When you hear a violin solo played with lots of “double stopping” you find that the air develops a new richness of tone color, for the violinist is playing the “air” notes and certain other harmony notes at the same time. This is substantially what happens in the quartettes and trios. One instrument or voice plays or sings the air while the others play or sing harmony parts, and in the smaller groups of instruments, where there are only three or four “parts,” it is easier to follow the work of each instrument and consequently it is easier to get the musical “pattern” of the selection.
The basis of chamber music is the string quartette, comprising two violins, viola and ’cello. These instruments are, of course, alike in character, but each has its own peculiar quality of tone. Other effective combinations are violin, ’cello and piano; flute, violin, ’cello and piano; and additional instruments heard with the string quartette.
It would be a mistake, however, to think of the string quartette as being elementary—for it is one of the richest and most satisfying branches of musical art.
A special interest attaches to all the smaller combinations of strings, and the Victor Catalogue contains many selections by such small combinations, among which the following are perhaps worthy of special attention: The Mendelssohn Canzonetta, the Quartette in G Major, the Minuet of Boccherini and Tschaikowsky’s “Andante Cantabile.”
The piano is a solo instrument that provides accompaniment for other instruments and for itself, and it is so exceedingly successful in this respect that it must be regarded as the basis of things musical. To the composer, the chorus master, the vocal teacher, as well as to the pianist, the modern piano is a necessity, because it is the one instrument on which all the harmony parts can be elaborated with comparative ease.
Apart from its use as an accompanying instrument, the piano is one of the most satisfactory of solo instruments. It is a complete orchestra in itself. A greater volume of solo music has been composed expressly for the piano than for any other instrument. Schumann, Liszt and especially Chopin, for instance, wrote music for the piano which sounds as well on no other instrument and so it is with great pleasure that we offer truly worthy piano records, thus opening up a vast field of new musical delight.
The tones played by the piano are produced by a hammer striking a string. They therefore develop their greatest volume at the moment the strings are struck, and immediately begin to diminish. They can be sustained to some slight extent only—as compared with instruments that are played with a bow. Among piano records of special interest are the following by that “maestro” among pianists—Paderewski: The Nocturne in F Sharp Major, the Polonaise Militaire, the Etude in G Flat, his own Minuet and the Cracovienne Fantastique, as well as the “Seguidilla” and Waltz Etude in D Flat by Cortot.
There is one very marked physical difference between the violin group of instruments and all others—with one exception which is negligible for the moment—and that is that the tone and the pitch are controlled wholly by the player.
In other instruments there are keys, pedals, frets or some other means of assisting the player to maintain the pitch. The violin has a plain fingerboard, strings, a bow and—the fingers of the violinist. What kind of tone will you get out of it? Will your tone be true to the pitch? That depends on you. And because of these things the music of the violins is more intimate, more personal than that of any other instrument.
Another interesting fact concerning the violin is that while almost all other instruments have been improved upon, the violin alone has undergone no change and no improvement since Stradivarius put by the last violin he was to make. That was about 1737. And so the violin may be regarded as the one accomplishment of human craftsmanship that has reached perfection.
Perhaps it is because of these things that violin music occupies a quite unique place in human experience. There is nothing more deeply thrilling than the violin’s low-pitched “G” string and nothing quite so light-hearted and fairy-like as the “E” string. With such a range from grave to gay there is never a human mood nor emotion but what the violin can reach and express it more keenly than any other single instrument—and in the form in which we have it today it has been the sharer of our joys and sorrows for more than two hundred years.
Consciously or unconsciously we feel the need of some standard of comparison, some sort of yardstick by which we may measure human achievements, and this seems to be especially so in all instrumental music.
No one would have any very serious difficulty in telling why he found enjoyment or dissatisfaction in the recitation of a poem, but it is just as easy to pass judgment on the playing of a violin solo. The enunciation of the words and their pronunciation—the intelligible or muddled treatment of the phrases, the use of pauses, the pitch of the voice and its dramatic shading would all have something to do with your opinion of a recitation, and those are much the same standards by which the technical and interpretative skill of the violinist are to be determined. The performance is good or bad, depending upon how well or ill it meets much the same requirements that you would impose upon the “reader” of the recitation. It is easier in the case of the poem, because we all get a good deal of practical experience in the delivery of words, whereas most of us have had no experience in the delivery of musical tones.
To recognize these various effects and to appreciate the influence they have on the interpretation of the music, is to enjoy an added pleasure in the world’s best violin music, practically all of which will be found in the Victor Record Catalogue by world-famous artists.
If the Victrola, reproducing the music of the violin in all its exquisite beauty, could do no more than that, it would justify its existence by that one service alone; but shut your eyes and the Victrola becomes whatever instrument you may wish it to be, including the most wonderful of all—the human voice.
Whatever other records you may select, we feel very sure you will find untold satisfaction in any of the following. The Caprice Viennois, the Schubert Ave Maria, the Scherzo Tarantella, the Humoresque, the Mendelssohn Concerto, the Nocturne in E Flat and Moszkowski’s “Guitarre.”