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He was restless, vain, and conceited, and addicted to gambling. He is said to have played the most difficult double-stops, octaves, tenths, double-shakes in thirds and sixths, harmonics, etc., with the greatest ease and certainty. At one time he appeared as a rival of Nardini, with whom he is said to have had a contest, and whom he is supposed to have defeated.
"What is the fundamental of a perfected violin technic?" was a natural question at this point. "Absolute pitch, first of all," replied Elman promptly. "Many a violinist plays a difficult passage, sounding every note; and yet it sounds out of tune. The first and second movements of the Beethoven concerto have no double-stops; yet they are extremely difficult to play. Why?
Double-stops, on the contrary, cost me hours of intensive work before I played them with ease and facility. What did I practice? Scales in double-stops they give color and variety to tone. And I gave up a certain portion of my regular practice time to passages from concertos and sonatas. There is wonderful work in double-stops in the Ernst concerto and in the Paganini Études, for instance.
"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.
There should be no such thing as jumping and trusting in Providence to land right, and a curse ought to be laid on those who let their fingers leave the fingerboard. None who develop this fundamental aspect of all good playing lose the perfect control of position. I've never been able to see the virtue of octaves or the logic of double-stops. Like tenths, one plays or does not play them.
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