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Mastery of the whole, real violin mastery, I think, lies in the control of the interpretative problem, the power to awaken emotion by the use of the instrument. Many feel more than they can express, have more left hand than bow technic and, like Kubelik, have not the perfected technic for which perfected playing calls.
As an illustration of how the technical point of view is thrust to the fore by this system I remember some fifteen years ago Kubelik and I were staying at the same villa in Monte-Carlo, where we were to play the Beethoven concerto, each of us, in concert, two days apart. Kubelik spent the live-long day before the concert practicing Sevčik exercises.
"But, begorry, I want to go overseas and 'ave a look at the 'uns," said Flannagan, who managed with strange skill to combine a cockney whine with his Irish brogue. "Overseas?" took up the lanky man. "If I could have gone an' studied overseas, I'd be making as much as Kubelik. I had the makings of a good player in me."
And this even in a purely technical way: I can recall Kubelik playing Paganini as a wonderful display of the technical points of violin playing. "Most pupils seem to lack an absolute sense of rhythm a great defect. Yet where latent it may be developed. Here Kreutzer is invaluable, since he presents every form of rhythmic problem, scales in various rhythms and bowings.
The great demand of the day in the violin field, as in that of other musical instruments, is for dazzling pyrotechnic feats. It has perhaps reached its climax in the young Bohemian Jan Kubelik, whose playing has been pronounced technically stupendous. In the mad rush for advanced technique, the soul of music it is meant to convey is, alas, too often forgotten. Queens of Song
The visits of the Italian musician to the numismatist, his ambition to shine as another Kubelik, his ungovernable temper, the high words that followed Hume's frequent sneers at his ambition and the fact that he once drew a knife upon his tormentor, were presented in full.
"There is also a Kubelik," suggested Brigit slily, to see what he would answer. "My dear, yes; there is Kubelik, and there is Joachim still, thank God. Chacun dans son genre. But Kubelik is a boy, and he has 'violin hands' fingers a kilomètre long. Look at my hands, and you will see why I am not his equal in execution. In other things " He looked gravely at his hands as he held them out to her.
Kubelik there was a genuinely talented violinist! If he had had another teacher instead of Sevčik he would have been great, for he had great gifts. Even as it was he played well, but I consider him one of Sevčik's victims.
From the hurdy-gurdy of my childhood, down to Kubelik and his successors, I have been more or less music-mad. You play wonderfully!" Sudden, inexplicable shyness. Hawksley smiled. An hour or two with that old Amati. "I am only an unconventional amateur. You should hear Stefani Gregor when the mood is on.
She believes in spiritualism, too. 'I wonder who'll be there? 'Anyone might be there, or anyone else. As they say of marriage, it's a lottery. They might have roulette, or a spiritual seance, or Kubelik, or fancy dress heads. 'Fancy dress heads! 'Yes. Or a cotillion, or just bridge. You never know. The house is rather like a country house, and they behave accordingly.
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