Books › The violinist, 1900 › scan 55
Scan 55
The violinist, 1900
46 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1proceeded to tell how much he knew about the subject, which took perhaps an hour. He ended up by saying that a friend of his had made several hundred instruments.
3Some doubt being expressed as to this being possible, he replied. "Oh, well! He made them on a band saw—all he had to do was to put them together."
5This is a true story. I know the great violin maker. One of the "Washington Marine Band" boys was the other one.
7G. M. B.
9Editor The Violinist:
10I am a violinist and recently a copy of The Violinist came into my hands. It was the April number, 1911. On page 39 I find a challenge to violinists and have taken it up. I am sending you my answer.
12"You talk about your saxophone,
13Your cello and your horn,
14As though they were the nicest things
15That in this world are born,
16And slander my dear fiddle
17And call it a pesky thing.
18But let me tell you something—
19It takes Brains to make it sing."
21I shall, of course, be interested to know if you print my answer to the challenge.
22Yours truly,
23HELEN KATZ.
25Richard Strauss and His Modern Methods of Composition and Orchestration.
26Editor The Violinist:
27Much has and is being written of Strauss and his methods—of his piling one discord on top of another without preparation or resolution; of inventing new instruments to produce strange and hideous sounds, etc. Weingartner, in a recent interview, says he considers Strauss' writings noise not music. I will give some reasons for justification of his methods.
29He is living in and writing for this age; and the present age and conditions are quite different from those days of the old classic composers. Here are many of the things Strauss and some of the other modern composers have for a model to copy after: First, the shriek of the railroad engine whistles, and rumble of the cars; then the sizzle and hum of the trolley cars; next the whiz and buzz of automobiles, and the outlandish sounds given out from some of their horns; then, too, I go into some peoples' homes where every member of the family talks in as loud a voice as their lungs will stand, and all talking at once, but some on one subject and some another; and for a crowning effect in instrumentation, take the fog horns along the ocean fronts, with their doleful bellow, like a giant cow in distress. All these things the older composers did not have to listen to.
31I have heard music of Strauss which suits me—brought up from boyhood in the severely classical school—Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, down to Wagner, but I am too old to learn modern methods in music, and not in sympathy with anything which gets very far from the style of the old composers. In the days of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven to Liszt and Wagner, they could go into the open fields in pleasant weather and compose without being distracted by shrieks and noise of every imaginable kind, but could listen to the much pleasanter sounds of the running brooks, the singing of birds, the sighing of the breeze through the trees, and incorporate or weave them into their compositions, instead of the howls, screeches and unearthly noises we have to listen to in these days.
33Editor The Violinist:
34I should ve very pleased if you could supply me with all the copies of your little journal, called The Violinist, and the amount it will cost to get them, including the postage to me at Methley, Yorkshire, England. If you will kindly let me know by return of post I will forward the same on to you at once for their return.
36I am faithfully and most obediently yours,
37JAMES RICHARD CREWE.
38Mendelssohn House,
39Pinfold Lane,
40Methley,
41N. Leeds,
42Yorkshire,
43England.
44National Association of Amateurs, National Federation of Artists, Academy of Violinists.
45I will introduce them to the following schools for you if you don't object.
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