Violin Mastery Part 9

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 pa.s.sage, he said:

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.sics), 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 pa.s.sionately 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 att.i.tude with regard to tone and sound reproduction embodied my ideals.

"I worked with Ysaye in Brussels and in his cottage at G.o.dinne. 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 c.u.mulative 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 cla.s.s. 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

"Cla.s.s 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 a.n.a.logy 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.n.a.logies 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.ses, 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 c.u.mulative 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.sic 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 coordination 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