AUER, LEOPOLD (1845-1930), violinist and famous teacher, was born at Veszprim, Hungary, June g, 1845. He was trained at the Vienna conservatoire and later studied with Joachim, making the acquaintance at the same period of Brahms and Liszt, with both of whom he played. His debut he made at Leipzig at one of the Gewandhaus concerts. In London later he met Anton Rubinstein, who in 1862 had founded the Imperial Conservatoire of Music, St. Petersburg, and at his suggestion he succeeded Wienayski as professor of the violin there in 1868, becoming two years later solo violinist to the imperial court.
When the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917 he was in Scandinavia. At the age of 73, with two trunks, his Stradivarius violin and $1,000 as his total of possessions, he sought refuge in America in Feb. 1918. Among his more famous pupils are Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman and Toscha Seidel, while the high esteem in which he is held was illustrated by a re markable concert given in his honour at Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1925, in which Rachmaninoff, Josef Hofmann, Gabrilowitsch, Zimbalist and Heifetz all took part. He is the author of Violin Playing as I teach it (1921); My Long Life in Music (1923) and Violin Master Works and their Interpretation (1925).