Chapter 10

"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]:

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:

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:

"Beginning with the lower of these two notes, the C, we find that it cannot not be taken as a natural harmonic

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--

we have a choice of the two _possible_ combinations remaining, with the fingering indicated:

"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