"Class study is for the advanced student, not the beginner. In the
beginning only the closest personal contact between the individual pupil
and the teacher is desirable. To borrow an analogy from nature, the
student may be compared to the young bird whose untrained wings will not
allow him to take any trial flights unaided by his natural guardian. For
the beginning violinist the principal thing to do is to learn the 'voice
placing' of the violin. This goes hand in hand with the proper--which is
the easy and natural--manner of holding the violin, bow study, and an
appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument. The student's attention
should at once be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities of the
violin tone, and he should at once familiarize himself with the
development of those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and
relaxation which are instrumental in its production. The analogies
between the violin voice and the human voice should also be developed.
The violin itself must to all intents become a part of the player
himself, just as the vocal chords are part of the human body. It should
not be considered a foreign tone-producing instrument adjusted to the
body of the performer; but an extension, a projection of his physical
self. In a way it is easier for the violinist to get at the chords of
the violin and make them sound, since they are all exposed, which is not
the case with the singer.
"There are two dangerous points in present-day standards of violin
teaching. One is represented by the very efficient European professional
standards of technic, which may result in an absolute failure of poetic
musical comprehension. These should not be transplanted here from
European soil. The other is the non-technical, sentimental, formless
species of teaching which can only result in emotional enervation. Yet
if forced to choose between the two the former would be preferable since
without tools it is impossible to carve anything of beauty. The final
beauty of the violin tone, the pure _legato_, remains in the beginning
as in the end a matter of holding the violin and bow. Together they
'place' the tone just as the physical _media_ in the throat 'place' the
tone of the voice.
"Piano teachers have made greater advances in the tone developing
technic of their instrument than the violin teachers. One reason is,
that as a class they are more intellectual. And then, too, violin
teaching is regarded too often as a mystic art, an occult science, and
one into which only those specially gifted may hope to be initiated.
This, it seems to me, is a fallacy. Just as a gift for mathematics is a
special talent not given to all, so a _natural_ technical talent exists
in relatively few people. Yet this does not imply that the majority are
shut off from playing the violin and playing it well. Any student who
has music in his soul may be taught to play simple, and even relatively
more difficult music with beauty, beauty of expression and
interpretation. This he may be taught to do even though not endowed with
a _natural_ technical facility for the violin. A proof that natural
technical facility is anything but a guarantee of higher musicianship is
shown in that the musical weakness of many brilliant violinists, hidden
by the technical elaboration of virtuoso pieces, is only apparent when
they attempt to play a Beethoven _adagio_ or a simple Mozart _rondo_.
"In a number of cases the unsuccessful solo player has a bad effect on
violin teaching. Usually the soloist who has not made a success as a
concert artist takes up teaching as a last resort, without enthusiasm or
the true vocational instinct. The false standards he sets up for his
pupils are a natural result of his own ineffectual worship of the fetish
of virtuosity--those of the musical mountebank of a hundred years ago.
Of course such false prophets of the virtuose have nothing in common
with such high-priests of public utterance as Ysaye, Kreisler and
others, whose virtuosity is a true means for the higher development of
the musical. The encouragement of musicianship in general suffers for
the stress laid on what is obviously technical _impedimenta_. But more
and more, as time passes, the playing of such artists as those already
mentioned, and others like them, shows that the real musician is the
lover of beautiful sound, which technic merely develops in the highest
degree.
"To-day technic in a cumulative sense often is a confession of failure.
For technic does not do what it so often claims to--produce the artist.
Most professional teaching aims to prepare the student for professional
life, the concert stage. Hence there is an intensive _technical_ study
of compositions that even if not wholly intended for display are
primarily and principally projected for its sake. It is a well-known
fact that few, even among gifted players, can sit down to play chamber
music and do it justice. This is not because they cannot grasp or
understand it; or because their technic is insufficient. It is because
their whole violinistic education has been along the line of solo
playing; they have literally been brought up, not to play _with_ others,
but to be accompanied _by_ others.
"Yet despite all this there has been a notable development of violin
study in the direction of _ensemble_ work with, as a result, an attitude
on the part of the violinists cultivating it, of greater humility as
regards music in general, a greater appreciation of the charm of
artistic collaboration: and--I insist--a technic both finer and more
flexible. Chamber music--originally music written for the intimate
surroundings of the home, for a small circle of listeners--carries out
in its informal way many of the ideals of the larger orchestral
_ensemble_. And, as regards the violinist, he is not dependent only on
the literature of the string quartet; there are piano quintets and
quartets, piano trios, and the duos for violin and piano. Some of the
most beautiful instrumental thoughts of the classic and modern
composers are to be found in the duo for violin and piano, mainly in the
sonata form. Amateurs--violinists who love music for its own sake, and
have sufficient facility to perform such works creditably--do not do
nearly enough _ensemble_ playing with a pianist. It is not always
possible to get together the four players needed for the string quartet,
but a pianist is apt to be more readily found.
"The combination of violin and piano is as a rule obtainable and the
literature is particularly rich. Aside from sonatas by Corelli,
Locatelli, Tartini, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haendel, Brahms and
Schumann, nearly all the romantic and modern composers have contributed
to it. And this music has all been written so as to show the character
of each instrument at its best--the piano, harmonic in its nature; the
violin, a natural melodic voice, capable of every shade of _nuance_."
That Mr. Mannes, as an artist, has made a point of "practicing what he
preaches" to the student as regards the _ensemble_ of violin and piano
will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has
given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his
views regarding the moot question of gut _versus_ wire strings are of
interest.