Jascha Heifetz: Early Years in Russia

3. 1906–1909: Music School

24 Under the auspices of the Russian Music Society (RMO), music schools opened throughout major cities in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century, providing the primary source of professional musical training. The RMO was founded in 1859 following the efforts of the pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein; patronage from the Tsar’s family in 1869 led to its elevation as the Imperial Russian Music Society (IRMO). Both St. Petersburg and Moscow IRMO schools quickly gained conservatory status and became the chief centers of higher musical education. By the start of the twentieth century, music classes and schools under the IRMO across Russia had advanced significantly, and they became the main suppliers of teaching staff for the conservatories in larger cities and in the provinces. The Vilnius division of the society opened in December 1873, but closed just a few years later. It reopened in 1898, albeit on a small scale, and by the 1906–1907 season it counted only four actual members.1 Short resources placed concerts and educational work on hold until the 1906 arrival of two respected women—Baroness Alisa von Wolf, the wife of the trustee of the Scholarly Circle of Vilnius, and Lyudmila Lyubimova, the 1906–1909: Music School CHAPTER THREE 25 1906–1909: Music School wife of the governor of Vilnius and a trustee of orphanages. Following the efforts of these two women, the number of society members grew initially to thirty-six, then to 130 by the next season, enabling the Vilnius division to stage an entire series of public concerts. The music school under the Vilnius division of the IRMO began as a private music school and was run by the pianist Antonina Spasskaya.2 Music classes under the direction of the IRMO began in 1898, and the school gained its official status in 1904. A board member of the local IRMO named Mikhail Treskin became director of the school in 1898 and served as inspector of musical arts classes. According to the official school charter, the musical arts taught at the school included piano, singing, orchestral instruments, music theory, and music history. In addition, the general curriculum included lessons in the Russian language, religion, arithmetic, geography, history, and foreign languages. By the start of the 1906–1907 academic year, only twenty-seven of the school’s 193 students attended general curriculum classes, and by January the school ended the general courses to save money. Theschoolfacedconsiderablefinancialdifficultiesthatyear,andatthe end of August the main IRMO board provided the school a thousand-ruble subsidy, but it was far from enough to resolve the situation.3 The newly formed board of the Vilnius division of the IRMO worked hard to support the school. According to the annual report, a general meeting of Vilnius IRMO members during the 1906–1907 year called for the town council to renew the thousand-ruble subsidy, which previously had come from the city’s funds. The subsidy was canceled, however, because of financial volatility connected with the unsuccessful Russo-Japanese War and the 1905 Russian Revolution. With Russia in desperate need of loans from foreign banks, Tsar Nicholas II was forced into overseeing democratic reforms and created a parliament (the State Duma). Although the First and Second State Duma of 1906 and 1907 lasted only a few weeks, they nevertheless strengthened confidence in Russia in the eyes of western creditors and resulted in the reinstatement of subsidies to educational institutions such as the music school in Vilnius. Still, in 1906 there was no subsidy, and the school’s budget suffered greatly. To address the problem, the general 26 Jascha Heifetz Vilnius IRMO meeting also resolved to participate in the gatherings of the local Jewish Society’s board of representatives, since, as outlined in the report, the Jewish community produced “a significant contingent of the musicschool’sstudents.”OrelLipetzbecametheschool’srepresentativeto the Jewish Society, and he also joined the trustee committee of the Vilnius Talmud Torah. That year, Lipetz personally loaned the music school 1,000 rubles and a further 1,750 rubles the next year. Since the school’s budget relied heavily on funds received from its students, all instrumental class fees were increased by ten rubles to cover the budget shortfall. The average tuition fee amounted to around seventy rubles, and although some students paid more, children from poorer familieswereoftenexempt .NodoubtJaschabelongedtothe“contingentstudying at the school’s expense”—significant reason why his parents decided to educate their son in...