"When I take the whole history of the violin into account I feel that
the true inwardness of 'Violin Mastery' is best expressed by a kind of
threefold group of great artists. First, in the order of romantic
expression, we have a trinity made up of Corelli, Viotti and Vieuxtemps.
Then there is a trinity of mechanical perfection, composed of Locatelli,
Tartini and Paganini or, a more modern equivalent, César Thomson,
Kubelik and Burmeister. And, finally, what I might call in the order of
lyric expression, a quartet comprising Ysaye, Thibaud, Mischa Elman and
Sametini of Chicago, the last-named a wonderfully fine artist of the
lyric or singing type. Of course there are qualifications to be made.
Locatelli was not altogether an exponent of technic. And many other fine
artists besides those mentioned share the characteristics of those in
the various groups. Yet, speaking in a general way, I believe that these
groups of attainment might be said to sum up what 'Violin Mastery'
really is. And a violin master? He must be a violinist, a thinker, a
poet, a human being, he must have known hope, love, passion and despair,
he must have run the gamut of the emotions in order to express them all
in his playing. He must play his violin as Pan played his flute!"
In conclusion Ysaye sounded a note of warning for the too ambitious
young student and player. "If Art is to progress, the technical and
mechanical element must not, of course, be neglected. But a boy of
eighteen cannot expect to express that to which the serious student of
thirty, the man who has actually lived, can give voice. If the
violinist's art is truly a great art, it cannot come to fruition in the
artist's 'teens. His accomplishment then is no more than a promise--a
promise which finds its realization in and by life itself. Yet Americans
have the brains as well as the spiritual endowment necessary to
understand and appreciate beauty in a high degree. They can already
point with pride to violinists who emphatically deserve to be called
artists, and another quarter-century of artistic striving may well bring
them into the front rank of violinistic achievement!"