Marriage of Heifetz

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 488, 18 October 1928, Page 16

Marriage of Heifetz

F.1.R.)

WILL HE DEVELOP “SOUL” A GREAT MUSICIAN

So Heifetz is married! Now, it one can believe many of the critics and

HEIFETZ WITH HIS BRIDE, Fiorence Vidor, the screen star.

most of the modern novelists, his playing slowly but surely will be trans—formed. Instead of being one of the finest violinists and musicians of the present age he will be become what is commonly termed “a. great artist." He will develop “soul." As a child Heifetz left his Polish ghetto home to emigrate to America. and as a. small boy he startled the musical world with a technical skill that promised great things. It was a promise early fulfilled. His overwhelming bravura, his genius in handling the bow, his masterly work with the left hand, his command over beauty and nobility of tone, made him one of the greatest technicians among the violinists of the world. But. because he refuses to descend to cheap theatricalism in order to portray emotion. it is claimed that he has “no soul.” While playing and holding audiences spellbound with his art his impassive features never relax. He finishes his magic labours with perfect composure and acknowledges the applause with a \matter of fact bow. If he feels any emotion from his playing his features certainly do not be tray it. but it is certain that he must, As he grew older these critics who prate somewhat fulsomely on “soul,” and those people who imagine that an artist must necessarily indulge in immorality or suifer an unrequited love before he can become really great, expected him to develop some of this so-called “soul.” To their great disappointment he has not. One is inclined to agree with a wellknown English critic who, ten years ago, expressed a preference for Hei—fetz’s music as it was—“pure music unadulterated with any admixture of his love for some red-haired woman in the front row of the stalls."

Married or single Heifetz, we hope, will remain Heifetz the musician, the possessor of a. cultured art uninfluenced by the generally third-rate passions qt mankind.