d later at Scarsdale where, in company with his
friend Thibaud, he was dividing his time between music and tennis, Ysaye
made him entirely at home, and willingly talked of his art and its
ideals. In reply to some questions anent his own study years, he said:

"Strange to say, my father was my very first teacher--it is not often
the case. I studied with him until I went to the Liege Conservatory in
1867, where I won a second prize, sharing it with Ovide Musin, for
playing Viotti's 22d Concerto. Then I had lessons from Wieniawski in
Brussels and studied two years with Vieuxtemps in Paris. Vieuxtemps was
a paralytic when I came to him; yet a wonderful teacher, though he could
no longer play. And I was already a concertizing artist when I met him.
He was a very great man, the grandeur of whose tradition lives in the
whole 'romantic school' of violin playing. Look at his seven
concertos--of course they are written with an eye to effect, from the
virtuoso's standpoint, yet how firmly and solidly they are built up!
How interesting is their working-out: and the orchestral score is far
more than a mere accompaniment. As regards virtuose effect only
Paganini's music compares with his, and Paganini, of course, did not
play it as it is now played. In wealth of technical development, in true
musical expressiveness Vieuxtemps is a master. A proof is the fact that
his works have endured forty to fifty years, a long life for
compositions.

"Joachim, Leonard, Sivori, Wieniawski--all admired Vieuxtemps. In
Paganini's and Locatelli's works the effect, comparatively speaking,
lies in the mechanics; but Vieuxtemps is the great artist who made the
instrument take the road of romanticism which Hugo, Balzac and Gauthier
trod in literature. And before all the violin was made to charm, to
move, and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like Rubinstein, he held that the artist
must first of all have ideas, emotional power--his technic must be so
perfected that he does not have to think of it! Incidentally, speaking
of schools of violin playing, I find that there is a great tendency to
confuse the Belgian and French. This should not be. They are distinct,
though the latter has undoubtedly been formed and influenced by the
former. Many of the great violin names, in fact,--Vieuxtemps, Leonard*,
Marsick, Remi, Parent, de Broux, Musin, Thomson,--are all Belgian."

*Transcriber's note: Original text read "Leonard".

YSAYE'S REPERTORY