Books › The story of the violin, 1904 › scan 344
Scan 344
The story of the violin, 1904
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 290. See the scan on archive.org.
1Story of the Violin
3composition than the output in small pieces. What do we get? Is it not the Character-stück without the character, the Fantasie-stück without fantasy, musical slop for the most part, written for teaching purposes at the instigation of publishers rather than the sacred call of the muses? This is sweeping, and sounds hard, but look at our violinists' recital-programmes. Generally speaking, they have been fiddling away for the last twenty years or more on the same old effective pieces (I need not name them), just as they did on the Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Bruch, etc., concertos, with an occasional loan from an old master. Paganini, Ernst, Vieuxtemps, and Wieniawski still must do service, and even their airs variés are suffered with a grunt from the critic.
5What is the reason of this sterility? Has the genius for violin composition died out among violinists? Is it the devil's hoof, that legacy of Paganini? Are the muses shunning a generation which persists in shouldering the enormous weight of present-day technique? Has on this altar of technique been sacrificed the better, the more precious thing? Has the modern violinist no time for aught else than drilling his fingers and memorising his difficult solos when he is not up and about earning his bread by teaching or playing? Since the time of Mendelssohn and David (never mind the few exceptions) he has left it to his brother-musician the pianist composer and the Capell-meister to write violin-concertos
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