Edmund Severn’s activity in the field of violin music is a three-fold one:  he is a composer, an interpreting artist and a teacher, and his fortuitous control of the three vital phases of his Art make his views as regards its study of very real value.  The lover of string music in general would naturally attach more importance to his string quartet in D major, his trio for violin, ’cello and piano, his violin concerto in D minor, the sonata, the “Oriental,” “Italian,” “New England” suites for violin, and the fine suite in A major, for two violins and piano, than to his symphonic poems for orchestra, his choral works and his songs.  And those in search of hints to aid them to master the violin would be most interested in having the benefit of his opinions as a teacher, founded on long experience and keen observation.  Since Mr. Severn is one of those teachers who are born, not made, and is interested heart and soul in this phase of his musical work, it was not difficult to draw him out.

THE JOACHIM BOWING

“My first instructor in the violin was my father, the pioneer violin teacher of Hartford, Conn., where my boyhood was passed, and then I studied with Franz Milcke and Bernard Listemann, concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  But one day I happened to read a few lines reprinted in the Metronome from some European source, which quoted Wilhelmj as saying that Emanuel Wirth, Joachim’s first assistant at the Berlin Hochschule, ‘was the best teacher of his generation.’  This was enough for me:  feeling that the best could be none too good, I made up my mind to go to him.  And I did.  Wirth was the viola of the Joachim Quartet, and probably a better teacher than was Joachim himself.  Violin teaching was a cult with him, a religion; and I think he believed God had sent him to earth to teach fiddle.  Like all the teachers at the Hochschule he taught the regular ‘Joachim’ bowing—­they were obliged to teach it—­as far as it could be taught, for it could not be taught every one.  And that is the real trouble with the ‘Joachim’ bowing.  It is impossible to make a general application of it.

“Joachim had a very long arm and when he played at the point of the bow his arm position was approximately the same as that of the average player at the middle of the bow.  Willy Hess was a perfect exponent of the Joachim method of bowing.  Why?  Because he had a very long arm.  But at the Hochschule the Joachim bowing was compulsory:  they taught, or tried to teach, all who came there to use it without exception; boys or girls whose arms chanced to be long enough could acquire it, but big men with short arms had no chance whatever.  Having a medium long arm, by dint of hard work I managed to get my bowing to suit Wirth; yet I always felt at a disadvantage at the point of the bow, in spite of the fact that after my return to the United States I taught the Joachim bowing for fully eight years.