Books › An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925 › scan 227
Scan 227
An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925
7 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 199. See the scan on archive.org.
1nevertheless, once they are taken up in the right way, may be mastered with rapidity. In one of my thirty "Caprices d'Artiste" the following passage occurs:
3Caprice d'Artiste (Bachmann)
4Allegro
6It is in this case merely a question of shifting with the necessary dexterity. The moment a passage ceases to be violinistic, it should be altered. Saint-Saëns, for whom I entertain the greatest veneration, did not disdain to ask Sarasate's advice with regard to various passages in his violin compositions. It is certain that in the technical development used in the violin concertos written by this illustrious French master, the true inwardness of its mechanism is the most difficult thing to grasp, for it is a mechanism more akin to the piano than to the violin. A violinist can lay aside the Beethoven or the Mendelssohn Concertos, and not play them for three months, and can then take them up and play them in tempo. I defy him to do the same with the Concertos of Brahms and Saint-Saëns, which must be studied over again thoroughly every time they have been laid aside. The instrumental artist is less favored than the painter or the writer in this respect, since he must work with mathematical regularity if he wishes to preserve his ability. Painter and sculptor can lay aside their work for several months and take it up again without any decrease in their skill. Anton Rubinstein, whom I had the pleasure of knowing in Dresden, in 1891, once told me that when he let a day go by without practicing he noticed it, and that when he allowed two days to pass without working, the public noticed it.
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