Juxtapositions like these would also show us better than any words can the reverse side of the medal, what Lucien Capet, the great French quartet-player and one of the most profound of Beethoven interpreters, meant when he spoke in his Art de l’archet of the “éternelle effervescence” of present-day violinists. How well I remember that contest at the Paris Conservatoire at which he, Thibaud, and I were judges, and his mock-admiration every time an excellent, slick, luscious-toned youngster came out and played still faster and still more smoothly than the preceding one: “Mon Dieu, quels doigts épatants! Quel bon ébeniste!” he would exclaim. (“Heavens, what dizzy fingers! What a whopping cabinet maker!”) << less