Books › The violin : solo playing, soloists and solos, 1905 › scan 101
Scan 101
The violin : solo playing, soloists and solos, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 85. See the scan on archive.org.
1in imparting your ideas to the other three players, thereby getting a uniformity of expression and phrasing.
3A leader must understand everything about the quartet he is leading. Quartets edify an audience—brilliant solo playing merely gratifies. For an artist to be at the mercy of an audience is sometimes mortifying to one's natural sense of pride. Many violinists in order to make a living have to adapt their pieces to the pleasure of a capricious audience, and often affect a style neither natural or agreeable to the bent of the performer. But in chamber music everything is so different—one can there play for art and pleasure. It is the most enjoyable way of appreciating one's own playing.
5If one considers the restless nature of ambition, it perhaps will not appear strange that this ideal form of playing is a thing little thought of. But nothing is more beneficial—more artistic. A taste and devotion for chamber music, or the want of it, is one of the marks by which it is possible to judge whether one is on or off the right path towards musical culture. Quartet music should unquestionably be an object of devotion to every serious violinist. We should all exert ourselves unremittingly in the promotion of it. It ought to live in every musician's thoughts. It is essentially an act of the mind.
7In a certain sense, a classical work may be performed to depend upon technical facility, but it would not be an ideal rendering. To render such music properly, and to make it sufficiently interesting, is an operation of the mind. Good music should have all homage, both in mind and thought. Still, violinists may, and many undoubtedly do, perform these works, yet, at the same time, without any real affection for them. And it is the one test of the classical frame of the mind, to observe whether one has a liking for these compositions; whether one's feelings are affected as they are performed; and whether one perceives in them merely notes, or so many noble sentiments with what one should feel; for many of the noblest quartets have been written in the truest
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