VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET

“You ask me what ‘Violin Mastery’ means in the string quartet.  It has an altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin virtuoso.  Violin mastery in the string ensemble is as much mastery of self as of technical means.  The artist must sink his identity completely in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a mastery of repression as well as expression.  I realized how keenly alive the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in Alma-Tadema’s beautiful London home, for the great English painter was also a music-lover and a very discriminating one.  He had a fine piano in a beautifully decorated case, and it was an open secret that at his musical evenings, after an artist had played, the lid of the piano was raised, and Sir Lawrence asked him to pencil his autograph on the soft white wood of its inner surface—­but only if he thought the compliment deserved.  There were some famous names written there—­Joachim, Sarasate, Paderewski, Neruda, Piatti, to mention a few.  Naturally an artist playing at Alma-Tadema’s home for the first time could not help speculating as to his chances.  Many were called, but comparatively few were chosen.  We were guests at a dinner given by Sir Lawrence.  There were some fifty people prominent in London’s artistic, musical and social world present, and we had no idea of being asked to play.  Our instruments were at our hotel and we had to send for them.  We played the Schubert quartet in A minor and Dvorak’s ‘American’ quartet and, of course, my colleagues and myself forgot all about the piano lid the moment we began to play.  Yet, I’m free to confess, that when the piano lid was raised for us we appreciated it, for it was no empty compliment coming from Sir Lawrence, and I have been told that some very distinguished artists have not had it extended to them.  And I know that on that evening the phrase ‘Violin Mastery’ in an ensemble sense, as the outcome of ceaseless striving for cooerdination in expression, absolute balance, and all the details that go to make up the perfect ensemble, seemed to us to have a very definite color and meaning.

THE FIRST VIOLIN IN THE STRING QUARTET

“What exactly does the first violin represent?” Mr. Kneisel went on in answer to another question.  “The first violin might be called the chairman of the string meeting.  His is the leading voice.  Not that he should be an autocrat, no, but he must hold the reins of discipline.  Many think that the four string players in a quartet have equal rights.  First of all, and above all, are the rights of the composer, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,—­as the case may be.  But from the standpoint of interpretation the first violin has some seventy per cent. of the