Fiddlerman said
What speed were you thinking Andrew?  

Do you mean because each bar is a bowstroke, it has to go fast?

I guess the whole etude works on many techniques, but at the moment I'm just looking at bar 1 in Simon Fischer's Basics, where it is used as an excerise in string crossing. I guess that if you try to express its beauty, you have to try it at the slowest speed where you can still just eke out one bow stroke per bar. Maybe that would make an interesting challenge for you experts - the winnner is the person who plays it slowest (just bar 1 - the whole thing would take all day).

I have written it out and phrased it with a bow stroke to each group of four semiquavers. That way you get crossings from lower to higher strings on both up and down bows and vice versa. I've written it out twice with a third bar in between the two to stagger the bowing so that the repeat begins on the up-bow instead of the down bow for extra variety.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Fiddlerman said
No, I was not trying to suggest anything like that.

Andrew Fryer said
Actually, played at full speed it loses a little of its beauty.

Just curious at what tempo you feel it has the most beauty?  

Maybe quaver = 50?

This first bar on its own is a good intonation exercise. I can drift way off tune when I play it badly. You get cumulative errors, and then if you repeat it, you can use the open A to check how far you've drifted.