done. And this calls for
+judgment. It might be added, though, that the _glissando_ is an effect
+which should not be overdone. The _portamento_--gliding from one note to
+another--is also a lovely effect. Its proper and timely application
+calls for good judgment and sound musical taste.
+
+
+                            A SPANISH VIOLIN
+
+"I usually play a 'Strad,' but very often turn to my beautiful
+'Guillami,'" said Mr. Brown when asked about his violins. "It is an old
+Spanish violin, made in Barcelona, in 1728, with a tone that has a
+distinct Stradivarius character. In appearance it closely resembles a
+Guadagnini, and has often been taken for one. When the dealer of whom I
+bought it first showed it to me it was complete--but in four distinct
+pieces! Kubelik, who was in Budapest at the time, heard of it and wanted
+to buy it; but the dealer, as was only right, did not forget that my
+offer represented a prior claim, and so I secured it. The Guadagnini,
+which I have played in all my concerts here, I am very fond of--it has a
+Stradivarius tone rather than the one we usually associate with the
+make." Mr. Brown showed the writer his Grancino, a beautiful little
+instrument about to be sent to the repair shop, since exposure to the
+damp atmosphere of the sea-shore had opened its seams--and the rare and
+valuable Simon bow, now his, which had once been the property of
+Sivori. Mr. Brown has used a wire E ever since he broke six gut strings
+in one hour while at Seal Harbor, Maine. "A wire string, I find, is not
+only easier to play, but it has a more brilliant quality of tone than a
+gut string; and I am now so accustomed to using a wire E, that I would
+feel ill at ease if I did not have one on my instrument. Contrary to
+general belief, it does not sound 'metallic,' unless the string itself
+is of very poor quality.
+
+
+PROGRAMS
+
+"In making up a recital program I try to arrange it so that the first
+half, approximately, may appeal to the more specifically musical part of
+my audience, and to the critics. In the second half I endeavor to
+remember the general public; at the same time being careful to include
+nothing which is not really _musical_. This (Mr. Brown found one of his
+recent programs on his desk and handed it to me) represents a logical
+compromise between the strictly artistic and the more general taste:"
+
+
+                                 PROGRAM
+
+      I. Beethoven .  .  .  .  . Sonata Op. 47 (dedicated to Kreutzer)
+
+     II. Bruch .  .  .  .  .  .  Concerto (G minor)
+
+     III. (a) Beethoven . .  .  . Romance (in G major)
+          (b) Beethoven-Auer  . . Chorus of the Dervishes
+          (c) Brown .  .  .  .  . Rondino (on a Cramer theme)
+          (d) Arbos .  .  .  .  . Tango
+
+     IV. (a) Kreisler  .  .  .  . La Gitana
+         (Arabo-Spanish Gipsy Dance of the 18th Century)
+         (b) Cui .  .  .  .  .  . Orientale
+         (c) Bazzini.  .  .  .  . La Ronde des Lutins
+
+
+"As you see there are two extended serious works, followed by two
+smaller 'groups' of pieces. And these have also been chosen with a view
+to contrast. The _finale_ of the Bruch concerto is an _allegro
+energico_: I follow it with a Beethoven _Romance_, a slow movement. The
+second group begins with a taking Kreisler novelty, which is succeeded
+by another slow number; but one very effective in its working-up; and I
+end my program with a brilliant virtuoso number.
+
+
+                               VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"My own personal conception of violin mastery," concluded Mr. Brown,
+"might be defined as follows: 'An individual tone production, or rather
+tone quality, consummate musicianship in phrasing and interpretation,
+ability to rise above all mechanical and intellectual effort, and
+finally the power to express that which is dictated by one's imagination
+and emotion, with the same natural simplicity and spontaneity with which
+the thought of a really great orator is expressed in the easy,
+unconstrained flow of his language.'"
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+                              MISCHA ELMAN
+
+                    LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION.
+                             TECHNICAL PHASES
+
+
+To hear Mischa Elman on the concert platform, to listen to him play,
+"with all that wealth of tone, emotion and impulse which places him in
+the very foremost rank of living violinists," should be joy enough for
+any music lover. To talk with him in his own home, however, gives one a
+deeper insight into his art as an interpreter; and in the pleasant
+intimacy of familiar conversation the writer learned much that the
+serious student of the violin will be interested in knowing.
+
+
+          [Illustration: MISCHA ELMAN, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                          MANNERISMS IN PLAYING
+
+We all know that Elman, when he plays in public, moves his head, moves
+his body, sways in time to the music; in a word there are certain
+mannerisms associated with his playing which critics have on occasion
+mentioned with grave suspicion, as evidences of sensationalism. Half
+fearing to insult him by asking whether he was "sincere," or whether his
+motions were "stage business" carefully rehearsed, as had been implied,
+I still ventured the question. He laughed boyishly and was evidently
+much amused.
+
+"No, no," he said. "I do not study up any 'stage business' to help out
+my playing! I do not know whether I ought to compare myself to a dancer,
+but the appeal of the dance is in all musical movement. Certain rhythms
+and musical combinations affect me subconsciously. I suppose the direct
+influence of the music on me is such that there is a sort of emotional
+reflex: I move with the music in an unconscious translation of it into
+gesture. It is all so individual. The French violinists as a rule play
+very correctly in public, keeping their eye on finger and bow. And this
+appeals to me strongly in theory. In practice I seem to get away from
+it. It is a matter of temperament I presume. I am willing to believe I'm
+not graceful, but then--I do not know whether I move or do not move!
+Some of my friends have spoken of it to me at various times, so I
+suppose I do move, and sway and all the rest; but any movements of the
+sort must be unconscious, for I myself know nothing of them. And the
+idea that they are 'prepared' as 'stage effects' is delightful!" And
+again Elman laughed.
+
+
+                    LIFE AND COLOR IN INTERPRETATION
+
+"For that matter," he continued, "every real artist has some mannerisms
+when playing, I imagine. Yet more than mannerisms are needed to impress
+an American audience. Life and color in interpretation are the true
+secrets of great art. And beauty of interpretation depends, first of
+all, on variety of color. Technic is, after all, only secondary. No
+matter how well played a composition be, its performance must have
+color, _nuance_, movement, life! Each emotional mood of the moment must
+be fully expressed, and if it is its appeal is sure. I remember when I
+once played for Don Manuel, the young ex-king of Portugal, in London, I
+had an illustration of the fact. He was just a pathetic boy, very
+democratic, and personally very likable. He was somewhat neglected at
+the time, for it is well known and not altogether unnatural, that
+royalty securely established finds 'kings in exile' a bit embarrassing.
+Don Manuel was a music-lover, and especially fond of Bach. I had had
+long talks with the young king at various times, and my sympathies had
+been aroused in his behalf. On the evening of which I speak I played a
+Chopin _Nocturne_, and I know that into my playing there went some of my
+feeling for the pathos of the situation of this young stranger in a
+strange land, of my own age, eating the bitter bread of exile. When I
+had finished, the Marchioness of Ripon touched my arm: 'Look at the
+King!' she whispered. Don Manuel had been moved to tears.
+
+"Of course the purely mechanical must always be dominated by the
+artistic personality of the player. Yet technic is also an important
+part of interpretation: knowing exactly how long to hold a bow, the most
+delicate inflections of its pressure on the strings. There must be
+perfect sympathy also with the composer's thought; his spirit must stand
+behind the personality of the artist. In the case of certain famous
+compositions, like the Beethoven concerto, for instance, this is so well
+established that the artist, and never the composer, is held responsible
+if it is not well played. But too rigorous an adherence to 'tradition'
+in playing is also an extreme. I once played privately for Joachim in
+Berlin: it was the Bach _Chaconne_. Now the edition I used was a
+standard one: and Joachim was extremely reverential as regards
+traditions. Yet he did not hesitate to indicate some changes which he
+thought should be made in the version of an authoritative edition,
+because 'they sounded better.' And 'How does it sound?' is really the
+true test of all interpretation."
+
+
+               ABSOLUTE PITCH THE FIRST ESSENTIAL OF A
+                           PERFECTED TECHNIC
+
+"What is the fundamental of a perfected violin technic?" was a natural
+question at this point. "Absolute pitch, first of all," replied Elman
+promptly. "Many a violinist plays a difficult passage, sounding every
+note; and yet it sounds out of tune. The first and second movements of
+the Beethoven concerto have no double-stops; yet they are extremely
+difficult to play. Why? Because they call for absolute pitch: they must
+be played in perfect tune so that each tone stands out in all its
+fullness and clarity like a rock in the sea. And without a fundamental
+control of pitch such a master work will always be beyond the
+violinist's reach. Many a player has the facility; but without perfect
+intonation he can never attain the highest perfection. On the other
+hand, any one who can play a single phrase in absolute pitch has the
+first and great essential. Few artists, not barring some of the
+greatest, play with perfect intonation. Its control depends first of all
+on the ear. And a sensitive ear finds differences and shading; it bids
+the violinist play a trifle sharper, a trifle flatter, according to the
+general harmonic color of the accompaniment; it leads him to observe a
+difference, when the harmonic atmosphere demands it, between a C sharp
+in the key of E major and a D flat in the same key.
+
+
+                            TECHNICAL PHASES
+
+"Every player finds some phases of technic easy and others difficult.
+For instance, I have never had to work hard for quality of tone--when I
+wish to get certain color effects they come: I have no difficulty in
+expressing my feelings, my emotions in tone. And in a technical way
+_spiccato_ bowing, which many find so hard, has always been easy to me.
+I have never had to work for it. Double-stops, on the contrary, cost me
+hours of intensive work before I played them with ease and facility.
+What did I practice? Scales in double-stops--they give color and variety
+to tone. And I gave up a certain portion of my regular practice time to
+passages from concertos and sonatas. There is wonderful work in
+double-stops in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini _Etudes_, for
+instance. With octaves and tenths I have never had any trouble: I have a
+broad hand and a wide stretch, which accounts for it, I suppose.
+
+"Then there are harmonics, flageolets--I, have never been able to
+understand why they should be considered so difficult! They should not
+be white, colorless; but call for just as much color as any other tones
+(and any one who has heard Mischa Elman play harmonics knows that this
+is no mere theory on his part). I never think of harmonics as
+'harmonics,' but try to give them just as much expressive quality as the
+notes of any other register. The mental attitude should influence their
+production--too many violinists think of them only as incidental to
+pyrotechnical display.
+
+"And fingering? Fingering in general seems to me to be an individual
+matter. A concert artist may use a certain fingering for a certain
+passage which no pupil should use, and be entirely justified if he can
+thus secure a certain effect.
+
+"I do not--speaking out of my own experience--believe much in methods:
+and never to the extent that they be allowed to kill the student's
+individuality. A clear, clean tone should always be the ideal of his
+striving. And to that end he must see that the up and down bows in a
+passage like the following from the Bach sonata in A minor (and Mr.
+Elman hastily jotted down the subjoined) are absolutely
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+even, and of the same length, played with the same strength and length
+of bow, otherwise the notes are swallowed. In light _spiccato_ and
+_staccato_ the detached notes should be played always with a single
+stroke of the bow. Some players, strange to say, find _staccato_ notes
+more difficult to play at a moderate tempo than fast. I believe it to be
+altogether a matter of control--if proper control be there the tempo
+makes no difference. Wieniawski, I have read, could only play his
+_staccati_ at a high rate of speed. _Spiccato_ is generally held to be
+more difficult than _staccato_; yet I myself find it easier.
+
+
+                        PROPORTION IN PRACTICE
+
+"To influence a clear, singing tone with the left hand, to phrase it
+properly with the bow hand, is most important. And it is a matter of
+proportion. Good phrasing is spoiled by an ugly tone: a beautiful
+singing tone loses meaning if improperly phrased. When the student has
+reached a certain point of technical development, technic must be a
+secondary--yet not neglected--consideration, and he should devote
+himself to the production of a good tone. Many violinists have missed
+their career by exaggerated attention to either bow or violin hand. Both
+hands must be watched at the same time. And the question of proportion
+should always be kept in mind in practicing studies and passages:
+pressure of fingers and pressure of bow must be equalized, coordinated.
+The teacher can only do a certain amount: the pupil must do the rest.
+
+
+                           AUER AS A TEACHER
+
+"Take Auer for example. I may call myself the first real exponent of his
+school, in the sense of making his name widely known. Auer is a great
+teacher, and leaves much to the individuality of his pupils. He first
+heard me play at the Imperial Music School in Odessa, and took me to
+Petrograd to study with him, which I did for a year and four months. And
+he could accomplish wonders! That one year he had a little group of four
+pupils each one better than the other--a very stimulating situation for
+all of them. There was a magnetism about him: he literally hypnotized
+his pupils into doing better than their best--though in some cases it
+was evident that once the support of his magnetic personality was
+withdrawn, the pupil fell back into the level from which he had been
+raised for the time being.
+
+"Yet Auer respected the fact that temperamentally I was not responsive
+to this form of appeal. He gave me of his best. I never practiced more
+than two or three hours a day--just enough to keep fresh. Often I came
+to my lesson unprepared, and he would have me play things--sonatas,
+concertos--which I had not touched for a year or more. He was a severe
+critic, but always a just one.
+
+"I can recall how proud I was when he sent me to beautiful music-loving
+Helsingfors, in Finland--where all seems to be bloodshed and confusion
+now--to play a recital in his own stead on one occasion, and how proud
+he was of my success. Yet Auer had his little peculiarities. I have read
+somewhere that the great fencing-masters of the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries were very jealous of the secrets of their famous
+feints and _ripostes_, and only confided them to favorite pupils who
+promised not to reveal them. Auer had his little secrets, too, with
+which he was loth to part. When I was to make my _debut_ in Berlin, I
+remember, he was naturally enough interested--since I was his pupil--in
+my scoring a triumph. And he decided to part with some of his treasured
+technical thrusts and parries. And when I was going over the
+Tschaikovsky _D minor concerto_ (which I was to play), he would select a
+passage and say: 'Now I'll play this for you. If you catch it, well and
+good; if not it is your own fault!' I am happy to say that I did not
+fail to 'catch' his meaning on any occasion. Auer really has a wonderful
+intellect, and some secrets well worth knowing. That he is so great an
+artist himself on the instrument is the more remarkable, since
+physically he was not exceptionally favored. Often, when he saw me, he'd
+say with a sigh: 'Ah, if I only had your hand!'
+
+"Auer was a great virtuoso player. He held a unique place in the
+Imperial Ballet. You know in many of the celebrated ballets,
+Tschaikovsky's for instance, there occur beautiful and difficult solos
+for the violin. They call for an artist of the first rank, and Auer was
+accustomed to play them in Petrograd. In Russia it was considered a
+decided honor to be called upon to play one of those ballet solos; but
+in London it was looked on as something quite incidental. I remember
+when Diaghilev presented Tschaikovsky's _Lac des Cygnes_ in London, the
+Grand-Duke Andrew Vladimirev (who had heard me play), an amiable young
+boy, and a patron of the arts, requested me--and at that time the
+request of a Romanov was still equivalent to a command--to play the
+violin solos which accompany the love scenes. It was not exactly easy,
+since I had to play and watch dancers and conductor at the same time.
+Yet it was a novelty for London, however; everybody was pleased and the
+Grand-Duke presented me with a handsome diamond pin as an
+acknowledgment.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"You ask me what I understand by 'Violin Mastery'? Well, it seems to me
+that the artist who can present anything he plays as a distinct
+picture, in every detail, framing the composer's idea in the perfect
+beauty of his plastic rendering, with absolute truth of color and
+proportion--he is the artist who deserves to be called a master!
+
+"Of course, the instrument the artist uses is an important factor in
+making it possible for him to do his best. My violin? It is an authentic
+Strad--dated 1722. I bought it of Willy Burmester in London. You see he
+did not care much for it. The German style of playing is not calculated
+to bring out the tone beauty, the quality of the old Italian fiddles. I
+think Burmester had forced the tone, and it took me some time to make it
+mellow and truly responsive again, but now...." Mr. Elman beamed. It was
+evident he was satisfied with his instrument. "As to strings," he
+continued, "I never use wire strings--they have no color, no quality!
+
+
+                         WHAT TO STUDY AND HOW
+
+"For the advanced student there is a wealth of study material. No one
+ever wrote more beautiful violin music than Haendel, so rich in
+invention, in harmonic fullness. In Beethoven there are more ideas than
+tone--but such ideas! Schubert--all genuine, spontaneous! Bach is so
+gigantic that the violin often seems inadequate to express him. That is
+one reason why I do not play more Bach in public.
+
+"The study of a sonata or concerto should entirely absorb the attention
+of the student to such a degree that, as he is able to play it, it has
+become a part of him. He should be able to play it as though it were an
+improvisation--of course without doing violence to the composer's idea.
+If he masters the composition in the way it should be mastered it
+becomes a portion of himself. Before I even take up my violin I study a
+piece thoroughly in score. I read and reread it until I am at home with
+the composer's thought, and its musical balance and proportion. Then,
+when I begin to play it, its salient points are already memorized, and
+the practicing gives me a kind of photographic reflex of detail. After I
+have not played a number for a long time it fades from my memory--like
+an old negative--but I need only go over it once or twice to have a
+clear mnemonic picture of it once more.
+
+"Yes, I believe in transcriptions for the violin--with certain
+provisos," said Mr. Elman, in reply to another question. "First of all
+the music to be transcribed must lend itself naturally to the
+instrument. Almost any really good melodic line, especially a
+_cantilena_, will sound with a fitting harmonic development. Violinists
+of former days like Spohr, Rode and Paganini were more intent on
+composing music _out of the violin_! The modern idea lays stress first
+of all on the _idea_ in music. In transcribing I try to forget I am a
+violinist, in order to form a perfect picture of the musical idea--its
+violinistic development must be a natural, subconscious working-out. If
+you will look at some of my recent transcripts--the Albaniz _Tango_, the
+negro melody _Deep River_ and Amani's fine _Orientale_--you will see
+what I mean. They are conceived as pictures--I have not tried to analyze
+too much--and while so conceiving them their free harmonic background
+shapes itself for me without strain or effort.
+
+
+                       A REMINISCENCE OF COLONNE
+
+"Conductors with whom I have played? There are many: Hans Richter, who
+was a master of the baton; Nikisch, one of the greatest in conducting
+the orchestral accompaniment to a violin solo number; Colonne of Paris,
+and many others. I had an amusing experience with Colonne once. He
+brought his orchestra to Russia while I was with Auer, and was giving a
+concert at Pavlovsk, a summer resort near Petrograd. Colonne had a
+perfect horror of 'infant prodigies,' and Auer had arranged for me to
+play with his orchestra without telling him my age--I was eleven at the
+time. When Colonne saw me, violin in hand, ready to step on the stage,
+he drew himself up and said with emphasis: 'I play with a prodigy!
+Never!' Nothing could move him, and I had to play to a piano
+accompaniment. After he had heard me play, though, he came over to me
+and said: 'The best apology I can make for what I said is to ask you to
+do me the honor of playing with the _Orchestre Colonne_ in Paris.' He
+was as good as his word. Four months later I went to Paris and played
+the Mendelssohn concerto for him with great success."
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+                             SAMUEL GARDNER
+
+                        TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP
+
+
+Samuel Gardner, though born in Jelisavetgrad, Cherson province, in
+Southern Russia, in 1891, is to all intents and purposes an American,
+since his family, fleeing the tyranny of an Imperialistic regime of
+"pogroms" and "Black Hundreds," brought him to this country when a mere
+child; and here in the United States he has become, to quote Richard
+Aldrich, "the serious and accomplished artist," whose work on the
+concert stage has given such pleasure to lovers of violin music at its
+best. The young violinist, who in the course of the same week had just
+won two prizes in composition--the Pulitzer Prize (Columbia) for a
+string quartet, and the Loeb Prize for a symphonic poem--was amiably
+willing to talk of his study experience for the benefit of other
+students.
+
+
+       CHARLES MARTIN LOEFFLER AND FELIX WINTERNITZ AS TEACHERS
+
+"I took up the study of the violin at the age of seven, and when I was
+nine I went to Charles Martin Loeffler and really began to work
+seriously. Loeffler was a very strict teacher and very exacting, but he
+achieved results, for he had a most original way of making his points
+clear to the student. He started off with the Sevcik studies, laying
+great stress on the proper finger articulation. And he taught me
+absolute smoothness in change of position when crossing the strings. For
+instance, in the second book of Sevcik's 'Technical Exercises,' in the
+third exercise, the bow crosses from G to A, and from D to E, leaving a
+string between in each crossing. Well, I simply could not manage to get
+to the second string to be played without the string in between
+sounding! Loeffler showed me what every good fiddler _must_ learn to do:
+to leap from the end of the down-bow to the up-bow and _vice versa_ and
+then hesitate the fraction of a moment, thus securing a smooth,
+clean-cut tone, without any vibration of the intermediate string.
+Loeffler never gave a pupil any rest until he came up to his
+requirements. I know when I played the seventh and eighth Kreutzer
+studies for him--they are trill studies--he said: 'You trill like an
+electric bell, but not fast enough!' And he kept at me to speed up my
+tempo without loss of clearness or tone-volume, until I could do justice
+to a rapid trill. It is a great quality in a teacher to be literally
+able to _enforce_ the pupil's progress in certain directions; for though
+the latter may not appreciate it at the time, later on he is sure to do
+so. I remember once when he was trying to explain the perfect
+_crescendo_ to me, fire-engine bells began to ring in the distance, the
+sound gradually drawing nearer the house in Charles Street where I was
+taking my lesson. 'There you have it!' Loeffler cried: 'There's your
+ideal _crescendo_! Play it like that and I will be satisfied!' I
+remained with Loeffler a year and a half, and when he went to Paris
+began to study with Felix Winternitz.
+
+"Felix Winternitz was a teacher who allowed his pupils to develop
+individuality. 'I care nothing for theories,' he used to say, 'so long
+as I can see something original in your work!' He attached little
+importance to the theory of technic, but a great deal to technical
+development along individual lines. And he always encouraged me to
+express myself freely, within my limitations, stressing the musical side
+of my work. With him I played through the concertos which, after a time,
+I used for technical material, since every phase of technic and bowing
+is covered in these great works. I was only fifteen when I left
+Winternitz and still played by instinct rather than intellectually. I
+still used my bow arm somewhat stiffly, and did not think much about
+phrasing. I instinctively phrased whatever the music itself made clear
+to me, and what I did not understand I merely played.
+
+
+                       KNEISEL'S TEACHING METHODS
+
+"But when I came to Franz Kneisel, my last teacher, I began to work with
+my mind. Kneisel showed me that I had to think when I played. At first I
+did not realize why he kept at me so insistently about phrasing,
+interpretation, the exact observance of expression marks; but eventually
+it dawned on me that he was teaching me to read a soul into each
+composition I studied.
+
+"I practiced hard, from four to five hours a day. Fortunately, as
+regards technical equipment, I was ready for Kneisel's instruction. The
+first thing he gave me to study was, not a brilliant virtuoso piece, but
+the Bach concerto in E major, and then the Viotti concerto. In the
+beginning, until Kneisel showed me, I did not know what to do with them.
+This was music whose notes in themselves were easy, and whose
+difficulties were all of an individual order. But intellectual analysis,
+interpretation, are Kneisel's great points. A strict teacher, I worked
+with him for five years, the most remarkable years of all my violin
+study.
+
+"Kneisel knows how to develop technical perfection without using
+technical exercises. I had already played the Mendelssohn, Bruch and
+Lalo concertos with Winternitz, and these I now restudied with Kneisel.
+In interpretation he makes clear every phrase in its relation to every
+other phrase and the movement as a whole. And he insists on his pupils
+studying theory and composition--something I had formerly not been
+inclined to take seriously.
+
+"Some teachers are satisfied if the student plays his _notes_ correctly,
+in a general way. With Kneisel the very least detail, a trill, a scale,
+has to be given its proper tone-color and dynamic shading in absolute
+proportion with the balancing harmonies. This trill, in the first
+movement of the Beethoven concerto--(and Mr. Gardner jotted it down)
+
+                    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Kneisel kept me at during the entire lesson, till I was able to adjust
+its tone-color and _nuances_ to the accompanying harmony. Then, though
+many teachers do not know it, it is a tradition in the orchestra to make
+a _diminuendo_ in the sixth measure, before the change of key to C
+major, and this _diminuendo_ should, of course, be observed by the solo
+instrument as well. Yet you will hear well-known artists play the trill
+throughout with a loud, brilliant tone and no dynamic change!
+
+"Kneisel makes it a point to have all his pupils play chamber music
+because of its truly broadening influence. And he is unexcelled in
+taking apart structurally the Beethoven, Brahms, Tschaikovsky and other
+quartets, in analyzing and explaining the wonderful planning and
+building up of each movement. I had the honor of playing second violin
+in the Kneisel Quartet from September to February (1914-1915), at the
+outbreak of the war, a most interesting experience. The musicianship
+Kneisel had given me; I was used to his style and at home with his
+ideas, and am happy to think that he was satisfied. A year later as
+assistant concertmaster in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I had a
+chance to become practically acquainted with the orchestral works of
+Strauss, d'Indy and other moderns, and enjoy the Beethoven, Brahms and
+Tschaikovsky symphonies as a performer.
+
+
+                        TECHNIC AND MUSICIANSHIP
+
+"How do I regard technic now? I think of it in the terms of the music
+itself. Music should dictate the technical means to be used. The
+composition and its phrases should determine bowing and the tone quality
+employed. One should not think of down-bows or up-bows. In the Brahms
+concerto you can find many long phrases: they cannot be played with one
+bow; yet there must be no apparent change of bow. If the player does not
+know what the phrase means; how to interpret it, how will he be able to
+bow it correctly?
+
+"And there are so many different _nuances_, especially in _legato_. It
+is as a rule produced by a slurred bow; yet it may also be produced by
+other bowings. To secure a good _legato_ tone watch the singer. The
+singer can establish the perfect smoothness that _legato_ calls for to
+perfection. To secure a like effect the violinist should convey the
+impression that there is no point, no frog, that the bow he uses is of
+indefinite length. And the violinist should never think: 'I must play
+this up-bow or down-bow.' Artists of the German school are more apt to
+begin a phrase with a down-bow; the French start playing a good deal at
+the point. Up or down, both are secondary to finding out, first of all,
+what quality, what balance of tone the phrase demands. The conductor of
+a symphonic orchestra does not care how, technically, certain effects
+are produced by the violins, whether they use an up-bow or a down-bow.
+He merely says: 'That's too heavy: give me less tone!' The result to be
+achieved is always more important than the manner of achievement.
+
+"All phases of technical accomplishment, if rightly acquired, tend to
+become second nature to the player in the course of time: _staccato_, a
+brilliant trick; _spiccato_, the reiteration of notes played from the
+wrist, etc. The _martellato_, a _nuance_ of _spiccato_, should be played
+with a firm bowing at the point. In a very broad _spiccato_, the arm
+may be brought into play; but otherwise not, since it makes rapid
+playing impossible. Too many amateurs try to play _spiccato_ from the
+arm. And too many teachers are contented with a trill that is merely
+brilliant. Kneisel insists on what he calls a 'musical trill,' of which
+Kreisler's beautiful trill is a perfect example. The trill of some
+violinists is _invariably_ brilliant, whether brilliancy is appropriate
+or not. Brilliant trills in Bach always seem out of place to me; while
+in Paganini and in Wieniawski's _Carnaval de Venise_ a high brilliant
+trill is very effective.
+
+"As to double-stops--Edison once said that violin music should be
+written only in double-stops--I practice them playing first the single
+notes and then the two together, and can recommend this mode of practice
+from personal experience. Harmonics, where clarity is the most important
+thing, are mainly a matter of bowing, of a sure attack and sustaining by
+the bow. Of course the harmonics themselves are made by the fingers; but
+their tone quality rests altogether with the bow.
+
+
+                          EDISON AND OCTAVES
+
+"The best thing I've ever heard said of octaves was Edison's remark to
+me that 'They are merely a nuisance and should not be played!' I was
+making some records for him during the experimental stage of the disk
+record, when he was trying to get an absolutely smooth _legato_ tone,
+one that conformed to Loeffler's definition of it as 'no breaks' in the
+tone. He had had Schubert's _Ave Maria_ recorded by Flesch, MacMillan
+and others, and wanted me to play it for him. The records were all
+played for me, and whenever he came to the octave passages Edison would
+say: 'Listen to them! How badly they sound!' Yet the octaves were
+absolutely in tune! 'Why do they sound so badly?' I inquired.
+
+"Then Edison explained to me that according to the scientific theory of
+vibration, the vibrations of the higher tone of the octaves should be
+exactly twice those of the lower note. 'But here,' he continued, 'the
+vibrations of the notes all vary.' 'Yet how can the player control his
+fingers in the _vibrato_ beyond playing his octaves in perfect tune?' I
+asked. 'Well, if he cannot do so,' said Edison, 'octaves are merely a
+nuisance, and should not be played at all.' I experimented and found
+that by simply pressing down the fingers and playing without any
+_vibrato_, I could come pretty near securing the exact relation between
+the vibrations of the upper and lower notes but--they sounded dreadful!
+Of course, octaves sound well in _ensemble_, especially in the
+orchestra, because each player plays but a single note. And tenths sound
+even better than octaves when two people play them.
+
+
+                          WIRE AND GUT STRINGS
+
+"You ask about my violin? It belonged to the famous Hawley collection,
+and is a Giovanni Baptista Guadignini, made in 1780, in Turin. The back
+is a single piece of maple-wood, having a broadish figure extending
+across its breadth. The maple-wood sides match the back. The top is
+formed of a very choice piece of spruce, and it is varnished a deep
+golden-red. It has a remarkably fine tone, very vibrant and with great
+carrying power, a tone that has all that I can ask for as regards volume
+and quality.
+
+"I think that wire strings are largely used now-a-days because gut
+strings are hard to obtain--not because they are better. I do not use
+wire strings. I have tried them and find them thin in tone, or so
+brilliant that their tone is too piercing. Then, too, I find that the
+use of a wire E reduces the volume of tone of the other strings. No
+wire string has the quality of a fine gut string; and I regard them only
+as a substitute in the case of some people, and a convenience for lazy
+ones.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? Off-hand I might say the phrase stands for a life-time
+of effort with its highest aims unattained. As I see it the achievement
+of violin mastery represents a combination of 90 per cent. of toil and
+10 per cent. of talent or inspiration. Goetschius, with whom I studied
+composition, once said to me: 'I do not congratulate you on having
+talent. That is a gift. But I do congratulate you on being able to work
+hard!' The same thing applies to the fiddle. It seems to me that only by
+keeping everlastingly at it can one become a master of the instrument."
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+                            ARTHUR HARTMANN
+
+                        THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC
+
+
+Arthur Hartmann is distinctly and unmistakably a personality. He stands
+out even in that circle of distinguished contemporary violinists which
+is so largely made up of personalities. He is a composer--not only of
+violin pieces, but of symphonic and choral works, chamber music, songs
+and piano numbers. His critical analysis of Bach's _Chaconne_,
+translated into well-nigh every tongue, is probably the most complete
+and exhaustive study of "that triumph of genius over matter" written.
+And besides being a master of his own instrument he plays the _viola
+d'amore_, that sweet-toned survival, with sympathetic strings, of the
+17th century viol family, and the Hungarian _czimbalom_. Nor is his
+mastery of the last-named instrument "out of drawing," for we must
+remember that Mr. Hartmann was born in Mate Szalka, in Southern Hungary.
+Then, too, Mr. Hartmann is a genial and original thinker, a
+_litterateur_ of no mean ability, a bibliophile, the intimate of the
+late Claude Debussy, and of many of the great men of musical Europe. Yet
+from the reader's standpoint the interest he inspires is, no doubt,
+mainly due to the fact that not only is he a great interpreting
+artist--but a great artist doubled by a great teacher, an unusual
+combination.
+
+     [Illustration: _Photo by E.F. Foley, N.Y._ ARTHUR HARTMANN,
+                        with hand-written note]
+
+Characteristic of Mr. Hartmann's hospitality (the writer had passed a
+pleasant hour with him some years before, but had not seen him since),
+was the fact that he insisted in brewing Turkish coffee, and making his
+caller feel quite at home before even allowing him to broach the subject
+of his visit. And when he learned that its purpose was to draw on his
+knowledge and experience for information which would be of value to the
+serious student and lover of his art, he did not refuse to respond.
+
+
+                     WHAT VIOLIN PLAYING REALLY IS
+
+"Violin playing is really no abstract mystery. It's as clear as
+geography in a way: one might say the whole art is bounded on the South
+by the G string, on the North by the E string, on the West by the
+string hand--and that's about as far as the comparison may be carried
+out. The point is, there are definite boundaries, whose technical and
+esthetic limits may be extended, and territorial annexations made
+through brain power, mental control. To me 'Violin Mastery' means taking
+this little fiddle-box in hand [and Mr. Hartmann suited action to word
+by raising the lid of his violin-case and drawing forth his beautiful
+1711 Strad], and doing just what I want with it. And that means having
+the right finger on the right place at the right time--but don't forget
+that to be able to do this you must have forgotten to think of your
+fingers as fingers. They should be simply unconscious slaves of the
+artist's psychic expression, absolutely subservient to his ideal. Too
+many people reverse the process and become slaves to their fingers.
+
+
+                         THE PROBLEM OF TECHNIC
+
+"Technic, for instance, in its mechanical sense, is a much exaggerated
+microbe of _Materia musica_. All technic must conform to its
+instrument.[A] The violin was made to suit the hand, not the hand to
+suit the violin, hence its technic must be based on a natural logic of
+hand movement. The whole problem of technical control is encountered in
+the first change of position on the violin. If we violinists could play
+in but one position there would be no technical problem. The solution of
+this problem means, speaking broadly, the ability to play the
+violin--for there is only one way of playing it--with a real, full,
+singing 'violin' tone. It's not a question of a method, but just a
+process based on pure reason, the working out of rational principles.
+
+[Footnote A: This is the idea which underlies my system for ear-training
+and absolute pitch, "Arthur Hartmann's System," as I call it, which I
+have published. A.H.]
+
+"What is the secret of this singing tone? Well, you may call it a
+secret, for many of my pupils have no inkling of it when they first come
+here, though it seems very much of an 'open secret' to me. The finished
+beauty of the violin 'voice' is a round, sustained, absolutely smooth
+_cantabile_ tone. Now [Mr. Hartmann took up his Strad], I'll play you
+the scale of G as the average violin student plays it. You see--each
+slide from one tone to the next, a break--a rosary of lurches! How can
+there be a round, harmonious tone when the fingers progress by jerks?
+Shifting position must not be a continuous movement of effort, but a
+continuous movement in which effort and relaxation--that of dead
+weight--alternate. As an illustration, when we walk we do not
+consciously set down one foot, and then swing forward the other foot and
+leg with a jerk. The forward movement is smooth, unconscious,
+coordinated: in putting the foot forward it carries the weight of the
+entire body, the movement becomes a matter of instinct. And the same
+applies to the progression of the fingers in shifting the position of
+the hand. Now, playing the scale as I now do--only two fingers should be
+used--
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+I prepare every shift. Absolute accuracy of intonation and a singing
+legato is the result. These guiding notes indicated are merely a test to
+prove the scientific spacing of the violin; they are not sounded once
+control of the hand has been obtained. _They serve only to accustom the
+fingers to keep moving in the direction in which they are going_.
+
+"The tone is produced by the left hand, by the weight of the fingers
+plus an undercurrent of sustained effort. Now, you see, _if in the
+moment of sliding you prepare the bow for the next string, the slide
+itself is lost in the crossing of the bow_. To carry out consistently
+this idea of effort and relaxation in the downward progression of the
+scale, you will find that when you are in the third position, the
+position of the hand is practically the same as in the first position.
+Hence, in order to go down from third to first position with the hand in
+what might be called a 'block' position, another movement is called for
+to bridge over this space (between third and first position), and this
+movement is the function of the thumb. The thumb, preceding the hand,
+relaxes the wrist and helps draw the hand back to first position. But
+great care must be taken that the thumb is not moved until the first
+finger will have been played; otherwise there will be a tendency to
+flatten. In the illustration the indication for the thumb is placed
+after the note played by the first finger.
+
+"The inviolable law of beautiful playing is that there must be no
+angles. As I have shown you, right and left hand cooerdinate. The fiddle
+hand is preparing the change of position, while the change of strings is
+prepared by the right hand. And always the slides in the left hand are
+prepared by the last played finger--_the last played finger is the true
+guide to smooth progression_--just as the bow hand prepares the slides
+in the last played bowing. There should be no such thing as jumping and
+trusting in Providence to land right, and a curse ought to be laid on
+those who let their fingers leave the fingerboard. None who develop this
+fundamental aspect of all good playing lose the perfect control of
+position.
+
+"Of course there are a hundred _nuances_ of technic (into which the
+quality of good taste enters largely) that one could talk of at length:
+phrasing, and the subtle things happening in the bow arm that influence
+it; _spiccato_, whose whole secret is finding the right point of balance
+in the bow and, with light finger control, never allowing it to leave
+the string. I've never been able to see the virtue of octaves or the
+logic of double-stops. Like tenths, one plays or does not play them. But
+do they add one iota of beauty to violin music? I doubt it! And, after
+all, it is the poetry of playing that counts. All violin playing in its
+essence is the quest for color; its perfection, that subtle art which
+hides art, and which is so rarely understood."
+
+"Could you give me a few guiding rules, a few Beatitudes, as it were,
+for the serious student to follow?" I asked Mr. Hartmann. Though the
+artist smiled at the idea of Beatitudes for the violinist, yet he was
+finally amiable enough to give me the following, telling me I would have
+to take them for what they were worth:
+
+
+                   NINE BEATITUDES FOR VIOLINISTS
+
+"Blessed are they who early in life approach Bach, for their love and
+veneration for music will multiply with the years.
+
+"Blessed are they who remember their own early struggles, for their
+merciful criticism will help others to a greater achievement and
+furtherance of the Divine Art.
+
+"Blessed are they who know their own limitations, for they shall have
+joy in the accomplishment of others.
+
+"Blessed are they who revere the teachers--their own or those of
+others--and who remember them with credit.
+
+"Blessed are they who, revering the old masters, seek out the newer ones
+and do not begrudge them a hearing or two.
+
+"Blessed are they who work in obscurity, nor sound the trumpet, for Art
+has ever been for the few, and shuns the vulgar blare of ignorance.
+
+"Blessed are they whom men revile as futurists and modernists, for Art
+can evolve only through the medium of iconoclastic spirits.
+
+"Blessed are they who unflinchingly serve their Art, for thus only is
+their happiness to be gained.
+
+"Blessed are they who have many enemies, for square pegs will never fit
+into round holes."
+
+
+                      ARRANGING VERSUS TRANSCRIBING
+
+Arthur Hartmann, like Kreisler, Elman, Maud Powell and others of his
+colleagues, has enriched the literature of the violin with some notably
+fine transcriptions. And it is a subject on which he has well-defined
+opinions and regarding which he makes certain distinctions: "An
+'arrangement,'" he said, "as a rule, is a purely commercial affair, into
+which neither art nor aesthetics enter. It usually consists in writing
+off the melody of a song--in other words, playing the 'tune' on an
+instrument instead of hearing it sung with words--or in the case of a
+piano composition, in writing off the upper voice, leaving the rest
+intact, regardless of sonority, tone-color or even effectiveness, and,
+furthermore, without consideration of the idiomatic principles of the
+instrument to which the adaptation was meant to fit.
+
+"A 'transcription,' on the other hand, can be raised to the dignity of
+an art-work. Indeed, at times it may even surpass the original, in the
+quality of thought brought into the work, the delicate and sympathetic
+treatment and by the many subtleties* which an artist can introduce to
+make it thoroughly a _re-creation_ of his chosen instrument.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "subleties".
+
+"It is the transcriber's privilege--providing he be sufficiently the
+artist to approach the personality of another artist with reverence--to
+donate his own gifts of ingenuity, and to exercise his judgment in
+either adding, omitting, harmonically or otherwise embellishing the work
+(_while preserving the original idea and characteristics_), so as to
+thoroughly _re-create_ it, so completely destroying the very sensing of
+the original _timbre_ that one involuntarily exclaims, 'Truly, this
+never was anything but a violin piece!' It is this, the blending and
+fusion of two personalities in the achievement of an art-ideal, that is
+the result of a true adaptation.
+
+"Among the transcriptions I have most enjoyed making were those of
+Debussy's _Il pleure dans mon coeur_, and _La Fille aux cheveaux de
+lin_. Debussy was my cherished friend, and they represent a labor of
+love. Though Debussy was not, generally speaking, an advocate of
+transcriptions, he liked these, and I remember when I first played _La
+Fille aux cheveaux de lin_ for him, and came to a bit of counterpoint I
+had introduced in the violin melody, whistling the harmonics, he nodded
+approvingly with a '_pas bete ca!_' (Not stupid, that!)
+
+
+                      DEBUSSY'S POEME FOR VIOLIN
+
+"Debussy came near writing a violin piece for me once!" continued Mr.
+Hartmann, and brought out a folio containing letters the great
+impressionist had written him. They were a delightful revelation of the
+human side of Debussy's character, and Mr. Hartmann kindly consented to
+the quotation of one bearing on the _Poeme_ for violin which Debussy had
+promised to write for him, and which, alas, owing to his illness and
+other reasons, never actually came to be written:
+
+     "Dear Friend:
+
+     "Of course I am working a great deal now, because I feel
+     the need of writing music, and would find it difficult
+     to build an aeroplane; yet at times Music is ill-natured,
+     even toward those who love her most! Then I take my
+     little daughter and my hat and go walking in the Bois de
+     Boulogne, where one meets people who have come from afar
+     to bore themselves in Paris.
+
+     "I think of you, I might even say I am in need of you
+     (assume an air of exaltation and bow, if you please!) As
+     to the _Poeme_ for violin, you may rest assured that I
+     will write it. Only at the present moment I am so
+     preoccupied with the 'Fall of the House of Usher!' They
+     talk too much to me about it. I'll have to put an end to
+     all that or I will go mad. Once more I want to write it,
+     and above all _on your account_. And I believe you will
+     be the only one to play the _Poeme_. Others will attempt
+     it, and then quickly return to the Mendelssohn Concerto!
+
+     "Believe me always your sincere friend,
+
+                                         "CLAUDE DEBUSSY."
+
+"He never did write it," said Mr. Hartmann, "but it was not for want of
+good will. As to other transcriptions, I have never done any that I did
+not feel instinctively would make good fiddle pieces, such as
+MacDowell's _To a Wild Rose_ and others of his compositions. And
+recently I have transcribed some fine Russian things--Gretchaninoff's
+_Chant d'Automne_, Karagitscheff's _Exaltation_, Tschaikovsky's
+_Humoresque_, Balakirew's _Chant du Pecheur_, and Poldini's little
+_Poupee valsante_, which Maud Powell plays so delightfully on all her
+programs."
+
+
+
+
+                                   VII
+
+
+                              JASCHA HEIFETZ
+
+                    THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH.
+                          TECHNICAL MASTERY AND
+                               TEMPERAMENT
+
+
+Mature in virtuosity--the modern virtuosity which goes so far beyond the
+mere technical mastery that once made the term a reproach--though young
+in years, Jascha Heifetz, when one makes his acquaintance "off-stage,"
+seems singularly modest about the great gifts which have brought him
+international fame. He is amiable, unassuming and--the best proof,
+perhaps, that his talent is a thing genuine and inborn, not the result
+of a forcing process--he has that broad interest in art and in life
+going far beyond his own particular medium, the violin, without which no
+artist may become truly great. For Jascha Heifetz, with his wonderful
+record of accomplishment achieved, and with triumphs still to come
+before him, does not believe in "all work and no play."
+
+        [Illustration: JASCHA HEIFETZ, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                    THE DANGER OF PRACTICING TOO MUCH
+
+He laughed when I put forward the theory that he worked many hours a
+day, perhaps as many as six or eight? "No," he said, "I do not think I
+could ever have made any progress if I had practiced six hours a day. In
+the first place I have never believed in practicing too much--it is just
+as bad as practicing too little! And then there are so many other things
+I like to do. I am fond of reading and I like sport: tennis, golf,
+bicycle riding, boating, swimming, etc. Often when I am supposed to be
+practicing hard I am out with my camera, taking pictures; for I have
+become what is known as a 'camera fiend.' And just now I have a new car,
+which I have learned to drive, and which takes up a good deal of my
+time. I have never believed in grinding. In fact I think that if one has
+to work very hard to get his piece, it will show in the execution. To
+interpret music properly, it is necessary to eliminate mechanical
+difficulty; the audience should not feel the struggle of the artist with
+what are considered hard passages. I hardly ever practice more than
+three hours a day on an average, and besides, I keep my Sunday when I
+do not play at all, and sometimes I make an extra holiday. As to six or
+seven hours a day, I would not have been able to stand it at all."
+
+I implied that what Mr. Heifetz said might shock thousands of aspiring
+young violinists for whom he pointed a moral: "Of course," his answer
+was, "you must not take me too literally. Please do not think because I
+do not favor overdoing practicing that one can do without it. I'm quite
+frank to say I could not myself. But there is a happy medium. I suppose
+that when I play in public it looks easy, but before I ever came on the
+concert stage I worked very hard. And I do yet--but always putting the
+two things together, mental work and physical work. And when a certain
+point of effort is reached in practice, as in everything else, there
+must be relaxation.
+
+
+                  THE DEVELOPMENT OF A VIRTUOSE TECHNIC
+
+"Have I what is called a 'natural' technic? It is hard for me to say,
+perhaps so. But if such is the case I had to develop it, to assure it,
+to perfect it. If you start playing at three, as I did, with a little
+violin one-quarter of the regular size, I suppose violin playing becomes
+second nature in the course of time. I was able to find my way about in
+all seven positions within a year's time, and could play the Kayser
+_etudes_; but that does not mean to say I was a virtuoso by any means.
+
+"My first teacher? My first teacher was my father, a good violinist and
+concertmaster of the Vilna Symphony Orchestra. My first appearance in
+public took place in an overcrowded auditorium of the Imperial Music
+School in Vilna, Russia, when I was not quite five. I played the
+_Fantaisie Pastorale_ with piano accompaniment. Later, at the age of
+six, I played the Mendelssohn concerto in Kovno to a full house.
+Stage-fright? No, I cannot say I have ever had it. Of course, something
+may happen to upset one before a concert, and one does not feel quite at
+ease when first stepping on the stage; but then I hope that is not
+stage-fright!
+
+"At the Imperial Music School in Vilna, and before, I worked at all the
+things every violinist studies--I think that I played almost everything.
+I did not work too hard, but I worked hard enough. In Vilna my teacher
+was Malkin, a pupil of Professor Auer, and when I had graduated from the
+Vilna school I went to Auer. Did I go directly to his classes? Well,
+no, but I had only a very short time to wait before I joined the
+classes conducted by Auer personally.
+
+
+                       PROFESSOR AUER AS A TEACHER
+
+"Yes, he is a wonderful and an incomparable teacher; I do not believe
+there is one in the world who can possibly approach him. Do not ask me
+just how he does it, for I would not know how to tell you. But he is
+different with each pupil--perhaps that is one reason he is so great a
+teacher. I think I was with Professor Auer about six years, and I had
+both class lessons and private lessons of him, though toward the end my
+lessons were not so regular. I never played exercises or technical works
+of any kind for the Professor, but outside of the big things--the
+concertos and sonatas, and the shorter pieces which he would let me
+prepare--I often chose what I wanted.
+
+"Professor Auer was a very active and energetic teacher. He was never
+satisfied with a mere explanation, unless certain it was understood. He
+could always show you himself with his bow and violin. The Professor's
+pupils were supposed to have been sufficiently advanced in the technic
+necessary for them to profit by his wonderful lessons in
+interpretation. Yet there were all sorts of technical _finesses_ which
+he had up his sleeve, any number of fine, subtle points in playing as
+well as interpretation which he would disclose to his pupils. And the
+more interest and ability the pupil showed, the more the Professor gave
+him of himself! He is a very great teacher! Bowing, the true art of
+bowing, is one of the greatest things in Professor Auer's teaching. I
+know when I first came to the Professor, he showed me things in bowing I
+had never learned in Vilna. It is hard to describe in words (Mr. Heifetz
+illustrated with some of those natural, unstrained movements of arm and
+wrist which his concert appearances have made so familiar), but bowing
+as Professor Auer teaches it is a very special thing; the movements of
+the bow become more easy, graceful, less stiff.
+
+"In class there were usually from twenty-five to thirty pupils. Aside
+from what we each gained individually from the Professor's criticism and
+correction, it was interesting to hear the others who played before
+one's turn came, because one could get all kinds of hints from what
+Professor Auer told them. I know I always enjoyed listening to Poliakin,
+a very talented violinist, and Cecile Hansen, who attended the classes
+at the same time I did. The Professor was a stern and very exacting, but
+a sympathetic, teacher. If our playing was not just what it should be he
+always had a fund of kindly humor upon which to draw. He would
+anticipate our stock excuses and say: 'Well, I suppose you have just had
+your bow rehaired!' or 'These new strings are very trying,' or 'It's the
+weather that is against you again, is it not?' or something of the kind.
+Examinations were not so easy: we had to show that we were not only
+soloists, but also sight readers of difficult music.
+
+
+                          A DIFFICULTY OVERCOME
+
+"The greatest technical difficulty I had when I was studying?" Jascha
+Heifetz tried to recollect, which was natural, seeing that it must have
+been one long since overcome. Then he remembered, and smiled:
+"_Staccato_ playing. To get a good _staccato_, when I first tried seemed
+very hard to me. When I was younger, really, at one time I had a very
+poor _staccato_!" [I assured the young artist that any one who heard him
+play here would find it hard to believe this.] "Yes, I did," he
+insisted, "but one morning, I do not know just how it was--I was
+playing the _cadenza_ in the first movement of Wieniawski's F{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~} minor
+concerto,--it is full of _staccatos_ and double stops--the right way of
+playing _staccato_ came to me quite suddenly, especially after Professor
+Auer had shown me his method.
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? To me it means the ability to make the violin a
+perfectly controlled instrument guided by the skill and intelligence of
+the artist, to compel it to respond in movement to his every wish. The
+artist must always be superior to his instrument, it must be his
+servant, one that he can do with what he will.
+
+
+                    TECHNICAL MASTERY AND TEMPERAMENT
+
+"It appears to me that mastery of the technic of the violin is not so
+much of a mechanical accomplishment as it is of mental nature. It may be
+that scientists can tell us how through persistency the brain succeeds
+in making the fingers and the arms produce results through the infinite
+variety of inexplicable vibrations. The sweetness of tone, its
+melodiousness, its _legatos_, octaves, trills and harmonics all bear
+the mark of the individual who uses his strings like his vocal chords.
+When an artist is working over his harmonics, he must not be impatient
+and force purity, pitch, or the right intonation. He must coax the tone,
+try it again and again, seek for improvements in his fingering as well
+as in his bowing at the same time, and sometimes he may be surprised
+how, quite suddenly, at the time when he least expects it, the result
+has come. More than one road leads to Rome! The fact is that when you
+get it, you have it, that's all! I am perfectly willing to disclose to
+the musical profession all the secrets of the mastery of violin technic;
+but are there any secrets in the sense that some of the uninitiated take
+them? If an artist happens to excel in some particular, he is at once
+suspected of knowing some secret means of so doing. However, that may
+not be the case. He does it just because it is in him, and as a rule he
+accomplishes this through his mental faculties more than through his
+mechanical abilities. I do not intend to minimize the value of great
+teachers who prove to be important factors in the life of a musician;
+but think of the vast army of pupils that a master teacher brings
+forth, and listen to the infinite variety of their _spiccatos_,
+octaves, _legatos_, and trills! For the successful mastery of violin
+technic let each artist study carefully his own individuality, let him
+concentrate his mental energy on the quality of pitch he intends to
+produce, and sooner or later he will find his way of expressing himself.
+Music is not only in the fingers or in the elbow. It is in that
+mysterious EGO of the man, it is his soul; and his body is like his
+violin, nothing but a tool. Of course, the great master must have the
+tools that suit him best, and it is the happy combination that makes for
+success.
+
+"By the vibrations and modulations of the notes one may recognize the
+violinist as easily as we recognize the singer by his voice. Who can
+explain how the artist harmonizes the trilling of his fingers with the
+emotions of his soul?
+
+"An artist will never become great through mere imitation, and never
+will he be able to attain the best results only by methods adopted by
+others. He must have his own initiative, although he will surely profit
+by the experience of others. Of course there are standard ways of
+approaching the study of violin technic; but these are too well known to
+dwell upon them: as to the niceties of the art, they must come from
+within. You can make a musician but not an artist!
+
+
+                          REPERTORY AND PROGRAMS
+
+"Which of the master works do I like best? Well, that is rather hard to
+answer. Each master work has its own beauties. Naturally one likes best
+what one understands best, I prefer to play the classics like Brahms,
+Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Mendelssohn, etc. However, I played Bruch's G
+minor in 1913 at the Leipzig Gewandhouse with Nikisch, where I was told
+that Joachim was the only other violinist as young as myself to appear
+there as soloist with orchestra; there is the Tschaikovsky concerto
+which I played in Berlin in 1912, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
+with Nikisch. Alsa Bruch's D minor and many more. I played the
+Mendelssohn concerto in 1914, in Vienna, with Safonoff as conductor.
+Last season in Chicago I played the Brahms concerto with a fine and very
+elaborate _cadenza_ by Professor Auer. I think the Brahms concerto for
+violin is like Chopin's music for piano, in a way, because it stands
+technically and musically for something quite different and distinct
+from other violin music, just as Chopin does from other piano music. The
+Brahms concerto is not technically as hard as, say, Paganini--but in
+interpretation!... And in the Beethoven concerto, too, there is a
+simplicity, a kind of clear beauty which makes it far harder to play
+than many other things technically more advanced. The slightest flaw,
+the least difference in pitch, in intonation, and its beauty suffers.
+
+"Yes, there are other Russian concertos besides the Tschaikovsky. There
+is the Glazounov concerto and others. I understand that Zimbalist was
+the first to introduce it in this country, and I expect to play it here
+next season.
+
+"Of course one cannot always play concertos, and one cannot always play
+Bach and Beethoven. And that makes it hard to select programs. The
+artist can always enjoy the great music of his instrument; but an
+audience wants variety. At the same time an artist cannot play only just
+what the majority of the audience wants. I have been asked to play
+Schubert's _Ave Maria_, or Beethoven's _Chorus of Dervishes_ at every
+one of my concerts, but I simply cannot play them all the time. I am
+afraid if program making were left altogether to audiences the programs
+would become far too popular in character; though audiences are just as
+different as individuals. I try hard to balance my programs, so that
+every one can find something to understand and enjoy. I expect to
+prepare some American compositions for next season. Oh, no, not as a
+matter of courtesy, but because they are really fine, especially some
+smaller pieces by Spalding, Cecil Burleigh and Grasse!"
+
+On concluding our interview Mr. Heifetz made a remark which is worth
+repeating, and which many a music lover who is _plus royaliste que le
+roi_ might do well to remember: "After all," he said, "much as I love
+music, I cannot help feeling that music is not the only thing in life. I
+really cannot imagine anything more terrible than always to hear, think
+and make music! There is so much else to know and appreciate; and I feel
+that the more I learn and know of other things the better artist I will
+be!"
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+                            DAVID HOCHSTEIN
+
+                 THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION
+                        AND EXPRESSIVE PLAYING
+
+
+The writer talked with Lieutenant David Hochstein, whose death in the
+battle of the Argonne Forest was only reported toward the end of
+January, while the distinguished young violinist, then only a sergeant,
+was on the eve of departure to France with his regiment and, as he
+modestly said, his "thoughts on music were rather scattered." Yet he
+spoke with keen insight and authority on various phases of his art, and
+much of what he said gains point from his own splendid work as a concert
+violinist; for Lieutenant Hochstein (whose standing has been established
+in numerous European as well as American recitals) could play what he
+preached.
+
+
+                SEVCIK AND AUER: A CONTRAST IN TEACHING
+
+Knowing that in the regimental band he was, quite appropriately, a
+clarinetist, "the clarinet in the military band being the equivalent of
+the violin in the orchestra"--and a scholarship pupil of the Vienna
+_Meisterschule_, it seemed natural to ask him concerning his teachers.
+And the interesting fact developed that he had studied with the
+celebrated Bohemian pedagog Sevcik and with Leopold Auer as well, two
+teachers whose ideas and methods differ materially. "I studied with
+Sevcik for two years," said the young violinist. "It was in 1909, when a
+class of ten pupils was formed for him in the _Meisterschule_, at
+Vienna, that I went to him. Sevcik was in many ways a wonderful teacher,
+yet inclined to overemphasize the mechanical side of the art. He
+literally _taught_ his pupils how to practice, how to develop technical
+control by the most slow and painstaking study. In addition to his own
+fine method and exercises, he also used Gavinies, Dont, Rode, Kreutzer,
+applying in their studies ideas of his own.
+
+"Auer as a teacher I found altogether different. Where Sevcik taught his
+pupils the technic of their art by means of a system elaborately worked
+out, Auer demonstrated his ideas through sheer personality, mainly from
+the interpretative point of view. Any ambitious student could learn much
+of value from either; yet in a general way one might express the
+difference between them by saying that Sevcik could take a pupil of
+medium talent and--at least from the mechanical standpoint--make an
+excellent violinist of him. But Auer is an ideal teacher for the greatly
+gifted. And he is especially skilled in taking some student of the
+violin while his mind is still plastic and susceptible and molding
+it--supplying it with lofty concepts of interpretation and expression.
+Of course Auer (I studied with him in Petrograd and Dresden) has been
+especially fortunate as regards his pupils, too, because active in a
+land like Russia, where musical genius has almost become a commonplace.
+
+"Sevcik, though an admirable teacher, personally is of a reserved and
+reflective type, quite different from Auer, who is open and expansive. I
+might recall a little instance which shows Sevcik's cautious nature, the
+care he takes not to commit himself too unreservedly. When I took leave
+of him--it was after I had graduated and won my prize--I naturally (like
+all his pupils) asked him for his photo. Several other pupils of his
+were in the room at the time. He took up his pen (I was looking over
+his shoulder), commenced to write _Meinem best_.... And then he stopped,
+glanced at the other pupils in the room, and wrote over the _best_ ...
+he had already written, the word _liebsten_. But though I would, of
+course, have preferred the first inscription, had Sevcik completed it, I
+can still console myself that the other, even though I value it, was an
+afterthought. But it was a characteristic thing for him to do!
+
+
+                   THE VIOLIN AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION
+
+"What is my idea of the violin as a medium of expression? It seems to me
+that it is that of any other valid artistic medium. It is not so much a
+question of the violin as of the violinist. A great interpreter reveals
+his inner-most soul through his instrument, whatever it may be. Most
+people think the violin is more expressive than any other instrument,
+but this is open to question. It may be that most people respond more
+readily to the appeal made by the violin. But genuine expression,
+expressive playing, depends on the message the player has to deliver far
+more than on the instrument he uses as a means. I have been as much
+moved by some piano playing I have heard as by the violin playing of
+some of the greatest violinists.
+
+"And variety, _nuance_ in expressive playing, is largely a matter of the
+player's mental attitude. Bach's _Chaconne_ or _Sicilienne_ calls for a
+certain humility on the part of the artist. When I play Bach I do it
+reverentially; a definite spiritual quality in my tone and expression is
+the result. And to select a composer who in many ways is Bach's exact
+opposite, Wieniawski, a certain audacious brilliancy cannot help but
+make itself felt tonally, if this music is to be played in character.
+The mental and spiritual attitude directly influences its own mechanical
+transmission. No one artist should criticize another for differences in
+interpretation, in expression, so long as they are justified by larger
+concepts of art. Individuality is one of the artist's most precious
+possessions, and there are always a number of different angles from
+which the interpretation of an art work may be approached.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery? There have been only three violinists within my own
+recollection, whom I would call masters of the violin. These are
+Kubelik (when at his best), Franz von Vecsey, Hubay's pupil, whom I
+heard abroad, and Heifetz, with his cameo-like perfection of technic.
+These I would call masters of the violin, as an instrument, since they
+have mastered every intricacy of the instrument. But I could name
+several others who are greater musicians, and whose playing and
+interpretation, to say nothing of tone, I prefer.
+
+
+                       TONE PRODUCTION: RHYTHM
+
+"In one sense true violin mastery is a question of tone production and
+rhythm. And I believe that tone production depends principally upon the
+imaginative ear of the player. This statement may seem somewhat
+ambiguous, and one might ask, 'What is an imaginative ear?' My ear, for
+instance, demands of my violin a certain quality of tone, which varies
+according to the music I am playing. But before I think of playing the
+music, I already know from reading it what I want it to sound like: that
+is to say, the quality of the tone I wish to secure in each principal
+phrase. Rhythm is perhaps the greatest factor in interpretation. Every
+good musician has a 'good sense of rhythm' (that much abused phrase).
+But it is only the _great_ musician who makes so striking and
+individual an application of rhythm that his playing may be easily
+distinguished by his use of it.
+
+"There is not much to tell you as regards my method of work. I usually
+work directly upon a program which has been previously mapped out. If I
+have been away from my violin for more than a week or two I begin by
+practicing scales, but ordinarily I find my technical work in the
+programs I am preparing."
+
+Asked about his band experiences at Camp Upton, Sergeant Hochstein was
+enthusiastic. "No violinist could help but gain much from work with a
+military band at one of the camps," he said. "For instance, I had a more
+or less theoretical knowledge of wind instruments before I went to Camp
+Upton. Now I have a practical working knowledge of them. I have already
+scored a little violin composition of mine, a 'Minuet in Olden Style'
+for full band, and have found it possible by the right manipulation to
+preserve its original dainty and graceful character, in spite of the
+fact that it is played by more than forty military bandsmen.
+
+"Then, too," he said in conclusion, "I have organized a real orchestra
+of twenty-one players, strings, brass, wood-wind, etc., which I hope is
+going to be of real use on the other side during our training period in
+France. You see, 'over there' the soldier boys' chances for leave are
+limited and we will have to depend a good deal on our own selves for
+amusement and recreation. I hope and believe my orchestra is not only
+going to take its place as one of the most enjoyable features of our
+army life; but also that it will make propaganda of the right sort for
+the best music in a broad, catholic sense of the word!"
+
+It is interesting to know that this patriotic young officer found
+opportunities in camp and in the towns of France of carrying out his
+wish to "make propaganda of the right sort for the best music" before he
+gave his life to further the greater purpose which had called him
+overseas.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+                             FRITZ KREISLER
+
+                           PERSONALITY IN ART
+
+
+The influence of the artist's personality in his art finds a most
+striking exemplification in the case of Fritz Kreisler. Some time before
+the writer called on the famous violinist to get at first hand some of
+his opinions with regard to his art, he had already met him under
+particularly interesting circumstances. The question had come up of
+writing text-poems for two song-adaptations of Viennese folk-themes,
+airs not unattractive in themselves; but which Kreisler's personal
+touch, his individual gift of harmonization had lifted from a lower
+plane to the level of the art song. Together with the mss. of his own
+beautiful transcript, Mr. Kreisler in the one instance had given me the
+printed original which suggested it--frankly a "popular" song, clumsily
+harmonized in a "four-square" manner (though written in 3/4 time) with
+nothing to indicate its latent possibilities. I compared it with his
+mss. and, lo, it had been transformed! Gone was the clumsiness, the
+vulgar and obvious harmonic treatment of the melody--Kreisler had kept
+the melodic outline, but etherealized, spiritualized it, given it new
+rhythmic _contours_, a deeper and more expressive meaning. And his rich
+and subtle harmonization had lent it a quality of distinction that
+justified a comparison between the grub and the butterfly. In a small
+way it was an illuminating glimpse of how the personality of a true
+artist can metamorphose what at first glance might seem something quite
+negligible, and create beauty where its possibilities alone had existed
+before.
+
+It is this personal, this individual, note in all that Fritz Kreisler
+does--when he plays, when he composes, when he transcribes--that gives
+his art-effort so great and unique a quality of appeal.
+
+Talking to him in his comfortable sitting-room in the Hotel
+Wellington--Homer and Juvenal (in the original) ranked on the piano-top
+beside De Vere Stackpole novels and other contemporary literature called
+to mind that though Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos are among his
+favorites, he does not disdain to play a Granados _Spanish Dance_--it
+seemed natural to ask him how he came to make those adaptations and
+transcripts which have been so notable a feature of his programs, and
+which have given such pleasure to thousands.
+
+
+         [Illustration: FRITZ KREISLER, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                HOW KREISLER CAME TO COMPOSE AND ARRANGE
+
+He said: "I began to compose and arrange as a young man. I wanted to
+create a repertory for myself, to be able to express through my medium,
+the violin, a great deal of beautiful music that had first to be adapted
+for the instrument. What I composed and arranged was for my own use,
+reflected my own musical tastes and preferences. In fact, it was not
+till years after that I even thought of publishing the pieces I had
+composed and arranged. For I was very diffident as to the outcome of
+such a step. I have never written anything with the commercial idea of
+making it 'playable.' And I have always felt that anything done in a
+cold-blooded way for purely mercenary considerations somehow cannot be
+good. It cannot represent an artist's best."
+
+
+                       AT THE VIENNA CONSERVATORY
+
+In reply to another query Mr. Kreisler reverted to the days when as a
+boy he studied at the Vienna Conservatory. "I was only seven when I
+attended the Conservatory and was much more interested in playing in the
+park, where my boy friends would be waiting for me, than in taking
+lessons on the violin. And yet some of the most lasting musical
+impressions of my life were gathered there. Not so much as regards study
+itself, as with respect to the good music I heard. Some very great men
+played at the Conservatory when I was a pupil. There were Joachim,
+Sarasate in his prime, Hellmesberger, and Rubinstein, whom I heard play
+the first time he came to Vienna. I really believe that hearing Joachim
+and Rubinstein play was a greater event in my life and did more for me
+than five years of study!"
+
+"Of course you do not regard technic as the main essential of the
+concert violinist's equipment?" I asked him. "Decidedly not. Sincerity
+and personality are the first main essentials. Technical equipment is
+something which should be taken for granted. The _virtuoso_ of the type
+of Ole Bull, let us say, has disappeared. The 'stunt' player of a former
+day with a repertory of three or four bravura pieces was not far above
+the average music-hall 'artist.' The modern _virtuoso_, the true concert
+artist, is not worthy of the title unless his art is the outcome of a
+completely unified nature.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"I do not believe that any artist is truly a master of his instrument
+unless his control of it is an integral part of a whole. The musician is
+born--his medium of expression is often a matter of accident. I believe
+one may be intended for an artist prenatally; but whether violinist,
+'cellist or pianist is partly a matter of circumstance. Violin mastery,
+to my mind, still falls short of perfection, in spite of the completest
+technical and musical equipment, if the artist thinks only of the
+instrument he plays. After all, it is just a single medium of
+expression. The true musician is an artist with a special instrument.
+And every real artist has the feeling for other forms and mediums of
+expression if he is truly a master of his own.
+
+
+                       TECHNIC VERSUS IMAGINATION
+
+"I think the technical element in the artist's education is often unduly
+stressed. Remember," added Mr. Kreisler, with a smile, "I am not a
+teacher, and this is a purely personal opinion I am giving you. But it
+seems to me that absolute sincerity of effort, actual impossibility
+_not_ to react to a genuine musical impulse are of great importance. I
+firmly believe that if one is destined to become an artist the technical
+means find themselves. The necessity of expression will follow the line
+of least resistance. Too great a manual equipment often leads to an
+exaggeration of the technical and tempts the artist to stress it unduly.
+
+"I have worked a great deal in my life, but have always found that too
+large an amount of purely technico-musical work fatigued me and reacted
+unfavorably on my imagination. As a rule I only practice enough to keep
+my fingers in trim; the nervous strain is such that doing more is out of
+the question. And for a concert-violinist when on tour, playing every
+day, the technical question is not absorbing. Far more important is it
+for him to keep himself mentally and physically fresh and in the right
+mood for his work. For myself I have to enjoy whatever I play or I
+cannot play it. And it has often done me more good to dip my finger-tips
+in hot water for a few seconds before stepping out on the platform than
+to spend a couple of hours practicing. But I should not wish the student
+to draw any deductions from what I say on this head. It is purely
+personal and has no general application.
+
+"Technical exercises I use very moderately. I wish my imagination to be
+responsive, my interest fresh, and as a rule I have found that too much
+work along routine channels does not accord with the best development of
+my Art. I feel that technic should be in the player's head, it should be
+a mental picture, a sort of 'master record.' It should be a matter of
+will power to which the manual possibilities should be subjected.
+Technic to me is a mental and not a manual thing.
+
+
+            MENTAL TECHNIC: ITS DRAWBACK AND ITS ADVANTAGE
+
+"The technic thus achieved, a technic whose controlling power is chiefly
+mental, is not perfect--I say so frankly--because it is more or less
+dependent on the state of the artist's nervous system. Yet it is the one
+and only kind of technic that can adequately and completely express the
+musician's every instinct, wish and emotion. Every other form of technic
+is stiff, unpliable, since it cannot entirely subordinate itself to the
+individuality of the artist."
+
+
+                PRACTICE HOURS FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT
+
+Mr. Kreisler gives no lessons and hence referred this question in the
+most amiable manner to his boyhood friend and fellow-student Felix
+Winternitz, the well-known Boston violin teacher, one of the faculty of
+the New England Conservatory of Music, who had come in while we were
+talking. Mr. Winternitz did not refuse an answer: "The serious student,
+in my opinion, should not practice less than four hours a day, nor need
+he practice more than five. Other teachers may demand more. Sevcik, I
+know, insists that his pupils practice eight and ten hours a day. To do
+so one must have the constitution of an ox, and the results are often
+not equal to those produced by four hours of concentrated work. As Mr.
+Kreisler intimated with regard to technic, practice calls for brain
+power. Concentration in itself is not enough. There is only one way to
+work and if the pupil can find it he can cover the labor of weeks in an
+hour."
+
+And turning to me, Mr. Winternitz added: "You must not take Mr. Kreisler
+too seriously when he lays no stress on his own practicing. During the
+concert season he has his violin in hand for an hour or so nearly every
+day. He does not call it practicing, and you and I would consider it
+playing and great playing at that. But it is a genuine illustration of
+what I meant when I said that one who knew how could cover the work of
+weeks in an hour's time."
+
+
+                    AN EXPLANATION BY MR. WINTERNITZ
+
+I tried to draw from the famous violinist some hint as to the secret of
+the abiding popularity of his own compositions and transcripts but--as
+those who know him are aware--Kreisler has all the modesty of the truly
+great. He merely smiled and said: "Frankly, I don't know." But Mr.
+Winternitz' comment (when a 'phone call had taken Kreisler from the room
+for a moment) was, "It is the touch given by his accompaniments that
+adds so much: a harmonic treatment so rich in design and coloring, and
+so varied that melodies were never more beautifully set off." Mr.
+Kreisler, as he came in again, remarked: "I don't mind telling you that
+I enjoyed very much writing my _Tambourin Chinois_.[A] The idea for it
+came to me after a visit to the Chinese theater in San Francisco--not
+that the music there suggested any theme, but it gave me the impulse to
+write a free fantasy in the Chinese manner."
+
+[Footnote A: It is interesting to note that Nikolai Sokoloff, conductor
+of the San Francisco Philharmonic, returning from a tour of the American
+and French army camps in France, some time ago, said: "My most popular
+number was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_. Invariably I had to repeat
+that." A strong indorsement of the internationalism of Art by the actual
+fighter in the trenches.]
+
+
+              STYLE, INTERPRETATION AND THE ARTISTIC IDEAL
+
+The question of style now came up. "I am not in favor of 'labeling' the
+concert artist, of calling him a 'lyric' or a 'dramatic' or some other
+kind of a player. If he is an artist in the real sense he controls all
+styles." Then, in answer to another question: "Nothing can express music
+but music itself. Tradition in interpretation does not mean a
+cut-and-dried set of rules handed down; it is, or should be, a matter
+of individual sentiment, of inner conviction. What makes one man an
+artist and keeps another an amateur is a God-given instinct for the
+artistically and musically right. It is not a thing to be explained, but
+to be felt. There is often only a narrow line of demarcation between the
+artistically right and wrong. Yet nearly every real artist will be found
+to agree as to when and when not that boundary has been overstepped.
+Sincerity and personality as well as disinterestedness, an expression of
+himself in his art that is absolutely honest, these, I believe, are
+ideals which every artist should cherish and try to realize. I believe,
+furthermore, that these ideals will come more and more into their own;
+that after the war there will be a great uplift, and that Art will
+realize to the full its value as a humanizing factor in life." And as is
+well known, no great artist of our day has done more toward the actual
+realization of these ideals he cherishes than Fritz Kreisler himself.
+
+
+
+
+                                    X
+
+
+                              FRANZ KNEISEL
+
+                       THE PERFECT STRING ENSEMBLE
+
+
+Is there a lover of chamber music unfamiliar with Franz Kneisel's name?
+It may be doubted. After earlier European triumphs the gifted Roumanian
+violinist came to this country (1885), and aside from his activities in
+other directions--as a solo artist he was the first to play the Brahms
+and Goldmark violin concertos, and the Cesar Franck sonata in this
+country--organized his famous quartet. And, until his recent retirement
+as its director and first violin, it has been perhaps the greatest
+single influence toward stimulating appreciation for the best in chamber
+music that the country has known. Before the Flonzaley was, the Kneisels
+were. They made plain how much of beauty the chamber music repertory
+offered the amateur string player; not only in the classic
+repertory--Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Spohr; in Schubert, Schumann,
+Brahms; but in Smetana, Dvorak and Tschaikovsky; in Cesar Franck,
+Debussy and Ravel. Not the least among Kneisel's achievements is, that
+while the professional musicians in the cities in which his organization
+played attended its concerts as a matter of course, the average music
+lover who played a string instrument came to them as well, and carried
+away with him a message delivered with all the authority of superb
+musicianship and sincerity, one which bade him "go and do likewise," in
+so far as his limitations permitted. And the many excellent professional
+chamber music organizations, trios, quartets and _ensembles_ of various
+kinds which have come to the fore since they began to play offer
+eloquent testimony with regard to the cultural work of Kneisel and his
+fellow artists.
+
+            [Illustration: FRANZ KNEISEL, with signature]
+
+A cheery grate fire burned in the comfortable study in Franz Kneisel's
+home; the autographed--in what affectionate and appreciative
+terms--pictures of great fellow artists looked down above the book-cases
+which hold the scores of those masters of what has been called "the
+noblest medium of music in existence," whose beauties the famous quartet
+has so often disclosed on the concert stage. And Mr. Kneisel was
+amiability personified when I asked him to give me his theory of the
+perfect string _ensemble_, and the part virtuosity played in it.
+
+
+           "THE ARTIST RANKS THE VIRTUOSO IN CHAMBER MUSIC"
+
+"The artist, the _Tonkuenstler_, to use a foreign phrase, ranks the
+virtuoso in chamber music. Joachim was no virtuoso, he did not stress
+technic, the less important factor in _ensemble_ playing. Sarasate was a
+virtuoso in the best sense of the word; and yet as an _ensemble_ music
+player he fell far short of Joachim. As I see it 'virtuoso' is a kind of
+flattering title, no more. But a _Tonkuenstler_, a 'tone-artist,' though
+he must have the virtuoso technic in order to play Brahms and Beethoven
+concertos, needs besides a spiritual insight, a deep concept of their
+nobility to do them justice--the mere technic demanded for a virtuoso
+show piece is not enough.
+
+
+                  VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET
+
+"You ask me what 'Violin Mastery' means in the string quartet. It has an
+altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin
+virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string _ensemble_ is as much mastery of
+self as of technical means. The artist must sink his identity completely
+in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are
+as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the
+combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a
+mastery of repression as well as expression. I realized how keenly alive
+the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in
+Alma-Tadema's beautiful London home, for the great English painter was
+also a music-lover and a very discriminating one. He had a fine piano in
+a beautifully decorated case, and it was an open secret that at his
+musical evenings, after an artist had played, the lid of the piano was
+raised, and Sir Lawrence asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft
+white wood of its inner surface--_but only if he thought the compliment
+deserved_. There were some famous names written there--Joachim,
+Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention a few. Naturally an
+artist playing at Alma-Tadema's home for the first time could not help
+speculating as to his chances. Many were called, but comparatively few
+were chosen. We were guests at a dinner given by Sir Lawrence. There
+were some fifty people prominent in London's artistic, musical and
+social world present, and we had no idea of being asked to play. Our
+instruments were at our hotel and we had to send for them. We played the
+Schubert quartet in A minor and Dvorak's 'American' quartet and, of
+course, my colleagues and myself forgot all about the piano lid the
+moment we began to play. Yet, I'm free to confess, that when the piano
+lid was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was no empty compliment
+coming from Sir Lawrence, and I have been told that some very
+distinguished artists have not had it extended to them. And I know that
+on that evening the phrase 'Violin Mastery' in an _ensemble_ sense, as
+the outcome of ceaseless striving for cooerdination in expression,
+absolute balance, and all the details that go to make up the perfect
+_ensemble_, seemed to us to have a very definite color and meaning.
+
+
+                THE FIRST VIOLIN IN THE STRING QUARTET
+
+"What exactly does the first violin represent?" Mr. Kneisel went on in
+answer to another question. "The first violin might be called the
+chairman of the string meeting. His is the leading voice. Not that he
+should be an autocrat, no, but he must hold the reins of discipline.
+Many think that the four string players in a quartet have equal rights.
+First of all, and above all, are the rights of the composer, Bach,
+Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,--as the case may be. But from the
+standpoint of interpretation the first violin has some seventy per cent.
+of the responsibility as compared with thirty per cent. for the
+remaining voices. In all the famous quartet organizations, Joachim,
+Hellmesberger, etc., the first violin has been the directing instrument
+and has set the pace. As chairman it has been his duty to say when
+second violin, viola and 'cello were entitled to hold the floor.
+Hellmesberger, in fact, considered himself the _whole_ quartet." Mr.
+Kneisel smiled and showed me a little book of Hellmesberger's Vienna
+programs. Each program was headed:
+
+                         HELLMESBERGER QUARTET
+
+                         with the assistance of
+
+                   MESSRS. MATH. DURST, CARL HEISSLER,
+                            CARL SCHLESINGER
+
+"In other words, Hellmesberger was the quartet himself, the other three
+artists merely 'assisted,' which, after all, is going too far!
+
+"Of course, quartets differ. Just as we have operas in which the alto
+solo _role_ is the most important, so we have quartets in which the
+'cello or the viola has a more significant part. Mozart dedicated
+quartets to a King of Prussia, who played 'cello, and he was careful to
+make the 'cello part the most important. And in Smetana's quartet _Aus
+meinem Leben_, the viola plays a most important role. Even the second
+violin often plays themes introducing principal themes of the first
+violin, and it has its brief moments of prominence. Yet, though the
+second violin or the 'cellist may be, comparatively speaking, a better
+player than the first violin, the latter is and must be the leader.
+Practically every composer of chamber music recognizes the fact in his
+compositions. He, the first violin, should not command three slaves,
+though; but guide three associates, and do it tactfully with regard to
+their individuality and that of their instruments.
+
+
+                         "ENSEMBLE" REHEARSING
+
+"You ask what are the essentials of _ensemble_ practice on the part of
+the artists? Real reverence, untiring zeal and punctuality at
+rehearsals. And then, an absolute sense of rhythm. I remember
+rehearsing a Volkmann quartet once with a new second violinist." [Mr.
+Kneisel crossed over to his bookcase and brought me the score to
+illustrate the rhythmic point in question, one slight in itself yet as
+difficult, perhaps, for a player without an absolute sense of rhythm as
+"perfect intonation" would be for some others.] "He had a lovely tone, a
+big technic and was a prize pupil of the Vienna Conservatory. We went
+over this two measure phrase some sixteen times, until I felt sure he
+had grasped the proper accentuation. And he was most amiable and willing
+about it, too. But when we broke up he pointed to the passage and said
+to me with a smile: 'After all, whether you play it _this_ way, or
+_that_ way, what's the difference?' Then I realized that he had stressed
+his notes correctly a few times by chance, and that his own sense of
+rhythm did not tell him that there were no two ways about it. The
+rhythmic and tonal _nuances_ in a quartet cannot be marked too perfectly
+in order to secure a beautiful and finished performance. And such a
+violinist as the one mentioned, in spite of his tone and technic, was
+never meant for an _ensemble_ player.
+
+"I have never believed in a quartet getting together and 'reading' a
+new work as a preparation for study. As first violin I have always made
+it my business to first study the work in score, myself, to study it
+until I knew the whole composition absolutely, until I had a mental
+picture of its meaning, and of the interrelation of its four voices in
+detail. Thirty-two years of experience have justified my theory. Once
+the first violin knows the work the practicing may begin; for he is in a
+position gradually and tactfully to guide the working-out of the
+interpretation without losing time in the struggle to correct faults in
+balance which are developed in an unprepared 'reading' of the work.
+There is always one important melody, and it is easier to find it
+studying the score, to trace it with eye and mind in its contrapuntal
+web, than by making voyages of discovery in actual playing.
+
+"Every player has his own qualities, every instrument its own
+advantages. Certain passages in a second violin or viola part may be
+technically better suited to the hand of the player, to the nature of
+the instrument, and--they will sound better than others. Yet from the
+standpoint of the composition the passages that 'lie well' are often not
+the more important. This is hard for the player--what is easy for him
+he unconsciously is inclined to stress, and he must be on his guard
+against it. This is another strong argument in favor of a thorough
+preliminary study on the part of the leading violin of the construction
+of the work."
+
+
+               THE FIRST VIOLIN IN CHAMBER MUSIC VERSUS
+                        THE ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR
+
+The comparison which I asked Mr. Kneisel to make is one which he could
+establish with authority. Aside from his experience as director of his
+quartet, he has been the _concert-meister_ of such famous foreign
+orchestras as Bilse's and that of the _Hofburg Theater_ in Vienna and,
+for eighteen years, of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in this country. He
+has also conducted over one hundred concerts of the Boston Symphony, and
+was director of the Worcester Music Festivals.
+
+"Nikisch once said to me, after he had heard us play the Schumann A
+minor quartet in Boston: 'Kneisel, it was beautiful, and I felt that you
+had more difficulty in developing it than I have with an orchestral
+score!' And I think he was right. First of all the symphonic conductor
+is an autocrat. There is no appeal from the commands of his baton. But
+the first violin of a quartet is, in a sense, only the 'first among
+peers.' The velvet glove is an absolute necessity in his case. He must
+gain his art ends by diplomacy and tact, he must always remember that
+his fellow artists are solo players. If he is arbitrary, no matter how
+right he may be, he disturbs that fine feeling of artistic fellowship,
+that delicate balance of individual temperaments harmonized for and by a
+single purpose. In this connection I do not mind confessing that though
+I enjoy a good game of cards, I made it a rule never to play cards with
+my colleagues during the hours of railroad traveling involved in keeping
+our concert engagements. I played chess. In chess the element of luck
+does not enter. Each player is responsible for what he does or leaves
+undone. And defeat leaves no such sting as it does when all may be
+blamed on chance. In an _ensemble_ that strives for perfection there
+must be no undercurrents of regret, of dissatisfaction--nothing that
+interferes with the sympathy and good will which makes each individual
+artist do his best. And so I have never regretted giving cards the
+go-by!"
+
+
+                  HINTS TO THE SERIOUS VIOLIN STUDENT
+
+Of late years Mr. Kneisel's activity as a teacher has added to his
+reputation. Few teachers can point to a galaxy of artist pupils which
+includes such names as Samuel Gardner, Sascha Jacobsen, Breskin, Helen
+Jeffry and Olive Meade (who perpetuates the ideals of his great string
+_ensemble_ in her own quartet). "What is the secret of your method?" I
+asked him first of all. "Method is hardly the word," he told me. "It
+sounds too cut-and-dried. I teach according to principles, which must,
+of course, vary in individual cases; yet whose foundation is fixed. And
+like Joachim, or Leschetiszky, I have preparatory teachers.
+
+
+                           THE GENERAL FAULT
+
+"My experience has shown me that the fundamental fault of most pupils is
+that they do not know how to hold either the bow or the violin. Here in
+America the violin student as a rule begins serious technical study too
+late, contrary to the European practice. It is a great handicap to begin
+really serious work at seventeen or eighteen, when the flexible bones
+of childhood have hardened, and have not the pliability needed for
+violin gymnastics. It is a case of not bending the twig as you want the
+tree to grow in time. And those who study professionally are often more
+interested in making money as soon as possible than in bending all their
+energies on reaching the higher levels of their art. Many a promising
+talent never develops because its possessor at seventeen or eighteen is
+eager to earn money as an orchestra or 'job' player, instead of
+sacrificing a few years more and becoming a true artist. I've seen it
+happen time and again: a young fellow really endowed who thinks he can
+play for a living and find time to study and practice 'after hours.' And
+he never does!
+
+"But to return to the general fault of the violin student. There is a
+certain angle at which the bow should cross the strings in order to
+produce those vibrations which give the roundest, fullest, most perfect
+tone [he took his own beautiful instrument out of its case to illustrate
+the point], and the violin must be so held that the bow moves straight
+across the strings in this manner. A deviation from the correct attack
+produces a scratchy tone. And it is just in the one fundamental thing:
+the holding of the violin in exactly the same position when it is taken
+up by the player, never varying by so much as half-an-inch, and the
+correct attack by the bow, in which the majority of pupils are
+deficient. If the violin is not held at the proper angle, for instance,
+it is just as though a piano were to stand on a sloping floor. Too many
+students play 'with the violin' on the bow, instead of holding the
+violin steady, and letting the bow play.
+
+"And in beginning to study, this apparently simple, yet fundamentally
+important, principle is often overlooked or neglected. Joachim, when he
+studied as a ten-year-old boy under Hellmesberger in Vienna, once played
+a part in a concerto by Maurer, for four violins and piano. His teacher
+was displeased: 'You'll never be a fiddler!' he told him, 'you use your
+bow too stiffly!' But the boy's father took him to Boehm, and he remained
+with this teacher for three years, until his fundamental fault was
+completely overcome. And if Joachim had not given his concentrated
+attention to his bowing while there was still time, he would never have
+been the great artist he later became.
+
+
+                         THE ART OF THE BOW
+
+"You see," he continued, "the secret of really beautiful violin playing
+lies in the bow. A Blondin crossing Niagara finds his wire hard and firm
+where he first steps on it. But as he progresses it vibrates with
+increasing intensity. And as the tight-rope walker knows how to control
+the vibrations of his wire, so the violinist must master the vibrations
+of his strings. Each section of the string vibrates with a different
+quality of tone. Most pupils think that a big tone is developed by
+pressure with the bow--yet much depends on what part of the string this
+pressure is applied. Fingering is an art, of course, but the great art
+is the art of the bow, the 'art of bowing,' as Tartini calls it. When a
+pupil understands it he has gone far.
+
+"Every pupil may be developed to a certain degree without ever
+suspecting how important a factor the manipulation of the bow will be in
+his further progress. He thinks that if the fingers of his left hand are
+agile he has gained the main end in view. But then he comes to a
+stop--his left hand can no longer aid him, and he finds that if he wants
+to play with real beauty of expression the bow supplies the only true
+key. Out of a hundred who reach this stage," Mr. Kneisel went on, rather
+sadly, "only some five or six, or even less, become great artists. They
+are those who are able to control the bow as well as the left hand. All
+real art begins with phrasing, and this, too, lies altogether in the
+mastery of bow--the very soul of the violin!"
+
+I asked Mr. Kneisel how he came to write his own "Advanced Exercises"
+for the instrument. "I had an idea that a set of studies, in which each
+single study presented a variety of technical figures might be a relief
+from the exercises in so many excellent methods, where pages of scales
+are followed by pages of arpeggios, pages of double-notes and so forth.
+It is very monotonous to practice pages and pages of a single technical
+figure," he added. "Most pupils simply will not do it!" He brought out a
+copy of his "Exercises" and showed me their plan. "Here, for instance, I
+have scales, trills, arpeggios--all in the same study, and the study is
+conceived as a musical composition instead of a technical formula. This
+is a study in finger position, with all possible bowings. My aim has
+been to concentrate the technical material of a whole violin school in
+a set of _etudes_ with musical interest."
+
+And he showed me the second book of the studies, in ms., containing
+exercises in every variety of scale, and trill, bowing, _nuance_, etc.,
+combined in a single musical movement. This volume also contains his own
+cadenza to the Beethoven violin concerto. In conclusion Mr. Kneisel laid
+stress on the importance of the student's hearing the best music at
+concert and recital as often as possible, and on the value and incentive
+supplied by a musical atmosphere in the home and, on leaving him, I
+could not help but feel that what he had said in our interview, his
+reflections and observations based on an artistry beyond cavil, and an
+authoritative experience, would be well worth pondering by every serious
+student of the instrument. For Franz Kneisel speaks of what he knows.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+
+                              ADOLFO BETTI
+
+                    THE TECHNIC OF THE MODERN QUARTET
+
+
+What lover of chamber music in its more perfect dispensations is not
+familiar with the figure of Adolfo Betti, the guiding brain and bow of
+the Flonzaley Quartet? Born in Florence, he played his first public
+concert at the age of six, yet as a youth found it hard to choose
+between literature, for which he had decided aptitude,[A] and music.
+Fortunately for American concert audiences of to-day, he finally
+inclined to the latter. An exponent of what many consider the greatest
+of all violinistic schools, the Belgian, he studied for four years with
+Cesar Thomson at Liege, spent four more concertizing in Vienna and
+elsewhere, and returned to Thomson as the latter's assistant in the
+Brussels Conservatory, three years before he joined the Flonzaleys, in
+1903. With pleasant recollections of earlier meetings with this gifted
+artist, the writer sought him out, and found him amiably willing to talk
+about the modern quartet and its ideals, ideals which he personally has
+done so much to realize.
+
+[Footnote A: M. Betti has published a number of critical articles in the
+_Guide Musical_ of Brussels, the _Rivista Musicale_ of Turin, etc.]
+
+
+                          THE MODERN QUARTET
+
+"You ask me how the modern quartet differs from its predecessors?" said
+Mr. Betti. "It differs in many ways. For one thing the modern quartet
+has developed in a way that makes its inner voices--second violin and
+viola--much more important than they used to be. Originally, as in
+Haydn's early quartets, we have a violin solo with three accompanying
+instruments. In Beethoven's last quartets the intermediate voices have
+already gained a freedom and individuality which before him had not even
+been suspected. In these last quartets Beethoven has already set forth
+the principle which was to become the basis of modern polyphony: '_first
+of all_ to allow each voice to express itself freely and fully, and
+_afterward_ to see what the relations were of one to the other.' In
+fact, no one has exercised a more revolutionary effect on the quartet
+than Beethoven--no one has made it attain so great a degree of
+progress. And surely the distance separating the quartet as Beethoven
+found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand Fugue, Op. 131, Op.
+132), is greater than that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132, and the
+most advanced modern quartet, let us say, for instance, Schoenberg's Op.
+7. Schoenberg, by the way, has only applied and developed the principles
+established by Beethoven in the latter's last quartets. But in the
+modern quartet we have a new element, one which tends more and more to
+become preponderant, and which might be called _orchestral_ rather than
+_da camera_. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky were the first to follow this
+path, in which the majority of the moderns, including Franck and
+Debussy, have followed them. And in addition, many among the most
+advanced modern composers _strive for orchestral effects that often lie
+outside the natural capabilities of the strings_!
+
+         [Illustration: ADOLFO BETTI, with hand-written note]
+
+"For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his three impressionistic
+sketches for quartet (which we have played), has the first violin play
+_ponticello_ throughout, not the natural _ponticello_, but a quite
+special one, to produce an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance.
+I had to try again and again till I found the right technical means to
+produce the effect desired. Then, the 'cello is used to imitate the
+drum; there are special technical problems for the second violin--a
+single sustained D, with an accompanying _pizzicato_ on the open
+strings--while the viola is required to suggest the tramp of marching
+feet. And, again, in other modern quartets we find special technical
+devices undreamt of in earlier days. Borodine, for instance, is the
+first to systematically employ successions of harmonics. In the trio of
+his first quartet the melody is successively introduced by the 'cello
+and the first violin, altogether in harmonics.
+
+
+                 THE MODERN QUARTET AND AMATEUR PLAYERS
+
+"You ask me whether the average quartet of amateurs, of lovers of string
+music, can get much out of the more modern quartets. I would say yes,
+but with some serious reservations. There has been much beautiful music
+written, but most of it is complicated. In the case of the older
+quartets, Haydn, Mozart, etc., even if they are not played well, the
+performers can still obtain an idea of the music, of its thought
+content. But in the modern quartets, unless each individual player has
+mastered every technical difficulty, the musical idea does not pierce
+through, there is no effect.
+
+"I remember when we rehearsed the first Schoenberg quartet. It was in
+1913, at a Chicago hotel, and we had no score, but only the separate
+parts. The results, at our first attempt, were so dreadful that we
+stopped after a few pages. It was not till I had secured a score,
+studied it and again tried it that we began to see a light. Finally
+there was not one measure which we did not understand. But Schoenberg,
+Reger, Ravel quartets make too great a demand on the technical ability
+of the average quartet amateur.
+
+
+                     THE TECHNIC OF QUARTET PLAYING
+
+"Naturally, the first violin is the leader, the Conductor of the
+quartet, as in its early days, although the 'star' system, with one
+virtuose player and three satellites, has disappeared. Now the quartet
+as a whole has established itself in the _virtuoso_ field--using the
+word _virtuoso_ in its best sense. The Mueller quartet (Hanover),
+1845-1850, was the first to travel as a chamber music organization, and
+the famous _Florentiner_ Quartet the first to realize what could be
+done in the way of finish in playing. As _premier violiniste_ of the
+Flonzaley's I study and prepare the interpretation of the works we are
+to play before any rehearsing is done.
+
+"While the first violin still holds first place in the modern quartet,
+the second violin has become much more important than formerly; it has
+gained in individuality. In many of the newer quartets it is quite as
+important as the first. In Hugo Wolf's quartet, for example, first and
+second violins are employed as though in a concerto for two violins.
+
+"The viola, especially in modern French works--Ravel, Debussy,
+Samazeuil--has a prominent part. In the older quartets one reason the
+viola parts are simple is because the alto players as a rule were
+technically less skillful. As a general thing they were violinists who
+had failed--'the refugees of the G clef,' as Edouard Colonne, the
+eminent conductor, once wittily said. But the reason modern French
+composers give the viola special attention is because France now is
+ahead of the other nations in virtuose viola playing. It is practically
+the only country which may be said to have a 'school' of viola playing.
+In the Smetana quartet the viola plays a most important part, and
+Dvorak, who himself played viola, emphasized the instrument in his
+quartets.
+
+"Mozart showed what the 'cello was able to do in the quartets he
+dedicated to the ''cellist king,' Frederick William of Prussia. And
+then, the 'cello has always the musical importance which attaches to it
+as the lower of the two 'outer voices' of the quartet _ensemble_. Like
+the second violin and viola, it has experienced a technical and musical
+development beyond anything Haydn or Mozart would have dared to write.
+
+
+                               REHEARSING
+
+"Realization of the Art aims of the modern quartet calls for endless
+rehearsal. Few people realize the hard work and concentrated effort
+entailed. And there are always new problems to solve. After preparing a
+new score in advance, we meet and establish its general idea, its broad
+outlines in actual playing. And then, gradually, we fill in the details.
+Ordinarily we rehearse three hours a day, less during the concert
+season, of course; but always enough to keep absolutely in trim. And we
+vary our practice programs in order to keep mentally fresh as well as
+technically fit.
+
+
+                               INTONATION
+
+"Perfect intonation is a great problem--one practically unknown to the
+average amateur quartet player. Four players may each one of them be
+playing in tune, in pitch; yet their chords may not be truly in tune,
+because of the individual bias--a trifle sharp, a trifle flat--in
+interpreting pitch. This individual bias may be caused by the attraction
+existing between certain notes, by differences of register and _timbre_,
+or any number of other reasons--too many to recount. The true beauty of
+the quartet tone cannot be obtained unless there is an exact adjustment,
+a tempering of the individual pitch of each instrument, till perfect
+accordance exists. This is far more difficult and complicated than one
+might at first believe. For example, let us take one of the simplest
+violin chords," said Mr. Betti [and he rapidly set it down in pencil].
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"Now let us begin by fixing the B so that it is perfectly in tune with
+the E, then _without at all changing_ the B, take the interval D-B. You
+will see that the sixth will not be in tune. Repeat the experiment,
+inverting the notes: the result will still be the same. Try it yourself
+some time," added Mr. Betti with a smile, "and you will see. What is the
+reason? It is because the middle B has not been adjusted, tempered! Give
+the same notes to the first and second violins and the viola and you
+will have the same result. Then, when the 'cello is added, the problem
+is still more complicated, owing to the difference in _timbre_ and
+register. Yet it is a problem which can be solved, and is solved in
+practically everything we play.
+
+"Another difficulty, especially in the case of some of the _very daring_
+chords encountered in modern compositions, is the matter of balance
+between the individual notes. There are chords which only _sound well_
+if certain notes are thrown into relief; and others only if played very
+softly (almost as though they were overtones). To overcome such
+difficulties means a great deal of work, real musical instinct and,
+above all, great familiarity with the composer's harmonic processes. Yet
+with time and patience the true balance of tone can be obtained.
+
+
+                                 TEMPO
+
+"All four individual players must be able to _feel_ the tempo they are
+playing in the same way. I believe it was Mahler who once gave out a
+beat very distinctly--one, two, three--told his orchestra players to
+count the beat silently for twenty measures and then stop. As each
+_felt_ the beat differently from the other, every one of them stopped at
+a different time. So _tempo_, just like intonation, must be 'tempered'
+by the four quartet players in order to secure perfect rhythmic
+inflection.
+
+
+                               DYNAMICS
+
+"Modern composers have wonderfully improved dynamic expression. Every
+little shade of meaning they make clear with great distinctness. The
+older composers, and occasionally a modern like Emanuel Moor, do not use
+expression marks. Moor says, 'If the performers really have something to
+put into my work the signs are not needed.' Yet this has its
+disadvantages. I once had an entirely unmarked Sonata by Sammartini. As
+most first movements in the sonatas of that composer are _allegros_ I
+tried the beginning several times as an _allegro_, but it sounded
+radically wrong. Then, at last, it occurred to me to try it as a _largo_
+and, behold, it was beautiful!
+
+
+                            INTERPRETATION
+
+"If the leader of the quartet has lived himself into and mastered a
+composition, together with his associates, the result is sure. I must
+live in the music I play just as an actor must live the character he
+represents. All higher interpretation depends on solving technical
+problems in a way which is not narrowly mechanical. And while the
+_ensemble_ spirit must be preserved, the freedom of the individual
+should not be too much restrained. Once the style and manner of a modern
+composer are familiar, it is easier to present his works: when we first
+played the Reger quartet here some twenty years ago, we found pages
+which at first we could not at all understand. If one has fathomed
+Debussy, it is easier to play Milhaud, Roger-Ducasse, Samazeuil--for the
+music of the modern French school has much in common. One great cultural
+value the professional quartet has for the musical community is the fact
+that it gives a large circle a measure of acquaintance with the mode of
+thought and style of composers whose symphonic and larger works are
+often an unknown quantity. This applies to Debussy, Reger, the modern
+Russians, Bloch and others. When we played the Stravinsky pieces here,
+for instance, his _Petrouschka_ and _Firebird_ had not yet been heard.
+
+
+                             SOME IDEALS
+
+"We try, as an organization, to be absolutely catholic in taste. Nor do
+we neglect the older music, because we play so much of the new. This
+year we are devoting special attention to the American composers.
+Formerly the Kneisels took care of them, and now we feel that we should
+assume this legacy. We have already played Daniel Gregory Mason's fine
+_Intermezzo_, and the other American numbers we have played include
+David Stanley Smith's _Second Quartet_, and movements from quartets by
+Victor Kolar and Samuel Gardner. We are also going to revive Charles
+Martin Loeffler's _Rhapsodies_ for viola, oboe and piano.
+
+"I have been for some time making a collection of sonatas _a tre_, two
+violins and 'cello--delightful old things by Sammartini, Leclair, the
+Englishman Boyce, Friedemann Bach and others. This is material from
+which the amateur could derive real enjoyment and profit. The Leclair
+sonata in D minor we have played some three hundred times; and its slow
+movement is one of the most beautiful _largos_ I know of in all chamber
+music. The same thing could be done in the way of transcription for
+chamber music which Kreisler has already done so charmingly for the solo
+violin. And I would dearly love to do it! There are certain 'primitives'
+of the quartet--Johann Christian Bach, Gossec, Telemann, Michel
+Haydn--who have written music full of the rarest melodic charm and
+freshness. I have much excellent material laid by, but as you know,"
+concluded Mr. Betti with a sigh, "one has so little time for anything in
+America."
+
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+
+                                HANS LETZ
+
+                          THE TECHNIC OF BOWING
+
+
+Hans Letz, the gifted Alsatian violinist, is well fitted to talk on any
+phase of his Art. A pupil of Joachim (he came to this country in 1908),
+he was for three years concertmaster of the Thomas orchestra, appearing
+as a solo artist in most of our large cities, and was not only one of
+the Kneisels (he joined that organization in 1912), but the leader of a
+quartet of his own. As a teacher, too, he is active in giving others an
+opportunity to apply the lessons of his own experience.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+When asked for his definition of the term, Mr. Letz said: "There can be
+no such thing as an _absolute_ mastery of the violin. Mastery is a
+relative term. The artist is first of all more or less dependent on
+circumstances which he cannot control--his mood, the weather, strings,
+a thousand and one incidentals. And then, the nearer he gets to his
+ideal, the more apt his ideal is to escape him. Yet, discounting all
+objections, I should say that a master should be able to express
+perfectly the composer's idea, reflected by his own sensitive soul.
+
+
+                        THE KEY TO INTERPRETATION
+
+"The bow is the key to this mastery in expression, in interpretation: in
+a lesser degree the left hand. The average pupil does not realize this
+but believes that mere finger facility is the whole gist of technic. Yet
+the richest color, the most delicate _nuance_, is mainly a matter of
+bowing. In the left hand, of course, the _vibrato_ gives a certain
+amount of color effect, the intense, dramatic tone quality of the rapid
+_vibrato_ is comparable on the violin to the _tremulando_ of the singer.
+At the same time the _vibrato_ used to excess is quite as bad as an
+excessive _tremulando_ in the voice. But control of the bow is the key
+to the gates of the great field of declamation, it is the means of
+articulation and accent, it gives character, comprising the entire scale
+of the emotions. In fact, declamation with the violin bow is very much
+like declamation in dramatic art. And the attack of the bow on the
+string should be as incisive as the utterance of the first accented
+syllable of a spoken word. The bow is emphatically the means of
+expression, but only the advanced pupil can develop its finer, more
+delicate expressional possibilities.
+
+
+                         THE TECHNIC OF BOWING
+
+"Genius does many things by instinct. And it sometimes happens that very
+great performers, trying to explain some technical function, do not know
+how to make their meaning clear. With regard to bowing, I remember that
+Joachim (a master colorist with the bow) used to tell his students to
+play largely with the wrist. What he really meant was with an
+elbow-joint movement, that is, moving the bow, which should always be
+connected with a movement of the forearm by means of the elbow-joint.
+The ideal bow stroke results from keeping the joints of the right arm
+loose, and at the same time firm enough to control each motion made. A
+difficult thing for the student is to learn to draw the bow across the
+strings _at a right angle_, the only way to produce a good tone. I find
+it helps my pupils to tell them not to think of the position of the
+bow-arm while drawing the bow across the strings, but merely to follow
+with the tips of the fingers of the right hand an imaginary line running
+at a right angle across the strings. The whole bow then moves as it
+should, and the arm motions unconsciously adjust themselves.
+
+
+                           RHYTHM AND COLOR
+
+"Rhythm is the foundation of all music--not rhythm in its metronomic
+sense, but in the broader sense of proportion. I lay the greatest stress
+on the development of rhythmic sensibility in the student. Rhythm gives
+life to every musical phrase." Mr. Letz had a Brahms' quartet open on
+his music stand. Playing the following passage, he said:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"In order to give this phrase its proper rhythmic value, to express it
+clearly, plastically, there must be a very slight separation between the
+sixteenths and the eighth-note following them. This--the bow picked up a
+trifle from the strings--throws the sixteenths into relief. As I have
+already said, tone color is for the main part controlled by the bow. If
+I draw the bow above the fingerboard instead of keeping it near the
+bridge, I have a decided contrast in color. This color contrast may
+always be established: playing near the bridge results in a clear and
+sharp tone, playing near the fingerboard in a veiled and velvety one.
+
+
+                        SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING
+
+"I find that, aside from the personal illustration absolutely necessary
+when teaching, that an appeal to the pupil's imagination usually bears
+fruit. In developing tone-quality, let us say, I tell the pupil his
+phrases should have a golden, mellow color, the tonal equivalent of the
+hues of the sunrise. I vary my pictures according to the circumstances
+and the pupil, in most cases, reacts to them. In fast bowings, for
+instance, I make three color distinctions or rather sound distinctions.
+There is the 'color of rain,' when a fast bow is pushed gently over the
+strings, while not allowed to jump; the 'color of snowflakes' produced
+when the hairs of the bow always touch the strings, and the wood dances;
+and 'the color of hail' (which seldom occurs in the classics), when in
+the real characteristic _spiccato_ the whole bow leaves the string."
+
+
+                       THE ART AND THE SCHOOLS
+
+In reply to another question, Mr. Letz added: "Great violin playing is
+great violin playing, irrespective of school or nationality. Of course
+the Belgians and French have notable elegance, polish, finish in detail.
+The French lay stress on sensuous beauty of tone. The German temperament
+is perhaps broader, neglecting sensuous beauty for beauty of idea,
+developing the scholarly side. Sarasate, the Spaniard, is a unique
+national figure. The Slavs seem to have a natural gift for the
+violin--perhaps because of centuries of repression--and are passionately
+temperamental. In their playing we find that melancholy, combined with
+an intense craving for joy, which runs through all Slavonic music and
+literature. Yet, all said and done, Art is and remains first of all
+international, and the great violinist is a great artist, no matter what
+his native land."
+
+
+
+
+                                XIII
+
+
+                            DAVID MANNES
+
+                  THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
+
+
+That David Mannes, the well-known violinist and conductor, so long
+director of the New York Music School Settlement, would be able to speak
+in an interesting and authoritative manner on his art, was a foregone
+conclusion in the writer's mind. A visit to the educator's own beautiful
+"Music School" confirmed this conviction. In reply to some questions
+concerning his own study years Mr. Mannes spoke of his work with
+Heinrich de Ahna, Karl Halir and Eugene Ysaye. "When I came to de Ahna
+in Berlin, I was, unfortunately, not yet ready for him, and so did not
+get much benefit from his instruction. In the case of Halir, to whom I
+went later, I was in much better shape to take advantage of what he
+could give me, and profited accordingly. It is a point any student may
+well note--that when he thinks of studying with some famous teacher
+he be technically and musically equipped to take advantage of all that
+the latter may be able to give him. Otherwise it is a case of love's
+labor lost on the part of both. Karl Halir was a sincere and very
+thorough teacher. He was a Spohr player _par excellence_, and I have
+never found his equal in the playing of Spohr's _Gesangsscene_. With him
+I studied Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo; and to know Halir as a teacher was
+to know him at his best; since as a public performer--great violinist as
+he was--he did not do himself justice, because he was too nervous and
+high-strung.
+
+          [Illustration: DAVID MANNES, with hand-written note]
+
+
+                           STUDYING WITH YSAYE
+
+"It was while sitting among the first violins in the New York Symphony
+Orchestra that I first heard Ysaye. And for the first time in my life I
+heard a man with whom I fervently _wanted_ to study; an artist whose
+whole attitude with regard to tone and sound reproduction embodied my
+ideals.
+
+"I worked with Ysaye in Brussels and in his cottage at Godinne. Here he
+taught much as Liszt did at Weimar, a group of from ten to twenty
+disciples. Early in the morning he went fishing in the Meuse, then back
+to breakfast and then came the lessons: not more than three or four a
+day. Those who studied drew inspiration from him as the pianists of the
+Weimar circle did from their Master. In fact, Ysaye's standpoint toward
+music had a good deal in common with Rubinstein's and he often said he
+wished he could play the violin as Rubinstein did the piano. Ysaye is an
+artist who has transcended his own medium--he has become a poet of
+sound. And unless the one studying with him could understand and
+appreciate this fact he made a poor teacher. But to me, in all humility,
+he was and will always remain a wonderful inspiration. As an influence
+in my career his marvelous genius is unique. In my own teaching I have
+only to recall his tone, his playing in his little cottage on the banks
+of the Meuse which the tide of war has swept away, to realize in a
+cumulative sense the things he tried to make plain to me then. Ysaye
+taught the technic of expression as against the expression of technic.
+He gave the lessons of a thousand teachers in place of the lessons of
+one. The greatest technical development was required by Ysaye of a
+pupil; and given this pre-requisite, he could open up to him ever
+enlarging horizons of musical beauty.
+
+"Nor did he think that the true beauty of violin playing must depend
+upon six to eight hours of daily practice work. I absolutely believe
+with Ysaye that unless a student can make satisfactory progress with
+three hours of practice a day, he should not attempt to play the violin.
+Inability to do so is in itself a confession of failure at the outset.
+Nor do I think it possible to practice the violin intensively more than
+three-quarters of an hour at a time. In order to utilize his three hours
+of practice to the best advantage the student should divide them into
+four periods, with intervals of rest between each, and these rest
+periods might simply represent a transfer of energy--which is a rest in
+itself--to reading or some other occupation not necessarily germane to
+music, yet likely to stimulate interest in some other art.
+
+
+                SOME INITIAL PRINCIPLES OF VIOLIN STUDY
+
+"The violin student first and foremost should accustom himself to
+practicing purely technical exercises without notes. The scales and
+arpeggios should never be played otherwise and books of scales should be
+used only as a reference. Quite as important as scale practice are
+broken chords. On the violin these cannot be played _solidly_, as on the
+piano; but must be studied as arpeggios, in the most exhaustive way,
+harmonically and technically. Their great value lies in developing an
+innate musical sense, in establishing an idea of tonality and harmony
+that becomes so deeply rooted that every other key is as natural to the
+player as is the key of C. Work of this kind can never be done ideally
+in class. But every individual student must himself come to realize the
+necessity of doing technical work without notes as a matter of daily
+exercise, even though his time be limited. Perhaps the most difficult of
+all lessons is learning to hold the violin. There are pupils to whom
+holding the instrument presents insurmountable obstacles. Such pupils,
+instead of struggling in vain with a physical difficulty, might rather
+take up the study of the 'cello, whose weight rests on the floor. That
+many a student was not intended to be a violin player by nature is
+proved by the various inventions, chin-rests, braces, intended to supply
+what nature has not supplied. The study of the violin should never be
+allowed if it is going to result in actual physical deformity: raising
+of the left shoulder, malformation of the back, or eruptions resulting
+from chin-rest pressure. These are all evidences of physical unfitness,
+or of incorrect teaching.
+
+
+                    THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
+
+"Class study is for the advanced student, not the beginner. In the
+beginning only the closest personal contact between the individual pupil
+and the teacher is desirable. To borrow an analogy from nature, the
+student may be compared to the young bird whose untrained wings will not
+allow him to take any trial flights unaided by his natural guardian. For
+the beginning violinist the principal thing to do is to learn the 'voice
+placing' of the violin. This goes hand in hand with the proper--which is
+the easy and natural--manner of holding the violin, bow study, and an
+appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument. The student's attention
+should at once be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities of the
+violin tone, and he should at once familiarize himself with the
+development of those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and
+relaxation which are instrumental in its production. The analogies
+between the violin voice and the human voice should also be developed.
+The violin itself must to all intents become a part of the player
+himself, just as the vocal chords are part of the human body. It should
+not be considered a foreign tone-producing instrument adjusted to the
+body of the performer; but an extension, a projection of his physical
+self. In a way it is easier for the violinist to get at the chords of
+the violin and make them sound, since they are all exposed, which is not
+the case with the singer.
+
+"There are two dangerous points in present-day standards of violin
+teaching. One is represented by the very efficient European professional
+standards of technic, which may result in an absolute failure of poetic
+musical comprehension. These should not be transplanted here from
+European soil. The other is the non-technical, sentimental, formless
+species of teaching which can only result in emotional enervation. Yet
+if forced to choose between the two the former would be preferable since
+without tools it is impossible to carve anything of beauty. The final
+beauty of the violin tone, the pure _legato_, remains in the beginning
+as in the end a matter of holding the violin and bow. Together they
+'place' the tone just as the physical _media_ in the throat 'place' the
+tone of the voice.
+
+"Piano teachers have made greater advances in the tone developing
+technic of their instrument than the violin teachers. One reason is,
+that as a class they are more intellectual. And then, too, violin
+teaching is regarded too often as a mystic art, an occult science, and
+one into which only those specially gifted may hope to be initiated.
+This, it seems to me, is a fallacy. Just as a gift for mathematics is a
+special talent not given to all, so a _natural_ technical talent exists
+in relatively few people. Yet this does not imply that the majority are
+shut off from playing the violin and playing it well. Any student who
+has music in his soul may be taught to play simple, and even relatively
+more difficult music with beauty, beauty of expression and
+interpretation. This he may be taught to do even though not endowed with
+a _natural_ technical facility for the violin. A proof that natural
+technical facility is anything but a guarantee of higher musicianship is
+shown in that the musical weakness of many brilliant violinists, hidden
+by the technical elaboration of virtuoso pieces, is only apparent when
+they attempt to play a Beethoven _adagio_ or a simple Mozart _rondo_.
+
+"In a number of cases the unsuccessful solo player has a bad effect on
+violin teaching. Usually the soloist who has not made a success as a
+concert artist takes up teaching as a last resort, without enthusiasm or
+the true vocational instinct. The false standards he sets up for his
+pupils are a natural result of his own ineffectual worship of the fetish
+of virtuosity--those of the musical mountebank of a hundred years ago.
+Of course such false prophets of the virtuose have nothing in common
+with such high-priests of public utterance as Ysaye, Kreisler and
+others, whose virtuosity is a true means for the higher development of
+the musical. The encouragement of musicianship in general suffers for
+the stress laid on what is obviously technical _impedimenta_. But more
+and more, as time passes, the playing of such artists as those already
+mentioned, and others like them, shows that the real musician is the
+lover of beautiful sound, which technic merely develops in the highest
+degree.
+
+"To-day technic in a cumulative sense often is a confession of failure.
+For technic does not do what it so often claims to--produce the artist.
+Most professional teaching aims to prepare the student for professional
+life, the concert stage. Hence there is an intensive _technical_ study
+of compositions that even if not wholly intended for display are
+primarily and principally projected for its sake. It is a well-known
+fact that few, even among gifted players, can sit down to play chamber
+music and do it justice. This is not because they cannot grasp or
+understand it; or because their technic is insufficient. It is because
+their whole violinistic education has been along the line of solo
+playing; they have literally been brought up, not to play _with_ others,
+but to be accompanied _by_ others.
+
+"Yet despite all this there has been a notable development of violin
+study in the direction of _ensemble_ work with, as a result, an attitude
+on the part of the violinists cultivating it, of greater humility as
+regards music in general, a greater appreciation of the charm of
+artistic collaboration: and--I insist--a technic both finer and more
+flexible. Chamber music--originally music written for the intimate
+surroundings of the home, for a small circle of listeners--carries out
+in its informal way many of the ideals of the larger orchestral
+_ensemble_. And, as regards the violinist, he is not dependent only on
+the literature of the string quartet; there are piano quintets and
+quartets, piano trios, and the duos for violin and piano. Some of the
+most beautiful instrumental thoughts of the classic and modern
+composers are to be found in the duo for violin and piano, mainly in the
+sonata form. Amateurs--violinists who love music for its own sake, and
+have sufficient facility to perform such works creditably--do not do
+nearly enough _ensemble_ playing with a pianist. It is not always
+possible to get together the four players needed for the string quartet,
+but a pianist is apt to be more readily found.
+
+"The combination of violin and piano is as a rule obtainable and the
+literature is particularly rich. Aside from sonatas by Corelli,
+Locatelli, Tartini, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haendel, Brahms and
+Schumann, nearly all the romantic and modern composers have contributed
+to it. And this music has all been written so as to show the character
+of each instrument at its best--the piano, harmonic in its nature; the
+violin, a natural melodic voice, capable of every shade of _nuance_."
+That Mr. Mannes, as an artist, has made a point of "practicing what he
+preaches" to the student as regards the _ensemble_ of violin and piano
+will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has
+given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his
+views regarding the moot question of gut _versus_ wire strings are of
+interest.
+
+
+                        GUT VERSUS WIRE STRINGS
+
+"My own violin, a Maggini of more than the usual size, dates from the
+year 1600. It formerly belonged to Dr. Leopold Damrosch. Which strings
+do I use on it? The whole question as to whether gut or wire strings are
+to be preferred may, in my opinion, be referred to the violin itself for
+decision. What I mean is that if Stradivarius, Guarnerius, Amati,
+Maggini and others of the old-master builders of violins had ever had
+wire strings in view, they would have built their fiddles in accordance,
+and they would not be the same we now possess. First of all there are
+scientific reasons against using the wire strings. They change the tone
+of the instrument. The rigidity of tension of the wire E string where it
+crosses the bridge tightens up the sound of the lower strings. Their
+advantages are: reliability under adverse climatic conditions and the
+incontestable fact that they make things easier technically. They
+facilitate purity of intonation. Yet I am willing to forgo these
+advantages when I consider the wonderful pliability of the gut strings
+for which Stradivarius built his violins. I can see the artistic
+retrogression of those who are using the wire E, for when materially
+things are made easier, spiritually there is a loss.
+
+
+                              CHIN RESTS
+
+"And while we are discussing the physical aspects of the instrument
+there is the 'chin rest.' None of the great violin makers ever made a
+'chin rest.' Increasing technical demands, sudden pyrotechnical flights
+into the higher octaves brought the 'chin rest' into being. The 'chin
+rest' was meant to give the player a better grasp of his instrument. I
+absolutely disapprove, in theory, of chin rest, cushion or pad.
+Technical reasons may be adduced to justify their use, never artistic
+ones. I admit that progress in violin study is infinitely slower without
+the use of the pad; but the more close and direct a contact with his
+instrument the player can develop, the more intimately expressive his
+playing becomes. Students with long necks and thin bodies claim they
+have to use a 'chin rest,' but the study of physical adjustments could
+bring about a better cooerdination between them and the instrument. A
+thin pad may be used without much danger, yet I feel that the thicker
+and higher the 'chin rest' the greater the loss in expressive rendering.
+The more we accustom ourselves to mechanical aids, the more we will come
+to rely on them.... But the question you ask anent 'Violin Mastery'
+leads altogether away from the material!
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"To me it signifies technical efficiency coupled with poetic insight,
+freedom from conventionally accepted standards, the attainment of a more
+varied personal expression along individual lines. It may be realized,
+of course, only to a degree, since the possessor of absolute 'Violin
+Mastery' would be forever glorified. As it is the violin master, as I
+conceive him, represents the embodier of the greatest intimacy between
+himself, the artist, and his medium of expression. Considered in this
+light Pablo Casals and his 'cello, perhaps, most closely comply with the
+requirements of the definition. And this is not as paradoxical as it may
+seem, since all string instruments are brethren, descended from the
+ancient viol, and the 'cello is, after all, a variant of the violin!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XIV
+
+
+                              TIVADAR NACHEZ
+
+                     JOACHIM AND LEONARD AS TEACHERS
+
+
+Tivadar Nachez, the celebrated violin virtuoso, is better known as a
+concertizing artist in Europe, where he has played with all the leading
+symphonic orchestras, than in this country, to which he paid his first
+visit during these times of war, and which he was about to leave for his
+London home when the writer had the pleasure of meeting him. Yet, though
+he has not appeared in public in this country (if we except some Red
+Cross concerts in California, at which he gave his auditors of his best
+to further our noblest war charity), his name is familiar to every
+violinist. For is not Mr. Nachez the composer of the "Gypsy Dances" for
+violin and piano, which have made him famous?
+
+Genuinely musical, effective and largely successful as they have been,
+however, as any one who has played them can testify, the composer of
+the "Gypsy Dances" regards them with mixed feelings. "I have done other
+work that seems to me, relatively, much more important," said Mr.
+Nachez, "but when my name happens to be mentioned, echo always answers
+'Gypsy Dances,' my little rubbishy 'Gypsy Dances!' It is not quite fair.
+I have published thirty-five works, among them a 'Requiem Mass,' an
+orchestral overture, two violin concertos, three rhapsodies for violin
+and orchestra, variations on a Swiss theme, Romances, a Polonaise
+(dedicated to Ysaye), and Evening Song, three _Poemes hongrois_, twelve
+classical masterworks of the 17th century--to say nothing of songs,
+etc.--and the two concertos of Vivaldi and Nardini which I have edited,
+practically new creations, owing to the addition of the piano
+accompaniments and orchestral score. I wrote the 'Gypsy Dances' as a
+mere boy when I was studying with H. Leonard in Paris, and really at his
+suggestion. In one of my lessons I played Sarasate's 'Spanish Dances,'
+which chanced to be published at the time, and at once made a great hit.
+So Leonard said to me: 'Why not write some _Hungarian_ Gypsy
+dances--there must be wonderful material at hand in the music of the
+_Tziganes_ of Hungary. You should do something with it!' I took him at
+his word, and he liked my 'Dances' so well that he made me play them at
+his musical evenings, which he gave often during the winter, and which
+were always attended by the musical _Tout Paris!_ I may say that during
+these last thirty years there has been scarcely a violinist before the
+public who at one time or the other has _not_ played these 'Gypsy
+Dances.' Besides the _original_ edition, there are two (pirated!)
+editions in America and six in Europe.
+
+        [Illustration: TIVADAR NACHEZ, with hand-written note]
+
+
+       THE BEGINNING OF A VIOLINISTIC CAREER: PLAYING WITH LISZT
+
+"No, Leonard was not my first teacher. I took up violin work when a boy
+of five years of age, and for seven years practiced from eight to ten
+hours a day, studying with Sabathiel, the leader of the Royal Orchestra
+in Budapest, where I was born, though England, the land of my adoption,
+in which I have lived these last twenty-six years, is the land where I
+have found all my happiness, and much gratifying honor, and of which I
+have been a devoted, ardent and loyal naturalized citizen for more than
+a quarter of a century. Sabathiel was an excellent routine teacher, and
+grounded me well in the fundamentals--good tone production and
+technical control. Later I had far greater teachers, and they taught me
+much, but--in the last analysis, most of the little I have achieved I
+owe to myself, to hard, untiring work: I had determined to be a
+violinist and I trust I became one. No serious student of the instrument
+should ever forget that, no matter who his teacher may be, he himself
+must supply the determination, the continued energy and devotion which
+will lead him to success.
+
+"Playing with Liszt--he was an intimate friend of my father--is my most
+precious musical recollection of Budapest. I enjoyed it a great deal
+more than my regular lesson work. He would condescend to play with me
+some evenings and you can imagine what rare musical enjoyment, what
+happiness there was in playing with such a genius! I was still a boy
+when with him I played the Grieg F major sonata, which had just come
+fresh from the press. He played with me the D minor sonata of Schumann
+and introduced me to the mystic beauties of the Beethoven sonatas. I can
+still recall how in the Beethoven C minor sonata, in the first movement,
+Liszt would bring out a certain broken chromatic passage in the left
+hand, with a mighty _crescendo_, an effect of melodious thunder, of
+enormous depth of tone, and yet with the most exquisite regard for the
+balance between the violin and his own instrument. And there was not a
+trace of condescension in his attitude toward me; but always
+encouragement, a tender affectionate and paternal interest in a young
+boy, who at _that moment_ was a brother artist.
+
+"Through Liszt I came to know the great men of Hungarian music of that
+time: Erkel, Hans Richter, Robert Volkmann, Count Geza Zichy, and
+eventually I secured a scholarship, which the King had founded for
+music, to study with Joachim in Berlin, where I remained nearly three
+years. Hubay was my companion there; but afterward we separated, he
+going to Vieuxtemps, while I went to Leonard.
+
+
+                 JOACHIM AS A TEACHER AND INTERPRETER
+
+"Joachim was, perhaps, the most celebrated teacher of his time. Yet it
+is one of the greatest ironies of fate that when he died there was not
+one of his pupils who was considered by the German authorities 'great'
+enough to take the place the Master had held. Henri Marteau, who was
+not his pupil, and did not even exemplify his style in playing, was
+chosen to succeed him! Henri Petri, a Vieuxtemps pupil who went to
+Joachim, played just as well when he came to him as when he left him.
+The same might be said of Willy Burmester, Hess, Kes and Halir, the
+latter one of those Bohemian artists who had a tremendous 'Kubelik-like'
+execution. Teaching is and always will be a special gift. There are many
+minor artists who are wonderful 'teachers,' and _vice versa_!
+
+"Yet if Joachim may be criticized as regards the way of imparting the
+secrets of technical phases in his violin teaching, as a teacher of
+interpretation he was incomparable! As an interpreter of Beethoven and
+of Bach in particular, there has never been any one to equal Joachim.
+Yet he never played the same Bach composition twice in the same way. We
+were four in our class, and Hubay and I used to bring our copies of the
+sonatas with us, to make marginal notes while Joachim played to us, and
+these instantaneous musical 'snapshots' remain very interesting. But no
+matter how Joachim played Bach, it was always with a big tone, broad
+chords of an organ-like effect. There is no greater discrepancy than the
+edition of the Bach sonatas published (since his death) by Moser, and
+which is supposed to embody Joachim's interpretation. Sweeping chords,
+which Joachim always played with the utmost breadth, are 'arpeggiated'
+in Moser's edition! Why, if any of his pupils had ever attempted to
+play, for instance, the end of the _Bouree_ in the B minor _Partita_ of
+Bach _a la Moser_, Joachim would have broken his bow over their heads!
+
+
+                          STUDYING WITH LEONARD
+
+"After three years' study I left Joachim and went to Paris. Liszt had
+given me letters of introduction to various French artists, among them
+Saint-Saens. One evening I happened to hear Leonard play Corelli's _La
+Folia_ in the _Salle Pleyel_, and the liquid clarity and beauty of his
+tone so impressed me that I decided I must study with him. I played for
+him and he accepted me as a pupil. I am free to admit that my tone,
+which people seem to be pleased to praise especially, I owe entirely to
+Leonard, for when I came to him I had the so-called 'German tone' (_son
+allemand_), of a harsh, rasping quality, which I tried to abandon
+absolutely. Leonard often would point to his ears while teaching and
+say: '_Ouvrez vos oreilles: ecoutez la beaute du son!_' ('Open your
+ears, listen for beauty of sound!'). Most Joachim pupils you hear
+(unless they have reformed) attack a chord with the nut of the bow, the
+German method, which unduly stresses the attack. Leonard, on the
+contrary, insisted with his pupils on the attack being made with such
+smoothness as to be absolutely unobtrusive. Being a nephew of Mme.
+Malibran, he attached special importance to the 'singing' tone, and
+advised his pupils to hear great singers, to _listen_ to them, and to
+try and reproduce their _bel canto_ on the violin.
+
+"He was most particular in his observance of every _nuance_ of shading
+and expression. He told me that when he played Mendelssohn's concerto
+(for the first time) at the Leipsic _Gewandhaus_, at a rehearsal,
+Mendelssohn himself conducting, he began the first phrase with a full
+_mezzo-forte_ tone. Mendelssohn laid his hand on his arm and said: 'But
+it begins _piano!_' In reply Leonard merely pointed with his bow to the
+score--the _p_ which is now indicated in all editions had been omitted
+by some printer's error, and he had been quite within his rights in
+playing _mezzo-forte_.
+
+"Leonard paid a great deal of attention to scales and the right way to
+practice them. He would say, _'Il faut filer les sons: c'est l'art des
+maitres_. ('One must spin out the tone: that is the art of the
+masters.') He taught his pupils to play the scales with long, steady
+bowings, counting sixty to each bow. Himself a great classical
+violinist, he nevertheless paid a good deal of attention to _virtuoso_
+pieces; and always tried to prepare his pupils for _public life_. He had
+all sorts of wise hints for the budding concert artist, and was in the
+habit of saying: 'You must plan a program as you would the _menu_ of a
+dinner: there should be something for every one's taste. And,
+especially, if you are playing on a long program, together with other
+artists, offer nothing indigestible--let _your_ number be a relief!'
+
+
+                                SIVORI
+
+"While studying with Leonard I met Sivori, Paganini's only pupil (if we
+except Catarina Caleagno), for whom Paganini wrote a concerto and six
+short sonatas. Leonard took me to see him late one evening at the _Hotel
+de Havane_ in Paris, where Sivori was staying. When we came to his room
+we heard the sound of slow scales, beautifully played, coming from
+behind the closed door. We peered through the keyhole, and there he sat
+on his bed stringing his scale tones like pearls. He was a little chap
+and had the tiniest hands I have ever seen. Was this a drawback? If so,
+no one could tell from his playing; he had a flawless technic, and a
+really pearly quality of tone. He was very jolly and amiable, and he and
+Leonard were great friends, each always going to hear the other whenever
+he played in concert. My four years in Paris were in the main years of
+storm and stress--plain living and hard, very hard, concentrated work. I
+gave some accompanying lessons to help keep things going. When I left
+Paris I went to London and then began my public life as a concert
+violinist.
+
+
+                  GREAT MOMENTS IN AN ARTIST'S LIFE
+
+"What is the happiest remembrance of my career as a _virtuoso_? Some of
+the great moments in my life as an artist? It is hard to say. Of course
+some of my court appearances before the crowned heads of Europe are dear
+to me, not so much because they were _court_ appearances, but because of
+the graciousness and appreciation of the highly placed personages for
+whom I played.
+
+"Then, what I count a signal honor, I have played no less than _three_
+times as a solo artist with the Royal Philharmonic Society of London,
+the oldest symphonic society in Europe, for whom Beethoven composed his
+immortal IXth symphony (once under Sir Arthur Sullivan's baton; once
+under that of Sir A.C. Mackenzie, and once with Sir Frederick Cowen as
+conductor--on this last occasion I was asked to introduce my new Second
+concerto in B minor, Op. 36, at the time still in ms.) Then there is
+quite a number of great conductors with whom I have appeared, a few
+among them being Liszt, Rubinstein, Brahms, Pasdeloup, Sir August Manns,
+Sir Charles Halle, L. Mancinelli, Weingartner and Hans Richter, etc.
+Perhaps, as a violinist, what I like best to recall is that as a boy I
+was invited by Richter to go with him to Bayreuth and play at the
+foundation of the Bayreuth festival theater, which however my parents
+would _not_ permit owing to my tender age. I also remember with pleasure
+an episode at the famous Pasdeloup Concerts in the _Cirque d'hiver_ in
+Paris, on an occasion when I performed the F sharp minor concerto of
+Ernst. After I had finished, two ladies came to the green room: they
+were in deep mourning, and one of them greatly moved, asked me to 'allow
+her to thank me' for the manner in which I had played this
+concerto--she said: _'I am the widow of Ernst!'_ She also told me that
+since his death she had never heard the concerto played as I had played
+it! In presenting to me her companion, the Marquise de Gallifet (wife of
+the General de Gallifet who led the brigade of the _Chasseurs d'Afrique_
+in the heroic charge of General Margueritte's cavalry division at Sedan,
+which excited the admiration of the old king of Prussia), I had the
+honor of meeting the once world famous violinist Mlle. Millanollo, as
+she was before her marriage. Mme. Ernst often came to hear me play her
+late husband's music, and as a parting gift presented me with his
+beautiful 'Tourte' bow, and an autographed copy of the first edition of
+Ernst's transcription for solo violin of Schubert's 'Erlking.' It is so
+incredibly difficult to play with proper balance of melody and
+accompaniment--I never heard any one but Kubelik play it--that it is
+almost impossible. It is so difficult, in fact, that it should not be
+played!
+
+
+                     VIOLINS AND STRINGS: SARASATE
+
+"My violin? I am a Stradivarius player, and possess two fine Strads,
+though I also have a beautiful Joseph Guarnerius. Ysaye, Thibaud and
+Caressa, when they lunched with me not long ago, were enthusiastic about
+them. My favorite Strad is a 1716 instrument--I have used it for
+twenty-five years. But I cannot use the wire strings that are now in
+such vogue here. I have to have Italian gut strings. The wire E cuts my
+fingers, and besides I notice a perceptible difference in sound quality.
+Of course, wire strings are practical; they do not 'snap' on the concert
+stage. Speaking of strings that 'snap,' reminds me that the first time I
+heard Sarasate play the Saint-Saens concerto, at Frankfort, he twice
+forgot his place and stopped. They brought him the music, he began for
+the third time and then--the E string snapped! I do not think _any_
+other than Sarasate could have carried off these successive mishaps and
+brought his concert to a triumphant conclusion. He was a great friend of
+mine and one of the most _perfect_ players I have ever known, as well as
+one of the greatest _grand seigneurs_ among violinists. His rendering of
+romantic works, Saint-Saens, Lalo, Bruch, was exquisite--I have never,
+never heard them played as beautifully. On the other hand, his Bach
+playing was excruciating--he played Bach sonatas as though they were
+virtuoso pieces. It made one think of Hans von Buelow's _mot_ when, in
+speaking of a certain famous pianist, he said: 'He plays Beethoven with
+velocity and Czerny with expression.' But to hear Sarasate play romantic
+music, his own 'Spanish Dances' for instance, was all like glorious
+birdsong and golden sunshine, a lark soaring heavenwards!
+
+
+                       THE NARDINI CONCERTO IN A
+
+"You ask about my compositions? Well, Eddy Brown is going to play my
+Second violin concerto, Op. 36 in B flat, which I wrote for the London
+Philharmonic Society, next season; Elman the Nardini concerto in A,
+which was published only shortly before the outbreak of the war. Thirty
+years ago I found, by chance, three old Nardini concertos for violin and
+bass in the composer's _original_ ms., in Bologna. The best was the one
+in A--a beautiful work! But the bass was not even figured, and the task
+of reconstructing the accompaniment for piano, as well as for orchestra,
+and reverently doing justice to the composer's original intent and idea;
+while at the same time making its beauties clearly and expressively
+available from the standpoint of the violinist of to-day, was not easy.
+Still, I think I may say I succeeded." And Mr. Nachez showed me some
+letters from famous contemporaries who had made the acquaintance of this
+Nardini concerto in A major. Auer, Thibaud, Sir Hubert Parry (who said
+that he had "infused the work with new life"), Pollak, Switzerland's
+ranking fiddler, Carl Flesch, author of the well-known _Urstudien_--all
+expressed their admiration. One we cannot forbear quoting a letter in
+part. It was from Ottokar Sevcik. The great Bohemian pedagogue is
+usually regarded as the apostle of mechanism in violin playing: as the
+inventor of an inexorably logical system of development, which stresses
+the technical at the expense of the musical. The following lines show
+him in quite a different light:
+
+     "I would not be surprised if Nardini, Vivaldi and their
+     companions were to appear to you at the midnight hour in
+     order to thank the master for having given new life to
+     their works, long buried beneath the mold of figured
+     basses; works whose vital, pulsating possibilities these
+     old gentlemen probably never suspected. Nardini emerges
+     from your alchemistic musical laboratory with so fresh
+     and lively a quality of charm that starving fiddlers will
+     greet him with the same pleasure with which the bee
+     greets the first honeyed blossom of spring."
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"And now you want my definition of 'Violin Mastery'? To me the whole art
+of playing violin is contained in the reverent and respectful
+interpretation of the works of the great masters. I consider the artist
+only their messenger, singing the message they give us. And the more one
+realizes this, the greater becomes one's veneration especially for
+Bach's creative work. For twenty years I never failed to play the Bach
+solo sonatas for violin every day of my life--a violinist's 'daily
+prayer' in its truest sense! Students of Bach are apt, in the beginning,
+to play, say, the _finale_ of the G minor sonata, the final _Allegro_ of
+the A minor sonata, the _Gigue_ of the B minor, or the _Preludio_ of the
+E major sonata like a mechanical exercise: it takes _constant_ study to
+disclose their intimate harmonic melodious conception and poetry! One
+should always remember that technic is, after all, only a _means_. It
+must be acquired in order to be an unhampered master of the instrument,
+as a medium for presenting the thoughts of the great creators--but
+_these thoughts_, and not their medium of expression, are the chief
+objects of the true and great artist, whose aim in life is to serve his
+Art humbly, reverently and faithfully! You remember these words:
+
+"'In the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of
+passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it
+smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious,
+periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split
+the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of
+nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise!...'"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XV
+
+
+                           MAXIMILIAN PILZER
+
+                   THE SINGING TONE AND THE VIBRATO
+
+
+Maximilian Pilzer is deservedly prominent among younger American concert
+violinists. A pupil of Joachim, Shradieck, Gustav Hollander, he is, as
+it has already been picturesquely put, "a graduate of the rock and thorn
+university," an artist who owes his success mainly to his own natural
+gifts plus an infinite capacity for taking pains. Though primarily an
+interpreter his interlocutor yet had the good fortune to happen on Mr.
+Pilzer when he was giving a lesson. Essentially a solo violinist, Mr.
+Pilzer nevertheless has the born teacher's wish to impart, to share,
+where talent justifies it, his own knowledge. He himself did not have to
+tell the listener this--the lesson he was giving betrayed the fact.
+
+It was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_ that the student played. And as
+Mr. Pilzer illustrated the delicate shades of _nuance_, of phrasing, of
+bowing, with instant rebuke for an occasional lack of "warmth" in tone,
+the improvement was instantaneous and unmistakable. The lesson over, he
+said:
+
+
+                            THE SINGING TONE
+
+"The singing tone is the ideal one, it is the natural violin tone. Too
+many violin students have the technical bee in their bonnet and neglect
+it. And too many believe that speed is brilliancy. When they see the
+black notes they take for granted that they must 'run to beat the band.'
+Yet often it is the teacher's fault if a good singing tone is not
+developed. Where the teacher's playing is cold, that of the pupil is apt
+to be the same. Warmth, rounded fullness, the truly beautiful violin
+tone is more difficult to call forth than is generally supposed. And, in
+a manner of speaking, the soul of this tone quality is the _vibrato_,
+though the individual instrument also has much to do with the tone.
+
+
+                              THE VIBRATO
+
+"But not," Mr. Pilzer continued, "not as it is too often mistakenly
+employed. Of course, any trained player will draw his bow across the
+strings in a smooth, even way, but that is not enough. There must be an
+inner, emotional instinct, an electric spark within the player himself
+that sets the _vibrato_ current in motion. It is an inner, psychic
+vibration which should be reflected by the intense, rapid vibration in
+the fingers of the left hand on the strings in order to give fluent
+expression to emotion. The _vibrato_ can not be used, naturally, on the
+open strings, but otherwise it represents the true means for securing
+warmth of expression. Of course, some decry the _vibrato_--but the
+reason is often because the _vibrato_ is too slow. One need only listen
+to Ysaye, Elman, Kreisler: artists such as these employ the quick,
+intense _vibrato_ with ideal effect. An exaggerated _vibrato_ is as bad
+as what I call 'the sentimental slide,' a common fault, which many
+violinists cultivate under the impression that they are playing
+expressively.
+
+
+                   VIOLIN MASTERY AND ITS ATTAINMENT
+
+"Violin mastery expresses more or less the aspiration to realize an
+ideal. It is a hope, a prayer, rather than an actual fact, since nothing
+human is absolutely perfect. Ysaye, perhaps, with his golden tone, comes
+nearest to my idea of what violin mastery should be, both as regards
+breadth and delicacy of interpretation. And guide-posts along the long
+road that leads to mastery of the instrument? Individuality in teaching,
+progress along natural lines, surety in bowing, a tone-production
+without forcing, cultivating a sense of rhythm and accent. I always
+remember what Moser once wrote in my autograph album: 'Rhythm and accent
+are the soul of music!'
+
+
+                           THE SHINING GOAL
+
+"And what a shining goal is waiting to be reached! The correct
+interpretation of Bach, Haendel and the old Italian and French classics,
+and of the vast realm of _ensemble_ music under which head come the
+Mozart and Beethoven violin sonatas, and those of their successors,
+Schumann, Brahms, etc. And aside from the classics, the moderns. And
+then there are the great violin concertos, in a class by themselves.
+They represent, in a degree, the utmost that the composer has done for
+the interpreting artist. Yet they differ absolutely in manner, style,
+thought, etc. Take Joachim's own Hungarian concerto, which I played for
+the composer, of which I still treasure the recollection of his patting
+me on the shoulder and saying: 'There is nothing for me to correct!' It
+is a work deliberately designed for technical display, and is
+tremendously difficult. But the wonderful Brahms concerto, those of
+Beethoven and Max Bruch; of Mozart and Mendelssohn--it is hard to
+express a preference for works so different in the quality of their
+beauty. The Russian Conus has a fine concerto in E, and Sinding a most
+effective one in A major. Edmund Severn, the American composer and
+violinist, has also written a notably fine violin concerto which I have
+played, with the Philharmonic, one that ought to be heard oftener.
+
+
+                             PLAYING BACH
+
+"Bach is one of the most difficult of the great masters to interpret on
+the violin. His polyphonic style and interweaving themes demand close
+study in order to make the meaning clear. In the Bach _Chaconne_, for
+instance, some very great violinists do not pay enough attention to
+making a distinction between principal and secondary notes of a chord.
+Here [Mr. Pilzer took up a new Strad he has recently acquired and
+illustrated his meaning] in this four-note chord there is one important
+melody note which must stand out. And it can be done, though not without
+some study. Bach abounds in such pitfalls, and in studying him the
+closest attention is necessary. Once the problems involved overcome, his
+music gains its true clarity and beauty and the enjoyment of artist and
+listener is doubled.
+
+
+
+
+                                   XVI
+
+
+                               MAUD POWELL
+
+                   TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: SOME HINTS
+                         FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER
+
+
+Maud Powell is often alluded to as our representative "American _woman_
+violinist" which, while true in a narrower sense, is not altogether just
+in a broader way. It would be decidedly more fair to consider her a
+representative American violinist, without stressing the term "woman";
+for as regards Art in its higher sense, the artist comes first, sex
+being incidental, and Maud Powell is first and foremost--an artist. And
+her infinite capacity for taking pains, her willingness to work hard
+have had no small part in the position she has made for herself, and the
+success she has achieved.
+
+
+                 THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CONCERT VIOLINIST
+
+"Too many Americans who take up the violin professionally," Maud Powell
+told the writer, "do not realize that the mastery of the instrument is
+a life study, that without hard, concentrated work they cannot reach the
+higher levels of their art. Then, too, they are too often inclined to
+think that if they have a good tone and technic that this is all they
+need. They forget that the musical instinct must be cultivated; they do
+not attach enough importance to musical surroundings: to hearing and
+understanding music of every kind, not only that written for the violin.
+They do not realize the value of _ensemble_ work and its influence as an
+educational factor of the greatest artistic value. I remember when I was
+a girl of eight, my mother used to play the Mozart violin sonatas with
+me; I heard all the music I possibly could hear; I was taught harmony
+and musical form in direct connection with my practical work, so that
+theory was a living thing to me and no abstraction. In my home town I
+played in an orchestra of twenty pieces--Oh, no, not a 'ladies
+orchestra'--the other members were men grown! I played chamber music as
+well as solos whenever the opportunity offered, at home and in public.
+In fact music was part of my life.
+
+          [Illustration: MAUD POWELL, with hand-written note]
+
+"No student who looks on music primarily as a thing apart in his
+existence, as a bread-winning tool, as a craft rather than an art,
+can ever mount to the high places. So often girls [who sometimes lack
+the practical vision of boys], although having studied but a few years,
+come to me and say: 'My one ambition is to become a great _virtuoso_ on
+the violin! I want to begin to study the great concertos!' And I have to
+tell them that their first ambition should be to become musicians--to
+study, to know, to understand music before they venture on its
+interpretation. Virtuosity without musicianship will not carry one far
+these days. In many cases these students come from small inland towns,
+far from any music center, and have a wrong attitude of mind. They crave
+the glamor of footlights, flowers and applause, not realizing that music
+is a speech, an idiom, which they must master in order to interpret the
+works of the great composers.
+
+
+                     THE INFLUENCE OF THE TEACHER
+
+"Of course, all artistic playing represents essentially the mental
+control of technical means. But to acquire the latter in the right way,
+while at the same time developing the former, calls for the best of
+teachers. The problem of the teacher is to prevent his pupils from being
+too imitative--all students are natural imitators--and furthering the
+quality of musical imagination in them. Pupils generally have something
+of the teacher's tone--Auer pupils have the Auer tone, Joachim pupils
+have a Joachim tone, an excellent thing. But as each pupil has an
+individuality of his own, he should never sink it altogether in that of
+his teacher. It is this imitative trend which often makes it hard to
+judge a young player's work. I was very fortunate in my teachers.
+William Lewis of Chicago gave me a splendid start. Then I studied in
+turn with Schradieck in Leipsic--Schradieck himself was a pupil of
+Ferdinand David and of Leonard--Joachim in Berlin, and Charles Dancla in
+Paris. I might say that I owe most, in a way, to William Lewis, a born
+fiddler. Of my three European masters Dancla was unquestionably the
+greatest as a teacher--of course I am speaking for myself. It was no
+doubt an advantage, a decided advantage for me in my artistic
+development, which was slow--a family trait--to enjoy the broadening
+experience of three entirely different styles of teaching, and to be
+able to assimilate the best of each. Yet Joachim was a far greater
+violinist than teacher. His method was a cramping one, owing to his
+insistence on pouring all his pupils into the same mold, so to speak,
+of forming them all on the Joachim lathe. But Dancla was inspiring. He
+taught me De Beriot's wonderful method of attack; he showed me how to
+develop purity of style. Dancla's method of teaching gave his pupils a
+technical equipment which carried bowing right along, 'neck and neck'
+with the finger work of the left hand, while the Germans are apt to
+stress finger development at the expense of the bow. And without ever
+neglecting technical means, Dancla always put the purely musical before
+the purely virtuoso side of playing. And this is always a sign of a good
+teacher. He was unsparing in taking pains and very fair.
+
+"I remember that I was passed first in a class of eighty-four at an
+examination, after only three private lessons in which to prepare the
+concerto movement to be played. I was surprised and asked him why
+Mlle.---- who, it seemed to me, had played better than I, had not
+passed. 'Ah,' he said, 'Mlle.---- studied that movement for six months;
+and in comparison, you, with only three lessons, play it better!' Dancla
+switched me right over in his teaching from German to French methods,
+and taught me how to become an artist, just as I had learned in Germany
+to become a musician. The French school has taste, elegance,
+imagination; the German is more conservative, serious, and has, perhaps,
+more depth.
+
+
+                          TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
+
+"Perhaps it is because I belong to an older school, or it may be because
+I laid stress on technic because of its necessity as a means of
+expression--at any rate I worked hard at it. Naturally, one should never
+practice any technical difficulty too long at a stretch. Young players
+sometimes forget this. I know that _staccato_ playing was not easy for
+me at one time. I believe a real _staccato_ is inborn; a knack. I used
+to grumble about it to Joachim and he told me once that musically
+_staccato_ did not have much value. His own, by the way, was very
+labored and heavy. He admitted that he had none. Wieniawski had such a
+wonderful _staccato_ that one finds much of it in his music. When I
+first began to play his D minor concerto I simply made up my mind to get
+a _staccato_. It came in time, by sheer force of will. After that I had
+no trouble. An artistic _staccato_ should, like the trill, be plastic
+and under control; for different schools of composition demand
+different styles of treatment of such details.
+
+"Octaves--the unison, not broken--I did not find difficult; but though
+they are supposed to add volume of tone they sound hideous to me. I have
+used them in certain passages of my arrangement of 'Deep River,' but
+when I heard them played, promised myself I would never repeat the
+experiment. Wilhelmj has committed even a worse crime in taste by
+putting six long bars of Schubert's lovely _Ave Maria_ in octaves. Of
+course they represent skill; but I think they are only justified in show
+pieces. Harmonics I always found easy; though whether they ring out as
+they should always depends more or less on atmospheric conditions, the
+strings and the amount of rosin on the bow. On the concert stage if the
+player stands in a draught the harmonics are sometimes husky.
+
+
+                  THE AMERICAN WOMAN VIOLINIST AND
+                            AMERICAN MUSIC
+
+"The old days of virtuoso 'tricks' have passed--I should like to hope
+forever. Not that some of the old type virtuosos were not fine players.
+Remenyi played beautifully. So did Ole Bull. I remember one favorite
+trick of the latter's, for instance, which would hardly pass muster
+to-day. I have seen him draw out a long _pp_, the audience listening
+breathlessly, while he drew his bow way beyond the string, and then
+looked innocently at the point of the bow, as though wondering where the
+tone had vanished. It invariably brought down the house.
+
+"Yet an artist must be a virtuoso in the modern sense to do his full
+duty. And here in America that duty is to help those who are groping for
+something higher and better musically; to help without rebuffing them.
+When I first began my career as a concert violinist I did pioneer work
+for the cause of the American woman violinist, going on with the work
+begun by Mme. Camilla Urso. A strong prejudice then existed against
+women fiddlers, which even yet has not altogether been overcome. The
+very fact that a Western manager recently told Mr. Turner with surprise
+that he 'had made a success of a woman artist' proves it. When I first
+began to play here in concert this prejudice was much stronger. Yet I
+kept on and secured engagements to play with orchestra at a time when
+they were difficult to obtain. Theodore Thomas liked my playing (he
+said I had brains), and it was with his orchestra that I introduced the
+concertos of Saint-Saens (C min.), Lalo (F min.), and others, to
+American audiences.
+
+"The fact that I realized that my sex was against me in a way led me to
+be startlingly authoritative and convincing in the masculine manner when
+I first played. This is a mistake no woman violinist should make. And
+from the moment that James Huneker wrote that I 'was not developing the
+feminine side of my work,' I determined to be just myself, and play as
+the spirit moved me, with no further thought of sex or sex distinctions
+which, in Art, after all, are secondary. I never realized this more
+forcibly than once, when, sitting as a judge, I listened to the
+competitive playing of a number of young professional violinists and
+pianists. The individual performers, unseen by the judges, played in
+turn behind a screen. And in three cases my fellow judges and myself
+guessed wrongly with regard to the sex of the players. When we thought
+we had heard a young man play it happened to be a young woman, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+"To return to the question of concert-work. You must not think that I
+have played only foreign music in public. I have always believed in
+American composers and in American composition, and as an American have
+tried to do justice as an interpreting artist to the music of my native
+land. Aside from the violin concertos by Harry Rowe Shelly and Henry
+Holden Huss, I have played any number of shorter original compositions
+by such representative American composers as Arthur Foote, Mrs. H.H.A.
+Beach, Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa, Arthur Bird, Edwin Grasse,
+Marion Bauer, Cecil Burleigh, Harry Gilbert, A. Walter Kramer, Grace
+White, Charles Wakefield Cadman and others. Then, too, I have presented
+transcriptions by Arthur Hartmann, Francis Macmillan and Sol Marcosson,
+as well as some of my own. Transcriptions are wrong, theoretically; yet
+some songs, like Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Song of India' and some piano
+pieces, like the Dvorak _Humoresque_, are so obviously effective on the
+violin that a transcription justifies itself. My latest temptative in
+that direction is my 'Four American Folk Songs,' a simple setting of
+four well-known airs with connecting cadenzas--no variations, no special
+development! I used them first as _encores_, but my audiences seemed to
+like them so well that I have played them on all my recent programs.
+
+
+                    SOME HINTS FOR THE CONCERT PLAYER
+
+"The very first thing in playing in public is to free oneself of all
+distrust in one's own powers. To do this, nothing must be left to
+chance. One should not have to give a thought to strings, bow, etc. All
+should be in proper condition. Above all the violinist should play with
+an accompanist who is used to accompanying him. It seems superfluous to
+emphasize that one's program numbers must have been mastered in every
+detail. Only then can one defy nervousness, turning excess of emotion
+into inspiration.
+
+"Acoustics play a greater part in the success of a public concert than
+most people realize. In some halls they are very good, as in the case of
+the Cleveland Hippodrome, an enormous place which holds forty-three
+hundred people. Here the acoustics are perfect, and the artist has those
+wonderful silences through which his slightest tones carry clearly and
+sweetly. I have played not only solos, but chamber music in this hall,
+and was always sorry to stop playing. In most halls the acoustic
+conditions are best in the evening.
+
+"Then there is the matter of the violin. I first used a Joseph
+Guarnerius, a deeper toned instrument than the Jean Baptista Guadagnini
+I have now played for a number of years. The Guarnerius has a tone that
+seems to come more from within the instrument; but all in all I have
+found my Guadagnini, with its glassy clearness, its brilliant and limpid
+tone-quality, better adapted to American concert halls. If I had a Strad
+in the same condition as my Guadagnini the instrument would be
+priceless. I regretted giving up my Guarnerius, but I could not play the
+two violins interchangeably; for they were absolutely different in size
+and tone-production, shape, etc. Then my hand is so small that I ought
+to use the instrument best adapted to it, and to use the same instrument
+always. Why do I use no chin-rest? I use no chin-rest on my Guadagnini
+simply because I cannot find one to fit my chin. One should use a
+chin-rest to prevent perspiration from marring the varnish. My Rocca
+violin is an interesting instance of wood worn in ridges by the stubble
+on a man's chin.
+
+"Strings? Well, I use a wire E string. I began to use it twelve years
+ago one humid, foggy summer in Connecticut. I had had such trouble with
+strings snapping that I cried: 'Give me anything but a gut string.' The
+climate practically makes metal strings a necessity, though some kind
+person once said that I bought wire strings because they were cheap! If
+wire strings had been thought of when Theodore Thomas began his career,
+he might never have been a conductor, for he told me he gave up the
+violin because of the E string. And most people will admit that hearing
+a wire E you cannot tell it from a gut E. Of course, it is unpleasant on
+the open strings, but then the open strings never do sound well. And in
+the highest registers the tone does not spin out long enough because of
+the tremendous tension: one has to use more bow. And it cuts the hairs:
+there is a little surface nap on the bow-hairs which a wire string wears
+right out. I had to have my four bows rehaired three times last
+season--an average of every three months. But all said and done it has
+been a God-send to the violinist who plays in public. On the wire A one
+cannot get the harmonics; and the aluminum D is objectionable in some
+violins, though in others not at all.
+
+"The main thing--no matter what strings are used--is for the artist to
+get his audience into the concert hall, and give it a program which is
+properly balanced. Theodore Thomas first advised me to include in my
+programs short, simple things that my listeners could 'get hold
+of'--nothing inartistic, but something selected from their standpoint,
+not from mine, and played as artistically as possible. Yet there must
+also be something that is beyond them, collectively. Something that they
+may need to hear a number of times to appreciate. This enables the
+artist to maintain his dignity and has a certain psychological effect in
+that his audience holds him in greater respect. At big conservatories
+where music study is the most important thing, and in large cities,
+where the general level of music culture is high, a big solid program
+may be given, where it would be inappropriate in other places.
+
+"Yet I remember having many recalls at El Paso, Texas, once, after
+playing the first movement of the Sibelius concerto. It is one of those
+compositions which if played too literally leaves an audience quite
+cold; it must be rendered temperamentally, the big climaxing effects
+built up, its Northern spirit brought out, though I admit that even then
+it is not altogether easy to grasp.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin mastery or mastery of any instrument, for that matter, is the
+technical power to say exactly what you want to say in exactly the way
+you want to say it. It is technical equipment that stands at the service
+of your musical will--a faithful and competent servant that comes at
+your musical bidding. If your spirit soars 'to parts unknown,' your well
+trained servant 'technic' is ever at your elbow to prevent irksome
+details from hampering your progress. Mastery of your instrument makes
+mastery of your Art a joy instead of a burden. Technic should always be
+the hand-maid of the spirit.
+
+"And I believe that one result of the war will be to bring us a greater
+self-knowledge, to the violinist as well as to every other artist, a
+broader appreciation of what he can do to increase and elevate
+appreciation for music in general and his Art in particular. And with
+these I am sure a new impetus will be given to the development of a
+musical culture truly American in thought and expression."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVII
+
+
+                              LEON SAMETINI
+
+                                HARMONICS
+
+
+Leon Sametini, at present director of the violin department of the
+Chicago Music College, where Sauret, Heermann and Sebald preceded him,
+is one of the most successful teachers of his instrument in this
+country. It is to be regretted that he has not played in public in the
+United States as often as in Europe, where his extensive _tournees_ in
+Holland--Leon Sametini is a Hollander by birth--Belgium, England and
+Austria have established his reputation as a virtuoso, and the quality
+of his playing led Ysaye to include him in a quartet of artists "in
+order of lyric expression" with himself and Thibaud. Yet, the fact
+remains that this erstwhile _protege_ of Queen Wilhelmina--she gave him
+his beautiful Santo Serafin (1730) violin, whose golden varnish back "is
+a genuine picture,"--to quote its owner--is a distinguished interpreting
+artist besides having a real teaching gift, which lends additional
+weight to his educational views.
+
+
+                         REMINISCENCES OF SEVCIK
+
+"I began to study violin at the age of six, with my uncle. From him I
+went to Eldering in Amsterdam, now Willy Hess's successor at the head of
+the Cologne Conservatory, and then spent a year with Sevcik in Prague.
+Yet--without being his pupil--I have learned more from Ysaye than from
+any of my teachers. It is rather the custom to decry Sevcik as a
+teacher, to dwell on his absolutely mechanical character of
+instruction--and not without justice. First of all Sevcik laid all the
+stress on the left hand and not on the bow--an absolute inversion of a
+fundamental principle. Eldering had taken great pains with my bow
+technic, for he himself was a pupil of Hubay, who had studied with
+Vieuxtemps and had his tradition. But Sevcik's teaching as regards the
+use of the bow was very poor; his pupils--take Kubelik with all his
+marvelous finger facility--could never develop a big bow technic. Their
+playing lacks strength, richness of sound. Sevcik soon noticed that my
+bowing did not conform to his theories; yet since he could not
+legitimately complain of the results I secured, he did not attempt to
+make me change it. Musical beauty, interpretation, in Sevcik's case were
+all subordinated to mechanical perfection. With him the study of some
+inspired masterpiece was purely a mathematical process, a problem in
+technic and mental arithmetic, without a bit of spontaneity. Ysaye used
+to roar with laughter when I would tell him how, when a boy of fifteen,
+I played the Beethoven concerto for Sevcik--a work which I myself felt
+and knew it was then out of the question for me to play with artistic
+maturity--the latter's only criticisms on my performance were that one
+or two notes were a little too high, and a certain passage not quite
+clear.
+
+"Sevcik did not like the Dvorak concerto and never gave it to his
+pupils. But I lived next door to Dvorak at Prague, and meeting him in
+the street one day, asked him some questions anent its interpretation,
+with the result that I went to his home various times and he gave me his
+own ideas as to how it should be played. Sevcik never pointed his
+teachings by playing himself. I never saw him take up the fiddle while I
+studied with him. While I was his pupil he paid me the compliment of
+selecting me to play Sinigaglia's engaging violin concerto, at short
+notice, for the first time in Prague. Sinigaglia had asked Sevcik to
+play it, who said: 'I no longer play violin, but I have a pupil who can
+play it for you,' and introduced me to him. Sinigaglia became a good
+friend of mine, and I was the first to introduce his _Rapsodia
+Piedmontese_ for violin and orchestra in London. To return to
+Sevcik--with all the deficiencies of his teaching methods, he had one
+great gift. He taught his pupils _how to practice_! And--aside from
+bowing--he made all mechanical problems, especially finger problems,
+absolutely clear and lucid.
+
+
+                  A QUARTET OF GREAT TEACHERS WITH WHOM
+                              ALL MAY STUDY
+
+"Still, all said and done, it was after I had finished with all my
+teachers that I really began to learn to play violin: above all from
+Ysaye, whom I went to hear play wherever and whenever I could. I think
+that the most valuable lessons I have ever had are those unconsciously
+given me by four of the greatest violinists I know: Ysaye, Kreisler,
+Elman and Thibaud. Each of these artists is so different that no one
+seems altogether to replace the other. Ysaye with his unique
+personality, the immense breadth and sweep of his interpretation, his
+dramatic strength, stands alone. Kreisler has a certain sparkling
+scintillance in his playing that is his only. Elman might be called the
+Caruso among violinists, with the perfected sensuous beauty of his tone;
+while Thibaud stands for supreme elegance and distinction. I have
+learned much from each member of this great quartet. And if the artist
+can profit from hearing and seeing them play, why not the student? Every
+recital given by such masters offers the earnest violin student
+priceless opportunities for study and comparison. My special leaning
+toward Ysaye is due, aside from his wonderful personality, to the fact
+that I feel music in the same way that he does.
+
+
+                           TEACHING PRINCIPLES
+
+'My teaching principles are the results of my own training period, my
+own experience as a concert artist and teacher--before I came to America
+I taught in London, where Isolde Menges, among others, studied with
+me--and what either directly or indirectly I have learned from my great
+colleagues. In the Music College I give the advanced pupils their
+individual lessons; but once a week the whole class assembles--as in
+the European conservatories--and those whose turn it is to play do so
+while the others listen. This is of value to every student, since it
+gives him an opportunity of 'hearing himself as others hear him.' Then,
+to stimulate appreciation and musical development there are _ensemble_
+and string quartet classes. I believe that every violinist should be
+able to play viola, and in quartet work I make the players shift
+constantly from one to the other instrument in order to hear what they
+play from a different angle.
+
+"For left hand work I stick to the excellent Sevcik exercises and for
+some pupils I use the Carl Flesch _Urstudien_. For studies of real
+_musical_ value Rode, of course, is unexcelled. His studies are the
+masterpieces of their kind, and I turn them into concert pieces. Thibaud
+and Elman have supplied some of them with interesting piano
+accompaniments.
+
+"For bowing, with the exception of a few purely mechanical exercises, I
+used Kreutzer and Rode, and Gavinies. Ninety-nine per cent. of pupils'
+faults are faults of bowing. It is an art in itself. Sevcik was able to
+develop Kubelik's left hand work to the last degree of perfection--but
+not his bowing. In the case of Kocian, another well-known Sevcik pupil
+whom I have heard play, his bowing was by no means an outstanding
+feature. I often have to start pupils on the open strings in order to
+correct fundamental bow faults.
+
+"When watching a great artist play the student should not expect to
+secure similar results by slavish imitation--another pupil fault. The
+thing to do is to realize the principle behind the artist's playing, and
+apply it to one's own physical possibilities.
+
+"Every one holds, draws and uses the bow in a different way. If no two
+thumb-prints are alike, neither are any two sets of fingers and wrists.
+This is why not slavish imitation, but intelligent adaptation should be
+applied to the playing of the teacher in the class-room or the artist on
+the concert-stage. For instance, the little finger of Ysaye's left hand
+bends inward somewhat--as a result it is perfectly natural for him to
+make less use of the little finger, while it might be very difficult or
+almost impossible for another to employ the same fingering. And certain
+compositions and styles of composition are more adapted to one violinist
+than to another. I remember when I was a student, that Wieniawski's
+music seemed to lie just right for my hand. I could read difficult
+things of his at sight.
+
+
+                           DOUBLE HARMONICS
+
+"Would I care to discuss any special feature of violin technic? I might
+say something anent double harmonics--a subject too often taught in a
+mechanical way, and one I have always taken special pains to make
+absolutely plain to my own pupils--for every violinist should be able to
+play double harmonics out of a clear understanding of how to form them.
+
+"There are only two kinds of harmonics: natural and artificial. Natural
+harmonics may be formed on the major triad of each open string, using
+the open string as the tonic. As, for example, on the G string [and Mr.
+Sametini set down the following illustration]:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Then there are four kinds of artificial harmonics, only three of which
+are used: harmonics on the major third (1); harmonics on the perfect
+fourth (2); harmonics on the perfect fifth (3); and harmonics--never
+used--on the octave:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Where does the harmonic sound in each case? Two octaves and a third
+higher (1); two octaves higher (2); one octave and a fifth higher (3)
+respectively, than the pressed-down note. If the harmonic on the octave
+(4) were played, it would sound just an octave higher than the
+pressed-down note.
+
+"Now say we wished to combine different double harmonics. The whole
+principle is made clear if we take, let us say, the first double-stop in
+the scale of C major in thirds as an example:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"Beginning with the lower of these two notes, the C, we find that it
+cannot not be taken as a natural harmonic
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+because natural harmonics on the open strings run as follows: G, B, D on
+the G string; D, F{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~}, A on the D string; A, C{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~}, E on the A string; and
+E, G{~MUSIC SHARP SIGN~}, B on the E string. There are three ways of taking the C before
+mentioned as an artificial harmonic. The E may be taken in the following
+manner:
+
+           Nat. harmonic                     Artificial harmonic
+  [Illustration: Musical Notation]    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Now we have to combine the C and E as well as we are able. Rejecting
+the following combinations as _impossible_--any violinist will see why--
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+we have a choice of the two _possible_ combinations remaining, with the
+fingering indicated:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"With regard to the _actual execution_ of these harmonics, I advise all
+students to try and play them with every bit as much expressive feeling
+as ordinary notes. My experience has been that pupils do not pay nearly
+enough attention to the intonation of harmonics. In other words, they
+try to produce the harmonics _immediately_, instead of first making sure
+that both fingers are on the right spot before they loosen one finger on
+the string. For instance in the following: [Illustration: Musical
+Notation] first play [Illustration: Musical Notation] and then
+[Illustration: Musical Notation] then loosen the fourth finger, and play
+[Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"The same principle holds good when playing double harmonics. Nine
+tenths of the 'squeaking' heard when harmonics are played is due to the
+fact that the finger-placing is not properly prepared, and that the
+fingers are not on the right spot.
+
+"Never, when playing a harmonic with an up-bow [Symbol: up-bow], at the
+point, smash down the bow on the string; but have it already _on_ the
+string _before_ playing the harmonic. The process is reversed when
+playing a down-bow [Symbol: down-bow] harmonic. When beginning a
+harmonic at the frog, have the harmonic ready, then let the bow _drop_
+gently on the string.
+
+"Triple and quadruple harmonics may be combined in exactly the same way.
+Students should never get the idea that you press down the string as you
+press a button and--presto--the magic harmonics appear! They are a
+simple and natural result of the proper application of scientific
+principles; and the sooner the student learns to form and combine
+harmonics himself instead of learning them by rote, the better will he
+play them. Too often a student can give the fingering of certain double
+harmonics and cannot use it. Of course, harmonics are only a detail of
+the complete mastery of the violin; but mastery of all details leads to
+mastery of the whole.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"And what is mastery of the whole? Mastery of the whole, real violin
+mastery, I think, lies in the control of the interpretative problem, the
+power to awaken emotion by the use of the instrument. Many feel more
+than they can express, have more left hand than bow technic and, like
+Kubelik, have not the perfected technic for which perfected playing
+calls. The artist who feels beauty keenly and deeply and whose
+mechanical equipment allows him to make others feel and share the beauty
+he himself feels is in my opinion worthy of being called a master of the
+violin."
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII
+
+
+                          ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY
+
+                  WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO
+
+
+Alexander Saslavsky is probably best known as a solo artist, as the
+concertmaster of a great symphonic orchestra, as the leader of the
+admirable quartet which bears his name. Yet, at the same time, few
+violinists can speak with more authority anent the instructive phases of
+their Art. Not only has he been active for years in the teaching field;
+but as a pedagog he rounds out the traditions of Ferdinand David,
+Massard, Auer, and Gruen (Vienna _Hochschule_), acquired during his
+"study years," with the result of his own long and varied experience.
+
+Beginning at the beginning, I asked Mr. Saslavsky to tell me something
+about methods, his own in particular. "Method is a flexible term," he
+answered. "What the word should mean is the cultivation of the pupil's
+individuality along the lines best suited to it. Not that a guide which
+may be employed to develop common-sense principles is not valuable. But
+even here, the same guide (violin-method) will not answer for every
+pupil. Personally I find De Beriot's 'Violin School' the most generally
+useful, and for advanced students, Ferdinand David's second book. Then,
+for scales--I insist on my pupils being able to play, a perfect scale
+through three octaves--the Hrimaly book of scales. Many advanced
+violinists cannot play a good scale simply because of a lack of
+fundamental work.
+
+"As soon as the pupil is able, he should take up Kreutzer and stick to
+him as the devotee does to his Bible. Any one who can play the '42
+Exercises' as they should be played may be called a well-balanced
+violinist. There are too many purely mechanical exercises--and the
+circumstance that we have Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo, Rovelli and Dont
+emphasizes the fact. And there are too many elaborate and complicated
+violin methods. Sevcik, for instance, has devised a purely mechanical
+system of this kind, perfect from a purely mechanical standpoint, but
+one whose consistent use, in my opinion, kills initiative and
+individuality. I have had experience with Sevcik pupils in quartet
+playing, and have found that they have no expression.
+
+
+                   WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO
+
+"After all, the teacher can only supply the pupil with the violinistic
+equipment. The pupil must use it. There is tone, for instance. The
+teacher cannot _make_ tone for the pupil--he can only show him how tone
+can be made. Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes it almost
+impossible for the pupil to produce a good natural tone. If the
+finger-tips are not adequately equipped with 'cushions,' and a pupil
+wishes to use the _vibrato_ there is nothing with which he can vibrate.
+There is real meaning, speaking of the violinist's tone, in the phrase
+'he has it at his fingers' tips.' Then there is the matter of _slow_
+practice. It rests with the pupil to carry out the teacher's injunctions
+in this respect. The average pupil practices too fast, is too eager to
+develop his Art as a money maker. And too many really gifted students
+take up orchestra playing, which no one can do continuously and hope to
+be a solo player. Four hours of study work may be nullified by a single
+hour of orchestra playing. Musically it is broadening, of course, but I
+am speaking from the standpoint of the student who hopes to become a
+solo artist. An opera orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the
+symphonic _ensemble_ more care is used; but in the opera orchestra they
+employ the _right_ arm for tremolo! There is a good deal of _camouflage_
+as regards string playing in an opera orchestra, and much of the
+music--notably Wagner's--is quite impracticable.
+
+"And lessons are often made all too short. A teacher in common honesty
+cannot really give a pupil much in half-an-hour--it is not a real
+lesson. There is a good deal to be said for class teaching as it is
+practiced at the European conservatories, especially as regards
+interpretation. In my student days I learned much from listening to
+others play the concertos they had prepared, and from noting the
+teacher's corrections. And this even in a purely technical way: I can
+recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the
+_technical_ points of violin playing.
+
+
+                             A GREAT DEFECT
+
+"Most pupils seem to lack an absolute sense of rhythm--a great defect.
+Yet where latent it may be developed. Here Kreutzer is invaluable,
+since he presents every form of rhythmic problem, scales in various
+rhythms and bowings. Kreutzer's 'Exercise No. 2,' for example, may be
+studied with any number of bowings. To produce a broad tone the bow must
+move slowly, and in rapid passages should never seem to introduce
+technical exercises in a concert number. The student should memorize
+Kreutzer and Fiorillo. Flesch's _Urstudien_ offer the artist or
+professional musician who has time for little practice excellent
+material; but are not meant for the pupil, unless he be so far advanced
+that he may be trusted to use them alone.
+
+
+                           TONE: PRACTICE TIME
+
+"Broad playing gives the singing tone--the true violin tone--a long bow
+drawn its full length. Like every general rule though, this one must be
+modified by the judgment of the individual player. Violin playing is an
+art of many mysteries. Some pupils grasp a point at once; others have to
+have it explained seven or eight different ways before grasping it. The
+serious student should practice not less than four hours, preferably in
+twenty minute intervals. After some twenty minutes the brain is apt to
+tire. And since the fingers are controlled by the brain, it is best to
+relax for a short time before going on. Mental and physical control must
+always go hand in hand. Four hours of intelligent, consistent practice
+work are far better than eight or ten of fatigued effort.
+
+
+                         A NATIONAL CONSERVATORY
+
+"Some five years ago too many teachers gave their pupils the Mendelssohn
+and Paganini concertos to play before they knew their Kreutzer. But
+there has been a change for the better during recent years. Kneisel was
+one of the first to produce pupils here who played legitimately,
+according to standard violinistic ideals. One reason why Auer has had
+such brilliant pupils is that poor students were received at the
+Petrograd Conservatory free of charge. All they had to supply was
+talent; and I look forward to the time when we will have a National
+conservatory in this country, supported by the Government. Then the
+poor, but musically gifted, pupil will have the same opportunities that
+his brother, who is well-to-do, now has.
+
+
+                  SOME PERSONAL VIEWS AND REFLECTIONS
+
+"You ask me to tell you something of my own musical preferences. Well,
+take the concertos. I have reached a point where the Mendelssohn,
+Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Brahms concertos seen to sum up what is
+truly worth while. The others begin to bore me; even Bruch! Paganini,
+Wieniawski, etc., are mainly mediums of display. Most of the great
+violinists, Ysaye, Thibaud, etc., during recent years are reverting to
+the violin sonatas. Ysaye, for instance, has recently been playing the
+Lazzari sonata, a very powerful and beautiful work.
+
+"My experiences as a 'concertmaster'? I have played with Weingartner;
+Saint-Saens (whose amiability to me, when he first visited this country,
+I recall with pleasure); Gustav Mahler, Tschaikovsky, Safonoff, Seidel,
+Bauer, and Walter Damrosch, whose friend and associate I have been for
+the last twenty-two years. He is a wonderful man, many-sided and
+versatile; a notably fine pianist; and playing chamber music with him
+during successive summers is numbered among my pleasantest
+recollections.
+
+"In speaking of concertos some time ago, I forgot to mention one work
+well worth studying. This is the Russian Mlynarski's concerto in D,
+which I played with the Russian Symphony Orchestra some eight years ago
+for the first time in this country, as well as a fine 'Romance and
+Caprice' by Rubinstein.
+
+"Is the music a concertmaster is called upon to play always violinistic?
+Far from it. Symphonic music--in as much as the concertmaster is
+concerned, is usually not idiomatic violin music. Richard Strauss's
+violin concerto can really be played by the violinist. The _obbligatos_
+in his symphonies are a very different matter; they go beyond accepted
+technical boundaries. With Stravinsky it is the same. The violin
+_obbligato_ in Rimsky-Korsakov's _Scheherazade_, though, is real violin
+music. Debussy and Ravel are most subtle; they call for a particularly
+good ear, since the harmonic balance of their music is very delicate.
+The concertmaster has to develop his own interpretations, subject, of
+course, to the conductor's ideas.
+
+
+                           VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Violin Mastery? It means to me complete control of the fingerboard, a
+being at home in every position, absolute sureness of fingering,
+absolute equality of tone under all circumstances. I remember Ysaye
+playing Tschaikovsky's _Serenade Melancolique_, and using a fingering
+for certain passages which I liked very much. I asked him to give it to
+me in detail, but he merely laughed and said: 'I'd like to, but I
+cannot, because I really do not remember which fingers I used!' That is
+mastery--a control so complete that fingering was unconscious, and the
+interpretation of the thought was all that was in the artist's mind!
+Sevcik's 'complete technical mastery' is after all not perfect, since it
+represents mechanical and not mental control."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIX
+
+
+                              TOSCHA SEIDEL
+
+                              HOW TO STUDY
+
+
+Toscha Seidel, though one of the more recent of the young Russian
+violinists who represent the fruition of Professor Auer's formative
+gifts, has, to quote H.F. Peyser, "the transcendental technic observed
+in the greatest pupils of his master, a command of mechanism which makes
+the rough places so plain that the traces of their roughness are hidden
+to the unpracticed eye." He commenced to study the violin seriously at
+the age of seven in Odessa, his natal town, with Max Fiedemann, an Auer
+pupil. A year and a half later Alexander Fiedemann heard him play a De
+Beriot concerto in public, and induced him to study at the Stern
+Conservatory in Berlin, with Brodsky, a pupil of Joachim, with whom he
+remained for two years.
+
+It was in Berlin that the young violinist reached the turning point of
+his career. "I was a boy of twelve," he said, "when I heard Jascha
+Heifetz play for the first time. He played the Tschaikovsky concerto,
+and he played it wonderfully. His bowing, his fingering, his whole style
+and manner of playing so greatly impressed me that I felt I _must_ have
+his teacher, that I would never be content unless I studied with
+Professor Auer! In 1912 I at length had an opportunity to play for the
+Professor in his home at Loschivitz, in Dresden, and to my great joy he
+at once accepted me as a pupil.
+
+
+                      STUDYING WITH PROFESSOR AUER
+
+"Studying with Professor Auer was a revelation. I had private lessons
+from him, and at the same time attended the classes at the Petrograd
+Conservatory. I should say that his great specialty, if one can use the
+word specialty in the case of so universal a master of teaching as the
+Professor, was bowing. In all violin playing the left hand, the finger
+hand, might be compared to a perfectly adjusted technical machine, one
+that needs to be kept well oiled to function properly. The right hand,
+the bow hand, is the direct opposite--it is the painter hand, the artist
+hand, its phrasing outlines the pictures of music; its _nuances_ fill
+them with beauty of color. And while the Professor insisted as a matter
+of course on the absolute development of finger mechanics, he was an
+inspiration as regards the right manipulation of the bow, and its use as
+a medium of interpretation. And he made his pupils think. Often, when I
+played a passage in a concerto or sonata and it lacked clearness, he
+would ask me: 'Why is this passage not clear?' Sometimes I knew and
+sometimes I did not. But not until he was satisfied that I could not
+myself answer the question, would he show me how to answer it. He could
+make every least detail clear, illustrating it on his own violin; but if
+the pupil could 'work out his own salvation' he always encouraged him to
+do so.
+
+          [Illustration: TOSCHA SEIDEL, with hand-written note]
+
+"Most teachers make bowing a very complicated affair, adding to its
+difficulties. But Professor Auer develops a _natural_ bowing, with an
+absolutely free wrist, in all his pupils; for he teaches each student
+along the line of his individual aptitudes. Hence the length of the
+fingers and the size of the hand make no difference, because in the case
+of each pupil they are treated as separate problems, capable of an
+individual solution. I have known of pupils who came to him with an
+absolutely stiff wrist; and yet he taught them to overcome it.
+
+
+                  ARTIST PUPILS AND AMATEUR STUDENTS
+
+"As regards difficulties, technical and other, a distinction might be
+made between the artist and the average amateur. The latter does not
+make the violin his life work: it is an incidental. While he may
+reasonably content himself with playing well, the artist-pupil _must_
+achieve perfection. It is the difference between an accomplishment and
+an art. The amateur plays more or less for the sake of playing--the
+'how' is secondary; but for the artist the 'how' comes first, and for
+him the shortest piece, a single scale, has difficulties of which the
+amateur is quite ignorant. And everything is difficult in its perfected
+sense. What I, as a student, found to be most difficult were double
+harmonics--I still consider them to be the most difficult thing in the
+whole range of violin technic. First of all, they call for a large hand,
+because of the wide stretches. But harmonics were one of the things I
+had to master before Professor Auer would allow me to appear in public.
+Some find tenths and octaves their stumbling block, but I cannot say
+that they ever gave me much trouble. After all, the main thing with any
+difficulty is to surmount it, and just _how_ is really a secondary
+matter. I know Professor Auer used to say: 'Play with your feet if you
+must, but make the violin sound!' With tenths, octaves, sixths, with any
+technical frills, the main thing is to bring them out clearly and
+convincingly. And, rightly or wrongly, one must remember that when
+something does not sound out convincingly on the violin, it is not the
+fault of the weather, or the strings or rosin or anything else--it is
+always the artist's own fault!
+
+
+                             HOW TO STUDY
+
+"Scale study--all Auer pupils had to practice scales every day, scales
+in all the intervals--is a most important thing. And following his idea
+of stimulating the pupil's self-development, the Professor encouraged us
+to find what we needed ourselves. I remember that once--we were standing
+in a corridor of the Conservatory--when I asked him, 'What should I
+practice in the way of studies?' he answered: 'Take the difficult
+passages from the great concertos. You cannot improve on them, for they
+are as good, if not better, as any studies written.' As regards
+technical work we were also encouraged to think out our own exercises.
+And this I still do. When I feel that my thirds and sixths need
+attention I practice scales and original figurations in these intervals.
+But genuine, resultful practice is something that should never be
+counted by 'hours.' Sometimes I do not touch my violin all day long; and
+one hour with head work is worth any number of days without it. At the
+most I never practice more than three hours a day. And when my thoughts
+are fixed on other things it would be time lost to try to practice
+seriously. Without technical control a violinist could not be a great
+artist; for he could not express himself. Yet a great artist can give
+even a technical study, say a Rode _etude_, a quality all its own in
+playing it. That technic, however, is a means, not an end, Professor
+Auer never allowed his pupils to forget. He is a wonderful master of
+interpretation. I studied the great concertos with him--Beethoven,
+Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tschaikovsky, Dvorak*, the Brahms concerto (which I
+prefer to any other); the Vieuxtemps Fifth and Lalo (both of which I
+have heard Ysaye, that supreme artist who possesses all that an artist
+should have, play in Berlin); the Elgar concerto (a fine work which I
+once heard Kreisler, an artist as great as he is modest, play
+wonderfully in Petrograd), as well as other concertos of the standard
+repertory. And Professor Auer always sought to have us play as
+individuals; and while he never allowed us to overstep the boundaries of
+the musically esthetic, he gave our individuality free play within its
+limits. He never insisted on a pupil accepting his own _nuances_ of
+interpretation because they were his. I know that when playing for him,
+if I came to a passage which demanded an especially beautiful _legato_
+rendering, he would say: 'Now show how you can sing!' The exquisite
+_legato_ he taught was all a matter of perfect bowing, and as he often
+said: 'There must be no such thing as strings or hair in the pupil's
+consciousness. One must not play violin, one must sing violin!'
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Dvorak".
+
+
+                           FIDDLE AND STRINGS
+
+"I do not see how any artist can use an instrument which is quite new to
+him in concert. I never play any but my own Guadagnini, which is a fine
+fiddle, with a big, sonorous tone. As to wire strings, I hate them! In
+the first place, a wire E sounds distinctly different to the artist
+than does a gut E. And it is a difference which any violinist will
+notice. Then, too, the wire E is so thin that the fingers have nothing
+to take hold of, to touch firmly. And to me the metallic vibrations,
+especially on the open strings, are most disagreeable. Of course, from a
+purely practical standpoint there is much to be said for the wire E.
+
+
+                            VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"What is violin mastery as I understand it? First of all it means
+talent, secondly technic, and in the third place, tone. And then one
+must be musical in an all-embracing sense to attain it. One must have
+musical breadth and understanding in general, and not only in a narrowly
+violinistic sense. And, finally, the good God must give the artist who
+aspires to be a master good hands, and direct him to a good teacher!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XX
+
+
+                              EDMUND SEVERN
+
+                      THE JOACHIM BOWING AND OTHERS:
+                              THE LEFT HAND
+
+
+Edmund Severn's activity in the field of violin music is a three-fold
+one: he is a composer, an interpreting artist and a teacher, and his
+fortuitous control of the three vital phases of his Art make his views
+as regards its study of very real value. The lover of string music in
+general would naturally attach more importance to his string quartet in
+D major, his trio for violin, 'cello and piano, his violin concerto in D
+minor, the sonata, the "Oriental," "Italian," "New England" suites for
+violin, and the fine suite in A major, for two violins and piano, than
+to his symphonic poems for orchestra, his choral works and his songs.
+And those in search of hints to aid them to master the violin would be
+most interested in having the benefit of his opinions as a teacher,
+founded on long experience and keen observation. Since Mr. Severn is
+one of those teachers who are born, not made, and is interested heart
+and soul in this phase of his musical work, it was not difficult to draw
+him out.
+
+
+                          THE JOACHIM BOWING
+
+"My first instructor in the violin was my father, the pioneer violin
+teacher of Hartford, Conn., where my boyhood was passed, and then I
+studied with Franz Milcke and Bernard Listemann, concertmaster of the
+Boston Symphony Orchestra. But one day I happened to read a few lines
+reprinted in the _Metronome_ from some European source, which quoted
+Wilhelmj as saying that Emanuel Wirth, Joachim's first assistant at the
+Berlin _Hochschule_, 'was the best teacher of his generation.' This was
+enough for me: feeling that the best could be none too good, I made up
+my mind to go to him. And I did. Wirth was the viola of the Joachim
+Quartet, and probably a better teacher than was Joachim himself. Violin
+teaching was a cult with him, a religion; and I think he believed God
+had sent him to earth to teach fiddle. Like all the teachers at the
+_Hochschule_ he taught the regular 'Joachim' bowing--they were obliged
+to teach it--as far as it could be taught, for it could not be taught
+every one. And that is the real trouble with the 'Joachim' bowing. It is
+impossible to make a general application of it.
+
+"Joachim had a very long arm and when he played at the point of the bow
+his arm position was approximately the same as that of the average
+player at the middle of the bow. Willy Hess was a perfect exponent of
+the Joachim method of bowing. Why? Because he had a very long arm. But
+at the _Hochschule_ the Joachim bowing was compulsory: they taught, or
+tried to teach, all who came there to use it without exception; boys or
+girls whose arms chanced to be long enough could acquire it, but big men
+with short arms had no chance whatever. Having a medium long arm, by
+dint of hard work I managed to get my bowing to suit Wirth; yet I always
+felt at a disadvantage at the point of the bow, in spite of the fact
+that after my return to the United States I taught the Joachim bowing
+for fully eight years.
+
+"Then, when he first came here, I heard and saw Ysaye play, and I
+noticed how greatly his bowing differed from that of Joachim, the point
+being that his first finger was always in a position to press
+_naturally_ without the least stiffness. This led me to try to find a
+less constrained bowing for myself, working along perfectly natural
+lines. The Joachim bowing demands a high wrist; but in the case of the
+Belgian school an easy position at the point is assumed naturally. And
+it is not hard to understand that if the bow be drawn parallel with the
+bridge, allowing for the least possible movement of hands and wrist, the
+greatest economy of motion, there is no contravention of the laws of
+nature and playing is natural and unconstrained.
+
+"And this applies to every student of the instrument, whether or no he
+has a long arm. While I was studying in Berlin, Sarasate played there in
+public, with the most natural and unhampered grace and freedom in the
+use of his bow. Yet the entire _Hochschule_ contingent unanimously
+condemned his bowing as being 'stiff'--merely because it did not conform
+to the Joachim tradition. Of course, there is no question but that
+Joachim was the greatest quartet player of his time; and with regard to
+the interpretation of the classics he was not to be excelled. His
+conception of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms was wonderful. The
+insistence at the _Hochschule_ on forcing the bowing which was natural
+to him on all others, irrespective of physical adaptability, is a matter
+of regret. Wirth was somewhat deficient in teaching left hand technic,
+as compared with, let us say, Schradieck. Wirth's real strength lay in
+his sincerity and his ability to make clear the musical contents of the
+works of the great masters. In a Beethoven or Spohr concerto he made a
+pupil give its due emphasis to every single note.
+
+
+                        A PRE-TEACHING REQUISITE
+
+"Before the violin student can even begin to study, there are certain
+pre-teaching requisites which are necessary if the teacher is to be of
+any service to him. The violin is a singing instrument, and therefore
+the first thing called for is a good singing tone. That brings up an
+important point--the proper adjustment of the instrument used by the
+student. If his lessons are to be of real benefit to him, the component
+parts of the instrument, post, bridge, bass-bar, strings, etc., must be
+accurately adjusted, in order that the sound values are what they should
+be.
+
+"From the teaching standpoint it is far more important that whatever
+violin the student has is one properly built and adjusted, than that it
+be a fine instrument. And the bow must have the right amount of spring,
+of elasticity in its stick. A poor bow will work more harm than a poor
+fiddle, for if the bow is poor, if it lacks the right resilience, the
+student cannot acquire the correct bow pressure. He cannot play
+_spiccato_ or any of the 'bouncing' bowings, including various forms of
+arpeggios, with a poor stick.
+
+
+                            DRAWING A LONG BOW
+
+"When I say that the student should 'draw a long bow,'" continued Mr.
+Severn with a smile, "I do not say so at a venture. If his instrument
+and bow are in proper shape, this is the next thing for the student to
+do. Ever since Tartini's time it has been acknowledged that nothing can
+take the place of the study of the long bow, playing in all shades of
+dynamics, from _pp_ to _ff_, and with all the inflections of _crescendo_
+and _diminuendo_. Part of this study should consist of 'mute'
+exercises--not playing, but drawing the bow _above the strings_, to its
+full length, resting at either end. This ensures bow control. One great
+difficulty is that as a rule the teacher cannot induce pupils to
+practice these 'mute' exercises, in spite of their unquestionable value.
+All the great masters of the violin have used them. Viotti thought so
+highly of them that he taught them only to his favorite pupils. And even
+to-day some distinguished violinists play dumb exercises before stepping
+on the recital stage. They are one of the best means that we have for
+control of the violinistic nervous system.
+
+
+                               WRIST-BOWING
+
+"Wrist-bowing is one of the bowings in which the student should learn to
+feel absolutely and naturally at home. To my thinking the German way of
+teaching wrist-bowing is altogether wrong. Their idea is to keep the
+fingers neutral, and let the stick move the fingers! Yet this is
+wrong--for the player holds his bow at the finger-tips, that terminal
+point of the fingers where the tactile nerves are most highly developed,
+and where their direct contact with the bow makes possible the greatest
+variety of dynamic effect, and also allows the development of far
+greater speed in short bowings.
+
+"Though the Germans say 'Think of the wrist!' I think with the Belgians:
+Put your mind where you touch and hold the bow, concentrate on your
+fingers. In other words, when you make your bow change, do not make it
+according to the Joachim method, with the wrist, but in the natural way,
+with the fingers always in command. In this manner only will you get the
+true wrist motion.
+
+
+                        STACCATO AND OTHER BOWINGS
+
+"After all, there are only two general principles in violin playing, the
+long and short bow, _legato_ and _staccato_. Many a teacher finds it
+very difficult to teach _staccato_ correctly, which may account for the
+fact that many pupils find it hard to learn. The main reason is that, in
+a sense, _staccato_ is opposed to the nature of the violin as a singing
+instrument. To produce a true _staccato_ and not a 'scratchato' it is
+absolutely necessary, while exerting the proper pressure and movement,
+to keep the muscles loose. I have evolved a simple method for quickly
+achieving the desired result in _staccato_. First I teach the attack in
+the middle of the bow, without drawing the bow and as though pressing a
+button: I have pupils press up with the thumb and down with the first
+finger, with all muscles relaxed. This, when done correctly, produces a
+sudden sharp attack.
+
+"Then, I have the pupil place his bow in the middle, in position to draw
+a down-stroke from the wrist, the bow-hair being pressed and held
+against the string. A quick down-bow follows with an immediate release
+of the string. Repeating the process, use the up-stroke. The finished
+product is merely the combination of these two exercises--drawing and
+attacking simultaneously. I have never failed to give a pupil a good
+_staccato_ by this exercise, which comprises the principle of all
+genuine _staccato_ playing.
+
+"One of the most difficult of all bowings is the simple up-and-down
+stroke used in the second Kreutzer _etude_, that is to say, the bowing
+between the middle and point of the bow, _tete d'archet_, as the French
+call it. This bowing is played badly on the violin more often than any
+other. It demands constant rapid changing and, as most pupils play it,
+the _legato_ quality is noticeably absent. Too much emphasis cannot be
+laid on the truth that the 'singing stroke' should be employed for all
+bowings, long or short. Often pupils who play quite well show a want of
+true _legato_ quality in their tone, because there is no connection
+between their bowing in rapid work.
+
+"Individual bowings should always be practiced separately. I always
+oblige my pupils to practice all bowings on the open strings, and in all
+combinations of the open strings, because this allows them to
+concentrate on the bowing itself, to the exclusion of all else; and they
+advance far more quickly. Students should never be compelled to learn
+new bowings while they have to think of their fingers at the same time:
+we cannot serve two masters simultaneously! All in all, bowing is most
+important in violin technic, for control of the bow means much toward
+mastery of the violin.
+
+
+                              THE LEFT HAND
+
+"It is evident, however, that the correct use of the left hand is of
+equal importance. It seems not to be generally known that
+finger-pressure has much to do with tone-quality. The correct poise of
+the left hand, as conspicuously shown by Heifetz for instance, throws
+the extreme tips of the fingers hammerlike on the strings, and renders
+full pressure of the string easy. Correctly done, a brilliance results,
+especially in scale and passage work, which can be acquired in no other
+manner, each note partaking somewhat of the quality of the open string.
+As for intonation--that is largely a question of listening. To really
+listen to oneself is as necessary as it is rare. It would take a volume
+to cover that subject alone. We hear much about the use of the _vibrato_
+these days. It was not so when I was a student. I can remember when it
+was laughed at by the purists as an Italian evidence of bad taste. My
+teachers decried it, yet if we could hear the great players of the past,
+we would be astonished at their frugal use of it.
+
+"One should remember in this connection that there was a conflict among
+singers for many years as to whether the straight tone as cultivated by
+the English oratorio singers, or the vibrated tone of the Italians were
+correct. As usual, Nature won out. The correctly vibrated voice
+outlasted the other form of production, thus proving its lawful basis.
+But to-day the _vibrato_ is frequently made to cover a multitude of
+violin sins.
+
+"It is accepted by many as a substitute for genuine warmth and it is
+used as a _camouflage_ to 'put over' some very bad art in the shape of
+poor tone-quality, intonation and general sloppiness of technic. Why,
+then, has it come into general use during the last twenty-five years?
+Simply because it is based on the correctly produced human voice. The
+old players, especially those of the German school, said, and some still
+say, the _vibrato_ should only be used at the climax of a melody. If we
+listen to a Sembrich or a Bonci, however, we hear a vibration on every
+tone. Let us not forget that the violin is a singing instrument and that
+even Joachim said: 'We must imitate the human voice,' This, I think,
+disposes of the case finally and we must admit that every little boy or
+girl with a natural _vibrato_ is more correct in that part of his
+tone-production than many of the great masters of the past. As the Negro
+pastor said: 'The world do move!'
+
+
+                              VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"Are 'mastery of the violin' and 'Violin Mastery' synonymous in my mind?
+Yes and no: 'Violin Mastery' may be taken to mean that technical mastery
+wherewith one is enabled to perform any work in the entire literature of
+the instrument with precision, but not necessarily with feeling for its
+beauty or its emotional content. In this sense, in these days of
+improved violin pedagogy, such mastery is not uncommon. But 'Violin
+Mastery' may also be understood to mean, not merely a cold though
+flawless technic, but its living, glowing product when used to express
+the emotions suggested by the music of the masters. This latter kind of
+violin mastery is rare indeed.
+
+"One who makes technic an end travels light, and should reach his
+destination more quickly. But he whose goal is music with its
+thousand-hued beauties, with its call for the exertion of human and
+spiritual emotion, sets forth on a journey without end. It is plain,
+however, that this is the only journey worth taking with the violin as a
+traveling companion. 'Violin Mastery', then, means to me technical
+proficiency used to the highest extent possible, for artistic ends!"
+
+
+
+
+                                   XXI
+
+
+                             ALBERT SPALDING
+
+                     THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
+                         DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
+
+
+For the duration of the war Albert Spalding the violinist became Albert
+Spalding the soldier. As First Lieutenant in the Aviation Service,
+U.S.A., he maintained the ideals of civilization on the Italian front
+with the same devotion he gave to those of Art in the piping times of
+peace. As he himself said not so very long ago: "You cannot do two
+things, and do them properly, at the same time. At the present moment
+there is more music for me in the factories gloriously grinding out
+planes and motors than in a symphony of Beethoven. And to-day I would
+rather run on an office-boy's errand for my country and do it as well as
+I can, if it's to serve my country, than to play successfully a Bach
+Chaconne; and I would rather hear a well directed battery of American
+guns blasting the Road of Peace and Victorious Liberty than the
+combined applause of ten thousand audiences. For it is my conviction
+that Art has as much at stake in this War as Democracy."
+
+    [Illustration: _Copyright by Matzene, Chicago_. ALBERT SPALDING]
+
+Yet Lieutenant Spalding, despite the arduous demands of his patriotic
+duties, found time to answer some questions of the writer in the
+interests of "Violin Mastery" which, representing the views and opinions
+of so eminent and distinctively American a violinist, cannot fail to
+interest every lover of the Art. Writing from Rome (Sept. 9, 1918),
+Lieutenant Spalding modestly said that his answers to the questions
+asked "will have to be simple and short, because my time is very
+limited, and then, too, having been out of music for more than a year, I
+feel it difficult to deal in more than a general way with some of the
+questions asked."
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"As to 'Violin Mastery'? To me it means effortless mastery of details;
+the correlating of them into a perfect whole; the subjecting of them to
+the expression of an architecture which is music. 'Violin Mastery' means
+technical mastery in every sense of the word. It means a facility which
+will enable the interpreter to forget difficulties, and to express at
+once in a language that will seem clear, simple and eloquent, that which
+in the hands of others appears difficult, obtuse and dull.
+
+
+                    THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
+                         DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
+
+"As to the processes, mental and technical, which make an artist? These
+different processes, mental and technical, are too many, too varied and
+involved to invite an answer in a short space of time. Suffice it to say
+that the most _important_ mental process, to my mind, is the development
+of a perception of beauty. All the perseverance in the study of music,
+all the application devoted to it, is not worth a tinker's dam, unless
+accompanied by this awakening to the perception of beauty. And with
+regard to the influence of teachers? Since all teachers vary greatly,
+the student should not limit himself to his own personal masters. The
+true student of Art should be able to derive benefit and instruction
+from every beautiful work of Art that he hears or sees; otherwise he
+will be limited by the technical and mental limitations of his own
+prejudices and jealousies. One's greatest difficulties may turn out to
+be one's greatest aids in striving toward artistic results. By this I
+mean that nothing is more fatally pernicious for the true artist than
+the precocious facility which invites cheap success. Therefore I make
+the statement that one's greatest difficulties are one's greatest
+facilities.
+
+
+                 A LESS DEVELOPED PHASE OF VIOLIN TECHNIC
+
+"In the technical field, the phase of violin technic which is less
+developed, it seems to me is, in most cases, bowing. One often notes a
+highly developed left hand technic coupled with a monotonous and
+oftentimes faulty bowing. The _color_ and _variety_ of a violinist's art
+must come largely from his intimate acquaintance with all that can be
+accomplished by the bow arm. The break or change from a down-bow to an
+up-bow, or _vice versa_, should be under such control as to make it
+perceptible only when it may be desirable to use it for color or
+accentuation.
+
+
+                    GOOD AND BAD HANDS: MENTAL STUDY
+
+"The influence of the physical conformation of bow hand and string hand
+on actual playing? There are no 'good' or 'bad' bow hands or string
+hands (unless they be deformed); there are only 'good' and 'bad' heads.
+By this I mean that the finest development of technic comes from the
+head, not from the hand. Quickness of thought and action is what
+distinguishes the easy player from the clumsy player. Students should
+develop mental study even of technical details--this, of course, in
+addition to the physical practice; for this mental study is of the
+highest importance in developing the student so that he can gain that
+effortless mastery of detail of which I have already spoken.
+
+
+                  ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF CONCERT
+                        ATTENDANCE FOR THE STUDENT
+
+"Concerts undoubtedly have great value in developing the student
+technically and mentally; but too often they have a directly contrary
+effect. I think there is a very doubtful benefit to be derived from the
+present habit, as illustrated in New York, London, or other centers, of
+the student attending concerts, sometimes as many as two or three a day.
+This habit dwarfs the development of real appreciation, as the student,
+under these conditions, can little appreciate true works of art when he
+has crammed his head so full of truck, and worn out his faculties of
+concentration until listening to music becomes a mechanical mental
+process. The _indiscriminate_ attending of concerts, to my mind, has an
+absolutely pernicious effect on the student.
+
+
+                    NATIONALITY AS A FORMATIVE INFLUENCE
+
+"Nationality and national feeling have a very real influence in the
+development of an artist; but this influence is felt subconsciously more
+than consciously, and it reacts more on the creative than on the
+interpretative artist. By this I mean that the interpretative artist,
+while reserving the right to his individual expression, should subject
+himself to what he considers to have been the artistic impulse, the
+artistic intentions of the composer. As to type music to whose appeal I
+as an American am susceptible, I confess to a very sympathetic reaction
+to the syncopated rhythms known as 'rag-time,' and which appear to be
+especially American in character." For the benefit of those readers who
+may not chance to know it, Lieutenant Spalding's "Alabama," a Southern
+melody and dance in plantation style, for violin and piano, represents
+a very delightful creative exploitation of these rhythms. The writer
+makes mention of the fact since with regard to this and other of his own
+compositions Lieutenant Spalding would only state: "I felt that I had
+something to say and, therefore, tried to say it. Whether what I have to
+say is of any interest to others is not for me to judge.
+
+
+                         PLAYING WHILE IN SERVICE
+
+"Do I play at all while in Service? I gave up all playing in public when
+entering the Army a year ago, and to a great extent all private playing
+as well. I have on one or two occasions played at charity concerts
+during the past year, once in Rome, and once in the little town in Italy
+near the aviation camp at which I was stationed at the time. I have
+purposely refused all other requests to play because one cannot do two
+things at once, and do them properly. My time now belongs to my country:
+When we have peace again I shall hope once more to devote it to Art."
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXII
+
+
+                           THEODORE SPIERING
+
+                  THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO
+                         THE STUDY OF KREUTZER
+
+
+A. Walter Kramer has said: "Mr. Spiering knows how serious a study can
+be made of the violin, because he has made it. He has investigated the
+'how' and 'why' of every detail, and what he has to say about the violin
+is the utterance of a big musician, one who has mastered the
+instrument." And Theodore Spiering, solo artist and conductor, as a
+teacher has that wider horizon which has justified the statement made
+that "he is animated by the thoughts and ideals which stimulate a
+Godowsky or Busoni." Such being the case, it was with unmixed
+satisfaction that the writer found Mr. Spiering willing to give him the
+benefit of some of those constructive ideas of his as regards violin
+study which have established his reputation so prominently in that
+field.
+
+
+                          TWO TYPES OF STUDENTS
+
+"There are certain underlying principles which govern every detail of
+the violinist's Art," said Mr. Spiering, "and unless the violinist fully
+appreciates their significance, and has the intelligence and patience to
+apply them in everything he does, he will never achieve that absolute
+command over his instrument which mastery implies.
+
+"It is a peculiar fact that a large percentage of students--probably
+believing that they can reach their goal by a short cut--resent the
+mental effort required to master these principles, the passive
+resistance, evident in their work, preventing them from deriving true
+benefit from their studies. They form that large class which learns
+merely by imitation, and invariably retrograde the moment they are no
+longer under the teacher's supervision.
+
+"The smaller group, with an analytical bent of mind, largely subject
+themselves to the needed mental drill and thus provide for themselves
+that inestimable basic quality that makes them independent and capable
+of developing their talent to its full fruition.
+
+       [Illustration: THEODORE SPIERING, with hand-written note]
+
+
+               MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROCESSES COOeRDINATED
+
+"The conventional manner of teaching provided an inordinate number of
+mechanical exercises in order to overcome so called 'technical
+difficulties.' Only the _prima facie_ disturbance, however, was thus
+taken into consideration--not its actual cause. The result was, that
+notwithstanding the great amount of labor thus expended, the effort had
+to be repeated each time the problem was confronted. Aside from the
+obviously uncertain results secured in this manner, it meant deadening
+of the imagination and cramping of interpretative possibilities. It is
+only possible to reduce to a minimum the element of chance by
+scrupulously carrying out the dictates of the laws governing vital
+principles. Analysis and the severest self-criticism are the means of
+determination as to whether theory and practice conform with one
+another.
+
+"_Mental preparedness_ (Marcus Aurelius calls it 'the good ordering of
+the mind') is the keynote of technical control. Together with the
+principle of _relaxation_ it provides the player with the most effective
+means of establishing precise and sensitive cooeperation between mental
+and physical processes. Muscular relaxation at will is one of the
+results of this cooeperation. It makes sustained effort possible
+(counteracting the contraction ordinarily resulting therefrom), and it
+is freedom of movement more than anything else that tends to establish
+confidence.
+
+
+             THE TWO-FOLD VALUE OF CELEBRATED STUDY WORKS
+
+"The study period of the average American is limited. It has been
+growing less year by year. Hence the teacher has had to redouble his
+efforts. The desire to give my pupils the essentials of technical
+control in their most concentrated and immediately applicable form, have
+led me to evolve a series of 'bow exercises,' which, however, do not
+merely pursue a mechanical purpose. Primarily enforcing the carrying out
+of basic principles as pertaining to the bow--and establishing or
+correcting (as the case may be) arm and hand (right arm) positions, they
+supply the means of creating a larger interpretative style.
+
+"I use the Kreutzer studies as the medium of these bow-exercises, since
+the application of new technical ideas is easier when the music itself
+is familiar to the student. I have a two-fold object in mind when I
+review these studies in my particular manner, technic and appreciation.
+I might add that not only Kreutzer, but Fiorillo and Rode--in fact all
+the celebrated 'Caprices,' with the possible exception of those of
+Paganini--are viewed almost entirely from the purely technical side, as
+belonging to the classroom, because their musical qualities have not
+been sufficiently pointed out. Rode, in particular, is a veritable
+musical treasure trove.
+
+
+                 THE APPLICATION OF BOW EXERCISES TO THE
+                            STUDY OF KREUTZER
+
+"How do I use the Kreutzer studies to develop style and technic? By
+making the student study them in such wise that the following principles
+are emphasized in his work: _control before action_ (mental direction at
+all times); _relaxation_; and _observance of string levels_; for
+unimpeded movement is more important than pressure as regards the
+carrying tone. These principles are among the most important pertaining
+to right arm technic.
+
+"In Study No. 2 (version 1, up-strokes only, version 2, down-strokes
+only), I have my pupils use the full arm stroke (_grand detache_). In
+version 1, the bow is taken from the string after completion of
+stroke--but in such a way that the vibrations of the string are not
+interfered with. Complete relaxation is insured by release of the
+thumb--the bow being caught in a casual manner, third and fourth fingers
+slipping from their normal position on stick--and holding, but not
+tightly clasping, the bow.
+
+"Version 2 calls for a _return down-stroke_, the return part of the
+stroke being accomplished over the string, but making no division in
+stroke, no hesitating before the return. Relaxation is secured as
+before. Rapidity of stroke, elimination of impediment (faulty hand or
+arm position and unnecessary upper arm action), is the aim of this
+exercise. The pause between each stroke--caused by relinquishing the
+hold on the bow--reminds the student that mental control should at all
+times be paramount: that analysis of technical detail is of vital
+importance.
+
+"In Study No. 7 I employ the same vigorous full arm strokes as in No. 2:
+the up and down bows as indicated in the original version. The bow is
+raised from the strings after each note, by means of hand (little
+finger, first and thumb) not by arm action. Normal hand position is
+retained: thumb not released.
+
+"The _observance of string levels_ is very essential. While the stroke
+is in progress the arm must not leave its level in an anticipatory
+movement to reach the next level. Especially after the down-stroke is it
+advisable to verify the arm position with regard to this feature.
+
+"No. 8 affords opportunity for a _resume_ of the work done in Nos. 2 and
+7:
+
+                    [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+"It is evident that the tempo of this study must be very much reduced in
+speed. The _return_ down-stroke as in No. 2: the _second_ down-stroke as
+in No. 7: the up-strokes as in No. 2.
+
+"In Study No. 5 I use the hand-stroke only--at the frog--arm absolutely
+immobile, with no attempt at tone. This exercise represents the first
+attempt at dissecting the _martele_ idea: precise timing of pressure,
+movement (stroke), and relaxation. The pause between the strokes is
+utilized to learn the value of left hand preparedness, with the fingers
+in place before bow action.
+
+"In Study No. 13 I develop the principles of string crossing, of the
+extension stroke, and articulation. String crossing is the main feature
+of the exercise. I employ three versions, in order to accomplish my aim.
+In version 1 I consider only the crossing from a higher to a lower
+level:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+version 2:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+version 3 is the original version. In versions 1 and 2 I omit all
+repetitions:
+
+                   [Illustration: Musical Notation]
+
+Articulation is one of the main points at issue--the middle note is
+generally inarticulate. For further string crossing analysis I use
+Kreutzer's No. 25. Study No. 10 I carry out as a _martele_ study, with
+the string crossing very much in evidence; establishing observance of
+the notes occurring on the same string level, consequently compelling a
+more judicious use of the so-called wrist movement (not merely
+developing a supple wrist, with indefinite crossing movements, which in
+many cases are applied by the player without regard to actual string
+crossing) and in consequence securing stability of bow on string when
+string level is not changed, this result being secured even in rapid
+passage work.
+
+"In Studies 11, 19 and 21 I cover shifting and left thumb action: in No.
+9, finger action--flexibility and evenness, the left thumb relaxed--the
+fundamental idea of the trill. After the _interrupted_ types of bowing
+(grand _detache_, _martele_, _staccato_) have been carefully studied,
+the _continuous_ types (_detache_, _legato_ and _spiccato_) are then
+taken up, and in part the same studies again used: 2, 7, 8. Lastly the
+slurred _legato_ comes under consideration (Studies 9, 11, 14, 22, 27,
+29). Shifting, extension and string crossing have all been previously
+considered, and hence the _legato_ should be allowed to take its even
+course.
+
+"Although I do, temporarily, place these studies on a purely mechanical
+level, I am convinced that they thus serve to call into being a broader
+_musical_ appreciation for the whole set. For I have found that in spite
+of the fact that pupils who come to me have all played their Kreutzer,
+with very few exceptions have they realized the musical message which
+it contains. The time when the student body will have learned to depict
+successfully musical character--even in studies and caprices--will mark
+the fulfillment of the teacher's task with regard to the cultivation of
+the right arm--which is essentially the teacher's domain.
+
+
+              SOME OF MR. SPIERING'S OWN STUDY SOUVENIRS
+
+"It may interest you to know," Mr. Spiering said in reply to a question,
+"that I began my teaching career in Chicago immediately following my
+four years with Joachim in Berlin. It was natural that I should first
+commit myself to the pedagogic methods of the _Hochschule_, which to a
+great extent, however, I discarded as my own views crystallized. I found
+that too much emphasis allotted the wrist stroke (a misnomer, by the
+way), was bound to result in too academic a style. By transferring
+primary importance to the control of the full arm-stroke--with the
+hand-stroke incidentally completing the control--I felt that I was
+better able to reflect the larger interpretative ideals which my years
+of musical development were creating for me. Chamber music--a youthful
+passion--led me to interest myself in symphonic work and conducting.
+These activities not only reacted favorably on my solo playing, but
+influenced my development as regards the broader, more dramatic style,
+the grand manner in interpretation. It is this realization that places
+me in a position to earnestly advise the ambitious student not to
+disregard the great artistic benefits to be derived from the cultivation
+of chamber music and symphonic playing.
+
+"I might call my teaching ideals a combination of those of the
+Franco-Belgian and German schools. To the former I attribute my
+preference for the large sweep of the bow-arm, its style and tonal
+superiority; to the latter, vigor of interpretation and attention to
+musical detail.
+
+
+                             VIOLIN MASTERY
+
+"How do I define 'Violin Mastery'? The violinist who has succeeded in
+eliminating all superfluous tension or physical resistance, whose mental
+control is such that the technic of the left hand and right arm has
+become coordinate, thus forming a perfect mechanism not working at
+cross-purposes; who, furthermore, is so well poised that he never
+oversteps the boundaries of good taste in his interpretations, though
+vitally alive to the human element; who, finally, has so broad an
+outlook on life and Art that he is able to reveal the transcendent
+spirit characterizing the works of the great masters--such a violinist
+has truly attained mastery!"
+
+
+
+
+                                 XXIII
+
+
+                            JACQUES THIBAUD
+
+                           THE IDEAL PROGRAM
+
+
+Jacques Thibaud, whose gifts as an interpreting artist have brought him
+so many friends and admirers in the United States, is the foremost
+representative of the modern French school of violin-playing. And as
+such he has held his own ever since, at the age of twenty, he resigned
+his rank as concert-master of the Colonne orchestra, to dedicate his
+talents exclusively to the concert stage. So great an authority as the
+last edition of the Riemann _Musik-Lexicon_ cannot forbear, even in
+1915, to emphasize his "technic, absolutely developed in its every
+detail, and his fiery and poetic manner of interpretation."
+
+But Mr. Thibaud does not see any great difference between the ideals of
+_la grande ecole belge_, that of Vieuxtemps, De Beriot, Leonard, Massart
+and Marsick, whose greatest present-day exponent is Eugene Ysaye, and
+the French. Himself a pupil of Marsick, he inherited the French
+traditions of Alard through his father, who was Alard's pupil and handed
+them on to his son. "The two schools have married and are as one,"
+declared Mr. Thibaud. "They may differ in the interpretation of music,
+but to me they seem to have merged so far as their systems of finger
+technic, bowing and tone production goes.
+
+
+                  THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY TO OVERCOME
+
+"You ask me what is most difficult in playing the violin? It is bowing.
+Bowing makes up approximately eighty per cent. of the sum total of
+violinistic difficulties. One reason for it is that many teachers with
+excellent ideas on the subject present it to their pupils in too
+complicated a manner. The bow must be used in an absolutely natural way,
+and over elaboration in explaining what should be a simple and natural
+development often prevents the student from securing a good bowing, the
+end in view. Sarasate (he was an intimate friend of mine) always used
+his bow in the most natural way, his control of it was unsought and
+unconscious. Were I a teacher I should not say: 'You must bow as I do';
+but rather: 'Find the way of bowing most convenient and natural to
+you and use it!' Bowing is largely a physical and individual matter. I
+am slender but have long, large fingers; Kreisler is a larger man than I
+am but his fingers are small. It stands to reason that there must be a
+difference in the way in which we hold and use the bow. The difference
+between a great and a mediocre teacher lies in the fact that the first
+recognizes that bowing is an individual matter, different in the case of
+each individual pupil; and that the greatest perfection is attained by
+the development of the individual's capabilities within his own norm.
+
+            [Illustration: JACQUES THIBAUD, with signature]
+
+
+                          MARSICK AS A TEACHER
+
+"Marsick was a teacher of this type. At each of the lessons I took from
+him at the _Conservatoire_ (we went to him three days a week), he would
+give me a new _etude_--Gavinies, Rode, Fiorillo, Dont--to prepare for
+the next lesson. We also studied all of Paganini, and works by Ernst and
+Spohr. For our bow technic he employed difficult passages made into
+_etudes_. Scales--the violinist's daily bread--we practiced day in, day
+out. Marsick played the piano well, and could improvise marvelous
+accompaniments on his violin when his pupils played. I continued my
+studies with Marsick even after I left the _Conservatoire_. With him I
+believe that three essentials--absolute purity of pitch, equality of
+tone and sonority of tone, in connection with the bow--are the base on
+which everything else rests.
+
+
+            THE MECHANICAL VERSUS THE NATURAL IN VIOLIN PLAYING
+
+"Sevcik's purely soulless and mechanical system has undoubtedly produced
+a number of excellent mechanicians of the violin. But it has just as
+unquestionably killed real talent. Kubelik--there was a genuinely
+talented violinist! If he had had another teacher instead of Sevcik he
+would have been great, for he had great gifts. Even as it was he played
+well, but I consider him one of Sevcik's victims. As an illustration of
+how the technical point of view is thrust to the fore by this system I
+remember some fifteen years ago Kubelik and I were staying at the same
+villa in Monte-Carlo, where we were to play the Beethoven concerto, each
+of us, in concert, two days apart. Kubelik spent the live-long day
+before the concert practicing Sevcik exercises. I read and studied
+Beethoven's score, but did not touch my violin. I went to hear Kubelik
+play the concerto, and he played it well; but then, so did I, when my
+turn came. And I feel sure I got more out of it musically and
+spiritually, than I would have if instead of concentrating on its
+meaning, its musical message, I had prepared the concerto as a problem
+in violin mechanics whose key was contained in a number of dry technical
+exercises arbitrarily laid down.
+
+"Technic, in the case of the more advanced violinist, should not have a
+place in the foreground of his consciousness. I heard Rubinstein play
+when a boy--what did his false notes amount to compared with his
+wonderful manner of disclosing the spirit of the things he played!
+Plante, the Parisian pianist, a kind of keyboard cyclone, once expressed
+the idea admirably to an English society lady. She had told him he was a
+greater pianist than Rubinstein, because the latter played so many wrong
+notes. 'Ah, Madame,' answered Plante, 'I would rather be able to play
+Rubinstein's wrong notes than all my own correct ones.' A violinist's
+natural manner of playing is the one he should cultivate; since it is
+individual, it really represents him. And a teacher or a colleague of
+greater fame does him no kindness if he encourages him to distrust his
+own powers by too good naturedly 'showing' him how to do this, that or
+the other. I mean, when the student can work out his problem himself at
+the expense of a little initiative.
+
+"When I was younger I once had to play Bach's G minor fugue at a concert
+in Brussels. I was living at Ysaye's home, and since I had never played
+the composition in public before, I began to worry about its
+interpretation. So I asked Ysaye (thinking he would simply show me),
+'How ought I to play this fugue?' The Master reflected a moment and then
+dashed my hopes by answering: _'Tu m'embetes!'_ (You bore me!) 'This
+fugue should be played well, that's all!' At first I was angry, but
+thinking it over, I realized that if he had shown me, I would have
+played it just as he did; while what he wanted me to do was to work out
+my own version, and depend on my own initiative--which I did, for I had
+no choice. It is by means of concentration on the higher, the
+interpretative phases of one's Art that the technical side takes its
+proper, secondary place. Technic does not exist for me in the sense of a
+certain quantity of mechanical work which I must do. I find it out of
+the question to do absolutely mechanical technical work of any length of
+time. In realizing the three essentials of good violin playing which I
+have already mentioned, Ysaye and Sarasate are my ideals.
+
+
+                                SARASATE
+
+"All really good violinists are good artists. Sarasate, whom I knew so
+intimately and remember so well, was a pupil of Alard (my father's
+teacher). He literally sang on the violin, like a nightingale. His
+purity of intonation was remarkable; and his technical facility was the
+most extraordinary that I have ever seen. He handled his bow with
+unbelievable skill. And when he played, the unassuming grace of his
+movements won the hearts of his audiences and increased the enthusiasm
+awakened by his tremendous talent.
+
+"We other violinists, all of us, occasionally play a false note, for we
+are not infallible; we may flat a little or sharp a little. But never,
+as often as I have heard Sarasate play, did I ever hear him play a wrong
+note, one not in perfect pitch. His Spanish things he played like a god!
+And he had a wonderful gift of phrasing which gave a charm hard to
+define to whatever he played. And playing in quartet--the greatest solo
+violinist does not always shine in this _genre_--he was admirable.
+Though he played all the standard repertory, Bach, Beethoven, etc., I
+can never forget his exquisite rendering of modern works, especially of
+a little composition by Raff, called _La Fee d'Amour_. He was the first
+to play the violin concertos of Saint-Saens, Lalo and Max Bruch. They
+were all written for him, and I doubt whether they would have been
+composed had not Sarasate been there to play them. Of course, in his own
+Spanish music he was unexcelled--a whole school of violin playing was
+born and died with him! He had a hobby for collecting canes. He had
+hundreds of them of all kinds, and every sovereign in Europe had
+contributed to his collection. I know Queen Christina of Spain gave him
+no less than twenty. He once gave me a couple of his canes, a great sign
+of favor with him. I have often played quartet with Sarasate, for he
+adored quartet playing, and these occasions are among my treasured
+memories.
+
+
+                  STRADIVARIUS AND GUARNERIUS PLAYERS
+
+"My violin? It is a Stradivarius--the same which once belonged to the
+celebrated Baillot. I think it is good for a violin to rest, so during
+the three months when I am not playing in concert, I send my
+Stradivarius away to the instrument maker's, and only take it out about
+a month before I begin to play again in public. What do I use in the
+meantime? Caressa, the best violin maker in Paris, made me an exact copy
+of my own Strad, exact in every little detail. It is so good that
+sometimes, when circumstances compelled me to, I have used it in
+concert, though it lacks the tone-quality of the original. This
+under-study violin I can use for practice, and when I go back to the
+original, as far as the handling of the instrument is concerned, I never
+know the difference.
+
+"But I do not think that every one plays to the best advantage on a
+Strad. I'm a believer in the theory that there are natural Guarnerius
+players and natural Stradivarius players; that certain artists do their
+best with the one, and certain others with the other. And I also believe
+that any one who is 'equally' good in both, is great on neither. The
+reason I believe in Guarnerius players and Stradivarius players as
+distinct is this. Some years ago I had a sudden call to play in Ostende.
+It was a concert engagement which I had overlooked, and when it was
+recalled to me I was playing golf in Brittany. I at once hurried to
+Paris to get my violin from Caressa, with whom I had left it, but--his
+safe, in which it had been put, and to which he only had the
+combination, was locked. Caressa himself was in Milan. I telegraphed him
+but found that he could not get back in time before the concert to
+release my violin. So I telegraphed Ysaye at Namur, to ask if he could
+loan me a violin for the concert. 'Certainly' he wired back. So I
+hurried to his home and, with his usual generosity, he insisted on my
+taking both his treasured Guarnerius and his 'Hercules' Strad
+(afterwards stolen from him in Russia), in order that I might have my
+choice. His brother-in-law and some friends accompanied me from Namur to
+Ostende--no great distance--to hear the concert. Well, I played the
+Guarnerius at rehearsal, and when it was over, every one said to me,
+'Why, what is the matter with your fiddle? (It was the one Ysaye always
+used.) It has no tone at all.' At the concert I played the Strad and
+secured a big tone that filled the hall, as every one assured me. When
+I brought back the violins to Ysaye I mentioned the circumstance to him,
+and he was so surprised and interested that he took them from the cases
+and played a bit, first on one, then on the other, a number of times.
+And invariably when he played the Strad (which, by the way, he had not
+used for years) he, Ysaye--imagine it!--could develop only a small tone;
+and when he played the Guarnerius, he never failed to develop that
+great, sonorous tone we all know and love so well. Take Sarasate, when
+he lived, Elman, myself--we all have the habit of the Stradivarius: on
+the other hand Ysaye and Kreisler are Guarnerius players _par
+excellence_!
+
+"Yes, I use a wire E string. Before I found out about them I had no end
+of trouble. In New Orleans I snapped seven gut strings at a single
+concert. Some say that you can tell the difference, when listening,
+between a gut and a wire E. I cannot, and I know a good many others who
+cannot. After my last New York recital I had tea with Ysaye, who had
+done me the honor of attending it. 'What strings do you use?' he asked
+me, _a propos_ to nothing in particular. When I told him I used a wire E
+he confessed that he could not have told the difference. And, in fact,
+he has adopted the wire E just like Kreisler, Maud Powell and others,
+and has told me that he is charmed with it--for Ysaye has had a great
+deal of trouble with his strings. I shall continue to use them even
+after the war, when it will be possible to obtain good gut strings
+again.
+
+
+                            THE IDEAL PROGRAM
+
+"The whole question of programs and program-making is an intricate one.
+In my opinion the usual recital program, piano, song or violin, is too
+long. The public likes the recital by a single vocal or instrumental
+artist, and financially and for other practical reasons the artist, too,
+is better satisfied with them. But are they artistically altogether
+satisfactory? I should like to hear Paderewski and Ysaye, Bauer and
+Casals, Kreisler and Hofmann all playing at the same recital. What a
+variety, what a wealth of contrasting artistic enjoyment such a concert
+would afford. There is nothing that is so enjoyable for the true artist
+as _ensemble_ playing with his peers. Solo playing seems quite
+unimportant beside it.
+
+"I recall as the most perfect and beautiful of all my musical memories,
+a string quartet and quintet (with piano) session in Paris, in my own
+home, where we played four of the loveliest chamber music works ever
+written in the following combination: Beethoven's 7th quartet (Ysaye,
+Vo. I, myself, Vo. II, Kreisler, viola--he plays it remarkably well--and
+Casals, 'cello); the Schumann quartet (Kreisler, Vo. I, Ysaye, Vo. II,
+myself, viola and Casals, 'cello); and the Mozart G major quartet
+(myself, Vo. I, Kreisler, Vo. II, Ysaye, viola and Casals, 'cello). Then
+we telephoned to Pugno, who came over and joined us and, after an
+excellent dinner, we played the Cesar Franck piano quintet. It was the
+most enjoyable musical day of my life. A concert manager offered us a
+fortune to play in this combination--just two concerts in every capital
+in Europe.
+
+"We have not enough variety in our concert programs--not enough
+collaboration. The truth is our form of concert, which usually
+introduces only one instrument or one group of instruments, such as the
+string quartet, is too uniform in color. I can enjoy playing a recital
+program of virtuose violin pieces well enough; but I cannot help fearing
+that many find it too unicolored. Practical considerations do not do
+away with the truth of an artistic contention, though they may often
+prevent its realization. What I enjoy most, musically, is to play
+together with another good artist. That is why I have had such great
+artistic pleasure in the joint recitals I have given with Harold Bauer.
+We could play things that were really worth while for each of us--for
+the piano parts of the modern sonatas call for a virtuose technical and
+musical equipment, and I have had more satisfaction from this _ensemble_
+work than I would have had in playing a long list of solo pieces.
+
+"The ideal violin program, to play in public, as I conceive it, is one
+that consists of absolute music, or should it contain virtuose pieces,
+then these should have some definite musical quality of soul, character,
+elegance or charm to recommend them. I think one of the best programs I
+have ever played in America is that which I gave with Harold Bauer at
+AEolian Hall, New York, during the season of 1917-1918:
+
+
+             Sonata in B flat .  .  .  .  .  . _Mozart_
+                            BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+             Scenes from Childhood .  .  .  .  _Schumann_
+                              H. BAUER
+
+             Poeme  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _E. Chausson_
+                             J. THIBAUD
+
+             Sonata  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . _Cesar Franck_
+                            BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+
+Or perhaps this other, which Bauer and I played in Boston, during
+November, 1913:
+
+
+             Kreutzer Sonata  .  .  .  .  . .  _Beethoven_
+                             BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+             Sarabanda }
+             Giga      }  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _J.S. Bach_
+             Chaconne  }
+                              J. THIBAUD
+
+             Kreisleriana  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _Schumann_
+                               H. BAUER
+
+             Sonata  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  _Cesar Franck_
+                             BAUER-THIBAUD
+
+
+Either of these programs is artistic from the standpoint of the
+compositions represented. And even these programs are not too
+short--they take almost two hours to play; while for my ideal program an
+hour-and-a-half of beautiful music would suffice. You will notice that I
+believe in playing the big, fine things in music; in serving roasts
+rather than too many _hors d'oeuvres_ and pastry.
+
+"On a solo program, of course, one must make some concessions. When I
+play a violin concerto it seems fair enough to give the public three or
+four nice little things, but--always pieces which are truly musical, not
+such as are only 'ear-ticklers.' Kreisler--he has a great talent for
+transcription--has made charming arrangements. So has Tivadar Nachez, of
+older things, and Arthur Hartmann. These one can play as well as shorter
+numbers by Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski that are delightful, such as the
+former's _Ballade et Polonaise_, though I know of musical purists who
+disapprove of it. I consider this _Polonaise_ on a level with Chopin's.
+Or take, in the virtuoso field, Sarasate's _Gypsy Airs_--they are equal
+to any Liszt Rhapsody. I have only recently discovered that Ysaye--my
+life-long friend--has written some wonderful original compositions: a
+_Poeme elegiaque_, a _Chant d'hiver_, an _Extase_ and a ms. trio for two
+violins and alto that is marvelous. These pieces were an absolute find
+for me, with the exception of the lovely _Chant d'hiver_, which I have
+already played in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin, and expect to
+make a feature of my programs this winter. You see, Ysaye is so modest
+about his own compositions that he does not attempt to 'push' them, even
+with his friends, hence they are not nearly as well known as they
+should be.
+
+"I never play operatic transcriptions and never will. The music of the
+opera, no matter how fine, appears to me to have its proper place on the
+stage--it seems out of place on the violin recital program. The artist
+cannot be too careful in the choice of his shorter program pieces. And
+he can profit by the example set by some of the foremost violinists of
+the day. Ysaye, that great apostle of the truly musical, is a shining
+example. It is sad to see certain young artists of genuine talent
+disregard the remarkable work of their great contemporary, and secure
+easily gained triumphs with compositions whose musical value is _nil_.
+
+"Sometimes the wish to educate the public, to give it a high standard* of
+appreciation, leads an artist astray. I heard a well-known German
+violinist play in Berlin five years ago, and what do you suppose he
+played? Beethoven's _Trios_ transcribed for violin and piano! The last
+thing in the world to play! And there was, to my astonishment, no
+critical disapproval of what he did. I regard it as little less than a
+crime.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "standad".
+
+"But this whole question of programs and repertory is one without end.
+Which of the great concertos do I prefer? That is a difficult question
+to answer off-hand. But I can easily tell you which I like least. It is
+the Tschaikovsky* violin concerto--I would not exchange the first ten
+measures of Vieuxtemps's Fourth concerto for the whole of
+Tschaikovsky's, that is from the musical point of view. I have heard the
+Tschaikovsky played magnificently by Auer and by Elman; but I consider
+it the worst thing the composer has written."
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "Tchaikovsky".
+
+
+
+
+                                  XXIV
+
+
+                             GUSTAV SAENGER
+
+                THE EDITOR AS A FACTOR IN "VIOLIN MASTERY"
+
+
+The courts of editorial appeal presided over by such men as Wm. Arms
+Fisher, Dr. Theodore Baker, Gustav Saenger and others, have a direct
+relation to the establishment and maintenance of standards of musical
+mastery in general and, in the case of Gustav Saenger, with "Violin
+Mastery" in particular. For this editor, composer and violinist is at
+home with every detail of the educational and artistic development of
+his instrument, and a considerable portion of the violin music published
+in the United States represents his final and authoritative revision.
+
+"Has the work of the editor any influence on the development of 'Violin
+Mastery'?" was the first question put to Mr. Saenger when he found time
+to see the writer in his editorial rooms. "In a larger sense I think it
+has," was the reply. "Mastery of any kind comes as a result of striving
+for a definite goal. In the case of the violin student the road of
+progress is long, and if he is not to stray off into the numerous
+by-paths of error, it must be liberally provided with sign-posts. These
+sign-posts, in the way of clear and exact indications with regard to
+bowing, fingering, interpretation, it is the editor's duty to erect. The
+student himself must provide mechanical ability and emotional instinct,
+the teacher must develop and perfect them, and the editor must neglect
+nothing in the way of explanation, illustration and example which will
+help both teacher and pupil to obtain more intimate insight into the
+musical and technical values. Yes, I think the editor may claim to be a
+factor in the attainment of 'Violin Mastery.'
+
+
+                         OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES
+
+"The work of the responsible editor of modern violin music must have
+constructive value, it must suggest and stimulate. When Kreutzer,
+Gavinies and Rode first published their work, little stress was laid on
+editorial revision. You will find little in the way of fingering
+indicated in the old editions of Kreutzer. It was not till long after
+Kreutzer's death that his pupil, Massart, published an excellent
+little book, which he called 'The Art of Studying R. Kreutzer's Etudes'
+and which I have translated. It contains no less than four hundred and
+twelve examples specially designed to aid the student to master the
+_Etudes_ in the spirit of their composer. Yet these studies, as
+difficult to-day as they were when first written, are old wine that need
+no bush, though they have gained by being decanted into new bottles of
+editorial revision.
+
+          [Illustration: GUSTAV SAENGER, with hand-written note]
+
+"They have such fundamental value, that they allow of infinite variety
+of treatment and editorial presentation. Every student who has reached a
+certain degree of technical proficiency takes them up. Yet when studying
+them for the first time, as a rule it is all he can do to master them in
+a purely superficial way. When he has passed beyond them, he can return
+to them with greater technical facility and, because of their infinite
+variety, find that they offer him any number of new study problems. As
+with Kreutzer--an essential to 'Violin Mastery'--so it is with Rode,
+Fiorillo, and Gavinies. Editorial care has prepared the studies in
+distinct editions, such as those of Hermann and Singer, specifically for
+the student, and that of Emil Kross, for the advanced player. These
+editions give the work of the teacher a more direct proportion of
+result. The difference between the two types is mainly in the fingering.
+In the case of the student editions a simple, practical fingering of
+positive educational value is given; and the student should be careful
+to use editions of this kind, meant for him. Kross provides many of the
+_etudes_ with fingerings which only the virtuoso player is able to
+apply. Aside from technical considerations the absolute musical beauty
+of many of these studies is great, and they are well suited for solo
+performance. Rode's _Caprices_, for instance, are particularly suited
+for such a purpose, and many of Paganini's famous _Caprices_ have found
+a lasting place in the concert repertory, with piano accompaniments by
+artists like Kreisler, Eddy Brown, Edward Behm and Max Vogrich--- the
+last-named composer's three beautiful 'Characteristic Pieces' after
+Paganini are worth any violinist's attention.
+
+
+                        AMERICAN EDITORIAL IDEALS
+
+"In this country those intrusted with editorial responsibility as
+regards violin music have upheld a truly American standard of
+independent judgment. The time has long since passed when foreign
+editions were accepted on their face value, particularly older works. In
+a word, the conscientious American editor of violin music reflects in
+his editions the actual state of progress of the art of violin playing
+as established by the best teachers and teaching methods, whether the
+works in question represent a higher or lower standard of artistic
+merit.
+
+"And this is no easy task. One must remember that the peculiar
+construction of the violin with regard to its technical possibilities
+makes the presentation of a violin piece difficult from an editorial
+standpoint. A composition may be so written that a beginner can play it
+in the first position; and the same number may be played with beautiful
+effects in the higher positions by an artist. This accounts for the fact
+that in many modern editions of solo music for violin, double
+fingerings, for student and advanced players respectively, are
+indicated--an essentially modern editorial development. Modern
+instructive works by such masters as Sevcik, Eberhardt and others have
+made technical problems more clearly and concisely get-at-able than did
+the older methods. Yet some of these older works are by no means
+negligible, though of course, in all classic violin literature, from
+Tartini on, Kreutzer, Spohr, Paganini, Ernst, each individual artist
+represents his own school, his own method to the exclusion of any other.
+Spohr was one of the first to devote editorial attention to his own
+method, one which, despite its age, is a valuable work, though most
+students do not know how to use it. It is really a method for the
+advanced player, since it presupposes a good deal of preliminary
+technical knowledge, and begins at once with the higher positions. It is
+rather a series of study pieces for the special development of certain
+difficult phases, musical and technical, of the violinist's art, than a
+method. I have translated and edited the American edition of this work,
+and the many explanatory notes with which Spohr has provided* it--as in
+his own 9th, and the Rode concerto (included as representative of what
+violin concertos really should be), the measures being provided with
+group numbers for convenience in reference--are not obsolete. They are
+still valid, and any one who can appreciate the ideals of the
+_Gesangsscene_, its beautiful _cantilene_ and pure serenity, may profit
+by them. I enjoyed editing this work because I myself had studied with
+Carl Richter, a Spohr pupil, who had all his master's traditions.
+
+    *Transcriber's note: Original text read "provied".
+
+
+                    THE MASTER VIOLINIST AS AN EDITOR
+
+"That the editorial revisions of a number of our greatest living
+violinists and teachers have passed through my editorial rooms, on their
+way to press, is a fact of which I am decidedly proud. Leopold Auer, for
+instance, is one of the most careful, exact and practical of editors,
+and the fact is worth dwelling on since sometimes the great artist or
+teacher quite naturally forgets that those for whom he is editing a
+composition have neither his knowledge nor resources. Auer never loses
+sight of the composer's _own ideas_.
+
+"And when I mention great violinists with whom I have been associated as
+an editor, Mischa Elman must not be forgotten. I found it at first a
+difficult matter to induce an artist like Elman, for whom no technical
+difficulties exist, to seriously consider the limitations of the average
+player in his fingerings and interpretative demands. Elman, like every
+great _virtuoso_ of his caliber, is influenced in his revisions by the
+manner in which he himself does things. I remember in one instance I
+could see no reason why he should mark the third finger for a
+_cantilena_ passage where a certain effect was desired, and questioned
+it. Catching up his violin he played the note preceding it with his
+second finger, then instead of slipping the second finger down the
+string, he took the next note with the third, in such a way that a most
+exquisite _legato_ effect, like a breath, the echo of a sigh, was
+secured. And the beauty of tone color in this instance not only proved
+his point, but has led me invariably to examine very closely a fingering
+on the part of a master violinist which represents a departure from the
+conventional--it is often the technical key to some new beauty of
+interpretation or expression.
+
+"Fritz Kreisler's individuality is also reflected in his markings and
+fingerings. Of course those in his 'educational' editions are strictly
+meant for study needs. But in general they are difficult and based on
+his own manner and style of playing. As he himself has remarked: 'I
+could play the violin just as well with three as with four fingers.'
+Kreisler is fond of 'fingered' octaves, and these, because of his
+abnormal hand, he plays with the first and third fingers, where virtuose
+players, as a rule, are only too happy if they can play them with the
+first and fourth. To verify this individual character of his revisions,
+one need only glance at his edition of Godowsky's '12 Impressions' for
+violin--in every case the fingerings indicated are difficult in the
+extreme; yet they supply the key to definite effects, and since this
+music is intended for the advance player, are quite in order.
+
+"The ms. and revisions of many other distinguished artists have passed
+through my hands. Theodore Spiering has been responsible for the
+educational detail of classic and modern works; Arthur Hartmann--a
+composer of marked originality--Albert Spalding, Eddy Brown, Francis
+MacMillan, Max Pilzer, David Hochstein, Richard Czerwonky, Cecil
+Burleigh, Edwin Grasse, Edmund Severn, Franz C. Bornschein, Leo
+Ornstein, Rubin Goldmark, Louis Pershinger, Louis Victor Saar--whose ms.
+always look as though engraved--have all given me opportunities of
+seeing the best the American violin composer is creating at the present
+time.
+
+
+                        EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES
+
+"The revisional work of the master violinist is of very great
+importance, but often great artists and distinguished teachers hold
+radically different views with regard to practically every detail of
+their art. And it is by no means easy for an editor like myself, who is
+finally responsible for their editions, to harmonize a hundred
+conflicting views and opinions. The fiddlers best qualified to speak
+with authority will often disagree absolutely regarding the use of a
+string, position, up-bow or down-bow. And besides meeting the needs of
+student and teacher, an editor-in-chief must bear in mind the artistic
+requirements of the music itself. In many cases the divergence in
+teaching standards reflects the personal preferences for the editions
+used. Less ambitious teachers choose methods which make the study of the
+violin as _easy_ as possible for _them_; rather than those which--in the
+long run--may be most advantageous for the _pupil_. The best editions of
+studies are often cast aside for trivial reasons, such as are embodied
+in the poor excuse that 'the fourth finger is too frequently indicated.'
+According to the old-time formulas, it was generally accepted that
+ascending passages should be played on the open strings and descending
+ones using the fourth finger. It stands to reason that the use of the
+fourth finger involves more effort, is a greater tax of strength, and
+that the open string is an easier playing proposition. Yet a really
+perfected technic demands that the fourth finger be every bit as strong
+and flexible as any of the others. By nature it is shorter and weaker,
+and beginners usually have great trouble with it--which makes perfect
+control of it all the more essential! And yet teachers, contrary to all
+sound principle and merely to save effort--temporarily--for themselves
+and their pupils, will often reject an edition of a method or book of
+studies merely because in its editing the fourth finger has not been
+deprived of its proper chance of development. I know of cases where,
+were it not for the guidance supplied by editorial revision, the average
+teacher would have had no idea of the purpose of the studies he was
+using. One great feature of good modern editions of classical study
+works, from Kreutzer to Paganini, is the double editorial numeration:
+one giving the sequence as in the original editions; the other numbering
+the studies in order of technical difficulty, so that they may be
+practiced progressively.
+
+
+                 A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF VIOLIN STUDIES
+
+"What special editorial work of mine has given me the greatest personal
+satisfaction in the doing? That is a hard question to answer. Off-hand
+I might say that, perhaps, the collection of progressive orchestral
+studies for advanced violinists which I have compiled and annotated for
+the benefit of the symphony orchestra player is something that has meant
+much to me personally. Years ago, when I played professionally--long
+before the days of 'miniature' orchestra scores--it was almost
+impossible for an ambitious young violinist to acquaint himself with the
+first and second violin parts of the great symphonic works. Prices of
+scores were prohibitive--and though in such works as the Brahms
+symphonies, for instance, the 'concertmaster's' part should be studied
+from score, in its relation to the rest of the _partitura_--often,
+merely to obtain a first violin part, I had to acquire the entire set of
+strings. So when I became an editor I determined, in view of my own
+unhappy experiences and that of many others, to give the aspiring
+fiddler who really wanted to 'get at' the violin parts of the best
+symphonic music, from Bach to Brahms and Richard Strauss, a chance to do
+so. And I believe I solved the problem in the five books of the 'Modern
+Concert-Master,' which includes all those really difficult and important
+passages in the great repertory works of the symphony orchestra that
+offer violinistic problems. My only regret is that the grasping attitude
+of European publishers prevented the representation of certain important
+symphonic numbers. Yet, as it stands, I think I may say that the five
+encyclopedic books of the collection give the symphony concertmaster
+every practical opportunity to gain orchestral routine, and orchestral
+mastery.
+
+
+              A NEW CLASSIFICATION OF VIOLIN LITERATURE
+
+"What I am inclined to consider, however, as even more important, in a
+sense, than my editorial labors is a new educational classification of
+violin literature, one which practically covers the entire field of
+violin music, and upon which I have been engaged for several years.
+Insomuch as an editor's work helps in the acquisition of 'Violin
+Mastery,' I am tempted to think this catalogue will be a contribution of
+real value.
+
+"As far as I know there does not at present exist any guide or hand-book
+of violin literature in which the fundamental question of grading has
+been presented _au fond_. This is not strange, since the task of
+compiling a really valid and logically graded guide-book of violin
+literature is one that offers great difficulties from almost every
+point of view.
+
+"Yet I have found the work engrossing, because the need of a book of the
+kind which makes it easy for the teacher to bring his pupils ahead more
+rapidly and intelligently by giving him an oversight of the entire
+teaching-material of the violin and under clear, practical heads in
+detail order of progression is making itself more urgently felt every
+day. In classification (there are seven grades and a preparatory grade),
+I have not chosen an easier and conventional plan of _general_
+consideration of difficulties; but have followed a more systematic
+scheme, one more closely related to the study of the instrument itself.
+Thus, my 'Preparatory Grade' contains only material which could be
+advantageously used with children and beginners, those still struggling
+with the simplest elementary problems--correct drawing of the bow across
+the open strings, in a certain rhythmic order, and the first use of the
+fingers. And throughout the grades are special sub-sections for special
+difficulties, special technical and other problems. In short, I cannot
+help but feel that I have compiled a real guide, one with a definite
+educational value, and not a catalogue, masquerading as a violinistic
+Baedeker.
+
+
+                 VIOLIN EDITIONS "MADE IN AMERICA"
+
+"One of the most significant features of the violin guide I have
+mentioned is, perhaps, the fact that its contents largely cover the
+whole range of violin literature in American editions. There was a time,
+years ago, when 'made in Germany' was accepted as a certificate of
+editorial excellence and mechanical perfection. Those days have long
+since passed, and the American edition has come into its own. It has
+reached a point of development where it is of far more practical and
+musically stimulating value than any European edition. For American
+editions of violin music do not take so much for granted! They reflect
+in the highest degree the needs of students and players in smaller
+places throughout the country, and where teachers are rare or
+non-existent they do much to supply instruction by meticulous regard for
+all detail of fingering, bowing, phrasing, expression, by insisting in
+explanatory annotation on the correct presentation of authoritative
+teaching ideas and principles. In a broader sense 'Violin Mastery' knows
+no nationality; but yet we associate the famous artists of the day with
+individual and distinctively national trends of development and
+'schools.' In this connection I am convinced that one result of this
+great war of world liberation we have waged, one by-product of the
+triumph of the democratic truth, will be a notably 'American' ideal of
+'Violin Mastery,' in the musical as well as the technical sense. And in
+the development of this ideal I do not think it is too much to claim
+that American editions of violin music, and those who are responsible
+for them, will have done their part."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Violin Mastery, by Frederick H. Martens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIOLIN MASTERY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 15535.txt or 15535.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/3/15535/
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Peter Barozzi and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/15535.zip b/15535.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ce58fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15535.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e5d988
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #15535 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15535)