ty of the artist."

PRACTICE HOURS FOR THE ADVANCED STUDENT

Mr. Kreisler gives no lessons and hence referred this question in the
most amiable manner to his boyhood friend and fellow-student Felix
Winternitz, the well-known Boston violin teacher, one of the faculty of
the New England Conservatory of Music, who had come in while we were
talking. Mr. Winternitz did not refuse an answer: "The serious student,
in my opinion, should not practice less than four hours a day, nor need
he practice more than five. Other teachers may demand more. Sevcik, I
know, insists that his pupils practice eight and ten hours a day. To do
so one must have the constitution of an ox, and the results are often
not equal to those produced by four hours of concentrated work. As Mr.
Kreisler intimated with regard to technic, practice calls for brain
power. Concentration in itself is not enough. There is only one way to
work and if the pupil can find it he can cover the labor of weeks in an
hour."

And turning to me, Mr. Winternitz added: "You must not take Mr. Kreisler
too seriously when he lays no stress on his own practicing. During the
concert season he has his violin in hand for an hour or so nearly every
day. He does not call it practicing, and you and I would consider it
playing and great playing at that. But it is a genuine illustration of
what I meant when I said that one who knew how could cover the work of
weeks in an hour's time."

AN EXPLANATION BY MR. WINTERNITZ

I tried to draw from the famous violinist some hint as to the secret of
the abiding popularity of his own compositions and transcripts but--as
those who know him are aware--Kreisler has all the modesty of the truly
great. He merely smiled and said: "Frankly, I don't know." But Mr.
Winternitz' comment (when a 'phone call had taken Kreisler from the room
for a moment) was, "It is the touch given by his accompaniments that
adds so much: a harmonic treatment so rich in design and coloring, and
so varied that melodies were never more beautifully set off." Mr.
Kreisler, as he came in again, remarked: "I don't mind telling you that
I enjoyed very much writing my _Tambourin Chinois_.[A] The idea for it
came to me after a visit to the Chinese theater in San Francisco--not
that the music there suggested any theme, but it gave me the impulse to
write a free fantasy in the Chinese manner."

[Footnote A: It is interesting to note that Nikolai