“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.

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

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

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.

“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.

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

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

“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.

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

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

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

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.