"Technic, in the case of the more advanced violinist, should not have a place in the foreground of his consciousness. I heard Rubinstein play when a boy—what did his false notes amount to compared with his wonderful manner of disclosing the spirit of the things he played! Planté, the Parisian pianist, a kind of keyboard cyclone, once expressed the idea admirably to an English society lady. She had told him he was a greater pianist than Rubinstein, because the latter played so many wrong notes. 'Ah, Madame,' answered Planté, 'I would rather be able to play Rubinstein's wrong notes than all my own correct ones.' A violinist's natural manner of playing is the one he should cultivate; since it is individual, it really represents him. And a teacher or a colleague of greater fame does him no kindness if he encourages him to distrust his own powers by too good naturedly 'showing' him how to do this, that or the other. I mean, when the student can work out his problem himself at the expense of a little initiative.
"When I was younger I once had to play Bach's G minor fugue at a concert in Brussels. I was living at Ysaye's home, and since I had never played the composition in public before, I began to worry about its interpretation. So I asked Ysaye (thinking he would simply show me), 'How ought I to play this fugue?' The Master reflected a moment and then dashed my hopes by answering: 'Tu m'embêtes!' (You bore me!) 'This fugue should be played well, that's all!' At first I was angry, but thinking it over, I realized that if he had shown me, I would have played it just as he did; while what he wanted me to do was to work out my own version, and depend on my own initiative—which I did, for I had no choice. It is by means of concentration on the higher, the interpretative phases of one's Art that the technical side takes its proper, secondary place. Technic does not exist for me in the sense of a certain quantity of mechanical work which I must do. I find it out of the question to do absolutely mechanical technical work of any length of time. In realizing the three essentials of good violin playing which I have already mentioned, Ysaye and Sarasate are my ideals.
SARASATE
"All really good violinists are good artists. Sarasate, whom I knew so intimately and remember so well, was a pupil of Alard (my father's teacher). He literally sang on the violin, like a nightingale. His purity of intonation was remarkable; and his technical facility was the most extraordinary that I have ever seen. He handled his bow with unbelievable skill. And when he played, the unassuming grace of his movements won the hearts of his audiences and increased the enthusiasm awakened by his tremendous talent.
"We other violinists, all of us, occasionally play a false note, for we are not infallible; we may flat a little or sharp a little. But never, as often as I have heard Sarasate play, did I ever hear him play a wrong note, one not in perfect pitch. His Spanish things he played like a god! And he had a wonderful gift of phrasing which gave a charm hard to define to whatever he played. And playing in quartet—the greatest solo violinist does not always shine in this genre—he was admirable. Though he played all the standard repertory, Bach, Beethoven, etc., I can never forget his exquisite rendering of modern works, especially of a little composition by Raff, called La Fée d'Amour. He was the first to play the violin concertos of Saint-Saëns, Lalo and Max Bruch. They were all written for him, and I doubt whether they would have been composed had not Sarasate been there to play them. Of course, in his own Spanish music he was unexcelled—a whole school of violin playing was born and died with him! He had a hobby for collecting canes. He had hundreds of them of all kinds, and every sovereign in Europe had contributed to his collection. I know Queen Christina of Spain gave him no less than twenty. He once gave me a couple of his canes, a great sign of favor with him. I have often played quartet with Sarasate, for he adored quartet playing, and these occasions are among my treasured memories.
STRADIVARIUS AND GUARNERIUS PLAYERS
"My violin? It is a Stradivarius—the same which once belonged to the celebrated Baillot. I think it is good for a violin to rest, so during the three months when I am not playing in concert, I send my Stradivarius away to the instrument maker's, and only take it out about a month before I begin to play again in public. What do I use in the meantime? Caressa, the best violin maker in Paris, made me an exact copy of my own Strad, exact in every little detail. It is so good that sometimes, when circumstances compelled me to, I have used it in concert, though it lacks the tone-quality of the original. This under-study violin I can use for practice, and when I go back to the original, as far as the handling of the instrument is concerned, I never know the difference.
"But I do not think that every one plays to the best advantage on a Strad. I'm a believer in the theory that there are natural Guarnerius players and natural Stradivarius players; that certain artists do their best with the one, and certain others with the other. And I also believe that any one who is 'equally' good in both, is great on neither. The reason I believe in Guarnerius players and Stradivarius players as distinct is this. Some years ago I had a sudden call to play in Ostende. It was a concert engagement which I had overlooked, and when it was recalled to me I was playing golf in Brittany. I at once hurried to Paris to get my violin from Caressa, with whom I had left it, but—his safe, in which it had been put, and to which he only had the combination, was locked. Caressa himself was in Milan. I telegraphed him but found that he could not get back in time before the concert to release my violin. So I telegraphed Ysaye at Namur, to ask if he could loan me a violin for the concert. 'Certainly' he wired back. So I hurried to his home and, with his usual generosity, he insisted on my taking both his treasured Guarnerius and his 'Hercules' Strad (afterwards stolen from him in Russia), in order that I might have my choice. His brother-in-law and some friends accompanied me from Namur to Ostende—no great distance—to hear the concert. Well, I played the Guarnerius at rehearsal, and when it was over, every one said to me, 'Why, what is the matter with your fiddle? (It was the one Ysaye always used.) It has no tone at all.' At the concert I played the Strad and secured a big tone that filled the hall, as every one assured me. When I brought back the violins to Ysaye I mentioned the circumstance to him, and he was so surprised and interested that he took them from the cases and played a bit, first on one, then on the other, a number of times. And invariably when he played the Strad (which, by the way, he had not used for years) he, Ysaye—imagine it!—could develop only a small tone; and when he played the Guarnerius, he never failed to develop that great, sonorous tone we all know and love so well. Take Sarasate, when he lived, Elman, myself—we all have the habit of the Stradivarius: on the other hand Ysaye and Kreisler are Guarnerius players par excellence!
"Yes, I use a wire E string. Before I found out about them I had no end of trouble. In New Orleans I snapped seven gut strings at a single concert. Some say that you can tell the difference, when listening, between a gut and a wire E. I cannot, and I know a good many others who cannot. After my last New York recital I had tea with Ysaye, who had done me the honor of attending it. 'What strings do you use?' he asked me, à propos to nothing in particular. When I told him I used a wire E he confessed that he could not have told the difference. And, in fact, he has adopted the wire E just like Kreisler, Maud Powell and others, and has told me that he is charmed with it—for Ysaye has had a great deal of trouble with his strings. I shall continue to use them even after the war, when it will be possible to obtain good gut strings again.