Professor Gingold's Lessons

lois Saba Skelton

I n 1952, I played for Josef Gingold when he wasconcertmaster

of the Cleveland Orchestra and I was a nine-year-old who did
not understand what a big deal it was. Other kids studied with
this he replied. 'Well, I didn't know that! In that case, I shall
work with you day and night to get you finished!' And he did.
"Now.just a few years ago I heard him when he played
Mr. Gingold. Jaime Laredo is perhaps more famous than the Beethoven Sonatas in Greensboro. The tone , of course , was not
rest of us, butJoe didn't care. We were all important. We all the same due to age, but oh, that beautiful phrasing. When I
studied the violin. I studied violin with Mr. Gingold at the Cleve- visited him the next day, I told him of my research on women
land Music School Settlement and later at Indiana University in composers, and he immediately began to fill me with ideas. I've
the early 1960s after he left Cleveland to join the faculty in learned so much from him ... about everything."
Bloomington. Over the years, I was with him, sometimes study- Mr. Gingold
ing violin with him, but usually studying life and how it should was born in Brest,
be lived. I was with him in his final days as he passed away last in the pre-revo-
year, and he will be with me until I die. lutionary Russ-
He was always in awe of the University's great scholars, with ian Empire, and
their doctorates and books and heady thoughts. He sometimes came to Amer-
said he was not worthy to be a university professor, but the other ica as a chi ld,
professors were in awe of Joe Gingold. So was I. Josef Gingold growing up in
died at the age of eighty-five, leaving a void that will never be Brooklyn. He
filled. But so powerful was his influence and love for his violin loved to tell the
and its art that those who knew him-students, colleagues, story of his first
friends and neighbors-continue to pay him the greatest tribute fee for playing
anyone can receive: They will never forget him. the violin. He
Josef Gingold passed on a wayoflife to all who came in con- earned food
tact with him: an absolute passion for the violin and an absolute by playing for
love for humanity. He played with an elegant and dynamic Russian soldiers
touch that was unique. He taught with the same type of passion, at the refugee
and the only thing that mattered as you stood before him was camp that
not your talent but your desire. He helped to develop the talent housed his fam-
of many famous artists, but fame was not his goal. He wanted ily. He never
everyone to be happy, to be a caring contributor to society. hesitated to tell
Many of his students made him happy by succeeding without a listener of Fred Fradkin (left) and his "little" brother in the early New York
the violin. his love for the Broadway Shaw days.
Linda Burian Plaut earned a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in United States and the opportunity our country gave him and his
the early 1960s and chose to study violin at Indiana University family and his students. During the Bicentennial celebration
with Mr. Gingold. Linda now teaches humanities at Virginia year of 1976, Mr. Gingold 's neighbor in his apartment building
Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. She recalled, "He took reported that at noon, onJuly 4, 1976 ,Joe went out on his
you for what you were. It didn't matter that you weren't des- balcony and, without being aware that he had an audience of
tined for Carnegie Hall. one, took out his Stradivarius and played a full rendition of the
"When I came to study with him, I had tested out of all of Star Spangled Banner. He was a true believer in American
the prerequisite courses and planned to study just one year. He virtues, in liberty, equality, opportunity, and love.
wasvery perturbed and said that I should plan to stay two years, He was always trying to help, to make things better. Some-
that one year wasjust too short a time to learn everything. I told times it worked , sometimes it didn't. He told me a story, many
him that I planned to get married at the end of the year. With years after the fact, from his Cleveland days when he taught at
•
AMERICAN STRI NG TEACHER WINTER 1996
75
 · ~. ~ ~ .':' . ~4':~ "~ "¥f '; ~ %'"
VI 0LI N FOR UMcontinued from page 75
the Clevelan d Music Sch ool Sett lem ent: "O ne d ay, Mr. Wh it-
ta ker, th e d irector of the sch ool, came to me a nd asked if I
would take a young Asian woman as a stude nt. Her hu sband h ad
come to study at Case-Western Reserve University. It was one of
When that smile of approval came onto his
fqce, you were on Cloud Nine. You were a
Gmgold student. . h er. I opened th e case and , n othing, n o reactio n . Fin ally she
th e fir st exc hange student program s. Th e woman wan ted to
take lesson s an d even br ough t her violin with her. Of cou rse, I
said yes. This was very important for diplomacy.
'Well, she came for her first lesson. She was ver y quiet with a
totally expressionless face. No ma tte r what I said she just stare d
at me. Soon I realized she spo ke no English , but with sign l an-
guage we communicated . As she was playing, I realized th at th e
bridge on her violin was ari'ut to fall over. I tried to explain th at
I need ed to fix th e bridge. Sh e gripped h er instrument, n o t
un derstanding what I wan te d. Finally, throug h pantomime, I
was able to ge t th e in stru ment out of h er h ands, assuri ng h e r
th e who le time ever ythi ng wou ld be fine . Well, th e min ute I
adjusted the bridge , the tail gut broke and the en tire top, strin gs
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and all flew across the ro om. She j ust stood th ere, showing no
e motion at all. I called the vio lin shop and told th em I wou ld
send her over and I would pay for everything.
"T he nex t day the shop called an d said the fiddle was really a
piece ofj u n k. It wasn' t eve n worth fixing an d h ow abou t it if
they would sen d over a decent new one with a bow and case that
was actu ally playabl e. Fin e, lsaid , an d I'll pay fo r it. Well , th e
n ext lesson I had th e n ew violin and was anx ious to give it to
looked aro und and pointed to her old violin case . That is what
sh e wan te d . Th e one sh e h ad brou ght with h er. Well , I go t it
fixed for her de spit e th e protestati on s of th e shop , paid for it
an d learned my lesson . I never tou ch ed a bridge again- ne ver
aga in . If the kids come in a n d th e bridge is crooke d , I sen d
them to the shop immedi ately!"
Althoug h he did not wan t to waste time with stu de nts com-
pletely witho ut talent, or with stude nts with talent who were lazy,
J o e Ging o ld reall y did n ot lik e to refuse a n yo ne wh o truly
wanted to stu dy hi s bel oved in strum ent. All of hi s stude nts
learned. Some of his stude n ts becam e great. Man y orche stra s
a ro u n d th e world have Gingo ld-trained co ncertmasters, and
that is a fitting legacy because he was vi rtually without peer as a
concertmaster. He was loved by th e aud ience and revered by the
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AME R ICAN ST RING TEACHER WINT ER 199 6
 Abraham Skerni ck, former principal violist in Cleveland and
Mr. Gingold 's teaching colleague at Indiana University, recalled
his technique for dealin g with Conductor George Szell when
Szell started to question thin gs in the violin section: 'Joe would
get up and go to the scor e and do his famous 'double talk,'
which Szell never really caught on to and finally (because Szell
wouldn 't admit to confusion ) he would just say (gruffl y) "Ah,
Joe . .. you take care of it."Joe protected his violinists.
"He had th e greatest sen se of humor," recalled Skernick,
alre ady laughing as he rel ated anoth er stor y of Gingold 's
prowess, pati en ce, and political savvy in dealing with the often
problematic ethnic slurs of a certain conductor. "We had an
assistant conductor in Cleveland by the nam e of Rudolph Ring-
wall. He was not liked by the orchestra-he was no George Szell,
but even worse he was pron e to making anti-Semitic remarks [to
the predominantlyJewish string players] during rehearsals. He
did the Twilight Conc erts every Sunday. We used to call th em
the 'Toilet Concerts.' Rehears al was from noon to 2 p.m. and
the concert was at 4 or 4:30. Well, earlier in the week, Ringwall's
ninety-year-old father died , and he had to fly to Maine to bury
him. He didn't return until that Sunday.
"The orchestra rehearsal was chaos. Szell was gone, the men
to Jo e in utt er fru stration and pleaded for help: 'Please, speak
to your section. No on e is listening to me' . . . at which pointJoe
stood up and slowly turned to his violins and said, in Yiddish,
'Fellas, please, have pity .. . after all [gesturing to the conduc-
tor] he 's an orphan!" Th e en tire section disintegrated into
uncontrollable laughter. Assistant con certmaster Jacob Krach-
malnick had to get up and leave because he couldn 't stop laugh-
ing and didn 't return until the concert later that day. "
The Gingold sense of humor sustained the orchestra. It also
sustain ed his students an d his teaching colleagues. This gre at
love for humor was du e in part to an early and devoted friend-
ship with Fredri c Fradkin. When a youngJosef Gingold returned
to New York after studying with Ysaye and conce r tizin g in
Europ e, he fou n d no on e was interested in what he did in
Europ e. It was the Depression and he needed a job.
Fred Fradkin was the con tra ctor for several Broadway show
orchestras. Fred gaveJoe his first professional job, sharing the
first desk with him for the mu sical Cat and theFiddle. Fradkin
had been the first American to win the Gold Medal in violin at
the Paris Cons ervato ry, and was th e first American to be con-
certmaster of the Boston Symphony. Gingold learned well from
Fradkin , who becam e his mentor and life-long friend. Fradkin

..
wer e rel axing, nobody was paying attention [to Ringwall]. encour aged his "little brother" until Jo e was on his way. Until
Everybody was talking at the same time. Finally Ringwall turned

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AMERICAN STRING TEACHE R WINTER 1996 77

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Gingold joined the NBC Orchestra under ferent ways. It depended on what the stu-
Toscanini-on his way to his career as dents ne eded, or how they responded to
concertmaster of Detroit and Cleveland- certain approaches. He could eli cit the
Fradkin kept him in work and in stitches desired response by a mere gesture of the
with practical jokes, often at the expense hand accompanied by a little body lan-
of the conductor or difficult members of guage, as if to urge the phrase out of the
the audience. student. And it worked. Or he would
Fred Fradkin's antics and jokes improvise an accompaniment, either on
became legendary in the Gingold studio the fiddle or at the keyboard. No one else
at Indiana University and became a staple could improvise like this. He could make a
in the Gingold teaching technique. Some- Kreutzer etude sound like a masterwork. It
times a lesson was tense ; the student was wasn't you; it was the way he was accompa-
not playing well. Very often, a few Frad- nying you. He wasn't adverse to taking the
kin stories lightened the pressure. A lot of metronome out. A day of careless intona-
laughter came through that studio door, tion from students found him sitting at the
as well as music. piano for the next week, stopping you on
Professor Gingold taught in many dif- every note that even suggested an out of
Left: This photo appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Septem-
ber 22, 1958, accompanying on article about a String Clinic
"believed to be the first of its kind in the country" held at Severance
Hall. At the time, Gingold (standing) was concertmaster of the Cleve-
land Orchestra. Seated are Lois Skelton, age fifteen, and Magnus S.
Haas, age 77-theyoungest and oldest participants in the clinic.
Gingold told the Plain Dealer, "There has been too much propaganda
for the brass and winds. String instruments are needed in the com-
munity orchestras:
Above Right: In 1984 Indiana University hosted a gala birthday tribute to Gingold. Aperformance by members of IU's
orchestra included many former Gingold students, including: Professor Paul Biss, who conducted the evening's program;
Raymond Kobler, concertmaster of the Son Francisco Symphony; Richard Roberts, concertmaster of the Montreal Sym-
phony; Herbert Greenberg, concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony; William Preucil lr., then concerJmoster of the
Atlanta Symphony; Jacques Isroelievitch, concertmaster of the 51. Louis Symphony; Yuvol Yoron, assistant professor of
music at IU; and soloist Miriam Fried. Pictured in the foreground are, from left, William Preucil lr., Gingold, Andres
Cordenes, now concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Herbert Greenberg.
Left:This photograph was token in Gin-
gold's studio in 1991 to commemorate
aperformance by this young quartet the
previous evening in amaster doss that
Professor Gingold taught as port of the
IU Summer String Academy, directed by
Mimi Zweig. Tzu-Youn Su (violin) is a
student of Henryk Kowalski, and Toi
Murray (violin) studies with Yuvol Yoron
at IU. Sarah Corter (cello) is now work-
ing with Toby Soks. Rebecca Conway,
then in high school and aviola student
of Mimi Zweig, is now in college in
Texas. The quartet was prepared by cel·
list Richard Aaron.
WINTER 199 6
AMERICAN STRI NG TEA CHER
tune color. "Play in tune and in time, the
rest will take care of itself."
Often a student would find him read-
ing and rereading a favorite book on
Auer, Kreisler, and, of course, Heifetz,
and part of the lesson would be the shar-
ing of the great musical legacy, the his-
tory of his chosen instrument. Gingold
was a lifelong reader of the Grove Dictio-
nary. Obscure musical information was a
delicious pastime of the professor, and it
was widely known that no one could best
him on the recollection of names and
dates and trivia on the violin.
But with all this, there was nothing
quite like the times when he would say
'Just a moment, my dear" and pick up his
violin. And you truly waited with great
anticipation, because he was about to
playa passage for you. And when he did,
no matter the piece, no matter the emo-
tion, gentle or dramatic, it was always the
most heartrendering, inspirational, excit-
ing time of the lesson. Youwanted to play
it just like that. You tried. And when that
smile of approval came onto his face you
were on Cloud Nine. You were a Gingold
student.
We became concert artists, concertmas-
ters, chamber and orchestral musicians, as
wellas teachers at all levels. Wealso became
wives and husbands and parents and grand-
parents and artists and citizens. We became
caring human beings. We will always be
Professor Gingold's students. AST
Lois Sabo Skelton first studied withJosefGin-
gold as a teenager at the Cleveland Music
School Settlement in Ohio. Later she did
undergraduate and graduate work with him
at Indiana University. A professional violin-
ist and teacher for more than thirty years, she
is Bookshelfeditorfor the Triangle of Mu Phi
Epsilon, aformer correspondent forArts Indi-
ana, and the new Violin Forum editor ofAST.
editor Lois Sabo Skelton 121 N. Overhill Dr.
Bloomington, IN 47408
79
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