All-Heifetz day on WFMT in Chicago

July 19, 2012 at 06:46 PM · if someone actually hates his playing i wouldn't ask them to listen to this broadcast. they should be doing something else with their life and not music :)

i am from chicago but sadly i won't be around to listen. i hope they play some of my favorites....korngold, glazunov, brahms concertos, and a lot of short pieces!

July 20, 2012 at 06:36 PM · Hi. Yes, they did play most of those through the day - and much more. Well, maybe you're right. How can you ask someone who just doesn't like Heifetz to spend hours listening to him?

On the other hand, whether one prefers his approach or disagrees violently with it, I would like to think that anyone even remotely interested in the violin and in classical musical performance could at least recognize and appreciate the giant contributions that Heifetz provided to the violin playing, classical music, and in fact the performing arts.

Casals once said that Ysaye was the first violinist he ever heard play in tune. Can you imaging consistently poor intonation being tolerated after Heifetz arrived on the scene. And that's just the issue of intonation.

Someone once asked Frank Sinatra how one can learn to phrase a song. Sinatra said that you can start by listening to Jascha Heifetz.

So that's where I stand (Actually, I'm sitting down).

Cheers,

Sandy

July 20, 2012 at 07:56 PM · To me all his chamber music stuff are the best.

July 20, 2012 at 11:21 PM · mendelssohn trio with rubinstein heifetz and piatigorsky is just a wonderful recording, unforgettable.

Ysaye played very well in tune by many accounts. Unfortunately most of the recordings we have of him were when he was older, and he did not keep his technical shape like some other great fiddlers. but you have to understand that there were different values back then. intonation was important, but nothing like it is now, where for many people it's the only way to judge a violinist.

To me this fetish is a sort of compensation for the fact that people over time began to lose the ability to value something more important. the rise of the recording industry, television, rock revolution, these all changed audiences and in turn changed violinists.

and by the way Heifetz as a matter of fact is by no means a guide to today's "perfect intonation" (compared to someone like hilary hahn).

sure this message is coming from a student of a legendary heifetz student, so I don't expect that everyone loves or understands how jascha plays the violin - I'm aware that people have different tastes. all i mean is that it would be kind of silly to say you "hate heifetz" :) unless of course you knew the man, in which case that can be easily justified :D

July 22, 2012 at 02:26 PM · D:

Yes, maybe the fact that Heifetz made his ground-breaking recordings in the early days of the recording industry had a lot to do with his influence world-wide. He was the right violinist at the right time. But - he was indeed the right violinist.

As to his personality....well, you're talking to a psychologist here. And I've read everything about Heifetz (with a few exceptions). Nevertheless, it's against my professional ethics to indulge is psychohistorical diagnosis as if I have actually had the opportunity to interview the person. Like all of us, I'm sure Heifetz had his personal strengths and his "feet of clay."

However, generally, sometimes people who become very prominent because they become idolized or are in positions of authority, influence, or power (in any area of human endeavor) become insulated from the kind of direct, personal, realistic, and sometimes critical feedback from others that most of us get in life (whether we like it or not). And sometimes that insulation serves to isolate the person from the kind of personal criticism that causes most of us to re-think ourselves and make changes in how we relate to others.

My guess is that Heifetz was probably in that kind of situation. Who in his life was going to confront him about anything? Not that he didn't have friends and people who really liked him or that he may have liked. But the picture painted of his final years is of a world famous person who is nonetheless profoundly alone and personally isolated from a significant, deep, ongoing relationship with anybody.