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The purity of the violinist's intonation depends to a certain
extant on his choice of fingering. A bad fingering is often the reason for
uncertain and inexact intonation, even in technically easy passages. This is the
result of the awkward movements of the hand and fingers which are required by
such fingerings. For example : The fingering given above, which requires an extension of the
second finger followed by the first finger crossing strings, gives the fingers
no point of support, which is the reason for the uncertainty of intonation. The
advantage of the following fingering : is that by doing away with the unnecessary string crossing of the first finger, it gives a natural point of support for the precise movements of the fingers in the given hand position and thus makes for more accurate intonation. However, the causes of uncertain intonation are not only bad
fingering. It is well known that violinists make the same mistakes in intonation
when playing the same passages in certain works. This is explained by the fact
that such passages are not only technically difficult, but awkward as well. The
shifts, jumps, and extensions which the left hand has to make in playing such
passages are so foreign to the nature of the instrument and the natural position
of the fingers, that no fingering will completely remove these difficulties, and
all the efforts to overcome them do not always lead to the desired results. This
is reflected not only in the uncertainty and inexactness of intonation, but also
in the tone quality. For example, the following passage from the "
Recitative and Scherzo " of Kreisler is very difficult for intonation,
owing to the lack of a point of support, the quick changes of position, the
sound of the open E string, and the finger extensions : The examples given below also contain a number of difficulties
and awkward features, as a result of which they usually sound poor : The reason for the difficulty in securing good intonation in many modern works is that the technical foundation of the violinist is based mainly on the study of the virtuoso violin repertoire, the limited harmonic range of which is well known. It is natural that having easily overcome the difficulties of passages based on tonic-dominant harmonies, the violinist should experience difficulties in playing whole-tone scales or complicated combinations of double stops, chords, and harmonic progressions. The question is not so much one of the violinist's fingers, which are sufficiently developed, but of his ear, which has been trained and developed on completely different progressions and combinations of notes, resulting in the lack of a sufficiently developed aural faculty. The development of good intonation is helped by the use of rational fingering, but this demands certain technical skills which are at times strange for the violinist who has been brought up on different types of fingering and has been used to different positions and movements of the fingers on the finger-board. The uncritical learning of fingering in the early stages of playing leads to the pupil later feeling a certain awkwardness in using new rational fingering methods. It is therefore essential to introduce systematically into early teaching practice new kinds of movements and positions of the fingers on the finger-board and enharmonic changes of intervals, and to insist on the use of the normally avoided even-numbers positions and the half position. Rubinstein's comment on pianists' reluctance to use the thumb on the black keys offers an instructive parallel. Rubinstein pointed out that " if one is afraid of putting the thumb on the black keys, then in many pieces of the modern repertoire one is bound to come up against considerable difficulties ( regarding the choice of fingering ) at every step ; one should therefore get used to the black keys as soon as possible ( that is, get used to fingerings in which the thumb is naturally used on the black keys ). " { from The lectures of Hans von Bülow, compiled by Theodore Pfeiffer from the 4th German edition, with remarks by A.Bukhovtsev ( Moscow, 1896 ), p. 96.}
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