:: Historical Notes ::

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.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

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!’

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

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!

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

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.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.