:: Historical Notes ::

“For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his three impressionistic sketches for quartet (which we have played), has the first violin play ponticello throughout, not the natural ponticello, but a quite special one, to produce an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance. I had to try again and again till I found the right technical means to produce the effect desired. Then, the ‘cello is used to imitate the drum; there are special technical problems for the second violin—a single sustained D, with an accompanying pizzicato on the open strings—while the viola is required to suggest the tramp of marching feet. And, again, in other modern quartets we find special technical devices undreamt of in earlier days. Borodine, for instance, is the first to systematically employ successions of harmonics. In the trio of his first quartet the melody is successively introduced by the ‘cello and the first violin, altogether in harmonics.

THE MODERN QUARTET AND AMATEUR PLAYERS

“You ask me whether the average quartet of amateurs, of lovers of string music, can get much out of the more modern quartets. I would say yes, but with some serious reservations. There has been much beautiful music written, but most of it is complicated. In the case of the older quartets, Haydn, Mozart, etc., even if they are not played well, the performers can still obtain an idea of the music, of its thought content. But in the modern quartets, unless each individual player has mastered every technical difficulty, the musical idea does not pierce through, there is no effect.

“I remember when we rehearsed the first Schönberg quartet. It was in 1913, at a Chicago hotel, and we had no score, but only the separate parts. The results, at our first attempt, were so dreadful that we stopped after a few pages. It was not till I had secured a score, studied it and again tried it that we began to see a light. Finally there was not one measure which we did not understand. But Schönberg, Reger, Ravel quartets make too great a demand on the technical ability of the average quartet amateur.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

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THE MODERN QUARTET

“You ask me how the modern quartet differs from its predecessors?” said Mr. Betti. “It differs in many ways. For one thing the modern quartet has developed in a way that makes its inner voices—second violin and viola—much more important than they used to be. Originally, as in Haydn’s early quartets, we have a violin solo with three accompanying instruments. In Beethoven’s last quartets the intermediate voices have already gained a freedom and individuality which before him had not even been suspected. In these last quartets Beethoven has already set forth the principle which was to become the basis of modern polyphony: ‘first of all to allow each voice to express itself freely and fully, and afterward to see what the relations were of one to the other.’ In fact, no one has exercised a more revolutionary effect on the quartet than Beethoven—no one has made it attain so great a degree of progress. And surely the distance separating the quartet as Beethoven found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand Fugue, Op. 131, Op. 132), is greater than that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132, and the most advanced modern quartet, let us say, for instance, Schönberg’s Op. 7. Schönberg, by the way, has only applied and developed the principles established by Beethoven in the latter’s last quartets. But in the modern quartet we have a new element, one which tends more and more to become preponderant, and which might be called orchestral rather than da camera. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky were the first to follow this path, in which the majority of the moderns, including Franck and Debussy, have followed them. And in addition, many among the most advanced modern composers strive for orchestral effects that often lie outside the natural capabilities of the strings!

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

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THE TECHNIC OF THE MODERN QUARTET

What lover of chamber music in its more perfect dispensations is not familiar with the figure of Adolfo Betti, the guiding brain and bow of the Flonzaley Quartet? Born in Florence, he played his first public concert at the age of six, yet as a youth found it hard to choose between literature, for which he had decided aptitude,[A] and music. Fortunately for American concert audiences of to-day, he finally inclined to the latter. An exponent of what many consider the greatest of all violinistic schools, the Belgian, he studied for four years with César Thomson at Liège, spent four more concertizing in Vienna and elsewhere, and returned to Thomson as the latter’s assistant in the Brussels Conservatory, three years before he joined the Flonzaleys, in 1903. With pleasant recollections of earlier meetings with this gifted artist, the writer sought him out, and found him amiably willing to talk about the modern quartet and its ideals, ideals which he personally has done so much to realize.

[A] M. Betti has published a number of critical articles in the Guide Musical of Brussels, the Rivista Musicale of Turin, etc.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

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THE ART OF THE BOW

“You see,” he continued, “the secret of really beautiful violin playing lies in the bow. A Blondin crossing Niagara finds his wire hard and firm where he first steps on it. But as he progresses it vibrates with increasing intensity. And as the tight-rope walker knows how to control the vibrations of his wire, so the violinist must master the vibrations of his strings. Each section of the string vibrates with a different quality of tone. Most pupils think that a big tone is developed by pressure with the bow—yet much depends on what part of the string this pressure is applied. Fingering is an art, of course, but the great art is the art of the bow, the ‘art of bowing,’ as Tartini calls it. When a pupil understands it he has gone far.

“Every pupil may be developed to a certain degree without ever suspecting how important a factor the manipulation of the bow will be in his further progress. He thinks that if the fingers of his left hand are agile he has gained the main end in view. But then he comes to a stop—his left hand can no longer aid him, and he finds that if he wants to play with real beauty of expression the bow supplies the only true key. Out of a hundred who reach this stage,” Mr. Kneisel went on, rather sadly, “only some five or six, or even less, become great artists. They are those who are able to control the bow as well as the left hand. All real art begins with phrasing, and this, too, lies altogether in the mastery of bow—the very soul of the violin!”

I asked Mr. Kneisel how he came to write his own “Advanced Exercises” for the instrument. “I had an idea that a set of studies, in which each single study presented a variety of technical figures might be a relief from the exercises in so many excellent methods, where pages of scales are followed by pages of arpeggios, pages of double-notes and so forth. It is very monotonous to practice pages and pages of a single technical figure,” he added. “Most pupils simply will not do it!” He brought out a copy of his “Exercises” and showed me their plan. “Here, for instance, I have scales, trills, arpeggios—all in the same study, and the study is conceived as a musical composition instead of a technical formula. This is a study in finger position, with all possible bowings. My aim has been to concentrate the technical material of a whole violin school in a set of études with musical interest.”

And he showed me the second book of the studies, in ms., containing exercises in every variety of scale, and trill, bowing, nuance, etc., combined in a single musical movement. This volume also contains his own cadenza to the Beethoven violin concerto. In conclusion Mr. Kneisel laid stress on the importance of the student’s hearing the best music at concert and recital as often as possible, and on the value and incentive supplied by a musical atmosphere in the home and, on leaving him, I could not help but feel that what he had said in our interview, his reflections and observations based on an artistry beyond cavil, and an authoritative experience, would be well worth pondering by every serious student of the instrument. For Franz Kneisel speaks of what he knows.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Select Violins Home