playing impossible.  Too many amateurs try to play spiccato from the arm.  And too many teachers are contented with a trill that is merely brilliant.  Kneisel insists on what he calls a ‘musical trill,’ of which Kreisler’s beautiful trill is a perfect example.  The trill of some violinists is invariably brilliant, whether brilliancy is appropriate or not.  Brilliant trills in Bach always seem out of place to me; while in Paganini and in Wieniawski’s Carnaval de Venise a high brilliant trill is very effective.

“As to double-stops—­Edison once said that violin music should be written only in double-stops—­I practice them playing first the single notes and then the two together, and can recommend this mode of practice from personal experience.  Harmonics, where clarity is the most important thing, are mainly a matter of bowing, of a sure attack and sustaining by the bow.  Of course the harmonics themselves are made by the fingers; but their tone quality rests altogether with the bow.

EDISON AND OCTAVES

“The best thing I’ve ever heard said of octaves was Edison’s remark to me that ‘They are merely a nuisance and should not be played!’ I was making some records for him during the experimental stage of the disk record, when he was trying to get an absolutely smooth legato tone, one that conformed to Loeffler’s definition of it as ‘no breaks’ in the tone.  He had had Schubert’s Ave Maria recorded by Flesch, MacMillan and others, and wanted me to play it for him.  The records were all played for me, and whenever he came to the octave passages Edison would say:  ‘Listen to them!  How badly they sound!’ Yet the octaves were absolutely in tune!  ‘Why do they sound so badly?’ I inquired.

“Then Edison explained to me that according to the scientific theory of vibration, the vibrations of the higher tone of the octaves should be exactly twice those of the lower note.  ‘But here,’ he continued, ’the vibrations of the notes all vary.’  ’Yet how can the player control his fingers in the vibrato beyond playing his octaves in perfect tune?’ I asked.  ‘Well, if he cannot do so,’ said Edison, ’octaves are merely a nuisance, and should not be played at all.’  I experimented and found that by simply pressing down the fingers and playing without any vibrato, I could come pretty near securing the exact relation between the vibrations of the upper and lower notes but—­they sounded dreadful!  Of course, octaves sound well in ensemble, especially in the orchestra, because each player plays but a single note.  And tenths sound even better than octaves when two people play them.

WIRE AND GUT STRINGS

“You ask about my violin?  It belonged to the famous Hawley collection, and is a Giovanni Baptista Guadignini, made in 1780, in Turin.  The back is a single piece of maple-wood, having a broadish figure extending across its breadth.  The maple-wood sides match the back.  The top is formed of a very choice piece of spruce, and it is varnished a deep golden-red.  It has a remarkably fine tone, very vibrant and with great carrying power, a tone that has all that I can ask for as regards volume and quality.