Violin Mastery - FRANZ KNEISEL - Part 4
“ENSEMBLE” REHEARSING
“You ask what are the essentials of ensemble practice on the part of the artists? Real reverence, untiring zeal and punctuality at rehearsals. And then, an absolute sense of rhythm. I remember rehearsing a Volkmann quartet once with a new second violinist.” [Mr. Kneisel crossed over to his bookcase and brought me the score to illustrate the rhythmic point in question, one slight in itself yet as difficult, perhaps, for a player without an absolute sense of rhythm as "perfect intonation" would be for some others.] “He had a lovely tone, a big technic and was a prize pupil of the Vienna Conservatory. We went over this two measure phrase some sixteen times, until I felt sure he had grasped the proper accentuation. And he was most amiable and willing about it, too. But when we broke up he pointed to the passage and said to me with a smile: ‘After all, whether you play it this way, or that way, what’s the difference?’ Then I realized that he had stressed his notes correctly a few times by chance, and that his own sense of rhythm did not tell him that there were no two ways about it. The rhythmic and tonal nuances in a quartet cannot be marked too perfectly in order to secure a beautiful and finished performance. And such a violinist as the one mentioned, in spite of his tone and technic, was never meant for an ensemble player.
“I have never believed in a quartet getting together and ‘reading’ a new work as a preparation for study. As first violin I have always made it my business to first study the work in score, myself, to study it until I knew the whole composition absolutely, until I had a mental picture of its meaning, and of the interrelation of its four voices in detail. Thirty-two years of experience have justified my theory. Once the first violin knows the work the practicing may begin; for he is in a position gradually and tactfully to guide the working-out of the interpretation without losing time in the struggle to correct faults in balance which are developed in an unprepared ‘reading’ of the work. There is always one important melody, and it is easier to find it studying the score, to trace it with eye and mind in its contrapuntal web, than by making voyages of discovery in actual playing.
“Every player has his own qualities, every instrument its own advantages. Certain passages in a second violin or viola part may be technically better suited to the hand of the player, to the nature of the instrument, and—they will sound better than others. Yet from the standpoint of the composition the passages that ‘lie well’ are often not the more important. This is hard for the player—what is easy for him he unconsciously is inclined to stress, and he must be on his guard against it. This is another strong argument in favor of a thorough preliminary study on the part of the leading violin of the construction of the work.”
Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919
