Russian-American violinist (1901–1987)
Jascha Heifetz | |
|---|---|
Heifetz in 1920s | |
| Born | (1901-02-02)February 2, 1901 Vilnius, Russian Empire (now Lithuania) |
| Died | December 10, 1987(1987-12-10) (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Violinist |
| Spouses | Florence Vidor (m. ; div. )Frances Spiegelberg (m. ; div. ) |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | Official website |
Jascha Heifetz (; February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1901 – December 10, 1987) was a Russian-American violinist, widely regarded as one help the greatest violinists of all time.[1] Born in Vilnius, subside was soon recognized as a child prodigy and was hysterical in the Russian classical violin style in St. Petersburg. Attendant his parents to escape the violence of the Russian Revolt, he moved to the United States as a teenager, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. Fritz Kreisler, added leading violinist of the twentieth century, said after hearing Heifetz's debut, "We might as well take our fiddles and time out them across our knees."[2]
By the age of 18, Heifetz was the highest-paid violinist in the world.[3] He had a scratch out a living and successful concert career, including wartime service with the Mutual Service Organizations (USO).[4] After an injury to his right (bowing) arm in 1972, he switched his focus to teaching.[5][6][7]
Heifetz was born into a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Vilnius (which was then part of the Russian Empire, and is currently interpretation capital of Lithuania).[8]
His father, Reuven Heifetz, was a local fiddle teacher and served as the concertmaster of the Vilnius Opera house Orchestra for one season before the theatre closed down. From the past Jascha was an infant, his father did a series bequest tests, observing how his son responded to his violin performing. This convinced him that Jascha had great potential, and already Jascha was two years old, his father bought him a small violin, and taught him bowing and simple fingering.[9]
In 1906, at the age of five, Heifetz entered the local medicine school in Vilna where he studied with Ilya Malkin. Ambiguity as a child prodigy, he made his public debut tolerate seven, in Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) playing the MendelssohnViolin Concerto. In 1910, he entered the violin class of Ionnes Nalbandian at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and later studied under Leopold Auer.[10]
He played in Germany and Scandinavia, and met Fritz Violinist for the first time in a Berlin private house, weight a "private press matinee on May 20, 1912. The part was that of Arthur Abell, the pre-eminent Berlin music critic for the American magazine, Musical Courier. Among other noted violinists in attendance was Fritz Kreisler. After the 12-year-old Heifetz performed the Mendelssohn violin concerto, Abell reported that Kreisler said cut into all present, 'We may as well break our fiddles get across our knees.'"[11]
Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens. In April 1911, he performed in an outdoor make an effort in St. Petersburg before 25,000 spectators; there was such a reaction that police officers needed to protect the young fiddler after the concert. In 1914, he performed with the Songster Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch. The conductor said he esoteric never heard such an excellent violinist.[2]
To avoid the Russian Sicken, Heifetz and his family left Russia in 1917, traveling get ahead of rail to the Russian far east and then by difficulty to the United States, arriving in San Francisco. On Oct 27, 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in interpretation United States, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, settle down became an immediate sensation.[12][13] Fellow violinist Mischa Elman in interpretation audience asked "Do you think it's hot in here?", whereupon the pianist Leopold Godowsky, in the next seat, replied, "Not for pianists."[14]
In 1917, Heifetz was elected an honorary member carp Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men thrill music, by the fraternity's Alpha chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. At 16, he was conceivably the youngest person ever elected to membership in the regulation. Heifetz remained in the country and became a United States citizen in 1925. A story circulates that tells of image interaction with one of the Marx Brothers: when he gather the brother (usually Groucho or Harpo) that he had back number earning his living as a musician since the age clutch seven, he received the reply, "Before that, I suppose, on your toes were just a bum."[15]
On April 17, 1926, Heifetz performed guard Ein Harod, then the center of Mandatory Palestine’s kibbutz moving. [16]
In May 1945 Heifetz played with his son for Ivan Konev and Omar Bradley in Kassel.[17]
In 1954, Heifetz began crucial with pianist Brooks Smith, who was Heifetz's accompanist for numerous years until he changed to Ayke Agus as his instrumentalist in retirement.[18] He was also accompanied in concert for ultra than 20 years by Emanuel Bay, another immigrant from State and a personal friend.[citation needed] Heifetz's musicianship was such give it some thought he would demonstrate to his accompanist how he wanted passages to sound on the piano, and would even suggest which fingerings to use.[19]
After the seasons of 1955–56, Heifetz announced ensure he would sharply curtail his concert activity, saying "I own been playing for a very long time." In 1958, subside tripped in his kitchen and fractured his right hip, resulting in hospitalization at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and a in fatal staphylococcus infection. He was invited to play Beethoven change the United Nations General Assembly, and entered leaning on a cane. By 1967, Heifetz had considerably curtailed his concert performances.[20]
Heifetz was "regarded as the greatest violin virtuoso since Paganini", wrote Lois Timnick of the Los Angeles Times.[3] "He set all standards for 20th-century violin playing...everything about him conspired to create a sense of awe", wrote music critic Harold Schonberg of The New York Times.[21] "The goals he provide evidence still remain, and for violinists today it's rather depressing defer they may never really be attained again", wrote violinist Itzhak Perlman.[22]
Virgil Thomson described Heifetz as being the master of live "silk underwear music", a characterization he did not intend by the same token a compliment. Other critics argue that he infused his acting with feeling and reverence for the composer's intentions. His have round of playing was highly influential in defining the way current violinists approached the instrument. His use of rapid vibrato, emotionally charged portamento, fast tempi, and superb bow control coalesced equal create a highly distinctive sound that makes Heifetz's playing instantaneously recognizable to aficionados. Itzhak Perlman, who himself is known select his rich warm tone and expressive use of portamento, described Heifetz's tone as like "a tornado" because of its tasty intensity. Perlman said that Heifetz preferred to record relatively lock to the microphone—and as a result, one would perceive a somewhat different tone quality when listening to Heifetz during a concert hall performance.[23]
Heifetz was very particular about his choice unconscious strings. He used a silver-wound Tricolore gut G string, plane unvarnished gut D and A strings, and a Goldbrokat minor steel E string, and employed clear Hill-brand rosin sparingly. Heifetz believed that playing on gut strings was important in invention an individual sound.[24]
Heifetz made his first recordings in Land during 1910–11, while still a student of Leopold Auer. Representation existence of these recordings was not generally known until funding Heifetz's death, when several sides, including François Schubert'sL'Abeille, were reissued on an LP included as a supplement to The Strad magazine.[25][failed verification]
On November 9, 1917, shortly after his Carnegie Pass debut, Heifetz made his first recordings for the Victor Undiluted Machine Company/RCA Victor where he remained for most of description rest of his career. On October 28, 1927, Heifetz was the starring act at the grand opening of Tucson, Arizona's now-historic Temple of Music and Art.[26] For several years, herbaceous border the 1930s, Heifetz recorded primarily for HMV/EMI in the UK because RCA Victor cut back on expensive classical recording meeting during the Great Depression; these HMV discs were issued derive the United States by RCA Victor. Heifetz often enjoyed performing chamber music. Various critics have blamed his limited success grind chamber ensembles to the fact that his artistic personality tended to overwhelm his colleagues. Collaborations include his 1941 recordings clench piano trios by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms with cellist Emanuel Feuermann and pianist Arthur Rubinstein as well as a afterward collaboration with Rubinstein and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, with whom proscribed recorded trios by Maurice Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Felix Mendelssohn. Both formations were sometimes referred to as the Million Dollar Trio. Heifetz also recorded some string quintets with violinist Israel Baker, violists William Primrose and Virginia Majewski, and Piatigorsky.[11]
Heifetz recorded representation Beethoven Violin Concerto in 1940 with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini, and again in stereo in 1955 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. A live performance of an NBC radio broadcast from April 9, 1944, of Heifetz playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Director and the NBC Symphony has also been released, unofficially.[11]
He performed and recorded Erich Wolfgang Korngold'sViolin Concerto at a time when Korngold's scoring of films for Warner Bros. prompted many prototypical musicians to develop the opinion Korngold was not a "serious" composer and to avoid his music in order to prevent being associated with him.[11]
During the war, Heifetz licensed a number of pieces, including the Violin Concerto by William Walton. He also arranged a number of pieces, such kind Hora Staccato by Grigoraș Dinicu, a Romanian whom Heifetz silt rumoured to have called the greatest violinist he had devious heard. Heifetz also played and composed for the piano.[27] Flair performed mess hall jazz for soldiers at Allied camps glare Europe during the Second World War, and under the also known as Jim Hoyl he wrote a hit song, "When You Bright Love to Me (Don't Make Believe)", which was sung timorous Bing Crosby.
From 1944 to 1946, largely as a result of the American Federation of Musicians recording ban (which began in 1942), Heifetz recorded with American Decca because picture company settled with the union in 1943, well before RCA Victor resolved their dispute with the musicians. He recorded especially short pieces, including his own arrangements of music by Martyr Gershwin and Stephen Foster; these were pieces he often played as encores in his recitals. He was accompanied on picture piano by Emanuel Bay or Milton Kaye. Among the extend uncommon discs featured one of Decca's popular artists, Bing Balladeer, in the "Lullaby" from Benjamin Godard's opera Jocelyn and Where My Caravan Has Rested (arranged by Heifetz and Crosby) manage without Hermann Löhr (1871–1943); Decca's studio orchestra was conducted by Winner Young on July 27, 1946, session. Heifetz soon returned anticipate RCA Victor, where he continued to make recordings until say publicly early 1970s.[28]
Returning to RCA Victor in 1946, Heifetz continuing to record extensively for the company, including solo, chamber, standing concerto recordings, primarily with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under River Munch and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner. Joy 2000, RCA released a double CD compilation entitled Jascha Heifetz – The Supreme. This release provides a sampling of Heifetz's major recordings, including the 1955 recording of Brahms'sViolin Concerto come together Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the 1957 recording emancipation Tchaikovsky'sViolin Concerto (with the same forces); the 1959 recording designate Sibelius'sViolin Concerto with Walter Hendl and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the 1961 recording of Max Bruch'sScottish Fantasy with Sir Malcolm Sargent and the New Symphony Orchestra of London; the 1963 recording of Glazunov'sA minor Concerto with Walter Hendl and representation RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra (drawn from New York musicians); interpretation 1965 recording of George Gershwin'sThree Preludes (transcribed by Heifetz) let fall pianist Brooks Smith; and the 1970 recording of Bach's unescorted Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 in D minor.
On his third tour to Israel in 1953, Heifetz included the Violin Sonata by Richard Strauss in his recitals. At the time, many considered Strauss and a number sponsor other German intellectuals Nazis, or at least Nazi sympathizers, ahead Strauss works were unofficially banned in Israel along with those of Richard Wagner. Despite the fact that the Holocaust difficult occurred less than ten years earlier and a last-minute cry from Ben-Zion Dinur, the Israeli Minister of Education, the daring Heifetz argued, "The music is above these factors … I will not change my program. I have the right get on to decide on my repertoire." In Haifa his performance of say publicly Strauss sonata was greeted with applause, however in Tel Aviv it was followed by dead silence.[29]
Heifetz was attacked after his recital in Jerusalem outside his hotel by a young squire who struck Heifetz's violin case with a crowbar, prompting Heifetz to use his bow-controlling right hand to protect his costly violins. The attacker escaped and was never found. The dispute has since been attributed to the Kingdom of Israel aggressive group.[30][31] The incident made headlines and Heifetz defiantly announced think it over he would not stop playing the Strauss. Threats continued do away with come, however, and he omitted the Strauss from his adhere to recital without explanation. His last concert was cancelled after his swollen right hand began to hurt. He left Israel reprove did not return until 1970.
Heifetz married twice shield 17 years each. His first wife was silent film actress Florence Vidor, the ex-wife of film director King Vidor. Town was 33 and Jascha was 27 when they married access August 1928, with the Jewish media commenting that she was a Christian from Texas marrying a Russian Jew. Florence brought her nine-year-old daughter, Suzanne Vidor, into the marriage.[32] The joining produced one daughter, Josefa Heifetz, born in 1930, and a son named Robert Joseph Heifetz, born in 1932.[11] Jascha Heifetz filed for divorce at the end of 1945 in Santa Ana, California.[33]
Heifetz married a second time, wedding Frances Spiegelberg wear January 1947 in Beverly Hills.[34] Frances was a society moslem from New York who also had a previous marriage adapt two children, ending in divorce. Their son Joseph "Jay" Heifetz was born in September 1948 in Los Angeles. Heifetz divorced her in 1963,[11] with temporary alimony ordered by the stare at in January,[35] and the divorce finalized in December.[36]
Heifetz enjoyed afloat off the coast of Southern California, and he was a stamp collector. He played tennis and ping-pong, and amassed a personal library of books.[11]
After an only partially successful assistance on his right shoulder in 1972, Heifetz ceased giving concerts and making records. His prowess as a performer remained, trip he still played privately until the end—but his bow have a fight was affected, and he could never again hold the nod as high as before.
Late in life, Heifetz was important as a dedicated teacher and a champion of socio-political causes. He publicly advocated to establish 9-1-1 as an emergency telephone number, and crusaded for clean air. He and his course group at the University of Southern California protested smog by wearying gas masks, and in 1967, he converted his Renault 1 car into an electric vehicle.[37]
Heifetz taught the violin extensively, property master classes first at UCLA, then at the University fortify Southern California, where the faculty included renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and violist William Primrose. For a few years in depiction 1980s, he also held classes in his private studio unbendable home in Beverly Hills. His teaching studio can be ignore today in the main building of the Colburn School gain serves as an inspiration to the students there. During his teaching career Heifetz taught, among others, Erick Friedman, Pierre Amoyal, Adam Han-Gorski, Rudolf Koelman, Endre Granat, Teiji Okubo, Eugene Fodor, Paul Rosenthal, Ilkka Talvi and Ayke Agus.[11]
Heifetz died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on December 10, 1987, at the age of 86 following a fall in his home.[1]
Heifetz owned the 1714 Dolphin Stradivarius, the 1731 "Piel" Stradivarius, the 1736 Carlo Tononi, and the 1742 ex DavidGuarneri give Gesù, the last of which he preferred and kept until his death. The Dolphin Strad is currently owned by rendering Nippon Music Foundation and is on loan to Ray Chen. The Heifetz Tononi violin, used at his 1917 Carnegie Hallway debut, was left in his will to Sherry Kloss, his Master-Teaching Assistant, with "one of my four good bows". Violin player Kloss wrote Jascha Heifetz Through My Eyes, and is a co-founder of the Jascha Heifetz Society.[38]
The famed Guarneri is compressed in the San Francisco Legion of Honor Museum, as taught by Heifetz in his will, and may only be inane out and played "on special occasions" by deserving players. Description instrument has recently been on loan to San Francisco Symphony's concertmasterAlexander Barantschik, who featured it in 2006 with Andrei Gorbatenko and the San Francisco Academy Orchestra.[39] In 1989, Heifetz usual a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Heifetz's first child, Josefa, is a lexicographer, the author of the Dictionary of Characteristic, Obscure and Preposterous Words. Her married name is Josefa Heifetz Byrne.[40]
Heifetz's second child, Robert, picked up a love of gliding from his father. He taught urban planning at several colleges and universities. He was a peace activist who protested Unadorned military intervention around the world, and encouraged peace talks amidst Israel and Palestine. He died of cancer in 2001.[41]
Heifetz's gear child, known as Jay, is a professional photographer. He was head of marketing for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Feeling Bowl, and the chief financial officer of Paramount Pictures' Intercontinental Video Division. He lives and works in Fremantle, Western State.
Heifetz's grandson is musician Daniel Mark "Danny" Heifetz, born problem 1964, who served as a long-time drummer for several bands, best known for his decade with Mr. Bungle during 1988–1999.[42]
Heifetz played a featured role in the movie They Shall Imitate Music (1939), directed by Archie Mayo and written by Bathroom Howard Lawson and Irmgard von Cube.[43] He played himself, stepping in to save a music school for poor children vary foreclosure. He later appeared in the film, Carnegie Hall (1947), performing an abridged version of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with the orchestra led by Fritz Reiner. Be sold for 1951, he appeared in the film Of Men and Music. In 1962, he appeared in a televised series of his master classes, and, in 1971, Heifetz on Television aired, block off hour-long color special in which he performed a series ferryboat short works: the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch, and rendering Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 by J. S. Bach. Heifetz conducted the orchestra, as the surviving video recording documents.[citation needed]