“After all, the teacher can only supply the pupil with the violinistic equipment. The pupil must use it. There is tone, for instance. The teacher cannot make tone for the pupil—he can only show him how tone can be made. Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes it almost impossible for the pupil to produce a good natural tone. If the finger-tips are not adequately equipped with ‘cushions,’ and a pupil wishes to use the vibrato there is nothing with which he can vibrate. There is real meaning, speaking of the violinist’s tone, in the phrase ‘he has it at his fingers’ tips.’ Then there is the matter of slow practice. It rests with the pupil to carry out the teacher’s injunctions in this respect. The average pupil practices too fast, is too eager to develop his Art as a money maker. And too many really gifted students take up orchestra playing, which no one can do continuously and hope to be a solo player. Four hours of study work may be nullified by a single hour of orchestra playing. Musically it is broadening, of course, but I am speaking from the standpoint of the student who hopes to become a solo artist. An opera orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the symphonic ensemble more care is used; but in the opera orchestra they employ the right arm for tremolo! There is a good deal of camouflage as regards string playing in an opera orchestra, and much of the music—notably Wagner’s—is quite impracticable.

“And lessons are often made all too short. A teacher in common honesty cannot really give a pupil much in half-an-hour—it is not a real lesson. There is a good deal to be said for class teaching as it is practiced at the European conservatories, especially as regards interpretation. In my student days I learned much from listening to others play the concertos they had prepared, and from noting the teacher’s corrections. And this even in a purely technical way: I can recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the technical points of violin playing.

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

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

Beginning at the beginning, I asked Mr. Saslavsky to tell me something about methods, his own in particular. “Method is a flexible term,” he answered. “What the word should mean is the cultivation of the pupil’s individuality along the lines best suited to it. Not that a guide which may be employed to develop common-sense principles is not valuable. But even here, the same guide (violin-method) will not answer for every pupil. Personally I find De Bériot’s ‘Violin School’ the most generally useful, and for advanced students, Ferdinand David’s second book. Then, for scales—I insist on my pupils being able to play, a perfect scale through three octaves—the Hrimaly book of scales. Many advanced violinists cannot play a good scale simply because of a lack of fundamental work.

“As soon as the pupil is able, he should take up Kreutzer and stick to him as the devotee does to his Bible. Any one who can play the ‘42 Exercises’ as they should be played may be called a well-balanced violinist. There are too many purely mechanical exercises—and the circumstance that we have Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo, Rovelli and Dont emphasizes the fact. And there are too many elaborate and complicated violin methods. Sev?ik, for instance, has devised a purely mechanical system of this kind, perfect from a purely mechanical standpoint, but one whose consistent use, in my opinion, kills initiative and individuality. I have had experience with Sevcik pupils in quartet playing, and have found that they have no expression.

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 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.”

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

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.