friend and associate I have been for
the last twenty-two years. He is a wonderful man, many-sided and
versatile; a notably fine pianist; and playing chamber music with him
during successive summers is numbered among my pleasantest
recollections.

"In speaking of concertos some time ago, I forgot to mention one work
well worth studying. This is the Russian Mlynarski's concerto in D,
which I played with the Russian Symphony Orchestra some eight years ago
for the first time in this country, as well as a fine 'Romance and
Caprice' by Rubinstein.

"Is the music a concertmaster is called upon to play always violinistic?
Far from it. Symphonic music--in as much as the concertmaster is
concerned, is usually not idiomatic violin music. Richard Strauss's
violin concerto can really be played by the violinist. The _obbligatos_
in his symphonies are a very different matter; they go beyond accepted
technical boundaries. With Stravinsky it is the same. The violin
_obbligato_ in Rimsky-Korsakov's _Scheherazade_, though, is real violin
music. Debussy and Ravel are most subtle; they call for a particularly
good ear, since the harmonic balance of their music is very delicate.
The concertmaster has to develop his own interpretations, subject, of
course, to the conductor's ideas.

VIOLIN MASTERY

"Violin Mastery? It means to me complete control of the fingerboard, a
being at home in every position, absolute sureness of fingering,
absolute equality of tone under all circumstances. I remember Ysaye
playing Tschaikovsky's _Serenade Melancolique_, and using a fingering
for certain passages which I liked very much. I asked him to give it to
me in detail, but he merely laughed and said: 'I'd like to, but I
cannot, because I really do not remember which fingers I used!' That is
mastery--a control so complete that fingering was unconscious, and the
interpretation of the thought was all that was in the artist's mind!
Sevcik's 'complete technical mastery' is after all not perfect, since it
represents mechanical and not mental control."

XIX

TOSCHA SEIDEL

HOW TO STUDY

Toscha Seidel, though one of the more recent of the young Russian
violinists who represent the fruition of Professor Auer's formative
gifts, has, to quote H.F. Peyser, "the transcendental technic observed
in the greatest pupils of his master, a