‘Musician must always look beautiful,’ my mother remembered Piatigorsky saying in a stern tone that revealed a steelier side to the jocular Russian charmer than he normally presented – ‘Not just play beautiful, but appear beautiful! Even in a heatwave, he will still wear white tie and correct shoes – and always comb hair! No excuse!’
Apart from that advice, he encouraged my mother, then aged twelve or thirteen, to take up the violin professionally. The conversation on one of his visits was succinct:
‘She looks perfect; she must play perfect!’ the handsome cellist commanded. ‘She is a natural, but she needs a top teacher. Enough with children’s teachers!’
‘Who is the right person?’ Ernst asked, in his relentlessly focused way. ‘The very best.’
(Whatever really mattered in our family always had to be ‘the very best’.)
‘There are only two in Berlin who would be right for her,’ Piatigorsky replied. ‘Josef Wolfsthal and Carl Flesch.’
Wolfsthal was Carl Flesch’s former student and among his most distinguished disciples. The master had written the definitive book on the subject, The Art of Violin Playing, and his student, who had been appointed professor at Berlin’s renowned Hochschule für Musik at twenty-six, followed its teachings to the letter.
The question was which teacher it would be. Flesch was the more famous and had the more illustrious students, but he liked to teach each of his students in front of his whole class. This was an efficient use of his time and trained the young men and women to perform before a demanding audience. Technique, musicianship, performance – you learned them all at once. Wolfsthal, by contrast, was willing to teach one-on-one.
‘So, do you want to do it?’ Ernst demanded, turning to my mother.
‘Of course I want to do it.’
‘And with whom?’
‘With Wolfsthal.’ The class thing was intimidating, especially as you were up against some of the greatest talents of the day, such as Henryk Szeryng.
‘It will be arranged,’ her father answered, ‘but you will need to cease your school studies immediately, and devote everything to the violin. Are you prepared for that?’
‘I am.’
A few weeks later, at Piatigorsky’s introduction, my mother began her studies with Josef Wolfsthal.