Scan 21
The violin : solo playing, soloists and solos, 1905
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1"I have no doubt that the time is fast approaching when many English names will be found worthy to stand high in the list of modern artists. However visionary this expectation appears, it has already been proved, for I can mention English names who would undoubtedly do honour to any modern school. Their playing has for ever decided the question respecting the capacity of the English for excelling in violin playing; and the enthusiasm with which their success will inspire their successors, joined to the establishment of a British school of playing, gives me abundant reason to hope that the full accomplishment of my prophecy will not long be delayed. The efforts of a powerful body of players, composed of the first in rank, taste, knowledge and influence, if properly directed, cannot fail of success. On them, therefore, every eye will be turned, with a grateful confidence, that measures will speedily be adopted to put the hitherto neglected British school of playing on a firm and respectable basis, to disseminate their principles, and forward the cultivation of them, in that style, and on that scale, best suited to their dignity and importance, best calculated to confer honour on our country, and hasten that desired period, when on this, as on every other ground, we may see English violinists stand emulous of foreign fame.
3"But in Germany, happy country! all causes are combined in favour of the progress of violin playing, as if nature was determined to show for once what the human powers, aided by every circumstance, is capable of accomplishing. Violin playing by their own countrymen is there received with enthusiasm, liberally encouraged and pursued by a succession of the mightiest players of the present day, who, with incredible rapidity, complete their education in its technical elements, in phrasing, in expression and composition; every delicacy of bowing and mechanical skill crowns the whole, and the violin in their hands becomes adequate to the representation of all that is grand, beautiful and impressive in music. In short, the German great violinists, Joachim and Wilhelmj, not only
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