Table Of ContentH O W T O
P R E P A R E F O R K R E U T Z E R
A BOOK FOR TEACHERS IN PRIVATE SCHOOLS
AND ACADEMIES, AS WELL AS THE PRO
FESSION IN GENERAL, GIVING A THOROUGH
ANALYSIS OF SUITABLE MATERIAL FOR THE
FIRST FOUR GRADES, INCLUDING AN EXPLANA
TION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES
OF BOWING, TECHNIC AND TONE PRODUCTION
BY
EDITH LYNWOOD WINN.
NEW YORK
CARL FISCHER
1910
8 C H O T T A
PUBLISHERS TO H.M. THE KINfi
LONDON, W
Copyright , 1910,
BY
CARL FISCHER
International Copyright Secured
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. Introduction................................................................ i
II. Scales........................................................................... 12
III. The Training of the Left Hand................................. 21
IV. The Study of Tone and Bowing................................ 24
V. The Study of Sevcik................................................. 37
VI. Fifty Easy Melodic Studies by F. Wohlfahrt, Op. 74,
Book 1....................................................................... 45
VII. Fifty Easy Melodic Studies by F. Wohlfahrt, Op. 74,
Book II..................................................................... 49
VIII. Duet-Playing.............................................................. 54
IX. Sixty Etudes by J. Wohlfahrt, Op. 45, Book 1....... 56
X. Sixty Etudes by J. Wohlfahrt, Op. 45, Book II..... 58
XI. Studies in all the Positions by J. Weiss, Op. 80, Book I. 64
XII. Studies in all Positions by J. Weiss, Op. 80, Book II.. . 66
XIII. Studies in all Positions by J. Weiss, Op. 80, Book III.. . 70
XIV. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part I, Book I.. . 72
XV. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part I, Book II. . 74
XVI. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part I, Book III. 78
XVII. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part II, Book IV. 82
XVIIa. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part II, Books
V-VI....................................................................... 85
XVIIb. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part II, Books
V-VI (Continued)................................................. 89
XVIIc. Technical Studies by H. Sitt, Op. 92, Part II, Book VI
(Continued)............................................................. 93
XVIII. The Etudes of E. J. Dont, Op. 37 and 38a.............. 99
XIX. The School of Violin Technics by Henry Schradieck. . . in
XX. Twenty-five Studies for the Violin by F. Hull week. ... 122
XXI. Scale Studies by J. Hrimaly...................................... 124
XXII. Ten Etudes by D. Alard, Op. 16.............................. 127
XXIII. The Etudes Brillantes by F. Mazas, Op. 36, Book II. . 135
iii
iv CONTENTS
PAGE
XXIV. Etudes d’Artistes by F. Mazas, Op. 36, Book III........ 145
XXV. Scale and Arpeggio Studies by Emory L. Bauer............ 161
XXVI. The Technic of the Bow by A. Casorti, Op. 50.............. 163
XXVII. The Double-Stop Studies of Hans Sitt, Op. 32, Book V. 168
XXVIII. The Art of Bowing by Emil Kross, Op. 40.................. 176
XXIX. The Technical Studies of Carl Halir.............................. 190
XXX. Goby Eberhardt and his System for Practicing the
Violin.............................................................................. 201
XXXI. Supplementary Remarks................................................ 207
H o w to Prepare fo r K reutzer.
i.
INTRODUCTION.
IT is a question in the minds of modern violinists
and teachers whether one should spend three or
four years in preparation for Kreutzer, or, in view of
the enormous amount of material which one must study
before one has a command of the classics, whether it is
wiser to abridge preparatory work and start as early as
possible with the Etudes of Kreutzer, Fiorillo, Rode,
Gavinies, and others. I find that it is best, in the case
of students who are not going to be professionals, to
spend a long time in the study of the works of Dont,
Mazas, Sitt, Schradieck, and Sevcik, so that the founda
tion for Kreutzer may be well laid, and the necessity for
varied work of the amateur kind thoroughly and practi
cally met. I have many students who play the violin
merely as an accomplishment, and whose study will
probably cease after Kreutzer. Among such students I
may mention those who are attending secondary schools
from which they graduate at about eighteen years of age,
after which their violin study practically ceases. In
some cases I am able to make Kreutzer so interesting and
helpful that the student really desires to continue the
work seriously during college life, or to specialize as a
member of my city class. But these cases are rare, for
secondary school education, while it fits one for a certain
sphere of life, is, at best, superficial, except in its specific
value to the student who is preparing for college. Many
students who are in the High School find that two hours
i
2 HOW TO PREPARE FOR KREUTZER.
a day are all they can spare for the practice of the violin,
so it has become a serious matter with me to select only
those studies which will give to the student the funda
mentals of violin playing, a fair technic of both the bow
arm and the left hand, and a knowledge of a few useful
and well-known works, which may be used as solos when
the necessity arises. The violin is a difficult instrument,
and comparatively few students become professionals.
Hence, the wisest plan with our students must be one
which cultivates taste, creates desire for knowledge,
without being too specific, and fits into life. This implies
only such attention to technic, tone, and bowing as
belongs to good amateur work. You have often heard
the remark made, “Mr. So-and-So is a business man,
but a very good amateur musician. ” He is fortunate, in
deed, who, instead of being a bad professional, ranks with
good amateurs.
We must make study interesting and hamper the stu
dent with as few details as possible up to the fourth
year of study. By that time character and taste are
formed sufficiently so that on entering Kreutzer there
may be no mistake as to the value of detailed professional
work, in cases of specific talent or desire for a professional
career. I would not advise any student of the violin to
choose my instrument as a profession unless time, money,
good health, and the most favorable conditions of life
are possessed by the individual. The road to virtuosity
is long and hard. Even under the best conditions of
study, very few of us gain distinction. I would modify
a plan of study to suit individual cases. Hands, fingers,
brains, are different in different individuals. A hand
which is naturally clever can do in one hour’s practice
each day what another hand requires four hours to do.
So it is with bowing; some students will always be stiff;
others have elasticity and freedom from the first. No
two brains have the same receptivity; no two individuals
have the same tonal ear. “Many are called but few
chosen,” when it comes to violin playing, but if we all
had only the gifted to deal with, we should certainly have
INTRODUCTION. 3
very small classes of pupils. We ought to give the best
we have to those who come to us, irrespective of class,
gifts, age, or environment. I enjoy especially teaching
children the fundamentals, for they accept one’s creed
without a word, and their struggles to overcome difficul
ties might be a valuable lesson to many an older person.
The average child who begins study at eight years of age
ought, certainly, to be playing Kreutzer at twelve, if
well taught, and if practice is regular. Professor Jacob
sen, a late member of the teaching force in the Royal
High School, in Berlin, was a splendid teacher of detail.
When asked the proper time to begin Kreutzer he said,
“I think the second year.” This is practically impos
sible in America, but the good Professor probably erred
in judgment, for it is doubtful if he ever had any student
cf the grade preceding Kreutzer. In some colleges in
which I have taught, girls of fifteen or sixteen years, who
have had some piano training, were able to begin
Kreutzer in their third year of violin study, but their
general musical preparation was excellent. There is a
great deal of violin literature which is mere repetition.
If a thing is well done, supplement it with something
more of the same kind. Truth is truth and does not
need reinforcement.
Josef Hofmann,1 in his excellent book on piano playing,
offers many suggestions for students, which can be
applied to violin study as well. He does not place
technic before everything else in study, necessary as it
is to have this medium of expression. He believes that
free and individual expression, however, comes after the
great fundamental principles of playing become, in a
sense, automatic. He says there are many pianists who,
despite the greatest technic, are not artists, and while
technic is an indispensable necessity, it must not be
exalted to such a point that one becomes a dry and life
less player. “The first requisite,” says he, “for one
who wishes to become a musicianly and artistic pianist,
1 Hofmann, Josef: Piano 'Playing. A little book of simple sug
gestions.
4 HOW TO PREPARE FOR KREUTZER.
is a precise knowledge of the possibilities and limitations
of the piano as an instrument.” The great superiority
of the literature of the piano over that of any other
single instrument makes it a matter of prime importance
and necessity that violin students have some previous
piano training. I find that all my students who have
studied piano, play with much greater steadiness and
freedom on that account. They also memorize better
\and master the content of violin works more easily, and
their phrasing is broader and more beautiful. The
intimate personal element of touch they transfer from
the piano keyboard to the violin bow. While the rules of
finger technic are in no degree similar in the two intru-
ments, generally speaking the violinist who plays the
piano has greater freedom in the left hand, but invariably
raises the fingers too high for an attack. The piano has
only one color; the violin has color and shades. It is
capable of a great variety of tones, and each one of its
four strings has its own specific tone color. Nevertheless,
the violin is the exponent of melody, and the deep and
serious student, outside of the music of Bach, which
offers splendid examples of themes and accompaniments,
finds himself thinking melody instead of harmony con
stantly; hence it is that the violinist is rarely a great
composer for other instruments or for the orchestra.
The violin is, however, the most nearly like the human
voice in its specific tone quality. The most intricate
contrapuntal devices can be rendered completely by
the piano. It is of prime importance that the violinist
learns not only some piano literature each year, but that
he compares the possibilities and limitations of piano
playing with those of the violin. Steadiness, security,
harmony, are only a few of the benefits which come
from a knowledge of piano playing. The greatest masters
chose the piano as their favorite instrument and wrote
much music for it. Violin music is necessarily limited
in scope, therefore the violinist must be broader than the
scope of his instrument. The greater part of the violin
literature which we have to-day has been written hy
INTRODUCTION. S
piano players. That is the reason, no doubt, why, after
Viotti, Rode, Spohr, and Bach, very few composers have
given us strictly violinistic work. To be sure Wieniawski
and Vieuxtemps wrote music which lies well under the
violin hand, but we cannot say as much for Brahms and
Tschaikowsky. Now many a student of the violin has
been so well-equipped in the preparatory stages of his
work that, in spite of parental opposition or adverse con-,
ditions of life, he has become, at length, a professional
musician. This fact, and this alone, prompts me to say
that we cannot be too careful in preparatory work, teach
ing good music from the first and spending much time
on the great principles which underlie true violin art,
choosing material so wisely that no task seems drudgery,
and no lesson trivial or uninteresting. I never give a
child reasons for things. He does what I tell him to do
without comments. In the cases of older students, I
always explain principles and give reasons for stressing
certain important points, for I never keep one playing
this or that kind of an exercise merely for the sake of
reinforcing a principle which has already been mastered.
There is another point I wish to make. The prepara
tory work for Kreutzer does not include technic alone.
Duos, quartets, and all other forms of good music, give
strength and security to tone and aid in the general cul
ture of the student. I know of nothing in the world so
valuable as ensemble work in its relation to the routine
work, as outlined in the Etudes and other studies which
the violinist has to study. Left entirely to himself, the
violinist yields to the tendency to practice things which
sound well, especially those which are melodious, ignor
ing his own limitations and lack of knowledge of technic.
We often hear that very decided amateurs “play with so
much feeling. ” Our only conclusion is that their feeling
is merely affectation, for they have no idea of tone, bow
ing, nor the aesthetic requirements of a composition of
any difficulty. They are, in reality, sensationalists,
and the hardest kind of pupils to teach. Their place, if
they ever become professionals, even in the smallest
