Violin Mastery Part 13

XVIII

ALEXANDER SASLAVSKY

WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO

Alexander Saslavsky is probably best known as a solo artist, as the concertmaster of a great symphonic orchestra, as the leader of the admirable quartet which bears his name. Yet, at the same time, few violinists can speak with more authority anent the instructive phases of their Art. Not only has he been active for years in the teaching field; but as a pedagog he rounds out the traditions of Ferdinand David, Ma.s.sard, Auer, and Grun (Vienna _Hochschule_), acquired during his "study years," with the result of his own long and varied experience.

Beginning at the beginning, I asked Mr. Saslavsky to tell me something about methods, his own in particular. "Method is a flexible term," he answered. "What the word should mean is the cultivation of the pupil's individuality along the lines best suited to it. Not that a guide which may be employed to develop common-sense principles is not valuable. But even here, the same guide (violin-method) will not answer for every pupil. Personally I find De Beriot's 'Violin School' the most generally useful, and for advanced students, Ferdinand David's second book. Then, for scales--I insist on my pupils being able to play, a perfect scale through three octaves--the Hrimaly book of scales. Many advanced violinists cannot play a good scale simply because of a lack of fundamental work.

"As soon as the pupil is able, he should take up Kreutzer and stick to him as the devotee does to his Bible. Any one who can play the '42 Exercises' as they should be played may be called a well-balanced violinist. There are too many purely mechanical exercises--and the circ.u.mstance that we have Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo, Rovelli and Dont emphasizes the fact. And there are too many elaborate and complicated violin methods. Sevcik, for instance, has devised a purely mechanical system of this kind, perfect from a purely mechanical standpoint, but one whose consistent use, in my opinion, kills initiative and individuality. I have had experience with Sevcik pupils in quartet playing, and have found that they have no expression.

WHAT THE TEACHER CAN AND CANNOT DO

"After all, the teacher can only supply the pupil with the violinistic equipment. The pupil must use it. There is tone, for instance. The teacher cannot _make_ tone for the pupil--he can only show him how tone can be made. Sometimes a purely physiological reason makes it almost impossible for the pupil to produce a good natural tone. If the finger-tips are not adequately equipped with 'cus.h.i.+ons,' and a pupil wishes to use the _vibrato_ there is nothing with which he can vibrate.

There is real meaning, speaking of the violinist's tone, in the phrase 'he has it at his fingers' tips.' Then there is the matter of _slow_ practice. It rests with the pupil to carry out the teacher's injunctions in this respect. The average pupil practices too fast, is too eager to develop his Art as a money maker. And too many really gifted students take up orchestra playing, which no one can do continuously and hope to be a solo player. Four hours of study work may be nullified by a single hour of orchestra playing. Musically it is broadening, of course, but I am speaking from the standpoint of the student who hopes to become a solo artist. An opera orchestra is especially bad in this way. In the symphonic _ensemble_ more care is used; but in the opera orchestra they employ the _right_ arm for tremolo! There is a good deal of _camouflage_ as regards string playing in an opera orchestra, and much of the music--notably Wagner's--is quite impracticable.

"And lessons are often made all too short. A teacher in common honesty cannot really give a pupil much in half-an-hour--it is not a real lesson. There is a good deal to be said for cla.s.s teaching as it is practiced at the European conservatories, especially as regards interpretation. In my student days I learned much from listening to others play the concertos they had prepared, and from noting the teacher's corrections. And this even in a purely technical way: I can recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the _technical_ points of violin playing.

A GREAT DEFECT

"Most pupils seem to lack an absolute sense of rhythm--a great defect.

Yet where latent it may be developed. Here Kreutzer is invaluable, since he presents every form of rhythmic problem, scales in various rhythms and bowings. Kreutzer's 'Exercise No. 2,' for example, may be studied with any number of bowings. To produce a broad tone the bow must move slowly, and in rapid pa.s.sages should never seem to introduce technical exercises in a concert number. The student should memorize Kreutzer and Fiorillo. Flesch's _Urstudien_ offer the artist or professional musician who has time for little practice excellent material; but are not meant for the pupil, unless he be so far advanced that he may be trusted to use them alone.

TONE: PRACTICE TIME

"Broad playing gives the singing tone--the true violin tone--a long bow drawn its full length. Like every general rule though, this one must be modified by the judgment of the individual player. Violin playing is an art of many mysteries. Some pupils grasp a point at once; others have to have it explained seven or eight different ways before grasping it. The serious student should practice not less than four hours, preferably in twenty minute intervals. After some twenty minutes the brain is apt to tire. And since the fingers are controlled by the brain, it is best to relax for a short time before going on. Mental and physical control must always go hand in hand. Four hours of intelligent, consistent practice work are far better than eight or ten of fatigued effort.

A NATIONAL CONSERVATORY

"Some five years ago too many teachers gave their pupils the Mendelssohn and Paganini concertos to play before they knew their Kreutzer. But there has been a change for the better during recent years. Kneisel was one of the first to produce pupils here who played legitimately, according to standard violinistic ideals. One reason why Auer has had such brilliant pupils is that poor students were received at the Petrograd Conservatory free of charge. All they had to supply was talent; and I look forward to the time when we will have a National conservatory in this country, supported by the Government. Then the poor, but musically gifted, pupil will have the same opportunities that his brother, who is well-to-do, now has.

SOME PERSONAL VIEWS AND REFLECTIONS

"You ask me to tell you something of my own musical preferences. Well, take the concertos. I have reached a point where the Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Brahms concertos seen to sum up what is truly worth while. The others begin to bore me; even Bruch! Paganini, Wieniawski, etc., are mainly mediums of display. Most of the great violinists, Ysaye, Thibaud, etc., during recent years are reverting to the violin sonatas. Ysaye, for instance, has recently been playing the Lazzari sonata, a very powerful and beautiful work.

"My experiences as a 'concertmaster'? I have played with Weingartner; Saint-Saens (whose amiability to me, when he first visited this country, I recall with pleasure); Gustav Mahler, Tschaikovsky, Safonoff, Seidel, Bauer, and Walter Damrosch, whose friend and a.s.sociate I have been for the last twenty-two years. He is a wonderful man, many-sided and versatile; a notably fine pianist; and playing chamber music with him during successive summers is numbered among my pleasantest recollections.

"In speaking of concertos some time ago, I forgot to mention one work well worth studying. This is the Russian Mlynarski's concerto in D, which I played with the Russian Symphony Orchestra some eight years ago for the first time in this country, as well as a fine 'Romance and Caprice' by Rubinstein.

"Is the music a concertmaster is called upon to play always violinistic?

Far from it. Symphonic music--in as much as the concertmaster is concerned, is usually not idiomatic violin music. Richard Strauss's violin concerto can really be played by the violinist. The _obbligatos_ in his symphonies are a very different matter; they go beyond accepted technical boundaries. With Stravinsky it is the same. The violin _obbligato_ in Rimsky-Korsakov's _Scheherazade_, though, is real violin music. Debussy and Ravel are most subtle; they call for a particularly good ear, since the harmonic balance of their music is very delicate.

The concertmaster has to develop his own interpretations, subject, of course, to the conductor's ideas.

VIOLIN MASTERY

"Violin Mastery? It means to me complete control of the fingerboard, a being at home in every position, absolute sureness of fingering, absolute equality of tone under all circ.u.mstances. I remember Ysaye playing Tschaikovsky's _Serenade Melancolique_, and using a fingering for certain pa.s.sages which I liked very much. I asked him to give it to me in detail, but he merely laughed and said: 'I'd like to, but I cannot, because I really do not remember which fingers I used!' That is mastery--a control so complete that fingering was unconscious, and the interpretation of the thought was all that was in the artist's mind!

Sevcik's 'complete technical mastery' is after all not perfect, since it represents mechanical and not mental control."

XIX

TOSCHA SEIDEL

HOW TO STUDY

Toscha Seidel, though one of the more recent of the young Russian violinists who represent the fruition of Professor Auer's formative gifts, has, to quote H.F. Peyser, "the transcendental technic observed in the greatest pupils of his master, a command of mechanism which makes the rough places so plain that the traces of their roughness are hidden to the unpracticed eye." He commenced to study the violin seriously at the age of seven in Odessa, his natal town, with Max Fiedemann, an Auer pupil. A year and a half later Alexander Fiedemann heard him play a De Beriot concerto in public, and induced him to study at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, with Brodsky, a pupil of Joachim, with whom he remained for two years.

It was in Berlin that the young violinist reached the turning point of his career. "I was a boy of twelve," he said, "when I heard Jascha Heifetz play for the first time. He played the Tschaikovsky concerto, and he played it wonderfully. His bowing, his fingering, his whole style and manner of playing so greatly impressed me that I felt I _must_ have his teacher, that I would never be content unless I studied with Professor Auer! In 1912 I at length had an opportunity to play for the Professor in his home at Loschivitz, in Dresden, and to my great joy he at once accepted me as a pupil.

STUDYING WITH PROFESSOR AUER

"Studying with Professor Auer was a revelation. I had private lessons from him, and at the same time attended the cla.s.ses at the Petrograd Conservatory. I should say that his great specialty, if one can use the word specialty in the case of so universal a master of teaching as the Professor, was bowing. In all violin playing the left hand, the finger hand, might be compared to a perfectly adjusted technical machine, one that needs to be kept well oiled to function properly. The right hand, the bow hand, is the direct opposite--it is the painter hand, the artist hand, its phrasing outlines the pictures of music; its _nuances_ fill them with beauty of color. And while the Professor insisted as a matter of course on the absolute development of finger mechanics, he was an inspiration as regards the right manipulation of the bow, and its use as a medium of interpretation. And he made his pupils think. Often, when I played a pa.s.sage in a concerto or sonata and it lacked clearness, he would ask me: 'Why is this pa.s.sage not clear?' Sometimes I knew and sometimes I did not. But not until he was satisfied that I could not myself answer the question, would he show me how to answer it. He could make every least detail clear, ill.u.s.trating it on his own violin; but if the pupil could 'work out his own salvation' he always encouraged him to do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOSCHA SEIDEL, with hand-written note]

"Most teachers make bowing a very complicated affair, adding to its difficulties. But Professor Auer develops a _natural_ bowing, with an absolutely free wrist, in all his pupils; for he teaches each student along the line of his individual apt.i.tudes. Hence the length of the fingers and the size of the hand make no difference, because in the case of each pupil they are treated as separate problems, capable of an individual solution. I have known of pupils who came to him with an absolutely stiff wrist; and yet he taught them to overcome it.

ARTIST PUPILS AND AMATEUR STUDENTS

"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!

HOW TO STUDY

"Scale study--all Auer pupils had to practice scales every day, scales in all the intervals--is a most important thing. And following his idea of stimulating the pupil's self-development, the Professor encouraged us to find what we needed ourselves. I remember that once--we were standing in a corridor of the Conservatory--when I asked him, 'What should I practice in the way of studies?' he answered: 'Take the difficult pa.s.sages from the great concertos. You cannot improve on them, for they are as good, if not better, as any studies written.' As regards technical work we were also encouraged to think out our own exercises.

And this I still do. When I feel that my thirds and sixths need attention I practice scales and original figurations in these intervals.

But genuine, resultful practice is something that should never be counted by 'hours.' Sometimes I do not touch my violin all day long; and one hour with head work is worth any number of days without it. At the most I never practice more than three hours a day. And when my thoughts are fixed on other things it would be time lost to try to practice seriously. Without technical control a violinist could not be a great artist; for he could not express himself. Yet a great artist can give even a technical study, say a Rode _etude_, a quality all its own in playing it. That technic, however, is a means, not an end, Professor Auer never allowed his pupils to forget. He is a wonderful master of interpretation. I studied the great concertos with him--Beethoven, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tschaikovsky, Dvorak*, the Brahms concerto (which I prefer to any other); the Vieuxtemps Fifth and Lalo (both of which I have heard Ysaye, that supreme artist who possesses all that an artist should have, play in Berlin); the Elgar concerto (a fine work which I once heard Kreisler, an artist as great as he is modest, play wonderfully in Petrograd), as well as other concertos of the standard repertory. And Professor Auer always sought to have us play as individuals; and while he never allowed us to overstep the boundaries of the musically esthetic, he gave our individuality free play within its limits. He never insisted on a pupil accepting his own _nuances_ of interpretation because they were his. I know that when playing for him, if I came to a pa.s.sage which demanded an especially beautiful _legato_ rendering, he would say: 'Now show how you can sing!' The exquisite _legato_ he taught was all a matter of perfect bowing, and as he often said: 'There must be no such thing as strings or hair in the pupil's consciousness. One must not play violin, one must sing violin!'

*Transcriber's note: Original text read "Dvorak".