DEATH OF AUER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1074, 11 September 1930, Page 14

DEATH OF AUER

FAMOUS VIOLINIST AND Teacher TAUGHT CELEBRITIES News comes by mail of the death of Leopold Auer, the eminent violinist, and equally eminent instructor, who taught Heifetz, Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Toscha Seidel, Kathleen Parlow, Isolde Menges, and other celebrities. Only about a month after he had attained his 85th birthday, he was attacked by pneumonia, and died iu a sanatorium at Loschwitz, near Dresden. on July 15. Auer was fitly termed “the grand tild man of the violin.” He was a link between the modern generations of musicians and their illustrious predecessors. He studied under Joachim; lie succeeded Wieniaw3ki as professor •at the Imperial Conservatory of St. Petersburg 61 years ago; he founded the first important string quartet of the Russian capital, and had Davidoff as his cellist; he was the intimate friend of Anton Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff; he knew Brahms and Liszt; he heard Vieuxtemps play 70 years ago. What memories of great music he was able to recall! And such was his vitality and exuberance of youthful spirit that three years ago, at the age of 82, he conducted the New York Philharmonic in a concert at Carnegie Hall, iu which one of his recent "star” pupils, Benno Rabinof, played the solo parts in the Tschaikowsky and Elgar Concertos. MEETING WITH JOACHIM Auer was the son of a poor man, a house painter, and his early life had its share of those struggles against adversity which seem to develop genius only the more surely. He was obliged, at the age of 13, to leave the Vienna Conservatory because of lack of funds for his support. He counted as one of the most fortunate events of his life his trip to Hanover, where, at the age of 16, he met Joachim, and became his pupil. To him it was a revelation to hear Joachim, whether as a soloist or in chamber music. "My love and enthusiasm for the true' and sublime in musical art,” he wrote, “dates from those happy days. Through gradual artistic growth and conviction f attained the rank of a real musician. The violin became nty spokesman.” It was some years later when he received his St. Petersburg appointment, and became in due course soloist to the Czar’s Court, a post he held under three of the Emperors, Alexander 11., Alexander 111., and Nicholas 11. The outbreak of war changed the course of his career and since 191 She lived in New York, as a distinguished teacher. Two of Auer’s most famous pupils, Efrem Zimbalist and Jascha Heifetz, organised a great celebration in that city in honour of his 80th birthday, a concert at Carnegie Hall, at which he and they played Vivaldi’s Concerto in F. Rachmaninoff, the celebrated composer and pianist; Josef Hotmail, the pianist; and Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the pianist for many years conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, also took part in his concert. The audience included, leaders in the musical and social activities of the city. The place was packed, prices mounted to £2 a seat, and the total receipts were said to be £4,000. It was a great acknowledgment of Auer’s services to music, signalised particularly by the achievements of so many of his pa pi Is.