From the Archive: advice for second violinists

It stands to reason that not everybody can play first fiddle — not only in the orchestra but in the ordinary affairs of life — but it is a conspicuous fact there are always many more candidates for the front desks than personal capacity to fill them. Every clerk aspires to be manager, every workman to be foreman, every chorus singer to be prima donna and most private persons to be cock o’ the walk in the home or in their private social circle. It is an instinct common to humanity, but doomed, in most instances, to be thwarted. Obviously, not everybody can stand on the top of the ladder, but that is no reason why one should not be both useful and happy on various intermediate rungs, or, of course, progressively.

If the second desks are occupied by a dull, discontented crowd who have merely been unwillingly rejected from the opposite benches because of technical incapacity, the whole character of the music rendered will suffer, and this even if they avoid...