command of mechanism which makes
the rough places so plain that the traces of their roughness are hidden
to the unpracticed eye." He commenced to study the violin seriously at
the age of seven in Odessa, his natal town, with Max Fiedemann, an Auer
pupil. A year and a half later Alexander Fiedemann heard him play a De
Beriot concerto in public, and induced him to study at the Stern
Conservatory in Berlin, with Brodsky, a pupil of Joachim, with whom he
remained for two years.

It was in Berlin that the young violinist reached the turning point of
his career. "I was a boy of twelve," he said, "when I heard Jascha
Heifetz play for the first time. He played the Tschaikovsky concerto,
and he played it wonderfully. His bowing, his fingering, his whole style
and manner of playing so greatly impressed me that I felt I _must_ have
his teacher, that I would never be content unless I studied with
Professor Auer! In 1912 I at length had an opportunity to play for the
Professor in his home at Loschivitz, in Dresden, and to my great joy he
at once accepted me as a pupil.

STUDYING WITH PROFESSOR AUER

"Studying with Professor Auer was a revelation. I had private lessons
from him, and at the same time attended the classes at the Petrograd
Conservatory. I should say that his great specialty, if one can use the
word specialty in the case of so universal a master of teaching as the
Professor, was bowing. In all violin playing the left hand, the finger
hand, might be compared to a perfectly adjusted technical machine, one
that needs to be kept well oiled to function properly. The right hand,
the bow hand, is the direct opposite--it is the painter hand, the artist
hand, its phrasing outlines the pictures of music; its _nuances_ fill
them with beauty of color. And while the Professor insisted as a matter
of course on the absolute development of finger mechanics, he was an
inspiration as regards the right manipulation of the bow, and its use as
a medium of interpretation. And he made his pupils think. Often, when I
played a passage in a concerto or sonata and it lacked clearness, he
would ask me: 'Why is this passage not clear?' Sometimes I knew and
sometimes I did not. But not until he was satisfied that I could not
myself answer the question, would he show me how to answer it. He could
make every least detail clear, illustrating it on his own violin; but if
the pupil could 'work out his own salvation' he always en