Violin Mastery - FRANZ KNEISEL - Part 2
“THE ARTIST RANKS THE VIRTUOSO IN CHAMBER MUSIC”
“The artist, the Tonkünstler, to use a foreign phrase, ranks the virtuoso in chamber music. Joachim was no virtuoso, he did not stress technic, the less important factor in ensemble playing. Sarasate was a virtuoso in the best sense of the word; and yet as an ensemble music player he fell far short of Joachim. As I see it ‘virtuoso’ is a kind of flattering title, no more. But a Tonkünstler, a ‘tone-artist,’ though he must have the virtuoso technic in order to play Brahms and Beethoven concertos, needs besides a spiritual insight, a deep concept of their nobility to do them justice—the mere technic demanded for a virtuoso show piece is not enough.
VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET
“You ask me what ‘Violin Mastery’ means in the string quartet. It has an altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string ensemble is as much mastery of self as of technical means. The artist must sink his identity completely in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a mastery of repression as well as expression. I realized how keenly alive the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in Alma-Tadema’s beautiful London home, for the great English painter was also a music-lover and a very discriminating one. He had a fine piano in a beautifully decorated case, and it was an open secret that at his musical evenings, after an artist had played, the lid of the piano was raised, and Sir Lawrence asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft white wood of its inner surface—but only if he thought the compliment deserved. There were some famous names written there—Joachim, Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention a few. Naturally an artist playing at Alma-Tadema’s home for the first time could not help speculating as to his chances. Many were called, but comparatively few were chosen. We were guests at a dinner given by Sir Lawrence. There were some fifty people prominent in London’s artistic, musical and social world present, and we had no idea of being asked to play. Our instruments were at our hotel and we had to send for them. We played the Schubert quartet in A minor and Dvo?ák’s ‘American’ quartet and, of course, my colleagues and myself forgot all about the piano lid the moment we began to play. Yet, I’m free to confess, that when the piano lid was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was no empty compliment coming from Sir Lawrence, and I have been told that some very distinguished artists have not had it extended to them. And I know that on that evening the phrase ‘Violin Mastery’ in an ensemble sense, as the outcome of ceaseless striving for coördination in expression, absolute balance, and all the details that go to make up the perfect ensemble, seemed to us to have a very definite color and meaning.
Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919
