Yesterday morning Arnold Steinhardt gave a master class during which he coached three terrifically talented violinists. Steinhardt of course was the first violinist (usually) of the Guarneri String Quartet that retired a few years ago. He still teaches at the Curtis Institute.

Kevin Sloan played Paganianna by Nathan Milstein, the great Russian violinist who died in 1992, Aisha Dossumova a caprice by Saint-Saens, and Alexander Dzyubinsky two movements from Johann Sebastian Bach's A minor sonata for unaccompanied violin. These pieces are extremely difficult and present minefields in every measure. Technically these kids were as good as they get.

This is where it's interesting to listen to a teacher of Steinhardt's calibre zero in on what needs fixing. This is a rare skill because you have only a few minutes with each one and you want to help the student but what you do with one shot. Plus, you don't want to go against the student's teacher. So you stick to the music and the kid's playing of it. Orlando Cole, who was also good at it, hated this aspect of master classes, and he was giving them up until he was 100. 

The main message Steinhadt drove home is that the player is a story teller. "If you were a story teller and this piece (the Milstein) were a story, what would you stress to make your story as interesting as possible?" was a question he posed to Sloan.

To Dossumova, he said, "You play these notes perfectly and bravo for that, but you always play them all the same. Try to think of how you can vary them just a little to make it more interesting for the listener." 
 

To Dzubiinsky, he said: "You don't have to play like a metronome. Vary the tempo a little with each note so you don't lose the audience."

Orlando Cole cellist of the Curtis String Quartet and teacher at both Curtis and Temple, used to say, "Every note is different. You'r either going toward something or away from something so play accordingly."

People should pay more attention to what goes on at Temple. There's not as much as at Curtis, obviously, but several times a year there's a really interesting event.