Violin Mastery | Page 3

orchestra instead of a violin solo. It is one of the Trois Nocturnes for
orchestra. Perhaps one reason why so much has been inscribed to me is
the fact that as an interpreting artist, I have never cultivated a
'specialty.' I have played everything from Bach to Debussy, for real art
should be international!"
Ysaye himself has an almost marvelous right-arm and fingerboard
control, which enables him to produce at will the finest and most subtle
tonal nuances in all bowings. Then, too, he overcomes the most
intricate mechanical problems with seemingly effortless ease. And his

tone has well been called "golden." His own definition of tone is worth
recording. He says it should be "In music what the heart suggests, and
the soul expresses!"
THE TOOLS OF VIOLIN MASTERY
"With regard to mechanism," Ysaye continued, "at the present day the
tools of violin mastery, of expression, technic, mechanism, are far more
necessary than in days gone by. In fact they are indispensable, if the
spirit is to express itself without restraint. And the greater mechanical
command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that suggests
effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more than
anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often said:
_Pas de trait pour le trait--chantez, chantez_! (Not runs for the sake of
runs--sing, sing!)
"Too many of the technicians of the present day no longer sing. Their
difficulties--they surmount them more or less happily; but the effect is
too apparent, and though, at times, the listener may be astonished, he
can never be charmed. Agile fingers, sure of themselves, and a perfect
bow stroke are essentials; and they must be supremely able to carry
along the rhythm and poetic action the artist desires. Mechanism
becomes, if anything, more accessible in proportion as its domain is
enriched by new formulas. The violinist of to-day commands far
greater technical resources than did his predecessors. Paganini is
accessible to nearly all players: Vieuxtemps no longer offers the
difficulties he did thirty years ago. Yet the wood-wind, brass and even
the string instruments subsist in a measure on the heritage transmitted
by the masters of the past. I often feel that violin teaching to-day
endeavors to develop the esthetic sense at too early a stage. And in
devoting itself to the head it forgets the _hands_, with the result that the
young soldiers of the violinistic army, full of ardor and courage, are ill
equipped for the great battle of art.
"In this connection there exists an excellent set of _Études-Caprices_
by E. Chaumont, which offer the advanced student new elements and
formulas of development. Though in some of them 'the frame is too
large for the picture,' and though difficult from a violinistic point of
view, 'they lie admirably well up the neck,' to use one of Vieuxtemps's
expressions, and I take pleasure in calling attention to them.
"When I said that the string instruments, including the violin, subsist in

a measure on the heritage transmitted by the masters of the past, I
spoke with special regard to technic. Since Vieuxtemps there has been
hardly one new passage written for the violin; and this has retarded the
development of its technic. In the case of the piano, men like
Godowsky have created a new technic for their instrument; but
although Saint-Saëns, Bruch, Lalo and others have in their works
endowed the violin with much beautiful music, music itself was their
first concern, and not music for the violin. There are no more concertos
written for the solo flute, trombone, etc.--as a result there is no new
technical material added to the resources of these instruments.
"In a way the same holds good of the violin--new works conceived only
from the musical point of view bring about the stagnation of technical
discovery, the invention of new passages, of novel harmonic wealth of
combination is not encouraged. And a violinist owes it to himself to
exploit the great possibilities of his own instrument. I have tried to find
new technical ways and means of expression in my own compositions.
For example, I have written a Divertiment for violin and orchestra in
which I believe I have embodied new thoughts and ideas, and have
attempted to give violin technic a broader scope of life and vigor.
"In the days of Viotti and Rode the harmonic possibilities were more
limited--they had only a few chords, and hardly any chords of the ninth.
But now harmonic material for the development of a new violin technic
is there: I have some violin studies, in ms., which I may publish some
day, devoted to that end. I am always somewhat hesitant about
publishing--there are many things I might publish, but I have seen so
much brought out that was banal, poor, unworthy, that I