amiability personified when I asked him to give me his theory of the
perfect string _ensemble_, and the part virtuosity played in it.


"THE ARTIST RANKS THE VIRTUOSO IN CHAMBER MUSIC"

"The artist, the _Tonkünstler_, to use a foreign phrase, ranks the
virtuoso in chamber music. Joachim was no virtuoso, he did not stress
technic, the less important factor in _ensemble_ playing. Sarasate was a
virtuoso in the best sense of the word; and yet as an _ensemble_ music
player he fell far short of Joachim. As I see it 'virtuoso' is a kind of
flattering title, no more. But a _Tonkünstler_, a 'tone-artist,' though
he must have the virtuoso technic in order to play Brahms and Beethoven
concertos, needs besides a spiritual insight, a deep concept of their
nobility to do them justice--the mere technic demanded for a virtuoso
show piece is not enough.


VIOLIN MASTERY IN THE STRING QUARTET

"You ask me what 'Violin Mastery' means in the string quartet. It has an
altogether different meaning to me, I imagine, than to the violin
virtuoso. Violin mastery in the string _ensemble_ is as much mastery of
self as of technical means. The artist must sink his identity completely
in that of the work he plays, and though the last Beethoven quartets are
as difficult as many violin concertos, they are polyphony, the
combination and interweaving of individual melodies, and they call for a
mastery of repression as well as expression. I realized how keenly alive
the musical listener is to this fact once when our quartet had played in
Alma-Tadema's beautiful London home, for the great English painter was