"As regards difficulties, technical and other, a distinction might be
made between the artist and the average amateur. The latter does not
make the violin his life work: it is an incidental. While he may
reasonably content himself with playing well, the artist-pupil _must_
achieve perfection. It is the difference between an accomplishment and
an art. The amateur plays more or less for the sake of playing--the
'how' is secondary; but for the artist the 'how' comes first, and for
him the shortest piece, a single scale, has difficulties of which the
amateur is quite ignorant. And everything is difficult in its perfected
sense. What I, as a student, found to be most difficult were double
harmonics--I still consider them to be the most difficult thing in the
whole range of violin technic. First of all, they call for a large hand,
because of the wide stretches. But harmonics were one of the things I
had to master before Professor Auer would allow me to appear in public.
Some find tenths and octaves their stumbling block, but I cannot say
that they ever gave me much trouble. After all, the main thing with any
difficulty is to surmount it, and just _how_ is really a secondary
matter. I know Professor Auer used to say: 'Play with your feet if you
must, but make the violin sound!' With tenths, octaves, sixths, with any
technical frills, the main thing is to bring them out clearly and
convincingly. And, rightly or wrongly, one must remember that when
something does not sound out convincingly on the violin, it is not the
fault of the weather, or the strings or rosin or anything else--it is
always the artist's own fault!