To recall all the celebrities of the violin I have heard since 1870
would be hardly possible. I've forgotten most of them, though I do
remember that wonderful boy, Maurice Dengremont, who ended his life,
so rich in possibilities, it is said as a billiard marker. He was
spoiled by women, for he was a comely lad. Another wonder-child kept
his head, and to-day fascinating Fritz Kreisler is a master of
masters and a favourite in America without peer. He first appeared
at Boston and in 1888. In Paris I recall Marsick and his polished
style; the gallant Sauret, Johannes Wolf, and the brilliant and
elegant Timothée Adamowski. And in 1880, Marie Tayau and her woman
quartet, a member of which was Jeanne Franko, the sister of the
conductors and violinists, Sam Franko and Nahan Franko; Cæsar
Thomson, the miraculous; C. M. Loeffler--subtle player, subtle
composer; Sarasate with his sweet tone; Brodsky and his masculine
manner; Willy Burmester and his pallid pyrotechnics; the learned
Schradieck, the Bohemian Ondricek, the dashing Ovide Musin, Bernhard
Listemann, Carl Halir; Gregorowitsch, the languid; brilliant
Marteau; Alexander Petschinikoff, the Russian; the musicianly Max
Bendix; the astonishing John Rhodes, the wonder-worker Kubelik and
his icy perfections; Kocian, Willy Hess, Efrem Zimbalist, Albert
Spalding, Arthur Hartman, and a myriad of spoiled youths, Von
Veczsey, Horszowski--all have crossed the map of my memory. And
Franz Kneisel and the Kneisel Quartet, dispensers of musical joys
for decades, but alas! no more. Alas! I would not barter memories of
their music-making for a wilderness of virtuosi. I must not forget
Joseph White, the Cuban violinist, who was with Theodore Thomas one
season. His style was finished and Parisian. He was a mulatto and a
handsome man. The night I heard him he played the Mendelssohn
concerto, and at the beginning of the slow movement his chanterelle
broke. Calmly he took concert master Richard Arnold's proffered
instrument and triumphantly finished the composition.
Three violinists abide clear in my recollection: Wieniawski,
Wilhelmj, and Ysaye. The last named is dearer because nearer,
contrary to the supposed rule that the older the thing the worse it
is. Ysaye is the magician of the violin. He holds us in a spell with
that elastic, curving bow of his, with those many coloured tones,
tender, silky, sardonic, amorous, rich, and ductile. He interprets
the classics as well as the romantics; Bach, Beethoven, Brahms;
Vieuxtemps as well as Sibelius. Above all else, his mastery of the
violin's technical mysteries, looms his musical temperament. He has
imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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