Jascha Heifetz

Rating:
Summary: A flawed, incomplete biography of the great violinist
Review: It seems amazing that no one has yet published a successful full-scale biography of Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987), who was, as anyone reading this review is likely to know, the greatest, most influential violinist of the twentieth century. Heifetz was an intensely private man, who did not like to talk about himself and resisted interviews, questions about his personal life, and would-be biographers. Thus he made the task of anyone attempting a biography of him difficult. Artur Weschler-Vered in this book took on the intimidating job of writing what claims to be "the first full-length biography." It's not without interest, but unfortunately it's not a very good one.

Heifetz gave his own biography as follows: "Born in Russia, first lesson at three, debut at seven, debut in America at seventeen. That's all there really is." He was a Russian Jew whose father was a violinist evidently determined to turn his son into a great virtuoso. Heifetz became a celebrated child prodigy in Russia. He and his family emigrated to the United States in 1917 at the time of the Russian Revolution, and he played a famous, career-launching Carnegie Hall recital in 1917, also the year of his earliest recordings. He became an American citizen, making his home first in New York City and later in Los Angeles, and continued to concertize and record until 1972, adding teaching to his activities in his later years.

Despite his enormous international fame (RCA Victor billed him as "The Violinist of the Century"), Heifetz was regarded by his detractors as a cold performer, a faultless but soulless virtuoso who played with chilly technical correctness, who took almost everything at a faster tempo than other violinists, and who declined to "emote" during his performances, preferring to play with an impassive expression, the Great Stone Face among violinists. He was a reserved, difficult man, a legendary perfectionist and what today would be called a "control freak." He had two failed marriages and troubled relationships with his three children, and as he grew older it seems evident that he was increasingly hard to get along with.

Weschler-Vered's book is strongest on the early years and the late years of Heifetz's life, but there are serious lacunae in the middle years, extensive periods of time in Heifetz's prime during which he has little or nothing to report. Unfortunately these are the very years we would most like to have a full account of. Occasionally W-V seems to lose focus, as when he digresses at such length about Heifetz's teacher Auer (and other teachers Heifetz had nothing to do with) that the biography threatens to derail. Since Heifetz made the work of any biographer difficult, it is perhaps not surprising that there is considerable guesswork and speculation here. But this gets out of hand in the chapter ominously entitled "Personally Speaking: Mystery," which attempts to penetrate "the impenetrable mask behind the poker face" of the famous violinist by means of none-too-convincing amateur psychologizing and psychological speculation. The author also occasionally gets his facts wrong. For example, he states categorically that Heifetz appeared in only one movie, They Shall Have Music (1938). But in fact he appeared in a second one, Carnegie Hall (1947), unknown to W-V. W-V also doesn't seem to grasp that USC (the University of Southern California) and UCLA (the University of California at Los Angeles), with both of which Heifetz became associated in his later years as a pedagogue, are two distinct and separate universities.

W-V is a Romanian Jew, educated in Israel, who writes awkwardly in English. His prose is wordy, graceless, sometimes unidiomatic, and occasionally ungrammatical; he sometimes chooses what is manifestly the wrong word, and doesn't understand English punctuation well. He is a writer who needed a good editor, but he didn't get one, because this book is full of annoying errors that a good editor would have corrected, and shows evidence of never having been proofread (errors in grammar and punctuation, proper names misspelled, etc.). A sloppy job of preparation for publication by Schirmer Books, the music division of Macmillan, and publisher of many distinguished books on music.

On the other hand W-V is an amateur violinist, and this gives him an advantage in describing the technique and mechanics of Heifetz's playing. It should be noted that his attitude toward Heifetz as a violinist is reverential and dismissive of criticism.

The biography per se is 202 pages in length. The book also includes a useful, comprehensive discography (by Julian Futter, 25 pages) listing all Heifetz's many approved commercial recordings (1917-1972) (no attempt is made to list "pirates" or "off-the-air" issues), two sections of photographs illustrating the violinist's life from childhood to his last concerts, a bibliography, notes, and an index.

In sum, this is far from an ideal biography of Heifetz, but for now it may be the best of a disappointing lot. Its few competitors all have problems, including a couple of personal memoirs by Heifetz students who knew him only in his last years and which have a self-serving component. For a Heifetz buff this book is worth owning for the discography alone. But let's hope that some day soon the great violinist will get the first-rate biography he deserves.