There is a photo of Eugene Ysaÿe where he looks at his violin, face to face, as though asking it: “what are you and what do you want with me?” This image, telling of the love affair between the performer and his instrument, has always stuck with me. Indeed, the question with playing is always: how can you play the violin, so it doesn’t play you?
A few months ago, I was looking for a book on playing the violin written by a famous violinist. Surprisingly, I realized that there weren’t really any. Maybe musicians don’t like to write as much as play, but I was lucky to find a century-old book online. “Violin Mastery” (1919), a collection of interviews with famous violinists, was a strange step into the mythical age of Ysaÿe, Kreisler and Heifetz. One hundred years later these masters give surprisingly fresh answers to the challenges of playing and art.
After playing for two years, I’m at the point where I can attempt a lot of music but fall short of realizing it exactly. You might think that the advice of these masters would be to play more and more scales, but this is curiously not the case. One of the elements of playing that all these famed musicians agree on is the importance of interpretation over technical ability and that a violinist should be a well-rounded individual. As Ysaÿe explained: “[the violinist] must be a violinist, a thinker, a poet, a human being, he must have known hope, love, passion and despair, he must have run the gamut of the emotions in order to express them all in his playing.”
I think this is more intuitive than it sounds. I had been living and growing with the music I love for years before I played any of it on the violin. Bach, Beethoven and Glass are saturated with the memories of my life. Now that I’m at a place to, again, attempt their works I feel that I can create something unique and that I have a deep personal investment in their music.
Other advice I’ve gleaned from the masters is not to be afraid to compose as a musician. Fritz Kreisler said that when he began to compose and arrange music he wanted “to create a repertory” for himself, which would reflect his own personal understanding of the instrument. As musicians first and foremost, these violinists created some exceptional works which pay homage to the violin tradition. Ysaÿe’s "Six Sonatas" (1923) are less popular than those of their model, Bach, but they are still challenging and fresh today. “L’Aurore” from Sonata No. 5 is strikingly minimal, quiet and full of open space, looking forward into the 21st century. I still have far to go in this respect, but my many recordings of fragments lie in wait. I’m excited by their model to keep working!
The final message from the 20th century I received was, of course, the importance of work and commitment. The music theorist, Percy Goetschius, explained to Samuel Gardner: “I do not congratulate you on having talent. That is a gift. But I do congratulate you on being able to work hard!” “Violin mastery” is really waking up each day ready to recommit yourself to the beauty and struggle of music. Some unknown day you might suddenly stumble upon success — when you’re able to play for the world what was locked away inside.
Beginner Mentality: Advice from masters
