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By Olga Fyodorova
…The year is 1935. Young violinists from all across the country are in
Leningrad taking part in a national competition.
They call out the name of Mikhail Fikhtengoltz.
“Who’s that?!… Prey, forget your papers for a moment, will you, and take
a look at the kid standing over there!”
“Mikhail Fikhtengoltz, I just announced his name, didn’t I?”
“Look at him, a 10-year-old kid, and this is an adult competition, remember?
Only for those between 16 and 30 years old...”
“Well, let me see… Here… Mikhail Fikhtengoltz… Born on June 1, 1920.”
“Which means he is not yet 15, right?”
“But I can see here a certificate signed by the Culture Minister himself
saying that Mikhail Fikhtengoltz, 15, can take part in the competition
due to his exceptional talent…”
“Well, that’s another thing… Proceed, young man!”
Ambitious and starry-eyed, parents often take the liberty to decide the
fate of their offspring. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The definition fits
Mikhail Fikhtengoltz’s parents just perfectly. Once, after going to a concert
played by David Oistrakh, a young violinist living just next door to their
house, they immediately knew that their toddler son too would some day
hit the stage…
“Who’s going to be his teacher?”
“Pyotr Stolyarsky, who else! The Professor David Oistrakh studied under!”
Mikhail was only five when his parents brought Professor Stolyarsky who
was exactly the man they needed, and for a whole 12 years the teacher and
student were almost inseparable. Even in summer, when school was
out, Stolyarsky invited Mikhail and his mother to his country house where
they worked day and night honing the quickly maturing skills of the young
prodigy. Before very long, that hard work started bearing fruit.
Diminutive and skinny, Mikhail proved to be a real workhorse playing exercises
for hours on end to gain flash and learn to think fast. His heart
needed no training, however, its warmth and sincerity immediately catching
on with listeners…
At 15, Mikhail Fikhtengoltz became a winner in a national competition of
young performers outplaying many of his older and more seasoned colleagues.
His parents were in seventh heaven seeing their dream coming so amazingly
true! Oblivious of it all, however, Mikhail kept working on…
Two years later, Mikhail went to Brussels to try his luck at the very challenging
Izai international competition.
The Brussels competition of 1937 was a resounding success for the Soviet
violinists who swept almost all the awards the organizers could offer.
Yelizaveta Gilels and Mikhail Fikhtengoltz – Pyotr Stolyarsky’s students
both – played a duo during the contest’s closing concert.
Back in Moscow the winners enjoyed a hero’s welcome with enthusiastic fans
with flowers and streamers in hand thronging the rail station to greet
the young musicians who then became a must feature of major concerts attended
by members of the Politburo and other high-profile cultural and political
happenings.
It was during one of those concerts that Mikhail met a charming girl who
happened to be a daughter of a high-placed government official. It
was love at first sight… Shortly after that first encounter the two got
married. A few months later, however, the girl’s father was arrested on
an anonymous tip-off, accused, like so many others, of being an “enemy
of the people” and executed…
His relatives immediately fell out of favor and Mikhail was told to divorce
his politically stained wife. He refused and immediately had all prestigious
concerts canceled…
The nervous strain was too heavy on Mikhail and one of his hands failed.
The very best doctors rushed to the rescue but to no avail. He could only
play a few minutes and then the excruciating pain forced him to give up.
It looked like the career of the 21-year-old violinist was ruined once
and for all…
Refusing to give up, Mikhail started making arrangements of popular piano
and orchestral pieces and working in the studio where he could always take
a break and endure the pain…
He was also increasingly getting into teaching and soon after he was already
teaching at Moscow’s Music Institute founded by the Gnessin sisters.
Here too the knowledge he had once picked up from Pyotr Stolyarsky came
in very handy making Mikhail Fikhtengoltz one of the best music teachers
around turning out a constellation of high-flying young violinists. What
made him even more happy, however, was to see many of his students become
teachers and spread Stolyarsky’s unique training method all across the
land…
Decades on, one can really appreciate just how much Mikhail Fikhtengoltz
really did to promote Russia’s traditions of violin playing and teaching…
During the mid-Sixties Mikhail chanced upon a leading psychotherapist who,
leaning about his problem, ventured to get Mikhail playing again. Much
to his colleagues’ surprise, the man quickly restored mobility in Mikhail’s
failing hand. But how to bring back the lost form? Mikhail was rehearsing
day and night and after 23 years away from the stage, he felt extremely
nervous and could well have failed to do it were it not for the friendly
help from his doctor who was expertly tuning him on from behind the curtains…
Mikhail Fikhtengoltz now lived as if trying to make up for the time lost.
His days were all work, no holidays, no fun, no parties, no talking on
the phone, no nothing, only music…
Living like a candle burning at both ends had its toll and one day his
heart came to a stop. Mikhail Fikhtengoltz was only 65…
Picking up where her father left off, Natalya Fikhtengoltz, a violinist
and a very good teacher too, is bringing up her students in the grand traditions
bequeathed by the late Pyotr Stolyarsky. She has also released a series
of CDs with recordings once made by her late father…
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