Books › Modern violin-playing, 1920 › scan 16
Scan 16
Modern violin-playing, 1920
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1movement of the hand away from the bridge. This we shall see and understand later.
3It is only forty years since Courvoisier, after decrying the use of the vibrato altogether, summed up the position (in his Violin Technique) as follows:
5"The whole real power of expression lies rather in the stroke of the bow; primarily in an intelligent accentuation producing rhythmic clarity, and then particularly in the increase and decrease of tone-power."
7Finally, one may add that the late Dr. Joseph Joachim, in describing Molique's playing, used to assert that it was without any vibrato whatever. Nevertheless, he considered him "a most distinguished musician."
9These two points—the modern alterations in the violin itself and the modern use of the vibrato—will give the reader a broad hint that an unprejudiced examination of violin-technique is an actual necessity. To arrive at the essential factors in the problem, one may appear at first to be rather destructive than constructive. But the chief aim of this book, as was said at the beginning of the chapter, is to help violin-students, that is to say, all who study the violin, whether as soloists, as teachers, or as pupils. And the best means to attain that happy end is to remove from one's mind all the flim-flam as to the "mystery" of the instrument. There is nothing occult about the violin. Its acoustic and physical properties are, as far as they concern the player, simple and easily ascertained. The general laws of mechanics are equally well-known. And it only remains to join these two links by the third and more delicate link, the action of the player's body.
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