"You ask me what 'Violin Mastery' means in the string quartet. It has an
altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin
virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string _ensemble_ is as much mastery of
self as of technical means. The artist must sink his identity completely
in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are
as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the
combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a
mastery of repression as well as expression. I realized how keenly alive
the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in
Alma-Tadema's beautiful London home, for the great English painter was
also a music-lover and a very discriminating one. He had a fine piano in
a beautifully decorated case, and it was an open secret that at his
musical evenings, after an artist had played, the lid of the piano was
raised, and Sir Lawrence asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft
white wood of its inner surface--_but only if he thought the compliment
deserved_. There were some famous names written there--Joachim,
Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention a few. Naturally an
artist playing at Alma-Tadema's home for the first time could not help
speculating as to his chances. Many were called, but comparatively few
were chosen. We were guests at a dinner given by Sir Lawrence. There
were some fifty people prominent in London's artistic, musical and
social world present, and we had no idea of being asked to play. Our
instruments were at our hotel and we had to send for them. We played the
Schubert quartet in A minor and Dvořák's 'American' quartet and, of
course, my colleagues and myself forgot all about the piano lid the
moment we began to play. Yet, I'm free to confess, that when the piano
lid was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was no empty compliment
coming from Sir Lawrence, and I have been told that some very
distinguished artists have not had it extended to them. And I know that
on that evening the phrase 'Violin Mastery' in an _ensemble_ sense, as
the outcome of ceaseless striving for coördination in expression,
absolute balance, and all the details that go to make up the perfect
_ensemble_, seemed to us to have a very definite color and meaning.