passages from concertos and sonatas. There is wonderful work in
double-stops in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini _Études_, for
instance. With octaves and tenths I have never had any trouble: I have a
broad hand and a wide stretch, which accounts for it, I suppose.

"Then there are harmonics, flageolets--I, have never been able to
understand why they should be considered so difficult! They should not
be white, colorless; but call for just as much color as any other tones
(and any one who has heard Mischa Elman play harmonics knows that this
is no mere theory on his part). I never think of harmonics as
'harmonics,' but try to give them just as much expressive quality as the
notes of any other register. The mental attitude should influence their
production--too many violinists think of them only as incidental to
pyrotechnical display.

"And fingering? Fingering in general seems to me to be an individual
matter. A concert artist may use a certain fingering for a certain
passage which no pupil should use, and be entirely justified if he can
thus secure a certain effect.

"I do not--speaking out of my own experience--believe much in methods:
and never to the extent that they be allowed to kill the student's
individuality. A clear, clean tone should always be the ideal of his
striving. And to that end he must see that the up and down bows in a
passage like the following from the Bach sonata in A minor (and Mr.
Elman hastily jotted down the subjoined) are absolutely

[Illustration: Musical Notation]

even, and of the same length, played with the same strength and length