Jascha Heifetz was a Russian-born American violinist, one of the greatest modern masters of the violin.
Background
Jascha Heifetz was born on February 2, 1901 in Vilna, USSR (now Vilnius, Lithuania). His father, Reuven Heifetz, son of Elie, 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 fiddling. 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.
Education
At five years old, Jascha Heifetz started lessons with Leopold Auer. He was a child prodigy, making his public debut at seven, in Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) playing the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1910 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study under Auer.
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.
Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens. In April 1911, Heifetz performed in an outdoor concert in St. Petersburg before 25,000 spectators. In 1914, he performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch.
At ten Jascha Heifetz started touring Russia and at eleven he began performing all over Europe, with an important Berlin debut in 1912. Even before he made his American debut (in 1917 in New York’s Carnegie Hall) the American public had got word of the extraordinary prodigy.
After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Heifetz family traveled from Vilna across Siberia to Japan, where they boarded a steamship to San Francisco. A few days after his successful American debut, Heifetz gave a second concert in the same hall with the New York Symphony Orchestra.
American tours followed and Heifetz began performing and recording all over the world. His London debut (1920) was followed by tours of Australia (1921), the Orient (1923), Palestine (1926), and South America. Two years after his New York debut Heifetz was already netting 2,250 dollars per concert, which made him the highest paid violinist of his time.
In 1953 he played, in Israel, a work by Richard Strauss, whose compositions were not played in Israel because of the composer’s Nazi connections. An irate young Israeli attacked Heifetz in protest with an iron bar outside the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and injured his arm, fortunately not seriously.
From time to time Heifetz disappeared from the concert platform for long periods. The first of these many breaks lasted twenty months, beginning in 1947. By that time he had played one hundred thousand hours and traveled two million miles. Once Heifetz stopped playing he became a recluse and refused any interviews.
Heifetz was the elegant gentleman of the violin. His playing delighted music lovers all over the world. In his farewell tour of Israel, with cellist Gregor Piatigorsky in the late 1960s, Heifetz was still the perfectly astute performer on the stage. Playing his violin with a frozen face he delivered the haunting sounds the audience came to hear. It was magical music, but very cold. His large discography is testament to his flawless technique.
After an only partially successful operation on his right shoulder in 1972, Heifetz ceased giving concerts and making records. Although his prowess as a performer remained intact and he continued to play privately until the end, his bow arm was affected and he could never again hold the bow as high as before. When, in 1977, Herbert R. Axelrod edited and published an "unauthorized pictorial biography" of Heifetz, the violonist filed a lawsuit for 7.5 million dollars against both the publisher and the compiler for the invasion of his privacy.
Heifetz taught the violin extensively, holding master classes first at UCLA, then at the University of Southern California, where the faculty included renowned cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and violist William Primrose. For a few years in the 1980s he also held classes in his private studio at home in Beverly Hills. During his teaching career Heifetz taught, among others, Erick Friedman, Pierre Amoyal, Rudolf Koelman, Endre Granat, Eugene Fodor, Paul Rosenthal, Ilkka Talvi and Ayke Agus.
Although Heifetz had a "difficult" personality, and has even been described as "misanthropic", he enjoyed the company of selected friends who zealously guarded his privacy, he spoke several languages including flawless English, and was an avid bridge and ping-pong player.
His public behavior, however, was often eccentric. At one time, when he gave a party for one of his students, Heifetz invited the guests for 4 p.m. He opened his door promptly at the precise hour and closed it one minute later. Those who were late were not allowed in.
Interests
Sport & Clubs
ping-pong
Connections
Jascha Heifetz was married to Florence Vidor. They had two children, Josepha and Robert. He was married to Frances Spiegelberg, but they divorced and had one son, Joseph.