"Of course, all artistic playing represents essentially the mental
control of technical means. But to acquire the latter in the right way,
while at the same time developing the former, calls for the best of
teachers. The problem of the teacher is to prevent his pupils from being
too imitative--all students are natural imitators--and furthering the
quality of musical imagination in them. Pupils generally have something
of the teacher's tone--Auer pupils have the Auer tone, Joachim pupils
have a Joachim tone, an excellent thing. But as each pupil has an
individuality of his own, he should never sink it altogether in that of
his teacher. It is this imitative trend which often makes it hard to
judge a young player's work. I was very fortunate in my teachers.
William Lewis of Chicago gave me a splendid start. Then I studied in
turn with Schradieck in Leipsic--Schradieck himself was a pupil of
Ferdinand David and of Léonard--Joachim in Berlin, and Charles Dancla in
Paris. I might say that I owe most, in a way, to William Lewis, a born
fiddler. Of my three European masters Dancla was unquestionably the
greatest as a teacher--of course I am speaking for myself. It was no
doubt an advantage, a decided advantage for me in my artistic
development, which was slow--a family trait--to enjoy the broadening
experience of three entirely different styles of teaching, and to be
able to assimilate the best of each. Yet Joachim was a far greater
violinist than teacher. His method was a cramping one, owing to his
insistence on pouring all his pupils into the same mold, so to speak,
of forming them all on the Joachim lathe. But Dancla was inspiring. He
taught me De Bériot's wonderful method of attack; he showed me how to
develop purity of style. Dancla's method of teaching gave his pupils a
technical equipment which carried bowing right along, 'neck and neck'
with the finger work of the left hand, while the Germans are apt to
stress finger development at the expense of the bow. And without ever
neglecting technical means, Dancla always put the purely musical before
the purely virtuoso side of playing. And this is always a sign of a good
teacher. He was unsparing in taking pains and very fair.
"I remember that I was passed first in a class of eighty-four at an
examination, after only three private lessons in which to prepare the
concerto movement to be played. I was surprised and asked him why
Mlle.---- who, it seemed to me, had played better than I, had not
passed. 'Ah,' he said, 'Mlle.---- studied that movement for six months;
and in comparison, you, with only three lessons, play it better!' Dancla
switched me right over in his teaching from German to French methods,
and taught me how to become an artist, just as I had learned in Germany
to become a musician. The French school has taste, elegance,
imagination; the German is more conservative, serious, and has, perhaps,
more depth.