Knowing that in the regimental band he was, quite appropriately, a
clarinetist, "the clarinet in the military band being the equivalent of
the violin in the orchestra"--and a scholarship pupil of the Vienna
_Meisterschule_, it seemed natural to ask him concerning his teachers.
And the interesting fact developed that he had studied with the
celebrated Bohemian pedagog Sevčik and with Leopold Auer as well, two
teachers whose ideas and methods differ materially. "I studied with
Sevčik for two years," said the young violinist. "It was in 1909, when a
class of ten pupils was formed for him in the _Meisterschule_, at
Vienna, that I went to him. Sevčik was in many ways a wonderful teacher,
yet inclined to overemphasize the mechanical side of the art. He
literally _taught_ his pupils how to practice, how to develop technical
control by the most slow and painstaking study. In addition to his own
fine method and exercises, he also used Gavinies, Dont, Rode, Kreutzer,
applying in their studies ideas of his own.
"Auer as a teacher I found altogether different. Where Sevčik taught his
pupils the technic of their art by means of a system elaborately worked
out, Auer demonstrated his ideas through sheer personality, mainly from
the interpretative point of view. Any ambitious student could learn much
of value from either; yet in a general way one might express the
difference between them by saying that Sevčik could take a pupil of
medium talent and--at least from the mechanical standpoint--make an
excellent violinist of him. But Auer is an ideal teacher for the greatly
gifted. And he is especially skilled in taking some student of the
violin while his mind is still plastic and susceptible and molding
it--supplying it with lofty concepts of interpretation and expression.
Of course Auer (I studied with him in Petrograd and Dresden) has been
especially fortunate as regards his pupils, too, because active in a
land like Russia, where musical genius has almost become a commonplace.
"Sevčik, though an admirable teacher, personally is of a reserved and
reflective type, quite different from Auer, who is open and expansive. I
might recall a little instance which shows Sevčik's cautious nature, the
care he takes not to commit himself too unreservedly. When I took leave
of him--it was after I had graduated and won my prize--I naturally (like
all his pupils) asked him for his photo. Several other pupils of his
were in the room at the time. He took up his pen (I was looking over
his shoulder), commenced to write _Meinem best_.... And then he stopped,
glanced at the other pupils in the room, and wrote over the _best_ ...
he had already written, the word _liebsten_. But though I would, of
course, have preferred the first inscription, had Sevčik completed it, I
can still console myself that the other, even though I value it, was an
afterthought. But it was a characteristic thing for him to do!