Ruggiero Ricci conducted a wonderful master class at Whittier College
(near Los Angeles) on Sunday 24 November under the auspices of the Jascha
Heifetz Society.  Six students, I'd say ranging from 10 to 18 years old,
playing Mozart, Kreisler, Wieniawski, Paganini, and Bach.  He spent about
30-40 minutes with each pupil with only a ten minute break over the
entire session.

Ricci is in his early 80s and though he looks very frail, has not
lost any of his technical faculties.  He spoke relatively little but
demonstrated and played along as appropriate to bring out the best in
a wonderfully talented group of young people.  He could still give a
world-class recital if he had a mind to do so.

While helping one student through the fiendish Wieniawski Scherzo-Tarantelle,
he told a story about how he'd rigged up an induction motor to a phonograph
so as to play Heifetz's recording of that piece backwards.  He then
proceeded to play it backwards, in tempo and without any apparent effort.

Ricci focussed on bowing and essentially took for granted almost
everything being done with the left hand.  He encouraged one young woman
to adopt an exaggerated semicircular bowing style to bring out features
in a Wieniawski concerto that she could not otherwise obtain.  With
others he suggested very subtle shifts in emphasis and bow-direction
changes that made noticeable improvements.  The technical capabilities
of these kids was so good that he helped them learn which rules to break
in order to make music out of the notes.  They also assimilated his
suggestions within one or two passes.

An impressive afternoon, to say the least.

   http://www.jaschaheifetzsociety.org/

Ravi Narasimhan
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~oski