best editions of studies are often cast aside for trivial reasons, such as are embodied in the poor excuse that ‘the fourth finger is too frequently indicated.’  According to the old-time formulas, it was generally accepted that ascending passages should be played on the open strings and descending ones using the fourth finger.  It stands to reason that the use of the fourth finger involves more effort, is a greater tax of strength, and that the open string is an easier playing proposition.  Yet a really perfected technic demands that the fourth finger be every bit as strong and flexible as any of the others.  By nature it is shorter and weaker, and beginners usually have great trouble with it—­which makes perfect control of it all the more essential!  And yet teachers, contrary to all sound principle and merely to save effort—­temporarily—­for themselves and their pupils, will often reject an edition of a method or book of studies merely because in its editing the fourth finger has not been deprived of its proper chance of development.  I know of cases where, were it not for the guidance supplied by editorial revision, the average teacher would have had no idea of the purpose of the studies he was using.  One great feature of good modern editions of classical study works, from Kreutzer to Paganini, is the double editorial numeration:  one giving the sequence as in the original editions; the other numbering the studies in order of technical difficulty, so that they may be practiced progressively.

A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF VIOLIN STUDIES

“What special editorial work of mine has given me the greatest personal satisfaction in the doing?  That is a hard question to answer.  Off-hand I might say that, perhaps, the collection of progressive orchestral studies for advanced violinists which I have compiled and annotated for the benefit of the symphony orchestra player is something that has meant much to me personally.  Years ago, when I played professionally—­long before the days of ‘miniature’ orchestra scores—­it was almost impossible for an ambitious young violinist to acquaint himself with the first and second violin parts of the great symphonic works.  Prices of scores were prohibitive—­and though in such works as the Brahms symphonies, for instance, the ‘concertmaster’s’ part should be studied from score, in its relation to the rest of the partitura—­often, merely to obtain a first violin part, I had to acquire the entire set of strings.  So when I became an editor I determined, in view of my own unhappy experiences and that of many others, to give the aspiring fiddler who really wanted to ‘get at’ the violin parts of the best symphonic music, from Bach to Brahms and Richard Strauss, a chance to do so.  And I believe I solved the problem in the five books of the ’Modern Concert-Master,’ which includes all those really difficult and important passages in the great repertory works of the symphony orchestra that offer violinistic problems.  My only regret is that the grasping attitude of European publishers prevented the representation of certain important symphonic numbers.  Yet, as it stands, I think I may say that the five encyclopedic books of the collection give the symphony concertmaster every practical opportunity to gain orchestral routine, and orchestral mastery.