The day of my first lesson with Felix Galimir was a horribly complicated affair for someone who had spent most of his life in one city. This was the first day of school, September 1996, and I had just moved from Lexington, KY to Philadelphia the week before. I had had a few days to get used to living alone, eating alone, and cleaning up after myself. Then rehearsals began for a chamber orchestra constructed and conducted by Mischa Santora, then a student at Curtis. This was a great way to get to know some other players before school started officially. We had had a performance in Curtis Hall the night before and the other performance would take place in New York that evening, in Merkin Hall. Conveniently, my lesson with Mr. Galimir was also to be in New York. I would play for him in the early afternoon, then meet up with the others at Merkin.
Curtis furnished train tickets to me and Tina Qu, with whom I would share a two-hour lesson at Mr. Galimir’s apartment on the Upper East Side. Around noon, we met at school and headed to the train station. It didn’t look like much of a walk, so we were in no hurry. However, distances in real life tend to be greater than what they seem on a map, so between reading the map and juggling instruments and garment bags (for that evening’s performance), we found ourselves running by the time we reached the station. To no avail: the train had just left. I was near panic, not realizing that there would be another train within the hour. But even after this realization, someone still had to call Mr. Galimir and tell him that we would be late. Of course, neither of us had ever spoken to him, and this would be a poor introduction. I elected to make the call.
Fighting the din of 30th Street Station, I dialed the number and when a voice answered, I hurriedly said, “Mr. Galimir?”
“No, let me get him,” answered the voice. It had been his wife! Strike one.
“Hello?” came a creaky voice.
“Hello, Mr. Galimir. This is Nathan Cole…we haven’t met or spoken before, but I’m coming with Tina Qu to play for you today.”
“Ja.”
“Well, we just missed our train and the next one will come in an hour. Will you still be there? What is the best thing to do?”
“What is best? What is best is that you are on time for your train.”
I didn’t have an answer for that, so he continued, “So come one hour late, and play. What do you play?”
I was confused. “Violin.”
“Ja, violin I know, but what do you play for me?”
Now I understood, but a few seconds late. It would not be the last time. “Oh, I’m going to play Prokofiev’s second concerto.” I had worked on it all summer.
“No, I don’t like that piece…you will play scales.”
What? I had worked for months preparing for my first lesson and it was for nothing!
“What scale do you play?” he asked.
“Well…all the major and minor ones.”
“Ja! But what scale do you play for me?” he was getting irritated.
I decided to be bold and pick one. “C major.”
“No! Not C major! What book…what method…what…” he was definitely angry now.
“Oh, I see.” Although I practiced scales now and then, I didn’t really follow a system and it had been years since I had seen a scale book! I tried to remember the name of the last scale book I had used. Had I known better I would have realized that his principal teacher, the great Carl Flesch, had authored the most widely used scale book in existence. Any other name was an impostor. “Wessely,” I answered.
“Wessely?” came the incredulous reply.
“Wessely,” I confirmed. “W-E-S–”
“I know how to spell Wessely, but…who is Wessely? You play Carl Flesch. So come and you will play, and there is…a girl?”
“Right, Tina Qu is coming with me.”
“Ja, you come, and bring the girl, and I will see you later.”
I hung up the phone very gently, fearing to disturb the relative calm with which we had ended the conversation. In less than an hour, Tina and I were on a train to New York, and an hour and a half after that, we were in the big city. A short cab ride later, we were in the fashionable Upper East Side and riding the elevator to Mr. Galimir’s apartment. I knocked on the door.
“Ja?”
“It’s Nathan and Tina,” I said to the door.
The door opened, and I stood looking over the head of the great violin teacher. I couldn’t believe this was the same man who had made my heart race over the phone! Tina and I both towered over him. There was silence. Finally Tina bowed.
“What does she do?” he asked me.
We introduced ourselves and he rushed us inside, eager to get to the playing. Mrs. Galimir took our things, but not before Mr. Galimir noticed my garment bag. “What is…this bag?” He tried to take it from me, but as it contained a tuxedo, shoes and a large book, it was quite heavy. He nearly lost his balance, and shouted, “What do you bring to your violin lesson?”
I explained that I had a concert that night and these were my clothes.
“Do you wear clothing made out of…concrete?” I had to laugh.
Soon we were in the studio, and Tina was to play first. As she played a short piece by Saint-Saëns, I watched Mr. Galimir’s face. His eyes would open wide and glow when she executed a brilliant passage or expressive slide, or they would squint and his mouth pucker when a note was out of tune. I began dreading my turn.
When it came, he asked, “So, what do you play?”
I almost laughed, remembering our first conversation. I didn’t wish to repeat it, but I also didn’t want to volunteer any scales.
“Prokofiev second concerto,” I said with little conviction.
“Oh…no, I just–don’t–like that piece.”
We looked at each other for a few seconds, and I realized he was used to people who had many things in their repertoire at once. He broke the silence with, “So play scales. Go.”
Now those violinists who have studied the Carl Flesch scale book know that there is a particular order to the keys and variations of the scales. They begin with C Major, then its relative minor, a minor. Then down a third to F Major, then its relative d minor. When it comes to arpeggios, it is minor first, then major, then first inversion, second inversion, etc., with 7 arpeggios in all. If you have practiced with this system for years it would be automatic. Otherwise it is not at all obvious.
“What scale would you like?” I asked the former Flesch student, who looked at me as if I had asked him how to hold the bow.
“C Major, of course!”
I played a C Major scale, slurring four notes to a bow.
“Very good! Now is it possible, Mr. Nathan, to play something other than four notes in a bow?”
“Sure.” I started playing six notes per bow.
“No! No, do not play four notes or six notes!”
I paused. “How many notes?”
He began to laugh, already frustrated. Neither of us knew just how far this would go. “Play as many notes per bow as you can.”
Now I understood. He wanted to see how fast I could play the scale. I played the entire scale, up and down, in one bow.
“No!” he shouted, and shot out of his chair. I took a step back in fear. He did an imitation with his mouth of my super-fast scale. “Play in a normal tempo, but change the bow whenever you run out.”
I did so, and came to the bottom of the scale.
“Go on.”
But there was nowhere else to go. Expecting the worst, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“A minor, of course!”
I played the a minor scale in the agreed-upon fashion, then stopped again.
“Ja, go on!”
I looked over Mr. Galimir’s shoulder at Tina, and she must have seen the pain on my face. She tried to mouth, “F Major” but Mr. Galimir beat her to it.
“Ja, F Major, then–d minor, then–B-flat Major, et cetera!”
I played a few more scales, each time looking to Tina to confirm what I should be doing. Evidently she had spent some time with Mr. Flesch’s treatise.
Finally Mr. Galimir stopped me, taking a deep and ragged breath. This had evidently taken as much out of him as it had me. “Now, arpeggios.”
“C Major?” I asked, feeling like I was getting the hang of things.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said in a tired voice.
I began to play a C Major arpeggio.
“No!” and again he started out of his chair. “You play E-natural!”
“Yes,” I answered, as E-natural is the second note of a C Major arpeggio.
“You must play E-flat!”
“Oh, you want a c minor arpeggio?”
“Yes.”
I complied. I should have guessed his response.
“OK, go on.” This time he didn’t wait for a reply. He simply saw my blank face and said, “C Major!”
When I had finished that arpeggio, I looked to Tina who tried to mouth me the notes to the next one. Communicating silently over his head, we were able to piece together the five remaining arpeggios.
Words cannot express the relief I felt when Mr. Galimir sank back into his chair and breathed, “OK.” There was a pause, and then, “You will practice all 24 scales with arpeggios every day.” My eyes opened wide, as I had only ever practiced one key a day, even when I had practice scales regularly. “Then, thirds, sixths, octaves, fingered octaves and tenths.”
This was beyond belief. “For all 24 keys?”
“Yes, of course.”
For the first time, I protested. This would take me hours a day, just for scales. He agreed, and we worked out a compromise: all 24 keys for single-note scales and arpeggios, but only 6 for double-stops. It still took me two hours a day for the first week.
Finally, we had to work out what piece I would study first, since the Prokofiev was not suitable. He immediately suggested Bach, and as I had never worked on the a minor solo sonata, that was the decision.
I cannot remember anything that was said after that, since I was still in a daze. Tina and I collected our things from the closet, after one more comment about my gigantic garment bag. In another minute, we were on the streets of New York on a beautiful fall day. The fresh air began to revive me, and as Tina and I jumped into a cab that would take us down to Merkin Hall, I stared out the window and wondered what my future would be with this volcanic 86-year-old man.