Maximilian Pilzer is deservedly prominent among younger American concert
violinists. A pupil of Joachim, Shradieck, Gustav Hollander, he is, as
it has already been picturesquely put, "a graduate of the rock and thorn
university," an artist who owes his success mainly to his own natural
gifts plus an infinite capacity for taking pains. Though primarily an
interpreter his interlocutor yet had the good fortune to happen on Mr.
Pilzer when he was giving a lesson. Essentially a solo violinist, Mr.
Pilzer nevertheless has the born teacher's wish to impart, to share,
where talent justifies it, his own knowledge. He himself did not have to
tell the listener this--the lesson he was giving betrayed the fact.
It was Kreisler's _Tambourin Chinois_ that the student played. And as
Mr. Pilzer illustrated the delicate shades of _nuance_, of phrasing, of
bowing, with instant rebuke for an occasional lack of "warmth" in tone,
the improvement was instantaneous and unmistakable. The lesson over, he
said: