Mischa Mischakoff: Journeys of a Concertmaster (review)

Abstract

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BIOGRAPHY Mischa Mischakoff: Journeys of a Concertmaster. By Anne Heiles. (Detroit Monographs in Musicology/Studies in Music, no. 46.) Sterling Heights, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2006. [xxi, 316 p. ISBN 0-89990-131-X. $65.] Illustrations, appendices, index, compact disc. What do the St. Petersburg Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the New York Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra all have in common? They were all led by concertmaster Mischa at one point during his seventy-year career. As indicated by its title, Mischa Mischakoff: Journeys of a Concertmaster illustrates Mischakoff's journey from his home in Russia, where he was a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory to the United States, where he served as the concertmaster of the orchestras listed above. Written by Mischakoff's daughter, Anne Heiles, this sole biography of reads like a who's of twentieth-century musical life in Russia and the United States. In his role as student, teacher, soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician he worked with many conductors and instrumentalists, many of whom are even better known than today. This is due in large part to the fact that even though he also had an extensive career as soloist and chamber musician, Mischakoff personified the concertmaster as specialist . . . and was the first prominent US concertmaster to do so (p. xx). His colleagues who chose careers primarily as soloists or chamber musicians retain greater recall by the musical (and nonmusical) public today. The author weaves Mischakoff's story using information from several sources, including, of course, personal knowledge of the subject, interviews with and his contemporaries, books, newspaper articles, reviews, and scrapbooks compiled by himself that documented his career. Along with reproductions of repertoire and personnel lists, correspondence, and programs, the narrative is enhanced by numerous photos, many inscribed personally to Mischakoff, depicting him with his musical colleagues. An overall strength of the book is found in the rich detail Heiles provides about supporting characters, often including birth and death dates and personal history. While this is an immense addition to the context of the narrative, at times it seems as if there is more ancillary detail than first-person information from himself. Each chapter describes a phase in Mischakoff's life in a geographical and chronological manner. The first two chapters provide background on his childhood and training in Russia and Poland. studied with Leopold Auer's assistant Sergei Korguyev at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and felt that would have been better off had I gone on to Auer, though, when he offered to teach me (p. 12). It is hard to imagine how he would have been more successful, but was modest about his abilities and preferred the supporting role of the concertmaster to the spotlight of the soloist even then. We see that from the time he was a student worked with such significant musicians as Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Glazunov, Gregor Piatigorsky, Jascha Heifetz, and Nathan Milstein. The author also strives to provide historical background in order to illustrate the events of her father's early life, but for those less familiar with the events of the Bolshevik Revolution and World War I, some of the motivations of the political figures who interacted with might seem unclear. The second chapter describes how defected from Russia to Poland with Piatigorsky during a concert tour and later came to the United States. The next chapter illustrates Mischakoff's arrival in New York in 1921. There he was reunited with many of his family members who were also professional musicians in various orchestras throughout the city. …