Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz (February 2 1901 – December 10, 1987) was a Jewish-Russian-American violinist, widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.

Born in Vilnius, he was soon recognized as a child prodigy and was trained in the Russian classical violin style in St. Petersburg.

Accompanying his parents to escape the violence of the Russian Revolution, he moved to the United States as a teenager, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received.

Fritz Kreisler, another leading violinist of the twentieth century, said after hearing Heifetz's debut, "We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees."

By the age of 18, Heifetz was the highest-paid violinist in the world.

He had a long and successful concert career, including wartime service with the United Service Organizations (USO).

At four years old, Heifetz started violin lessons and in 1906, he was admitted to the Vilnius Music School where he studied with Ilya Davidovitch Malkin.

Recognized as a child prodigy, he made his public debut at seven, in Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

In 1910, he entered the violin class of Ionnes Nalbandian at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and later studied under Leopold Auer.

In April 1911, he performed in an outdoor concert in St. Petersburg before 25,000 spectators; there was such a reaction that police officers needed to protect the young violinist after the concert.

He played in Germany and Scandinavia, and met Fritz Kreisler for the first time in a Berlin private house, in a "private press matinee on May 20, 1912. The home 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 to all present, 'We may as well break our fiddles across our knees.'"

Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens.

In 1914, he performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch.

The conductor said he had never heard such an excellent violinist.

To avoid the Russian Revolution, Heifetz and his family left Russia in 1917, traveling by rail to the Russian far east and then by ship to the United States, arriving in San Francisco.

On October 27, 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the United States, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and became an immediate sensation.

Fellow violinist Mischa Elman in the audience asked "Do you think it's hot in here?", whereupon the pianist Leopold Godowsky, in the next seat, replied, "Not for pianists."

In 1917, Heifetz was elected an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, by the fraternity's Alpha chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

At 16, he was perhaps the youngest person ever elected to membership in the organization.

Heifetz remained in the country and became a United States citizen in 1925.

A story circulates that tells of an interaction with one of the Marx Brothers: when he told the brother (usually Groucho or Harpo) that he had been earning his living as a musician since the age of seven, he received the reply, "Before that, I suppose, you were just a bum."

In 1954, Heifetz began working with pianist Brooks Smith, who was Heifetz's accompanist for many years until he changed to Ayke Agus as his accompanist in retirement.

He was also accompanied in concert for more than 20 years by Emanuel Bay, another immigrant from Russia and a personal friend.

Heifetz's musicianship was such that he would demonstrate to his accompanist how he wanted passages to sound on the piano, and would even suggest which fingerings to use.

After the seasons of 1955–56, Heifetz announced that he would sharply curtail his concert activity, saying "I have been playing for a very long time."

In 1958, he tripped in his kitchen and fractured his right hip, resulting in hospitalization at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital and a near fatal staphylococcus infection.

He was invited to play Beethoven at the United Nations General Assembly, and entered leaning on a cane.

By 1967, Heifetz had considerably curtailed his concert performances.

Heifetz was "regarded as the greatest violin virtuoso since Paganini", wrote Lois Timnick of the Los Angeles Times.

"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.

"The goals he set still remain, and for violinists today it's rather depressing that they may never really be attained again", wrote violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Virgil Thomson called Heifetz's style of playing "silk underwear music", a term he did not intend as a compliment.

Other critics argue that he infused his playing with feeling and reverence for the composer's intentions.

His style of playing was highly influential in defining the way modern violinists approached the instrument.

His use of rapid vibrato, emotionally charged portamento, fast tempi, and superb bow control coalesced to create a highly distinctive sound that makes Heifetz's playing instantly recognizable to aficionados.

After an injury to his right (bowing) arm in 1972, he switched his focus to teaching.

Heifetz was born into a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Vilnius (which was then part of the Russian Empire, and is currently the capital of Lithuania).

His father, Reuven Heifetz, was a local violin teacher and served as the concertmaster of the Vilnius Theatre Orchestra for one season before the theatre closed down.

While Jascha was an infant, his father did a series of tests, observing how his son responded to his violin playing.

This convinced him that Jascha had great potential, and before Jascha was two years old, his father bought him a small violin, and taught him bowing and simple fingering.