Scan 38
Violin master works and their interpretation, 1925
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1into the tree-crests, so that the latter bend groaning in one and another direction as their torn leaves are whirled about, we progress to the solemn beauty of the movement in D major, in which the radiance of the evening sun falls into the valley. This golden radiance flows through the air, the waves of the stream run gold and mirror the picture in the sky's dome, rising majestically into space immeasurable. The master's spirit inspires the instrument to express the inconceivable; at the end of the D major movement the music wells like organ-tone, at times one hears a whole chorus of violins."
3The "Ciaconna" is unquestionably one of the most difficult violin compositions to perform in public! We have to take into consideration that aside from the technical factor, a really profound musical understanding is necessary in order to allow each Variation to unfold its own individual character, and to preserve the deeply dramatic quality of the entire work and thus make it comprehensible to the listener. Besides, there are various external difficulties which have to be taken into account:
51. There is the matter of memory. Ordinarily, when playing with piano* or orchestra accompaniment, the solo artist has a musical support which helps him over many little memnotic weaknesses; in the case of the "Ciaconna" the very slightest lapse of memory would at once stand out and distract from the effect of the whole performance.
72. Another vital problem is that of making the strings stay in tune in a crowded hall. To return once more to the matter of the accompaniment: ordinarily we would say that a solo player can tune his strings during the intermissions played by piano or orchestra, but in the case of the "Ciaconna" it is utterly impossible to tune the violin during the performance. There remains only a choice of playing on strings which are out of tune with as much purity of intonation as the exertion of the greatest effort will allow, or of breaking off at the end of a Variation in order to tune the strings, thus completing the performance under difficulties.
9* Though two great composers, Schumann and Mendelssohn, have exhausted their ingenuity in inventing adequate piano accompaniments for the "Ciaconna," every violinist instinctively feels that it is a work essentially complete in itself, a solo work for the violin which needs no support.
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