Books › Modern Violin-playing, 1920 › scan 15
Scan 15
Modern Violin-playing, 1920
17 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1tion, sonority was his ideal in tone-production. Opera was not yet in its heyday, and the influence of the church was still felt in the sombre tones of the string-family. However, with the ever-pressing demand for increased agility in the passage-work, the finger-board was lengthened. And the thick strings gave place to a thinner sort, which spoke more easily in the rapid passages, and could be held down with much less effort on the part of the player.
3Unfortunately, the old disciplinary rules for the conduct of the left-hand were not changed at the same time. And we have gone on accepting them to the present day as a sort of gospel, without recognizing the fact that they are only an atavistic survival of primitive artistic conditions, and are actually detrimental in the twentieth century. For instance, the old saw "Let the fingers of the left-hand descend like little hammers" is still quoted, with its authoritative ring, by violin teachers. Yet it is quite certain that any player who follows this advice is ruining his chance of success.
5Perhaps the most telling example of the difference between ancient and modern is to be found in the study and use of the vibrato. In the days before it was commonly employed the florid finger-technique was far less developed than it is now. The position of the left-hand, the function of its thumb, and the finger-action itself were all calculated without any reference to the means of expression in the left-hand.
7But nowadays the vibrato must be available everywhere and at every time. It is the one condition superimposed on the florid finger-technique, and therefore the one element in violin-playing which must be studied and understood before an adequate technique can be developed.
9Let us take a glance backwards.
10Leopold Mozart protests vigorously in his Violin School against the frequent use of the vibrato. Spohr does the same. Mozart's directions for attaining it read as follows:
11"The fingers of the left hand should make a slight, slow movement, not sidewise, but forward and backward, alternately toward the bridge and scroll of the violin."
13Here is Spohr's description of the vibrato:
14"It consists of a slight wavering of the tone alternately above and below the correct pitch, and it is produced by a shaking movement of the left hand toward the bridge."
16The only comment necessary on the above two statements is the third statement that it is a positive scientific fact that the vibrato is a
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