mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that
suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more
than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often
said: _Pas de trait pour le trait--chantez, chantez_! (Not runs for the
sake of runs--sing, sing!)

"Too many of the technicians of the present day no longer sing. Their
difficulties--they surmount them more or less happily; but the effect is
too apparent, and though, at times, the listener may be astonished, he
can never be charmed. Agile fingers, sure of themselves, and a perfect
bow stroke are essentials; and they must be supremely able to carry
along the rhythm and poetic action the artist desires. Mechanism
becomes, if anything, more accessible in proportion as its domain is
enriched by new formulas. The violinist of to-day commands far greater
technical resources than did his predecessors. Paganini is accessible to
nearly all players: Vieuxtemps no longer offers the difficulties he did
thirty years ago. Yet the wood-wind, brass and even the string
instruments subsist in a measure on the heritage transmitted by the
masters of the past. I often feel that violin teaching to-day endeavors
to develop the esthetic sense at too early a stage. And in devoting
itself to the _head_ it forgets the _hands_, with the result that the
young soldiers of the violinistic army, full of ardor and courage, are
ill equipped for the great battle of art.

"In this connection there exists an excellent set of _Études-Caprices_
by E. Chaumont, which offer the advanced student new elements and
formulas of development. Though in some of them 'the frame is too large
for the picture,' and though difficult from a violinistic point of view,
'they lie admirably well up the neck,' to use one of Vieuxtemps's
expressions, and I take pleasure in calling attention to them.