First of all, happy new year!! May your 2025 be filled with good health, peace, beautiful music, and (fill in the blank yourself).
Last week, I went to the Library of Performing Arts in Lincoln Center to renew my library card (yes, they still make you do that in person here). Even though it’s my “default” branch of the NYPL system, I haven’t been here in a very long time. With extra time to spare, I decided to browse around and hopefully find an “easter egg” of sorts (the larger books aren’t organized intuitively there at all…). About an hour of being lost between aisles searching for “who knows what” eventually led me to a series of books I’ve actually been dying to explore for some time now; there stood several volumes of Samuel Applebaum’s series The Way They Play. In this series, Applebaum interviews some of the greatest string-playing artists of the 20th century, where they discuss their views on technique and artistic interpretation. For reference, these vintage gems are rare and mostly sold online second-hand – usually for about $100 per volume! While they are available to read for free on archive.org, to me that wasn’t enjoyable, since I prefer to leave sticky notes in real books and to be able to flip easily between multiple pages…and of course the guilty pleasure of smelling the old pages.
One of my violin goals both for myself and my students is to prioritize freedom in the body and encourage natural movement to allow for greater ease and expression. To share where I currently am on my journey, one of the long-term goals is to establish a better sense of balance and freedom in the neck and left shoulder. This way, the left hand will have an easier time, especially with vibrato. This would also enable the bow arm to be more expressive and tone to be more vibrant in return.
If you have a similar goal, here are a few quotes from Erick Friedman taken from Volume 5 of The Way They Play to encourage both of us. Erick Friedman was one of Jascha Heifetz’s main disciples (just one of two students who actually recorded with Heifetz).
When asked Which single factor/element of playing the violin well… is the most vital?
“Relaxation – I have found that too much tension is the underlying cause for much lack of success…in fact, the more talented the student, the more often he is defeated by technical problems due to tension – just trying too hard…”
Friedman goes on to talk about longevity and the importance of teaching students to continue to play well in the long term – this is very much in line with my own philosophy:
“..we are dealing with organic ‘rubber bands’…muscles, tendons and nerve impulses are all subject to fallibility and the inexorable law of attrition…that is why I am vehemently opposed to any finger or arm movements that are not absolutely natural.”
And my favorite – on Heifetz and others’ misunderstanding of vibrato:
“I feel that Heifetz has inadvertently done some damage to other instrumentalists who attempt to emulate him. They are under the mistaken idea that he gets his great tonal intensity by pressing. Actually, his hands are as relaxed as a ballerina in flight. I always felt that if I got too close to him and breathed heavily, I would blow the violin and bow right out of his hands.”
I hope these quotes made you smile and/or gave you some inspiration, the way they did for me.