Auer

An old man with a gnarled face, fierce mustachios and a cranium as hairless as a grapefruit drew his bow through the last note of a Hungarian dance by Brahms and gravely bowed. Zimbalist, Heifetz, Hofmann, Gabrilowitsch, Rachmaninov, standing in the wings, beamed, murmured, clapped, thumped with the beaming, murmuring, clapping, thumping audience in Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. They had been listening to their master's voice. For the old man in the square dress suit was Leopold Auer, teacher of innumerable famed violinists, celebrating his 80th birthday. The three violinists, the two pianists, themselves played, but no critic offered next day to praise or condemn their performances, for the concert was not a demonstration. It was a tribute.

Leopold Auer's father was a Hungarian painter. He painted houses, made money enough to have his son taught the violin. The son developed an amazing talent. He played with Brahms when the latter was comparatively unknown, was accompanied by Liszt, went to St. Petersburg, became conductor of the Symphony Orchestra, grand concert master. Liszt, Brahms, the Rubensteins, Tschaikowsky, Napoleon III, Abdul Hamid II, Richard and Johann Strauss, Gounod, Disraeli, Turgeniev, Von Buelow, were his friends. In addition to Zimbalist and Heifetz, he has taught Mischa Elman, Max Rosen, Isolde Menges, Eddy Brown, Toscha Seidel and many whose European fame has not extended to the U. S. When teaching, he listens. His approval is indicated by hammer-hard pummelings on the back and ribs of the deserving artist; his scorn by scowls, kicks, lingual outbursts in five languages, sabotage upon chairs, bows, violins. He never concerns himself with"a pupil in whom he does not discern the germ of a great talent. "Learn to sing," he says to violinists. When the Russian Empire fell in 1917, he came to the U. S., reestablished himself with ease. Dynamic, burly, witty, his personality still molds music. Says he: "From Russia and America will come the great music of the future. These countries are the youngest in art. My sympathies are always with youth."