conception and poetry!  One should always remember that technic is, after all, only a means.  It must be acquired in order to be an unhampered master of the instrument, as a medium for presenting the thoughts of the great creators—­but these thoughts, and not their medium of expression, are the chief objects of the true and great artist, whose aim in life is to serve his Art humbly, reverently and faithfully!  You remember these words: 

“’In the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.  Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise!...’”

XV

MAXIMILIAN PILZER

THE SINGING TONE AND THE VIBRATO

Maximilian Pilzer is deservedly prominent among younger American concert violinists.  A pupil of Joachim, Shradieck, Gustav Hollander, he is, as it has already been picturesquely put, “a graduate of the rock and thorn university,” an artist who owes his success mainly to his own natural gifts plus an infinite capacity for taking pains.  Though primarily an interpreter his interlocutor yet had the good fortune to happen on Mr. Pilzer when he was giving a lesson.  Essentially a solo violinist, Mr. Pilzer nevertheless has the born teacher’s wish to impart, to share, where talent justifies it, his own knowledge.  He himself did not have to tell the listener this—­the lesson he was giving betrayed the fact.

It was Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois that the student played.  And as Mr. Pilzer illustrated the delicate shades of nuance, of phrasing, of bowing, with instant rebuke for an occasional lack of “warmth” in tone, the improvement was instantaneous and unmistakable.  The lesson over, he said: 

THE SINGING TONE

“The singing tone is the ideal one, it is the natural violin tone.  Too many violin students have the technical bee in their bonnet and neglect it.  And too many believe that speed is brilliancy.  When they see the black notes they take for granted that they must ‘run to beat the band.’  Yet often it is the teacher’s fault if a good singing tone is not developed.  Where the teacher’s playing is cold, that of the pupil is apt to be the same.  Warmth, rounded fullness, the truly beautiful violin tone is more difficult to call forth than is generally supposed.  And, in a manner of speaking, the soul of this tone quality is the vibrato, though the individual instrument also has much to do with the tone.

THE VIBRATO