Margaret C. Anderson

The wonder-child is not so much a “wonder” in Europe as in this country. “At seven, yes—even up to eleven, perhaps,” a young German violinist who began to concertize at six once told me. “But after that—there are so many and they all play so beautiful! So it is more common there and people think not so much of it.” And she went on to tell me, with the most wistful seriousness, how at twelve she had felt suddenly so oppressed with age and weariness that for two years she had wanted not to play at all. She described it as a period when she wanted to “stop feeling and run in the country all day and be only with animals.”

But on the whole her theory seemed to be that it was the simplest thing in the world for a child to play well—better, in some ways, than he will ever play later on; and very likely it’s true. The newer psychologists have given us enough reason to think so.

It still comes with something of a shock to us here, however; and when we started for The Chicago Little Theatre one night two weeks ago to hear Master Ruby Davis, aged twelve, give a violin recital, it was with the most excited anticipations. I had never heard a child play the violin. Surely disappointment was inevitable....

A little boy walked quietly out on to the stage, smiling. (I heard afterward that some one had asked him if it didn’t frighten him to face all those people. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m going to play my violin!”) He had on a little soft white shirt and knickerbockers. His hair was almost auburn and curled away from his forehead; his eyes were blue and his skin the softest white. His hands were the long, slender, “artistic” type rather than the blunt, heavy type which is quite as common among first-rate violinists. “Antoine”—that was all I could think.

And then he lifted his bow and swung into the Haendel Sonata in A with all the assurance of a master. It was only a matter of seconds until you knew that he could not disappoint—ever: he knew how to feel! A musician may commit all the crimes in the musical universe, or he may play so flawlessly that you marvel; but none of it matters particularly. A phrase will tell you whether he is an artist—the way the notes rise or fall or seem to be gathered up into that subtle thing which is the difference between efficient Playing and Music by the grace of God.

Ruby Davis makes Music. And how he loved doing it! He played a Canzonetta by Ambrosia, and the Jarnefelt Berceuse, and other difficult things like the Pugnani Praeludium, and that Motto Perpetuo of Ries, beside the regulation Cavatina and the DvorÁk Humoresque—every one of them, in spite of small deficiencies that will be corrected, with a quality that is genius. As nearly as I can register it this is the picture of him I shall remember:

A little slender, eager, swaying body, and a great violin above which his face seemed worshipping. His eyes turned deep blue as flowers when he raised his head for some lovely soaring tone or dropped it on his instrument over some deep G string melody. His mouth was the saddest little mouth I’ve ever seen, and somehow you could watch the music coursing through his cheek bones. His right foot kept moving gently inside his shoe, always in perfect time.