Leopold Auer as a teacher

Auer’s Education

In 1845 Leopold Auer was born in a small village in Hungary. At six years old he started violin lessons with a local jack of all trades. At this time no real methods of teaching were common place; every teacher taught as they thought was best. After two or three years Auer went to study as a pupil at the conservatory in Budapest with Ridley Kohne, who came from the same town. For the first time he started studying systematically using École de Violon by Alard, a contemporary professor in Paris. Auer himself did not recall playing any Kreutzer or Rode etudes at this time, only some Rovelli etudes.^[1]

After two years in Budapest Auer switched to studying in Vienna with Jacques Dont. It was here that a good foundation for his later technical ability was laid. Which started with Dont’s own Vorübungen zu den Kreutzer und Rode etudes and gradually went to Dont’s 24 Caprices, which were at that time largely unknown. In 1858 Auer finished his studies in Vienna and went on to play small concerts until 1862 when he continued his studies in Hanover with Joseph Joachim. In these lessons Auer hardly ever played any scales or etudes for Joachim, except for some Paganini caprices. Joachim spent almost never spent time explaining technical details. Instead he mostly demonstrated by playing the passage himself. Students where thus often left to understand without any verbal comment. Some were able to benefit greatly by his illustrations, others were not able to follow. After two years again Auer went back to the life of a roaming musician, playing concerts throughout Germany, The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries.^[1:1]

In 1868 Auer went on to become a professor at the conservatory in Petrograd -modern day St. Petersburg- in place of Henri Wieniawski. Where he remained a professor until its closure in 1917. After which he went to America and founded the Academy of Violin Playing in New York. In his time as a professor Auer produced some of the greatest violinists of the generation, among which were: Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman, Kathleen Parlow, Eddy Brown, Jascha Heifetz, Toscha Seidel and Max Rosen.^[2]

Teaching Ideals

“There is no method, unless you want to call purely natural lines of development, based on natural principles, a method.”

Leopold Auer

In an interview with Frederick H. Martens published in the book Violin Mastery Auer was asked about his teaching method. To which he responded: “There is no method, unless you want to call purely natural lines of development, based on natural principles, a method”^[2:1]. This shows already one of Auer’s most important aspects in his teaching: never to kill the individuality of his students. He gave each of his students an individual treatment and let them develop freely, according to their own ideals; never forcing them to into his own. He thought that one couldn’t tell a violinist was a student of Auer’s by the way he played. Although, not everyone agrees on this topic. Like Maud Powell who stated that “Auer pupils have the Auer tone”^[3]. Something Auer might not have been keen to hear.

“Art begins where technique ends.”

Leopold Auer

He demanded that each of his students had already mostly perfected their technique as he believed without a firmly established technique one cannot create real art: “Art begins where technique ends.”^[2:2]. In Petrograd his assistants prepared his students to help with this before the student came to him. In line with this requirement students almost never played any exercises or technical works in his lessons. However, he did strongly recommend playing scales every day and to make exercises from difficult passages in concertos, like he did in his time studying with Joachim. In addition, Auer was a great fan of Bach and always required his students to play his sonatas and partitas. He regarded these works as some of the most difficult for violin -except for Paganini and Ernst-, not in a modern way (with the use of harmonics, left hand pizzicato and scales in octaves and tenths), but because of the difficult counterpoint and fugues.

Auer aimed to have students develop according to their own ideals. He did however have a few recommendations for his students.^[4] He always recommended to use vibrato sparingly and mainly on sustained notes. In addition, he was also largely against the use of a shoulder-pad or rest. By him it was regarded as an extra body that destroyed the vibrations of the violin. He believed that no such support is necessary provided the violin is held properly.

Student Experiences

“Auer develops a natural bowing with an absolutely free wrist.”

Toscha Seidel

By most the right arm would be marked as his specialty. Always putting focus on having an impeccable tone and using the right arm as a medium of interpretation. Jascha Heifetz later remarked in an interview^[5] that, although Auer did not focus on exercises or technical works he found that his bowing movements became “more easy, graceful and less stiff”. Another one of his students; Toscha Seidel agreed: “Auer develops a natural bowing with an absolutely free wrist.”.^[6] Seidel also revealed in an interview that Auer had no standard method of developing this right hand in his students. Instead, he made it a natural process for each student, which each, of course, had unique hands.

Like his teacher Joachim, Auer understood the power of illustration by means of demonstration and strongly believed that teaching without demonstration is “dumb teaching”^[1:2]. He, however, did care to explain his actions and try to illustrate concepts with the use of words. This is something Joachim was not known for doing. Auer would explain and clear up any miscommunication with the violin. However, through interviews with Mischa Elman and Jascha Heifetz it also became clear that he did not endlessly explain as some teacher do. According to Elman, Auer would on occasion play a passage and say: “Now I’ll play this for you. If you catch it, well and good; if not it is your own fault!”^[7]. Heifetz also remarked that Auer had all sorts of technical tricks up his sleeve. However, Auer did not reveal those to everyone; the more interest a student showed, the more he would reveal.

“Auer demonstrated his ideas through sheer personality.”

David Hochstein

Auer always aimed to get the best out of his students and did so with great success according to his students. Mischa Elman mentioned in an interview^[7:1] that it was as if Auer would hypnotize his pupils into playing better than their best. Though some students fell back to the level to which they were raised after Auer stopped spurring them on. David Hochstein agrees with Elman and remarked that Auer demonstrated his ideas “through sheer personality”^[8]. According to him Auer was an ideal teacher for the greatly gifted.

Conclusion

Auer had quite a strange and I would say diverse musical upbringing that might have shaped his later teaching ways. In his own studies he never spent much time studying etudes or scales with his teachers. Most of this must have happened in the two years studying with Jacques Dont. This might have shaped his teaching habit of not including these technical aspects in his teaching and regarding them as prerequisitesto his interprative lessons. It could, however, also be possible that he was just never interested in teaching students at a level where time in lessons needed to be put into etudes and exercises. One thing that stuck in this regard would have been the use of difficult passages as material to make technical exercises. Something he already did in his time as a student and recommended to his own students later on.

The manner in which he was insistent on illustrating by means of playing would have more than likely come from his own education with Joachim, who did nothing but playing without explanation himself. Listening to lessons from other students of Joachim he was able to see that not all students benefited from this style, which is why he might have used more explanations in his own teaching. It is undisputed that Leopold Auer was one of the greatest violin teachers of his time. Though his impressive list of students might also be in part due to his very high -technical- demands, which, of course, made sure he would have students with high potential. He might not have been the greatest teacher for those who were not as technically gifted. Those types of students might have been better off with his technically ruthless contemporary Otokar Ševčík. Auer might best be regarded as the best teacher for the most gifted players.

References