"Yet if Joachim may be criticized as regards the way of imparting the secrets of technical phases in his violin teaching, as a teacher of interpretation he was incomparable! As an interpreter of Beethoven and of Bach in particular, there has never been any one to equal Joachim. Yet he never played the same Bach composition twice in the same way. We were four in our class, and Hubay and I used to bring our copies of the sonatas with us, to make marginal notes while Joachim played to us, and these instantaneous musical 'snapshots' remain very interesting. But no matter how Joachim played Bach, it was always with a big tone, broad chords of an organ-like effect. There is no greater discrepancy than the edition of the Bach sonatas published (since his death) by Moser, and which is supposed to embody Joachim's interpretation. Sweeping chords, which Joachim always played with the utmost breadth, are 'arpeggiated' in Moser's edition! Why, if any of his pupils had ever attempted to play, for instance, the end of the _Bourée_ in the B minor _Partita_ of Bach _à la Moser_, Joachim would have broken his bow over their heads!
"After three years' study I left Joachim and went to Paris. Liszt had given me letters of introduction to various French artists, among them Saint-Saëns. One evening I happened to hear Léonard play Corelli's _La Folia_ in the _Salle Pleyel_, and the liquid clarity and beauty of his tone so impressed me that I decided I must study with him. I played for him and he accepted me as a pupil. I am free to admit that my tone, which people seem to be pleased to praise especially, I owe entirely to Léonard, for when I came to him I had the so-called 'German tone' (_son allemand_), of a harsh, rasping quality, which I tried to abandon absolutely. Léonard often would point to his ears while teaching and say: '_Ouvrez vos oreilles: écoutéz la beauté du son!_' ('Open your ears, listen for beauty of sound!'). Most Joachim pupils you hear (unless they have reformed) attack a chord with the nut of the bow, the German method, which unduly stresses the attack. Léonard, on the contrary, insisted with his pupils on the attack being made with such smoothness as to be absolutely unobtrusive. Being a nephew of Mme. Malibran, he attached special importance to the 'singing' tone, and advised his pupils to hear great singers, to _listen_ to them, and to try and reproduce their _bel canto_ on the violin.