The first years

I’m a native of Israel. As a youngster, I was a member of the Hamahanot Ha`olim" pioneering youth movement. We were singing there Israeli folk songs. When I was 2 and a half years old, I played on the harmonica the songs I knew. I started to play the violin quite late, at 9. Because of my bad leg, I first thought of playing the cello. But my parents chose the violin and that’s how I started my journey in the classical music world.

I loved practicing and playing very much. At 11, I started attending regularly the Israel Philharmonic concerts. I saw the first rehearsal with Toscanini, Huberman and all the great conductors who came to Israel.

In 1946, I was invited to play second violin in Symphony Fantastic conducted by Molinari. Needless to say that I was ten bars behind the orchestra and got shouted at time and again by the conductor!

After studding with Eden Partosh, a great musician, I moved to New York to study with Galamian. He helped me a lot technically. Later, I got a job in the Pittsburgh Symphony. But when I knew they needed an assistant concertmaster in the IPO, I returned to Israel.

The musicians who influenced me the most are: first and foremost Eden Partosh of course, Emile Hauser and Celibidache. Emile Hauser was the first violin player of the Budapest Quartet. He also founded the Jerusalem Academy. He was the most remarkable musician. He had a technique of dividing the bow into phrases, which I haven’t seen since. I recommended Galamian to invite him to teach chamber music in a summer festival. Hauser explained that each note should be played with a different bow technique. The students and teachers thought it was totally crazy. Even if they would live, create and study hundred more life, they would not reach his knowledge!

Celibidache was very methodical in his work. He would explain each part and teach why and how it should be played. Everything was very logical. Every time he came to Israel, I invited him to play with the Tel-Aviv Quartet. We could work 3 hours on a single page. His older recordings are full of fire. I have learned hugely from him, and many strong musical experiences I had are related to him.

The Tel-Aviv quartet and Yona Etlinger:

In this Quartet, there was a magic that is hard to find now.  Four very strong personalities that could, in spite of the fighting and the arguments, produced great music. Many times, I have decided to quit the quartet. Once, before a concert, when we couldn’t reach an agreement on the tempo, each player played his part the way he thought it should be: the cello slow, the violin fast etc.! I remember our first concert was Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms Clarinet Quintet.

I first met Yona when we were kids. We performed with him countless times. When I would come to his hotel room, his bed would be full of reeds, but he knew exactly which one to pick.

The disc with Brahms and Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet became one of Sony’s cult recordings.

Yona Etlinger was a very serious musician. He had a great sound – The whole instrument was full of air with velvet colours – and a profound musicality.

My teaching

I used to spend a lot of time with Moshe Weinstein, the violinmaker. He was like a father to me. I loved him very much and I admired his wisdom. He helped Zuckerman, Mintz and many others by finding wealthy people to contribute to young talents and help them perform and study abroad.

One day he told me: “you have to teach, promise me you’ll do it”. I never wanted to teach, but he convinced me to try. I soon realised that I was good at it.

The highlight of my teaching was the summer courses in Rolandseck. I first met Johannes Wasmuth after a concert of the Israel Philharmonic in Bonn. He was a young concert manager and an art collector, sitting dressed as always with his red braces. The next day we met by chance and went to eat. I didn’t know German, just a little Yiddish and we communicated with our hands. After lunch, Johannes, as it was always with him, offered me a huge cake and that was the beginning of our beautiful friendship, which led to the birth of the festival!

It lasted for many years and was considered as a very prestigious festival. It was a great school for a lot of young musicians, who learned to play chamber music and how to listen to others.

When I hear people who participated in this festival, I can recognize the basics that they received through the years.

The basic of my teaching is to take a piece, to explore it, to understand the sense of what you are doing, what does it say.

Music doesn’t change, people do. We play differently when we grow up. I have learned a lot from my students too. When I am trying to solve their problems, I learn too. Every student is a world by himself.

The future of classical music

For now, I don’t see very positive future for it. It looks like the Olympic games: higher, faster and stronger. You can hardly see people who make music for the sake of music. I see sad shallowness. If in the past, an artist would play once a month, depending on the transportation which was normally a train or a ship, today the artist performs a concert each day in a different part of the world: lots of concerts, lots of noise and running after money.  I don’t see artists sitting and studying music deeply. I don’t see an opportunity for real change and that makes me sad.