THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF AN ARTIST
For the duration of the war Albert Spalding the violinist became Albert
Spalding the soldier. As First Lieutenant in the Aviation Service,
U.S.A., he maintained the ideals of civilization on the Italian front
with the same devotion he gave to those of Art in the piping times of
peace. As he himself said not so very long ago: "You cannot do two
things, and do them properly, at the same time. At the present moment
there is more music for me in the factories gloriously grinding out
planes and motors than in a symphony of Beethoven. And to-day I would
rather run on an office-boy's errand for my country and do it as well as
I can, if it's to serve my country, than to play successfully a Bach
Chaconne; and I would rather hear a well directed battery of American
guns blasting the Road of Peace and Victorious Liberty than the
combined applause of ten thousand audiences. For it is my conviction
that Art has as much at stake in this War as Democracy."
[Illustration: _Copyright by Matzene, Chicago_. ALBERT SPALDING]
Yet Lieutenant Spalding, despite the arduous demands of his patriotic
duties, found time to answer some questions of the writer in the
interests of "Violin Mastery" which, representing the views and opinions
of so eminent and distinctively American a violinist, cannot fail to
interest every lover of the Art. Writing from Rome (Sept. 9, 1918),
Lieutenant Spalding modestly said that his answers to the questions
asked "will have to be simple and short, because my time is very
limited, and then, too, having been out of music for more than a year, I
feel it difficult to deal in more than a general way with some of the
questions asked."