"Sevčik's purely soulless and mechanical system has undoubtedly produced
a number of excellent mechanicians of the violin. But it has just as
unquestionably killed real talent. Kubelik--there was a genuinely
talented violinist! If he had had another teacher instead of Sevčik he
would have been great, for he had great gifts. Even as it was he played
well, but I consider him one of Sevčik's victims. As an illustration of
how the technical point of view is thrust to the fore by this system I
remember some fifteen years ago Kubelik and I were staying at the same
villa in Monte-Carlo, where we were to play the Beethoven concerto, each
of us, in concert, two days apart. Kubelik spent the live-long day
before the concert practicing Sevčik exercises. I read and studied
Beethoven's score, but did not touch my violin. I went to hear Kubelik
play the concerto, and he played it well; but then, so did I, when my
turn came. And I feel sure I got more out of it musically and
spiritually, than I would have if instead of concentrating on its
meaning, its musical message, I had prepared the concerto as a problem
in violin mechanics whose key was contained in a number of dry technical
exercises arbitrarily laid down.
"Technic, in the case of the more advanced violinist, should not have a
place in the foreground of his consciousness. I heard Rubinstein play
when a boy--what did his false notes amount to compared with his
wonderful manner of disclosing the spirit of the things he played!
Planté, the Parisian pianist, a kind of keyboard cyclone, once expressed
the idea admirably to an English society lady. She had told him he was a
greater pianist than Rubinstein, because the latter played so many wrong
notes. 'Ah, Madame,' answered Planté, 'I would rather be able to play
Rubinstein's wrong notes than all my own correct ones.' A violinist's
natural manner of playing is the one he should cultivate; since it is
individual, it really represents him. And a teacher or a colleague of
greater fame does him no kindness if he encourages him to distrust his
own powers by too good naturedly 'showing' him how to do this, that or
the other. I mean, when the student can work out his problem himself at
the expense of a little initiative.
"When I was younger I once had to play Bach's G minor fugue at a concert
in Brussels. I was living at Ysaye's home, and since I had never played
the composition in public before, I began to worry about its
interpretation. So I asked Ysaye (thinking he would simply show me),
'How ought I to play this fugue?' The Master reflected a moment and then
dashed my hopes by answering: _'Tu m'embêtes!'_ (You bore me!) 'This
fugue should be played well, that's all!' At first I was angry, but
thinking it over, I realized that if he had shown me, I would have
played it just as he did; while what he wanted me to do was to work out
my own version, and depend on my own initiative--which I did, for I had
no choice. It is by means of concentration on the higher, the
interpretative phases of one's Art that the technical side takes its
proper, secondary place. Technic does not exist for me in the sense of a
certain quantity of mechanical work which I must do. I find it out of
the question to do absolutely mechanical technical work of any length of
time. In realizing the three essentials of good violin playing which I
have already mentioned, Ysaye and Sarasate are my ideals.