Scan 33
The violin : solo playing, soloists and solos, 1905
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1pupils, and their names would be handed down to posterity.
3I am fully aware that I now tread on delicate ground, but I express my sentiments with an unrestrained freedom whether my readers think I am right or wrong. It does not follow that because these men are in many things undoubtedly wrong, I am in all things undoubtedly right. The presumption is, that I am not. I only want my readers to judge for themselves of what is right and wrong in my remarks. However, I consider that such teachers as the above ought to be unsparingly censured, for there exists some ground for censure. Since the study of the violin is a very complex subject, it is quite possible to conceive that we have all occasionally been in the wrong. All men of observation and reflection must have formed some notions which have been advocated by friends. But I am digressing. The great point which you have to consider is, your purpose in the present position of things; and that manifestly is, to examine and study scales with real strictness and severity. It will, indeed, be much better and wiser to discover and correct errors and defects, before critics reprove you in a very reprehensible tone and manner. Scales are indeed tedious, to use no stronger term, but they open up things before our view, in which we cannot fail to find benefits which amply remunerate us for all our practising.
5To say they will make soloists would be preposterous, but seriously, everybody must admit, that technique which will not shrink from the severest scrutiny is a long way on the road. He is a clever player who can conceal, palliate his technical deficiencies and hide his mistakes under the cloak of interpretation. Good technique gives such general satisfaction. It magnifies one's achievements to feel they have employed their energies according to their ability. Take advice, or it will be by no means strange, when you appear on a concert platform, that in some respects you fail to exhibit the entireness of excellence, which ought always to be kept in view. Do
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