CONTENTS
XIII
DAVID MANNES
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
That David Mannes, the well-known violinist
and conductor, so long director of the
New York Music School Settlement, would
be able to speak in an interesting and authoritative
manner on his art, was a foregone conclusion
in the writer's mind. A visit to the
educator's own beautiful "Music School" confirmed
this conviction. In reply to some
questions concerning his own study years Mr.
Mannes spoke of his work with Heinrich de
Ahna, Karl Halir and Eugène Ysaye. "When
I came to de Ahna in Berlin, I was, unfortunately,
not yet ready for him, and so did not
get much benefit from his instruction. In the
case of Halir, to whom I went later, I was in
much better shape to take advantage of what
he could give me, and profited accordingly.
It is a point any student may well note—that
when he thinks of studying with some famous
teacher he be technically and musically
equipped to take advantage of all that the latter
may be able to give him. Otherwise it is
a case of love's labor lost on the part of both.
Karl Halir was a sincere and very thorough
teacher. He was a Spohr player par excellence,
and I have never found his equal in the
playing of Spohr's Gesangsscene. With him
I studied Kreutzer, Rode, Fiorillo; and to
know Halir as a teacher was to know him at
his best; since as a public performer—great
violinist as he was—he did not do himself justice,
because he was too nervous and high-strung.
David Mannes
STUDYING WITH YSAYE
"It was while sitting among the first violins in the New York Symphony Orchestra that I first heard Ysaye. And for the first time in my life I heard a man with whom I fervently wanted to study; an artist whose whole attitude with regard to tone and sound reproduction embodied my ideals.
"I worked with Ysaye in Brussels and in his cottage at Godinne. Here he taught much as Liszt did at Weimar, a group of from ten to twenty disciples. Early in the morning he went fishing in the Meuse, then back to breakfast and then came the lessons: not more than three or four a day. Those who studied drew inspiration from him as the pianists of the Weimar circle did from their Master. In fact, Ysaye's standpoint toward music had a good deal in common with Rubinstein's and he often said he wished he could play the violin as Rubinstein did the piano. Ysaye is an artist who has transcended his own medium—he has become a poet of sound. And unless the one studying with him could understand and appreciate this fact he made a poor teacher. But to me, in all humility, he was and will always remain a wonderful inspiration. As an influence in my career his marvelous genius is unique. In my own teaching I have only to recall his tone, his playing in his little cottage on the banks of the Meuse which the tide of war has swept away, to realize in a cumulative sense the things he tried to make plain to me then. Ysaye taught the technic of expression as against the expression of technic. He gave the lessons of a thousand teachers in place of the lessons of one. The greatest technical development was required by Ysaye of a pupil; and given this pre-requisite, he could open up to him ever enlarging horizons of musical beauty.
"Nor did he think that the true beauty of violin playing must depend upon six to eight hours of daily practice work. I absolutely believe with Ysaye that unless a student can make satisfactory progress with three hours of practice a day, he should not attempt to play the violin. Inability to do so is in itself a confession of failure at the outset. Nor do I think it possible to practice the violin intensively more than three-quarters of an hour at a time. In order to utilize his three hours of practice to the best advantage the student should divide them into four periods, with intervals of rest between each, and these rest periods might simply represent a transfer of energy—which is a rest in itself—to reading or some other occupation not necessarily germane to music, yet likely to stimulate interest in some other art.
SOME INITIAL PRINCIPLES OF VIOLIN STUDY
"The violin student first and foremost should accustom himself to practicing purely technical exercises without notes. The scales and arpeggios should never be played otherwise and books of scales should be used only as a reference. Quite as important as scale practice are broken chords. On the violin these cannot be played solidly, as on the piano; but must be studied as arpeggios, in the most exhaustive way, harmonically and technically. Their great value lies in developing an innate musical sense, in establishing an idea of tonality and harmony that becomes so deeply rooted that every other key is as natural to the player as is the key of C. Work of this kind can never be done ideally in class. But every individual student must himself come to realize the necessity of doing technical work without notes as a matter of daily exercise, even though his time be limited. Perhaps the most difficult of all lessons is learning to hold the violin. There are pupils to whom holding the instrument presents insurmountable obstacles. Such pupils, instead of struggling in vain with a physical difficulty, might rather take up the study of the 'cello, whose weight rests on the floor. That many a student was not intended to be a violin player by nature is proved by the various inventions, chin-rests, braces, intended to supply what nature has not supplied. The study of the violin should never be allowed if it is going to result in actual physical deformity: raising of the left shoulder, malformation of the back, or eruptions resulting from chin-rest pressure. These are all evidences of physical unfitness, or of incorrect teaching.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLIN TEACHING
"Class study is for the advanced student, not the beginner. In the beginning only the closest personal contact between the individual pupil and the teacher is desirable. To borrow an analogy from nature, the student may be compared to the young bird whose untrained wings will not allow him to take any trial flights unaided by his natural guardian. For the beginning violinist the principal thing to do is to learn the 'voice placing' of the violin. This goes hand in hand with the proper—which is the easy and natural—manner of holding the violin, bow study, and an appreciation of the acoustics of the instrument. The student's attention should at once be called to the marvelous and manifold qualities of the violin tone, and he should at once familiarize himself with the development of those contrasts of stress and pressure, ease and relaxation which are instrumental in its production. The analogies between the violin voice and the human voice should also be developed. The violin itself must to all intents become a part of the player himself, just as the vocal chords are part of the human body. It should not be considered a foreign tone-producing instrument adjusted to the body of the performer; but an extension, a projection of his physical self. In a way it is easier for the violinist to get at the chords of the violin and make them sound, since they are all exposed, which is not the case with the singer.
"There are two dangerous points in present-day standards of violin teaching. One is represented by the very efficient European professional standards of technic, which may result in an absolute failure of poetic musical comprehension. These should not be transplanted here from European soil. The other is the non-technical, sentimental, formless species of teaching which can only result in emotional enervation. Yet if forced to choose between the two the former would be preferable since without tools it is impossible to carve anything of beauty. The final beauty of the violin tone, the pure legato, remains in the beginning as in the end a matter of holding the violin and bow. Together they 'place' the tone just as the physical media in the throat 'place' the tone of the voice.
"Piano teachers have made greater advances in the tone developing technic of their instrument than the violin teachers. One reason is, that as a class they are more intellectual. And then, too, violin teaching is regarded too often as a mystic art, an occult science, and one into which only those specially gifted may hope to be initiated. This, it seems to me, is a fallacy. Just as a gift for mathematics is a special talent not given to all, so a natural technical talent exists in relatively few people. Yet this does not imply that the majority are shut off from playing the violin and playing it well. Any student who has music in his soul may be taught to play simple, and even relatively more difficult music with beauty, beauty of expression and interpretation. This he may be taught to do even though not endowed with a natural technical facility for the violin. A proof that natural technical facility is anything but a guarantee of higher musicianship is shown in that the musical weakness of many brilliant violinists, hidden by the technical elaboration of virtuoso pieces, is only apparent when they attempt to play a Beethoven adagio or a simple Mozart rondo.
"In a number of cases the unsuccessful solo player has a bad effect on violin teaching. Usually the soloist who has not made a success as a concert artist takes up teaching as a last resort, without enthusiasm or the true vocational instinct. The false standards he sets up for his pupils are a natural result of his own ineffectual worship of the fetish of virtuosity—those of the musical mountebank of a hundred years ago. Of course such false prophets of the virtuose have nothing in common with such high-priests of public utterance as Ysaye, Kreisler and others, whose virtuosity is a true means for the higher development of the musical. The encouragement of musicianship in general suffers for the stress laid on what is obviously technical impedimenta. But more and more, as time passes, the playing of such artists as those already mentioned, and others like them, shows that the real musician is the lover of beautiful sound, which technic merely develops in the highest degree.
"To-day technic in a cumulative sense often is a confession of failure. For technic does not do what it so often claims to—produce the artist. Most professional teaching aims to prepare the student for professional life, the concert stage. Hence there is an intensive technical study of compositions that even if not wholly intended for display are primarily and principally projected for its sake. It is a well-known fact that few, even among gifted players, can sit down to play chamber music and do it justice. This is not because they cannot grasp or understand it; or because their technic is insufficient. It is because their whole violinistic education has been along the line of solo playing; they have literally been brought up, not to play with others, but to be accompanied by others.
"Yet despite all this there has been a notable development of violin study in the direction of ensemble work with, as a result, an attitude on the part of the violinists cultivating it, of greater humility as regards music in general, a greater appreciation of the charm of artistic collaboration: and—I insist—a technic both finer and more flexible. Chamber music—originally music written for the intimate surroundings of the home, for a small circle of listeners—carries out in its informal way many of the ideals of the larger orchestral ensemble. And, as regards the violinist, he is not dependent only on the literature of the string quartet; there are piano quintets and quartets, piano trios, and the duos for violin and piano. Some of the most beautiful instrumental thoughts of the classic and modern composers are to be found in the duo for violin and piano, mainly in the sonata form. Amateurs—violinists who love music for its own sake, and have sufficient facility to perform such works creditably—do not do nearly enough ensemble playing with a pianist. It is not always possible to get together the four players needed for the string quartet, but a pianist is apt to be more readily found.
"The combination of violin and piano is as a rule obtainable and the literature is particularly rich. Aside from sonatas by Corelli, Locatelli, Tartini, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haendel, Brahms and Schumann, nearly all the romantic and modern composers have contributed to it. And this music has all been written so as to show the character of each instrument at its best—the piano, harmonic in its nature; the violin, a natural melodic voice, capable of every shade of nuance." That Mr. Mannes, as an artist, has made a point of "practicing what he preaches" to the student as regards the ensemble of violin and piano will be recalled by all who have enjoyed the 'Sonata Recitals' he has given together with Mrs. Mannes. And as an interpreting solo artist his views regarding the moot question of gut versus wire strings are of interest.
GUT VERSUS WIRE STRINGS
"My own violin, a Maggini of more than the usual size, dates from the year 1600. It formerly belonged to Dr. Leopold Damrosch. Which strings do I use on it? The whole question as to whether gut or wire strings are to be preferred may, in my opinion, be referred to the violin itself for decision. What I mean is that if Stradivarius, Guarnerius, Amati, Maggini and others of the old-master builders of violins had ever had wire strings in view, they would have built their fiddles in accordance, and they would not be the same we now possess. First of all there are scientific reasons against using the wire strings. They change the tone of the instrument. The rigidity of tension of the wire E string where it crosses the bridge tightens up the sound of the lower strings. Their advantages are: reliability under adverse climatic conditions and the incontestable fact that they make things easier technically. They facilitate purity of intonation. Yet I am willing to forgo these advantages when I consider the wonderful pliability of the gut strings for which Stradivarius built his violins. I can see the artistic retrogression of those who are using the wire E, for when materially things are made easier, spiritually there is a loss.
CHIN RESTS
"And while we are discussing the physical aspects of the instrument there is the 'chin rest.' None of the great violin makers ever made a 'chin rest.' Increasing technical demands, sudden pyrotechnical flights into the higher octaves brought the 'chin rest' into being. The 'chin rest' was meant to give the player a better grasp of his instrument. I absolutely disapprove, in theory, of chin rest, cushion or pad. Technical reasons may be adduced to justify their use, never artistic ones. I admit that progress in violin study is infinitely slower without the use of the pad; but the more close and direct a contact with his instrument the player can develop, the more intimately expressive his playing becomes. Students with long necks and thin bodies claim they have to use a 'chin rest,' but the study of physical adjustments could bring about a better coördination between them and the instrument. A thin pad may be used without much danger, yet I feel that the thicker and higher the 'chin rest' the greater the loss in expressive rendering. The more we accustom ourselves to mechanical aids, the more we will come to rely on them.... But the question you ask anent 'Violin Mastery' leads altogether away from the material!
VIOLIN MASTERY
"To me it signifies technical efficiency coupled with poetic insight, freedom from conventionally accepted standards, the attainment of a more varied personal expression along individual lines. It may be realized, of course, only to a degree, since the possessor of absolute 'Violin Mastery' would be forever glorified. As it is the violin master, as I conceive him, represents the embodier of the greatest intimacy between himself, the artist, and his medium of expression. Considered in this light Pablo Casals and his 'cello, perhaps, most closely comply with the requirements of the definition. And this is not as paradoxical as it may seem, since all string instruments are brethren, descended from the ancient viol, and the 'cello is, after all, a variant of the violin!"