"My violin? It is a Stradivarius--the same which once belonged to the
celebrated Baillot. I think it is good for a violin to rest, so during
the three months when I am not playing in concert, I send my
Stradivarius away to the instrument maker's, and only take it out about
a month before I begin to play again in public. What do I use in the
meantime? Caressa, the best violin maker in Paris, made me an exact copy
of my own Strad, exact in every little detail. It is so good that
sometimes, when circumstances compelled me to, I have used it in
concert, though it lacks the tone-quality of the original. This
under-study violin I can use for practice, and when I go back to the
original, as far as the handling of the instrument is concerned, I never
know the difference.
"But I do not think that every one plays to the best advantage on a
Strad. I'm a believer in the theory that there are natural Guarnerius
players and natural Stradivarius players; that certain artists do their
best with the one, and certain others with the other. And I also believe
that any one who is 'equally' good in both, is great on neither. The
reason I believe in Guarnerius players and Stradivarius players as
distinct is this. Some years ago I had a sudden call to play in Ostende.
It was a concert engagement which I had overlooked, and when it was
recalled to me I was playing golf in Brittany. I at once hurried to
Paris to get my violin from Caressa, with whom I had left it, but--his
safe, in which it had been put, and to which he only had the
combination, was locked. Caressa himself was in Milan. I telegraphed him
but found that he could not get back in time before the concert to
release my violin. So I telegraphed Ysaye at Namur, to ask if he could
loan me a violin for the concert. 'Certainly' he wired back. So I
hurried to his home and, with his usual generosity, he insisted on my
taking both his treasured Guarnerius and his 'Hercules' Strad
(afterwards stolen from him in Russia), in order that I might have my
choice. His brother-in-law and some friends accompanied me from Namur to
Ostende--no great distance--to hear the concert. Well, I played the
Guarnerius at rehearsal, and when it was over, every one said to me,
'Why, what is the matter with your fiddle? (It was the one Ysaye always
used.) It has no tone at all.' At the concert I played the Strad and
secured a big tone that filled the hall, as every one assured me. When
I brought back the violins to Ysaye I mentioned the circumstance to him,
and he was so surprised and interested that he took them from the cases
and played a bit, first on one, then on the other, a number of times.
And invariably when he played the Strad (which, by the way, he had not
used for years) he, Ysaye--imagine it!--could develop only a small tone;
and when he played the Guarnerius, he never failed to develop that
great, sonorous tone we all know and love so well. Take Sarasate, when
he lived, Elman, myself--we all have the habit of the Stradivarius: on
the other hand Ysaye and Kreisler are Guarnerius players _par
excellence_!
"Yes, I use a wire E string. Before I found out about them I had no end
of trouble. In New Orleans I snapped seven gut strings at a single
concert. Some say that you can tell the difference, when listening,
between a gut and a wire E. I cannot, and I know a good many others who
cannot. After my last New York recital I had tea with Ysaye, who had
done me the honor of attending it. 'What strings do you use?' he asked
me, _à propos_ to nothing in particular. When I told him I used a wire E
he confessed that he could not have told the difference. And, in fact,
he has adopted the wire E just like Kreisler, Maud Powell and others,
and has told me that he is charmed with it--for Ysaye has had a great
deal of trouble with his strings. I shall continue to use them even
after the war, when it will be possible to obtain good gut strings
again.