cover image Heifetz as I Knew Him

Heifetz as I Knew Him

Ayke Epnoo Agus. Amadeus Press, $24.95 (262pp) ISBN 978-1-57467-062-2

Remarkably, there is no up-to-date biography of the preeminent violinist Jascha Heifetz (1901-1986), so this nicely written and perceptive account of the 15 years Agus spent with him at the end of his life will have to fill the gap for now. Agus, a young Indonesian woman who, as a violin student in her native land, had been brought up on the virtuoso's recordings, applied for the master classes Heifetz conducted at the University of Southern California upon her arrival there at the end of the 1960s. Recognizing her excellent piano skills and highly accommodating nature, Heifetz decided to take her on as his accompanist and general factotum for the rest of his life (he died in 1986, sick, lonely and virtually forgotten). Agus gives a fascinating account of Heifetz's remarkable and rather chilling personality: a complete control freak, he would accept no excuses for less than perfection; he despised new ways of doing things; and he kept even close friends off-balance with sudden mood swings, silly practical jokes and unkind remarks. Agus, brought up to be self-denying, was endlessly patient and forgiving with him, but one of the fascinations of the book is seeing her gradually learn to cope with him as an equal. His penetrating musicality and the whole process of musical pedagogy, as well as the intricacies of accompaniment, are revealed with exemplary clarity. The great merit of her patient scrutiny is that Heifetz eventually comes to seem strangely admirable, if frequently wrongheaded and bizarrely eccentric, and Agus's solitary death is thus more affecting than one would expect. Illus. (Feb.)