6 mins
Words from the MASTER
Ayke Agus served as Heifetz’s personal accompanist during classes and performances for the last 15 years of his life. Here, she shares recollections of his practice routine and teaching methods with Enrico Alvares
Jascha Heifetz demonstrates a passage to student Yukiko Kamei in 1978. Ayke Agus accompanies him on the piano while fellow Heifetz pupil Sherry Kloss turns pages
A well-known Zen parable begins with a monk showing a visiting master craftsman around his monastery. Upon seeing a book of collected teachings, the craftsman says, ‘Well, if your business is anything like mine, only the commonplace will be found in those pages. A master’s real secrets can’t be written down or spoken, but only passed on wordlessly from master to apprentice.’
Anyone who has read Ayke Agus’s 2001 memoir Heifetz as I Knew Him knows that she has shared almost everything that can be captured of the man in words. As a violin student in Heifetz’s masterclasses at the University of Southern California from 1971 to 1973, and his long-time piano accompanist during classes and performances from 1973 to 1987, Agus had rare first-hand contact with the virtuoso violinist in both private and professional settings.
She points out early in our interview that Heifetz loved to quote one particular line from the text of the traditional Hebrew traveller’s prayer Tefilat haderech: ‘May You confer blessing upon the work of our hands.’ I think we can safely infer from this that Heifetz saw himself much as Bach saw himself – as a devoted craftsman.
His personal practice regime certainly remained a constant throughout his life. ‘It’s important to understand,’ she explains, ‘that all the practising I heard was after he had stopped playing concertos and recitals. Even so, I accompanied him daily for 15 years, and we worked methodically through his entire, vast repertoire from A to Z. First the concertos, then the sonatas, then the longer short pieces, then his transcriptions – of which there are more than 200! Unsurprisingly, he was extremely focused when we practised together. Of course, I often wondered what he would have been like with a concert on the horizon.’
Come emotional rain or shine, Heifetz always worked. ‘Even when he was angry or depressed, when it came to the daily scheduled time to practise together, he never cancelled,’ says Agus. ‘What was surprising to me was that this practising would always modify his behaviour – if it was unpleasant that day – to a much more happy and relaxed mode. The focus was always on the music and never on himself.’
It’s worth noting here that Agus is probably the only person now living who has heard Heifetz’s full-scale practice routine. ‘He often practised while I was occupied in his studio with various admin tasks that he’d assigned me,’ she says. ‘It would be mostly scales and arpeggios in all shapes and forms, and in various tempos.’
Iask Agus about Heifetz’s teaching method. ‘Well, if he had a method, it was probably the one he learnt from Auer,’ she says. ‘We all tend to emulate the teachers who made the biggest impact on us.’
She lists a number of comparisons and contrasts between the Auer and Heifetz methods:
• ‘Neither focused on technical matters, choosing instead to work on deepening their students’ interpretative skills and general musical understanding – although both were sticklers for technical accuracy as required for proper service to the music’
• ‘Auer didn’t demonstrate much whereas Heifetz demonstrated a great deal. The only downfall of these demonstrations was that the playing was so magical it was almost always impossible for the poor student to focus on whatever point was being demonstrated!’
• ‘Both Auer and Heifetz accepted no excuse for lack of discipline or for sloppiness. They both expected intelligent work habits and great attention to detail. The weekly lesson preparation was intentionally as gruelling as for a full recital performance’
• ‘While both pushed their students to their limits, they each also remained devoted to their students’ needs.’ (At this point we speak off the record of numerous acts of exceptional generosity on Heifetz’s part – almost none of which are public knowledge, at his insistence)
• ‘Both expected every violin student to be able to play the piano and the viola – no exceptions’
‘In Heifetz’s class,’ she continues, ‘every student had to be ready and prepared to play at any time the following from memory, whether or not it was their day for an individual lesson: all scales and arpeggios with all their variations, an etude, a solo Bach movement and an encore piece (an “itsybitsy”, as he called them).’
The class pianist, too, was expected to be fully prepared. ‘Whichever concerto was being worked on, Heifetz insisted the opening thematic idea had to be heard in full,’ remembers Agus. ‘The pianist had to be ready to play entire tutti sections from the beginning of the piece, with the correct orchestral colours.’ She recounts one memorable occasion when Heifetz spent 20 minutes honing five bars of the opening tutti of Bruch’s First Concerto before the student was allowed finally to enter with the opening solo. Only after the pianist had proved themselves were they allowed to use the usual tutti cuts.
‘Heifetz also insisted that students throw their solo parts into the bin and stick to studying from the piano accompaniment score,’ says Agus. ‘It’s for this reason that the violin line in the piano parts of genuine Heifetz transcriptions include all
bowings and fingerings found in the solo part. On one occasion, a publisher’s proof arrived with Heifetz’s markings removed from the piano part’s violin line. The publisher explained it was not its standard policy to include such stand in class, according to Agus. ‘Don’t write it down. Remember it!’ was Heifetz’s admonition. ‘He believed in properly training the brain, rather than simply filling a piece of marks in the piano part – and was, of course, summarily dropped by Heifetz, who proceeded to find another.’
‘THE WEEKLY LESSON PREPAR ATION WAS INTENTIONALLY AS GRUELLING AS FOR A FULL RECITAL PERFORMANCE’
Agus worked with Heifetz daily for 15 years
COURTESY AYKE AGUS
It may be surprising to hear, too, that pencils were not allowed on the music paper with memory aids. He felt that most people have a greater mental ability than they realise and that almost everyone has at least some aspect of a photographic memory, which could be developed with work,’ she says. In fact, the only words allowed to be written in a student’s part were Italian musical terms – no directions from the student’s native language were permitted. ‘Heifetz always wanted his students to think musically rather than falling into the trap of thinking about music, and I think this imposed linguistic discipline was part of that goal.’
It’s important for us to understand that Heifetz worked as hard as he did so that he could be completely spontaneous and playful during a performance. ‘He didn’t have set bowings or fingerings,’ explains Agus. ‘Instead, he changed these according to how he was feeling in the moment, and he wanted the students to have this attitude of spontaneity, too. In the class, he would often ask a student to go back a few bars and to play again using a different set of fingerings. Occasionally, just after a student had tuned and was about to play their designated piece for the day, he would suddenly ask another student to lend their violin to the person about to play. He then instructed the first student to proceed on this completely unknown violin.’ All this was designed to promote a balanced, flexible mind and technique, so that the player was well trained to be ‘ready for the emergencies’, as he once said.
‘I’m often asked whether Heifetz was a great teacher,’ concludes Agus. ‘My answer is always that he was the greatest teacher for those who were ready for him.’ For me, the question isn’t, ‘Was Heifetz a master teacher?’ but rather, ‘Can we – no matter how advanced we are – continue to learn more from this man’s profoundly subtle playing and from his utter devotion to his craft?’ The answer will surely always be ‘Yes’ – for as many generations of violinists as there are to come.