Violin Mastery - ADOLFO BETTI - Part 8
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.”
Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919
Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.
