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Jascha Heifetz (February 2, 1901 - December 10, 1987) was a violinist, offen proclamed one of the greatest of all time and the most famous of the 20th century.
Heifetz was born in Vilna in Lithuania. There is controversy over his birth year, which is sometimes put a year or two earlier (1899 or 1900). His father was the concertmaster of the Vilna Symphony Orchestra and Jascha began playing the instrument at three years old. He was a child prodigy, and at age seven made his public debut in Kovno (now known as Kaunas, Lithuania)playing the Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn. In 1910 he entered the St Petersburg conservatory to study under Leopold Auer. He played in Germany and Scandinavia at the age of twelve, meeting Fritz Kreisler for the first time in a Berlin house (this is when Kreisler, after accompanying the 12-year old Heifetz in a performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto, said, "Now we can all break our fiddles across our knees."). Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens.
His American debut came on October 27, 1917 when he played at Carnegie Hall. He stayed in the country and became an American citizen in 1925, making many public appearances and recordings. His first commercial recordings took place on November 7, 1917 and thoughout his life he made recordings for RCA Victor. He had an immaculate technique and rapid finger vibrato. From time to time, his near perfect technique caused some critics to accuse him of being overly mechanical, even cold. Yet most critics agree he infused his playing with feeling and reverence for the composer's wishes.
Instead of being a soloist exclusively as most violinists of his stature did, Heifetz often enjoyed playing chamber music. His success in this field was somewhat limited, as his artistic personality tended to overwhelm his collegues. Some notable collaborations include his 1940 recordings of trios by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms with cellist Emmanuel Feuermann and pianist Artur Rubinstein as well as a later collaboration with Rubinstein and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, with whom he recorded trios by Ravel, Tchaikovsky, and Mendelssohn.
Heifetz commissioned a number of pieces, perhaps most notably the Violin Concerto by William Walton. He also arranged a number of pieces, such as Hora Staccato by Dinicu, a Romanian gypsy whom Heifetz considered the greatest violinist he had ever heard. He also wrote a hit song, "When you make love to me, don't make believe", under the alias Jim Hoyle.
In later years, he taught at the University of Southern California with his friend Gregor Piatigorsky. He died at the Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, of heart failure.
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