Studying the violin with Carl

Flesch
Lebanese violinist Yfrah Neaman, who died
in 2003, shared memories of his teacher
with Evelyn Chadwick in December 1994
April 7, 2015

Carl Flesch began his teaching career at the Bucharest Conservatoire at

the age of 24. He arrived in London 38 years later, in 1934, having taught
at the Amsterdam Conservatoire, the Hochschule in Berlin and the Curtis
Institute in Philadelphia. Not being offered any official position, he taught
privately at 34 Canfield Gardens, Hampstead.
Yfrah Neaman was then a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but his
mother had heard of Flesch. She felt that a boy of 14 still had a long way

to go before completing his musical education, even though the

Conservatoire had awarded him its frst prize. Flesch accepted him as a
pupil in 1937 (at two-and-half guineas for 45 minutes) and he was slotted
into the masters timetable. Flesch taught four pupils every morning; as
they entered the house they would see the timetable in large letters,
showing the names of those expected. There was no point in questioning
the timetable in any way. That was your lesson, now you go, he used to
say. Or Why are you in London? To study with me. What can be more
important than that? He was right, says Neaman. There was nothing
more important.
Flesch had a good deal of gravitas, Neaman remembers. He would sit in a
low armchair wearing patent leather shoes and a velvet smoking jacket,
and smoking a cigar. I was very struck by all this. He would make notes
while you played and he expected a performance. Hed hear you, stand
up, put the music on the stand and go over the points one by one, using
his violin. The unwritten rule was that students had at least one rehearsal
the day before with Alan Richardson, the official accompanist.
The lessons were open to anyone who wanted to sit in, and Fleschs pupils
quickly found out who was being taught when, so that they could hear the
most interesting students. The number of listeners present was a measure
of a students success. You were immediately part of a hierarchy. You
knew, or found out very quickly, that if you were the 10 oclock pupil you
were the lowest of the low, and you had to work your way up to the 10.45
slot; 12.15 was at the level of Josef Hassid or Ida Haendel.
Flesch was too intelligent and cultivated to ever be insulting or unkind. But
he did care a great deal about his bowings and fingerings. He liked
students to use his editions and, failing that, to copy out all the relevant
details from his own library. Neaman accepts that nowadays some may
condemn this, but points out that it is a valid method of learning ones
craft. Flesch allowed other ways of playing only if he was convinced they
were reasonable.
To illustrate this, Neaman tells the following story. I knew I had to copy out
all his fingerings and bowings for a performance of Blochs Nigun, which Id
been playing since the age of twelve. I wasnt being bolshy or arrogant,
but I really thought I could play it the way I always had. When I handed
him the music Flesch asked at once why I hadnt taken his fingerings and
bowings. Feeling fairly pulverised I made my excuses and Flesch exploded.
Well, its a waste of time because youll have to change it. But its your 45
minutes, so play it. He was really angry and the other pupils were
delighted. I hardly knew how to put the bow on the string after that. But
when I finished, Flesch said: Its all right. You don t have to change it. I

was over the moon, but I felt it was his triumph. He didnt mind eating his
words in front of his students. Only a great man can do that.
On another occasion Neaman decided to play an Ysaye sonata. In the
1930s Ysaye was relatively unknown and Neaman studied the work on his
own before bringing it to the lesson. Flesch admitted he knew nothing of
the work and said, Im not sure I can help you, but play it anyway. When
he finished Flesch was kind about it, but he later said to Neamans mother:
Your son is really a very odd boy. He goes on trying to play pieces that no
one else plays. Very peculiar. Do you know, I think he would make a good
teacher. These were prophetic words, but at that time nothing could have
been further from Neamans mind.
There were other occasions, Neaman says, when Flesch was not ashamed
to admit he had nothing to say. He seemed not to be interested in the
contemporary music of his day. He never mentioned Bartk, for example.
Nor did he insist on repertoire, but would guide his students to a balance
of works, without specifying composers. He expected them to be
sufficiently aware to make their own choices. He never did studies or
Paganini. So long as one followed his scale system on a daily basis, with
perhaps some Sevk, he seemed satisfied. He demonstrated adequately,
with small inaccuracies, but because of the depth of his knowledge and
sheer musicianship, it was marvellous. He was the first to admit his own
failings. Ive always had trouble with trills, he said once, and it was true.
He really couldnt trill well, even at moderate speed.
Neaman believes that Flesch was not well known as a performer in Britain.
In those days a man of 65 was considered old and someone who no longer
performed in public. Yet his recording of the Beethoven Concerto is
magisterial certainly not dreary or pedantic. As a teacher he struck a
balance between technique and musical content. For Neaman the great
revelation was that he could use technique to make the most of the music.
Flesch would mark breathing spaces, shifts, phrasing and dynamics. His
conviction was that if the body is not used in the correct way, the ideas
will not emerge properly.
There is no doubt, Neaman says, that Flesch was the first violinist, to
codify violin playing. Given by temperament to analyse and see things in
an intellectual way, he was the first to articulate the point of contact, now
a well-known concept in bowing, but one that was new in those days.
Neaman relnembers that when he was taught in Paris as a small boy he
was instructed to sound elegant and make a lovely sound when playing
Mozart but exactly how to do this was never discussed. Specific
instruction on bow placement, so obvious to players now, was unheard of.
Flesch knew that people could be helped to correct a faulty movement,
and it was this that led him to write his monumental The Art of Violin

Playing. Then he wrote the scale system with the novel idea that one
should play equally well in all keys. He expected all his students to tackle a
different key each day in all its ramifications, down to double-harmonics.
He gave instructions about practising too, advising students to work in
three stages: firstly, to approach the work in small sections; secondly,
after some relaxation and breathing exercises, to play the work right
through without stopping but mentally noting the places where there are
problems; and thirdly, to work in immense detail on these places.
Flesch gave each student a notebook in which instructions were written on
how to practise any technical problems arising during the lesson. Neaman
still has his, in which one of the entries reads: You cant solve two
problems simultaneously. Neaman gives the following example. Suppose
you have a problem with a detach. The first thing to sort out is the left
hand. Practise it legato so that you can heal what happens between each
note, with every shift clean. Only then increase the speed, still legato.
Attention can be turned next to the bowing, doing the detach in repeated
patterns of the same note. This minimises anxiety about the speed of the
left hand, while concentrating on the bow. It goes without saying that the
hand position on the bow conformed to the Franco-Belgian pattern, with
pressure on the first finger, and so on.
Flesch also had strong views on shifting, insisting it should be practiced via
an intermediate note. At the time Neaman had never heard of such an
idea. Flesch was very clear about this. He would specify the beginning
shift and the end shift and maintained there was no point in practising
without an intermediate note the transporting finger which takes the
hand from one place to another (see pp.27-30 in Book One of The Art of
Violin Playing) He also cared greatly about the shapes of phrases.
Nowadays this is part of general teaching practice, but in those days the
connection of harmony and cadences with the shape of a phrase was
considered quite novel.
Flesch was an infinitely patient man. To some he conjures up the image of
a sort of sergeant-major, someone rather prim and unsmiling, rather like
evk. It is true that Flesch was severe, but he had a sense of humour,
not without a touch of sarcasm. Neaman points out that the world is
severe, and so are ones colleagues, so severity may be no bad thing. He
could be encouraging too. Neaman recalls his advice on the three lines of
arpeggios in the last movement of Mozarts D major Concerto: Dont think
of the notes. Dont think of the fingers. Close your mind and just let the
fingers lead you. If you have practised well, they will do it.
Such thinking was not prevalent in Fleschs day. He encouraged students
to visualise being on the concert platform: Breathe deeply. Concentrate on

the music. Say to yourself, Ive practised this thoroughly. I am secure. And
if you do make a mistake, so what? Never look back. In ways like these he
was very sensible, human and modern.
His concern for correct body movements and posture knew no bounds.
One day he asked Neaman to return in the afternoon, not for a lesson. My
mother and I couldnt imagine what he wanted. Perhaps he was going to
throw me out! When the meeting took place, Flesch declared: Yfrah,
dont you think you have flat feet? I wonder, perhaps you should have
these special things put in your shoes. Flesch proceeded to take off his
own shoes, revealing arch-supports. I think these would be good for you,
he said. This is one piece of the masters advice Neaman never took. But
the episode revealed that Flesch thought of more things than we imagined
and cared deeply, though he never showed it in a cheap way and always
kept a dignified distance.
Neaman left Flesch when he was 16. He says that in the time spent under
Fleschs tutelage a curtain was torn away and he was made to see and
understand things for the first time. I remain completely faithful to the
philosophy that a musical work is brought to life by taking the text and
absorbing it, and then giving it back through your own sensibility and
understanding. Flesch did not put it in these words, but that is what he
meant.