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Scan 342
An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925
14 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 312. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER XX
3THE PHONOGRAPH AND THE VIOLIN
5There has always been an impression among musicians that mechanical reproductions, known in the vernacular as "canned music," could be of no material assistance in the development of a singer or a student of any instrument, and it is quite true that actual instruction is something which must be imparted orally in order to produce results.
7There can however exist no doubt, except in the minds of those unduly prejudiced, that the higher grade of phonograph reproductions of music rendered by real artists has been a wide-spread and tremendously effective method not only of acquainting the general public with hundreds of classic and modern standard compositions which it would never have heard in any other way, but that they have also elevated the taste of musically uneducated people.
9All the larger phonograph companies have reproduced violin music in a series of mechanically perfect records, and in doing this they have employed the services of almost every great virtuoso who has appeared in the United States in the last twenty years. Some of these reproductions have a historic as well as musical value which cannot be measured in money. The writer possesses a record, made by Joseph Joachim about a year before his death, of his own arrangement of the Brahms "Hungarian Dance, No. I," also a record made by Sarasate of his "Caprice Basque." Both of these records were made of course at a time when the phonograph was far from being as mechanically perfect in recording and reproducing as it is to-day, but both are still faithful reproductions of the marvelous artistic style of these two great virtuosos and can convey to any intelligent student, in no uncertain manner, just how the masters interpreted these numbers.
11There is no question that, where a student can have instruction from only mediocre teachers, listening to records by great artists of standard pieces will be a source of genuine musical education, especially in regard to interpretation. This does not mean that records should be used with the idea of copying such interpretations exactly in a musical sense, but rather that listening to them tends to form a general impression upon the listener's mind as to the poetic thought or intent of the compositions themselves.
13Many of the most important violin compositions are recorded for the different companies by several artists, and it becomes very interesting to make comparisons in interpretation. As a single instance, the "Meditation" from
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