"A 'transcription,' on the other hand, can be raised to the dignity of an art-work. Indeed, at times it may even surpass the original, in the quality of thought brought into the work, the delicate and sympathetic treatment and by the many subtleties* which an artist can introduce to make it thoroughly a _re-creation_ of his chosen instrument.
*Transcriber's note: Original text read "subleties".
"It is the transcriber's privilege--providing he be sufficiently the artist to approach the personality of another artist with reverence--to donate his own gifts of ingenuity, and to exercise his judgment in either adding, omitting, harmonically or otherwise embellishing the work (_while preserving the original idea and characteristics_), so as to thoroughly _re-create_ it, so completely destroying the very sensing of the original _timbre_ that one involuntarily exclaims, 'Truly, this never was anything but a violin piece!' It is this, the blending and fusion of two personalities in the achievement of an art-ideal, that is the result of a true adaptation.
"Among the transcriptions I have most enjoyed making were those of Debussy's _Il pleure dans mon cœur_, and _La Fille aux cheveaux de lin_. Debussy was my cherished friend, and they represent a labor of love. Though Debussy was not, generally speaking, an advocate of transcriptions, he liked these, and I remember when I first played _La Fille aux cheveaux de lin_ for him, and came to a bit of counterpoint I had introduced in the violin melody, whistling the harmonics, he nodded approvingly with a '_pas bête ça!_' (Not stupid, that!)
"Debussy came near writing a violin piece for me once!" continued Mr. Hartmann, and brought out a folio containing letters the great impressionist had written him. They were a delightful revelation of the human side of Debussy's character, and Mr. Hartmann kindly consented to the quotation of one bearing on the _Poème_ for violin which Debussy had promised to write for him, and which, alas, owing to his illness and other reasons, never actually came to be written:
"Of course I am working a great deal now, because I feel the need of writing music, and would find it difficult to build an aeroplane; yet at times Music is ill-natured, even toward those who love her most! Then I take my little daughter and my hat and go walking in the Bois de Boulogne, where one meets people who have come from afar to bore themselves in Paris.