ds to reason that the use of the
fourth finger involves more effort, is a greater tax of strength, and
that the open string is an easier playing proposition. Yet a really
perfected technic demands that the fourth finger be every bit as strong
and flexible as any of the others. By nature it is shorter and weaker,
and beginners usually have great trouble with it--which makes perfect
control of it all the more essential! And yet teachers, contrary to all
sound principle and merely to save effort--temporarily--for themselves
and their pupils, will often reject an edition of a method or book of
studies merely because in its editing the fourth finger has not been
deprived of its proper chance of development. I know of cases where,
were it not for the guidance supplied by editorial revision, the average
teacher would have had no idea of the purpose of the studies he was
using. One great feature of good modern editions of classical study
works, from Kreutzer to Paganini, is the double editorial numeration:
one giving the sequence as in the original editions; the other numbering
the studies in order of technical difficulty, so that they may be
practiced progressively.

A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF VIOLIN STUDIES

"What special editorial work of mine has given me the greatest personal
satisfaction in the doing? That is a hard question to answer. Off-hand
I might say that, perhaps, the collection of progressive orchestral
studies for advanced violinists which I have compiled and annotated for
the benefit of the symphony orchestra player is something that has meant
much to me personally. Years ago, when I played professionally--long
before the days of 'miniature' orchestra scores--it was almost
impossible for an ambitious young violinist to acquaint himself with the
first and second violin parts of the great symphonic works. Prices of
scores were prohibitive--and though in such works as the Brahms
symphonies, for instance, the 'concertmaster's' part should be studied
from score, in its relation to the rest of the _partitura_--often,
merely to obtain a first violin part, I had to acquire the entire set of
strings. So when I became an editor I determined, in view of my own
unhappy experiences and that of many others, to give the aspiring
fiddler who really wanted to 'get at' the violin parts of the best
symphonic music, from Bach to Brahms and Richard Strauss, a chance to do
so. And I believe I solved the problem in the