Books › Modern violin-playing, 1920 › scan 18
Scan 18
Modern violin-playing, 1920
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 8. See the scan on archive.org.
1The vibrato, as we have already said, is technically a device superimposed upon the florid running-technique. It is therefore useless to attempt to found a running-technique until we are clear as to the action by which the vibrato is produced. And that, again, can not be studied till we understand the nature and purpose of the vibrato.
3Let us, then, devote a few pages to this examination. Let us try to ascertain the constitution and the aesthetic aim of the vibrato.
5Spohr, as we have seen, calls it a wavering of the tone alternately above and below the correct pitch.
7The word "wavering," however, does not at all describe the vibrato which is most commonly heard. It is rather a violent excitement, whose principal effect is to make the timbre of the instrument more penetrating, while obscuring the beauty of the individual notes of a passage. Æsthetically it is unpleasant to the last degree.
9Besides this vibrato, there is another kind that is heard only a little less frequently—a sort of slow rocking sound, which adds nothing whatever to the musical effect, which is not particularly expressive, and which, repeated over and over again, eventually maddens the listener by its futility.
11Let us say at once that the sole object of the vibrato is to enhance the beauty of an already existent sound. Incidentally it draws attention to the notes on which it is used. It gives them, at the discretion of the player, an added emotional thrill; and so contrasts them with the notes which have no vibrato. But the moment the vibrato obscures the true sound of any given note, it becomes an ugly nuisance. Furthermore, the true vibrato—that is to say, the beautiful vibrato—must never give the impression that the pitch is being shifted, either up or down. It must lend a ringing sound to the note on which it is used. And this ringing sound can only be appreciated as a continual return to true pitch. In other words, the ear receives the repeated impression of the correct-pitch-note; and so telegraphs to the mind the impression of that note plus the emotional thrill of the vibrato.
13An important question immediately arises. If this constant return to true pitch is a necessity to the ear, where is the return to be made from, above or below? Is the ear to be disturbed by a continual sharpening or flattening of the pitch?
15The answer to this question governs, and is fundamental to, the whole theory of the vibrato. Differences of pitch always exist to the ear as from below upwards, and never as from above downwards. Diatonic and chromatic differences in pitch are always so judged. And
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