Violin Technique: The Secrets of Sammons
The name of violinist Albert Sammons (1886-1957) may, in general, not be so familiar to violinists on the American side of the pond, but he was certainly familiar to the Emperor of violinists: Jascha Heifetz. My first teacher at the Royal College of Music (RCM) was a student of Sammons, and he often told the story of how Sammons showed him a letter from Heifetz thanking him for his recording of the Elgar which he (Heifetz) had found helpful in preparing his own stellar (arguably unsurpassed) recording of said concerto.
BELOW: The 1929 recording of violinist Albert Sammons (1886-1957) performing Elgar's Violin concerto with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Sir Henry Wood.
What is all the more remarkable is that Sammons is generally said to be self-taught! His father was a top player in the London orchestras of the time, so I would hazard a guess he got some kind of solid foundation from there in the early stages, but after that I can find no record of study, other than vague references to occasional consultations with other players living in London.
When I was a violin student at RCM, that Institute was selling off a huge volume of scores and the like to its students at rock bottom prices, and a friend of mine urged me to snap up a copy of Sammons' technical work The Secret of Technique in Violin Playing. (Sammons states on the cover that it is a work for advanced violinists and soloists, but this is only half true in my opinion.) I don’t think I was too excited about buying it at first since, anything concerning the violin which includes the word "secret" tends to be what we Brits call "a load of old cobblers." However, Sammons' book is a rare exception.
The more I use this book, the more impressed I am with the sheer depth of understanding of all aspects of violin playing that Sammons possessed. It is not a compact book, such as the immensely valuable Warming Up, by Simon Fischer. Nor is it a book of etudes, although it contains a number of brilliant etudes that compare favorably with other standard works.
Since it is not really possible to play through the whole lot in one day’s practice unless one is unemployed, one can, with the guidance of a competent teacher, pick and choose exercises according to one’s needs. Indeed, the first time I took this book to Ken Piper (Sammons’s student) he laughed and immediately turned to Section 2: Exercises in tone. In this section, one plays a four-beat note on one string and and then add a double stop halfway through the note on either an upper or lower string. From this, we progress adding a sustained top note and short notes on the other strings as we do in the Bach C major sonata. I don’t think this exercise is so common these days, but it has an extraordinary effect on tone overall. You simply have to get the factors of speed, weight and sound point right and listen like a hawk to identify the slightest crunch or unevenness.
Since I have been practicing the book quite a lot, I have noticed something rather smart about the positioning of this work. It follows on the heels of a huge variety of fundamental bowing exercises at the heel and point across three strings, and a page of collé exercises jumping to the point, heel etc. If one works through these exercises, the bow arm is in perfect condition to find the delicate balances necessary to play the tone exercises beautifully. Coming into them cold is considerably more difficult.
The collé exercises are worthy of note. Clearly Sammons understood the immense significance of being able to play a collé at the heel, either up or down, and shoot to the point for another colle and then back in various combinations. This is exactly the same as Dounis, and I wonder which came first, the chicken or the expert.
As I mention above, the bowing exercises are across 3 strings, which does bump them up a level. The emphasis on playing at the heel is very characteristic of the "Sammons school of playing," and Ken often reminded me that Sammons said to him, "Master the heel, my boy, and you have mastered the bow."
The left-hand exercises begin with two-finger exercises on one string, which is another demonstration of how well he understood the violin. Two-finger scales are a major component of practice that should not be neglected in favor of three (or four) octave scales.
It would be impossible to list the huge variety of techniques that Sammons cover so brilliantly in the left hand chapter, but it is perhaps worth noting his clear understanding of the hidden weakness of so many violinists: even at an advanced level, there is not full independence of left and right hand, resulting in small releases of pressure in the bow stroke as they occur in the left hand fingertips. Thus he provides a fair number of examples of sustaining an open string while the left hand plays a three-octave scale. (Simon Fischer has also stressed this particular and rather neglected exercise in "Warming Up.").
Violinist Albert Sammons.
Then there are the glissando exercises, especially numbers six and seven, where one plays the same note repeatedly while changing the finger. We can play the same 6th with 3 different fingerings while sustaining a forte bow stoke. Perfect intonation and seamless position changing is required. This is also another Dounis technique which I am curious about….
Two final unique studies in the book are a) alternation of fingers one and two, right-hand pizzicato and b) left-hand pizz and right-hand pizz combined. This latter is superb.
In my own practice of this book, I have found that old and new can work hand in hand. That is to say, I practice the opening chord sequence in 5ths in the style of Rodney Friend’s new approach (laid out in his book The Violin in 5ths) before doing the bowing exercises. This sets up correct intonation and warms up the left hand rapidly before starting the bowings.
The two-finger scales I practice in 5ths as well. One important way of practicing them is to practice the lower finger only so that one is shifting in 5ths from one end of the fingerboard to the other. One then adds the intermediate 5th before zooming up and down the finger board on single notes. For some reason this kind of practices makes a significant contribution toward technical facility.
Not much left to add except, in my opinion, every serious player and teacher should take a serious look at this book as a significant contribution to violin pedagogy. Not to mention listening to Sammon’s terrific performance of the Elgar and his student Hugh Bean’s as well!
You might also like:
- My 30-Minute Paganini Routine
- Violinist.com interview with Simon Fischer: Warming Up
- A Tale of Two Yehudis
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Replies
Hi Jean,
Glad you liked it. For what it’s worth, one can do so much of this work in 5ths before doing the actual exercise. One of my favorites is ‘The Trill’ section : Exercises 3. That one in 5ths followed by high speed performance is a humdinger.
I do believe those finger substation exercises are among the best we’ve got. I find ‘The Glissando’ numbers six and 7 to have an invaluable effect on shifting in general. I think a lot of his exercises are designed to be applied all over the fingerboard so there really are no limits to how far you can push yourself.
Warmest regards,
Buri
Buri, you also seem to hint at the possibility that Dounis "borrowed" some material from Sammons?
How would you compare Sammons to Flesch Urstudien and Dounis Daily Dozen?
One of the works that attracted me back when I was churning out string quartet recordings for IMSLP was the Phantasy Quartet Op.8 that Sammons wrote for the Cobbett competition in 1915 and won first prize. It isn't a great piece (the 4-bar phrases are pretty relentless) but harmonically is quite sophisticated. Maybe it's time to investigate some of his compositions for violin and piano that were mostly published by Hawkes and Sons. So far only two have been uploaded to IMSLP but hopefully more will crop up when they emerge from copyright in 2027.
Hi Jean,
Sorry for the slow reply. I don’t use the Urstudien any more but they are super and extremely efficient. They are not designed to improve technique, but simply sustain it at the level it is already at. Dounis is not really intended to improve you playing either although I think it does to a degree. They are good but I am the least interested din the Dounis bowing variations although they are certainly useful. Warming Up is interesting because although Simon tends to suggest that they are more of a Shu sustaining collection like th others I think they also improve technique overall in very small increments . I mean, he has included so file and bow pulsing which we do to improve, not to sustain technique. And the vibrato exercises have become the gold standard for improvement. I think what make Warming up a little different is it has a strong emphasis’physical awareness’ which is less apparent in the others. The bow hair vs. Wood exercise is not an obvious one but it pays huge dividends , as do the lightening of the finger stuff.
Sammons is Similar in function and content but it is a monster book in many ways which includes , with a little applied intelligence, all necessary scales (more or less) and small scale etudes. It is not so much warming up as saying to advanced players ‘this covers most of the repertoire and it’s all in one book.’ Can still use it selectively for warming up. I -strongly= recommend the tone production exercises.
Another good book my last teacher made me use at college was Casorti Bowing.
I took some time off from Warming Up to work on the Sammons. I just came back this morning and it wa ssooo much better. Incidentally, I know I keep harping on about it, but you can intensify the Warming Up experience a great deal by working in 5ths. I do all the shifting in 5ths and one I absolutely love is the extreme intonation exercises done in 5ths. Also, if you do the hand frame exercise in 5ths and octaves rather than single notes it’s much more reliable and in tune. Quite a big advance. If you have time to try that out could you let me know what you think?
Warmest regards,
Buri
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December 19, 2024 at 11:29 PM · thanks Buri. you mentioned this work briefly earlier already, and I already got my copy then, had already good practice with it.