Books › An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925 › scan 253
Scan 253
An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925
14 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 225. See the scan on archive.org.
1ould not be crowded together on one and the same program, lest all of them suffer. Too long and sustained an attention on the part of the auditors is sometimes demanded. I remember attending one of the Concerts-Colonnes some years ago, and hearing a program devoted to the works of Camille Saint-Saëns. That master himself conducted one of his symphonies, Ysaye played the "Violin Concerto in B Minor," and Raoul Pugno the "Fifth Concerto" for piano, and some of the symphonic poems were also presented. This music was all admirable, but in its entirety the program was overpowering, and the auditor left a concert which he had attended for enjoyment's sake in a state of utter mental exhaustion. A concert should never last longer than two hours, and a program, if it is to be logical, should never have a symphony preceding a concerto.
3In order to facilitate my comments on the Beethoven Concerto, I shall simply take each period of 32 measures in succession and discuss it, beginning with the solo after the first tutti.
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7The beginning should be played calmly and without any striving for exterior effect, as well as with a certain restraint, which may be brought out by a slight holding back on the first triplets,
9with a very brief stop on the F. Too academic an execution of this beginning would give it a stiffness which is by no means in accordance with the composer's thought. At the end of the triplet figuration the measure should broaden out in such manner that the succeeding fragment begins naturally with a sustained playing of its first note.
11The various phrase fragments of the following period should be, so to speak, detached, while the player is attentive to maintain a balance of sonority, avoiding any crescendo before the end of the period has been reached:
13In the following measures:
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