1.
ARTS
108
M u s i c
TheSoundofTinseltown
Toscha Seidel made a nation fall in love with the violin
ADAM BAER
The American Scholar, Winter 2018
Adam Baer has written about music for NPR, theLos
AngelesTimes,andmanyotherpublications.
As I imagine it, the story goes like this: it’s 1938,
and Albert Einstein’s finishing a talk at UCLA.
He rushes from the auditorium past throngs of
fawning students, his violin case and a rolled-
up poster in hand. His driver shuttles him down
blocks lined with palm trees, eventually letting
him off on MGM’s Culver
Citylot.Thegreatphysicist
scurriesfromthecaronto
the scoring stage used for
TheWizardofOzandinter-
rupts a short, stocky man
withwoollyblackhairplay-
ing “Over the Rainbow”
with heated intensity on
a Stradivarius. The musi-
cian is Toscha Seidel, a Jewish virtuoso born in
Odessain1899andthemercurialcharacterlead-
ing Hollywood’s nascent studio orchestra scene.
SeidelandEinsteinnextenteraroomwhereEin-
stein receives an invigorating if impatient les-
son on the Bach Double Violin Concerto, which
teacher and student then play. When the lesson
ends, Einstein unrolls the poster he’s brought
Toschaaspayment—onitisadepictionofthetheory
ofrelativity.Seidel’svexed.Thisislegaltender?
Now,aconfession:thestoryneverhappened.
Not this way. The true meeting of Einstein and
Seidel really took place in 1934, when Seidel
was living, along with his spouse, Estelle, and
their Great Dane, in a stately house in Pelham,
New York. At that time,
Seidel was widely known
asaconcertartistandfrom
his weekly radio show on
CBS, The Toscha Seidel
Program. (He was also
CBS’s musical director.)
He did give Einstein les-
sons—in exchange for
which Einstein gave him
a hand-drawn pencil sketch depicting the phe-
nomenon of length contraction in the theory of
relativity. (Seidel’s widow presented it to UC–
Berkeley’sJudahL.MagnesMuseumin1970.)As
for the Bach Double Concerto, the two did per-
form the work together, at a fundraiser for Ger-
man-JewishscientistsendangeredbytheNazis.
Seideldoes,however,deserveacinematictreat-
ment: violinists have been telling all kinds of sto-
riesabouthimsincehefirstappearedinAmerica
about a century ago. He studied with the legend-
Seidel deserves a cine-
matic treatment: violinists
have been telling stories
about him since he
first appeared in America
about a century ago.

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Arts
109
aryLeopoldAuer,whose
pupils included Nathan
Milstein,EfremZimbal-
ist, Mischa Elman, and
arguably the 20th cen-
tury’s most famous vio-
linist, Jascha Heifetz. It was rumored that Auer
(unfairly) called Seidel the “devil” of the violin, a
foil to Heifetz, his blond “angel.” Both emigrated
to the United States, and although the two were
competitive, they were colleagues, even if Seidel
(andallleadingviolinists)livedinHeifetz’suniverse.
Unfortunately for Seidel, his American debut at
CarnegieHall,in1918,camelessthaneightmonths
afterHeifetz’s.Auerhadreportedly
decidedthatHeifetzshouldappear
in America first, and that perfor-
mance, which wowed audience
andcriticsalike,launchedarock-
etlikecareerpropelledbytechnical
perfection,astoundingclarity,and
asenseofhyperintenseprofession-
alismthatmadehimahousehold
name.Askids,ToschaandJascha
hadperformedtogetherfortheking
andqueenofNorway.Asadultsin
NewYork,theyplayedPing-Pong
inSeidel’sPelhamhouse—Heifetz
wonatthat,too.
Seidel moved west to play
for Hollywood, then, after a
stint in the United States Navy
Band, returned to a job as solo-
ist and concertmaster with Par-
amount’s studio orchestra. He
was the uncredited violin solo-
ist for The Wizard of Oz, even if
muchofhisplayingendedupon
the cutting-room floor. He pro-
videdsimilarservicesfornumer-
ous films, including David O.
Selznick’s Intermezzo, Ingrid
Bergman’sfirstmajorAmerican
movie,forwhichherecordedthe
famoustheme.(Hewasalsoone
of the violinists Charlie Chaplin would invite
over to play duets.) Seidel’s Hollywood career,
however, slowly eroded as contract orchestras
became freelance, requiring musicians to flex
theirentrepreneurialmuscles.AccordingtoRoy
Malaninhis2004bookZimbalist:ALife,Heiftez
evenrequestedthatSeidelplayconcertmasterfor
“themaster’smostspectacularconcertorecord-
ings.” That must have hurt. It’s pretty clear that
Seidel knew his own limitations.
He and Estelle lived in a sizable Tudor in the
BeverlyHillsflats(hometotheeverydaywealthy).
Inthelate1940s,Heifetzmovedabovehimtothe
hillsofBeverlyCrest,practicinginadetachedstudio
Seidel, c. 1920: “He was a
natural talent who could
turn you on to his instru-
ment in an instant, as
soon as the hair of his bow
touched the strings.”
LIBRARY
OF
CONGRESS

3.
The American Scholar, Winter 2018
110
designedbyLloydWright(FrankLloydWright’s
son).Idon’tknowifSeidelfelttheloomingpres-
ence of his more successful rival looking down
on him, but it seems likely that he had a sense of
impendingdoombeforehehit30—whenhebegan
hidingthefactthathewastheunnamedviolinist
inradiocommercialsformaizeproducts.
Violinists like to track their pedagogical lin-
eage—which luminary their teachers, and their
teachers’ teachers, studied with. I am drawn to
Seidel, have been researching him since I was a
kid, partly because of my own violin genealogy
(Istudiedwithpedagogicaldescendantsofboth
HeifetzandSeidel).HeifetzmayhavebeenAmer-
ica’sviolincelebrity,butitwouldbeamistaketo
discountSeidel’simportance.WhenSeidelper-
formed a Brahms sonata or the Dvořák Humor-
esque, whether he was playing a virtuoso work
suchasErnestChausson’sPoèmeortheHebrew
MelodyofJosephAchron,hesomehowsounded
moregenuinethananyoneelse—evenifhistempos
wereslowerbycontemporarystandards,evenif
heplayedwithtoomuchschmaltz,usingplenty
ofold-fashionedportamentowhenshiftingfrom
onepositiontoanother.AndalthoughSeidelper-
hapsdidn’trecordthemostintellectuallyrigorous
music—he was a singing violinist, influenced by
thecantorialtradition—heplayedwithasmuch
depthoftoneandemotionalintensityasanyone
I’ve heard on disk.
ArnoldSteinhardt,aformerstudentofSeidel
who wrote about his teacher in a 2006 memoir,
ViolinDreams,oncetoldmethatSeidel’ssound,
stirring and singular, was considered “hot” by
both violinists and Hollywood producers. That
welargelyassociatelovescenesordepictionsof
thelessfortunateinfilms—oranysceneevoking
tearsorstrongemotions—withthesoundofthe
violin is largely due to Seidel. He was a natural
talentwhocouldturnyouontohisinstrumentin
aninstant,assoonasthehairofhisbowtouched
thestrings.Thiswastheessenceofhislegacy—he
laidthegroundworkformainstreamAmericato
deepen its love affair with the violin.
There was something naïve about Seidel,
though—something socially amiss. Steinhardt
recalledthathewaspronetotiradesduringles-
sons. He was more of a demonstrator than an
explainer. He didn’t seem confident in negoti-
ating or planning his career: if a well-paying gig
came along, he took it. He was also somewhat
immature, short tempered, and gullible, and
he had trouble staying rhythmically consistent
while he played—all of which could have been
symptoms of the early-onset neurodegenera-
tive disorder that eventually led to his death.
Teased by rivals who eventually edged him out
of the best Hollywood gigs, he was coddled by
Estelle, as much a caregiver to him as a spouse.
Bycontrast,Heifetzwasstoic,self-sufficient,far
lessneedy.Everindependent,Heifetzendedup
divorcing both of his spouses and leaving noth-
ing to his children in his will, not his homes in
BeverlyCrestorMalibu,nothispricelessviolins.
TheJewishémigréswhofledtheNazi-occupied
countriesandsettledinSouthernCalifornia,rein-
ventingthemselvesasfilmcomposers,recognized
Seidel’stalentandcherishedhisbrandofinstant
sonic heat; to wit, he recorded Erich Wolfgang
Korngold’s Much Ado About Nothing suite with
the composer at the piano. When Seidel asked
Louis Kaufman, the studio violinist who played
the scene-work in Intermezzo, why he gigged in
Hollywood,Kaufmanreplied,“Nooneeverasked
metoplaybadly,Toscha,andthechecksarealways
good.” On Intermezzo, Kaufman (no slouch of a
violinist,whomadeanearlylandmarkrecording
ofVivaldi’sFourSeasons)hadthesupremechal-
lenge of trying to emulate Seidel. As Kaufman
recalled in his 2003 memoir, A Fiddler’s Tale,
“Miss [Ingrid] Bergman was shown listening to
[Intermezzo’s]themeinanemotionallycharged
scene. What a challenge for me to try to match
Toscha’s unusually beautiful sound!”
It’s hard to imagine today, but Toscha Seidel
and his fellow Russian-Jewish violinists were
enduringlypopularinearly-20th-centuryAmeri-
canculture.GeorgeandIraGershwinevenmemo-

4.
Arts
111
rializedfouroftheminapopularsongfrom1922,
“Mischa, Jascha, Toscha, Sascha.” In the Roar-
ingTwenties,GeorgeGershwinplayedthesong
at parties to great laughter, singing about those
four“temperamentalOrientals”:MischaElman,
JaschaHeifetz,ToschaSeidel,andSaschaJacob-
sen. All four were stellar violinists, but none
had as dark a story—and perhaps as tortured an
innerstruggle—asSeideldid.Heifetzfinishedhis
distinguished career as an elite teacher at USC.
Seidel concluded his in a Las Vegas show band
before ending up in a nursing home. He died in
1962, at the age of 62.
It’s ultimately not important if a real rivalry
existed between Seidel and Heifetz—although
therearestoriesabouthowSeidelenjoyedsome
schadenfreude from an orchestra stand, when
Heifetz played slightly out of tune while solo-
ing at the Hollywood Bowl. But the two fiddlers
were yin and yang, and Seidel, the more dra-
matic character, should not be forgotten. So if
you find a Toscha Seidel recording on YouTube
(he’s there, too, hiding in plain sight), keep in
mindthatthere’smoreheretowhatyou’rehear-
ing than a rich, singing tone with an impetuous
vibrato. You’re catching part of a tale cut short
too early that deserves to live on with hopeful
imagination.
OnalateJuneafternoon,asmall,eagercrowd
gatheredattheNewYorkCityCenterforawork-
shop reconstruction of choreographer Merce
Cunningham’s 1975 work Sounddance. A short,
dark-haired man entered the room, spinning
towardtheaudience,withDavidTudor’srecorded
electronicscoresoundingvariouslylikemidtown
traffic,dentaldrilling,andanMRImachine.Ina
theater,dancersmaketheirentrancesandexits
fromthewings.Inthestudio,theypretend.The
restofthedancersentered,groupingandregroup-
ing in couples, trios, larger clusters. The perfor-
mance was full of funny footwork, hip bumps,
cocked heads. One dancer left, and eventually
they all did, the first man out the last to leave.
Like all of Cunningham’s works, Sounddance is
abstract, but fresh, full of feeling, revealing new
ideas with each viewing. Both the audience and
D a n c e
Step by Step
Keeping the work of legendary choreographers alive
depends on a cadre of experts
JULIA LICHTBLAU
Julia Lichtblau, formerly a dancer, is the book review
editor at The Common and teaches at Drew University.
thedancersseemedtorelishtheoccasion.After
all,performancesofCunningham’sworks,though
notexactlyrare,havebecomelessfrequentsince
hisdeathin2009andtheclosureofhiscompany
two years later.
Cunningham was one of an extraordinary
generationof20th-centuryAmericanchoreogra-
phersincludingGeorgeBalanchine,MarthaGra-
ham, José Limón, Alvin Ailey, Jerome Robbins,
andPaulTaylor.(OnlyTaylor,87,survivesofthat
cohort.MurrayLouis,animportantmidcentury
choreographer,diedinFebruary2016,andpost-
modernist Trisha Brown died in March 2017.)
Collectively,they’veleftmassivebodiesofwork.
Balanchinemade425danceworks,roughly200
ofthemballets.Cunninghamcreatedaround200,
Graham181.Yetofallthemodesofart,dancesare
the most vulnerable to neglect. Few have mass-
market value. Films notwithstanding, a dance
existsprimarilyinperformance.Thereisnouni-