Marianna Vasileva (Marianna Vasilyeva, Marianna
Wasiljewa) Is a Russian violinist and teacher born (in St Petersburg) on
November 25, 1986. In addition to a
fantastic technique and a very expressive style of playing, she is known for
performing all 24 Caprices by Paganini in a single recital – currently,
probably the only female violinist to do so.
As far as I know, she has not recorded the famous Caprices but probably
will in the near future. (The first
female to record all 24 Caprices is Bulgarian violinist Vanya Milanova, back in
1985.) Vasileva began her violin studies
at age five with her father, a professional violinist. She has stated that even at that tender age
she practiced several hours a day. Her
first accompanist was her mother, a professional pianist, with whom she has
performed in recital many times. At age
7, she began her studies at the St Petersburg Conservatory’s School for Gifted
Children with an obscure teacher named Vladimir Ovcharek. At age 11, she began studying with Dora
Schwarzberg at the Advanced School for Music in Vienna. At age 17 she began studying with Zakhar Bron
at the Advanced School for Music and Dance in Cologne. During all those years, she was also
(simultaneously) studying at the St Petersburg Conservatory. (The St Petersburg Conservatory is where the
famous Leopold Auer taught for many years.)
Her performing career actually began at age 8, when she played in public
for the first time. At age 10, she made
her formal debut in Russia and Germany playing the first concerto (the one in g
minor) by Max Bruch. In that year, she
also won her first violin competition in Russia. In 2001, she actually won a violin in the
International Spohr Violin Competition – I don’t know what violin it was but
I’m certain it was a high quality instrument.
She was 15 years old. In 2009,
she won first prize in the International Competition for Young Violinists in
honor of Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawski in Lublin, Poland (not to be
confused with the well-known Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition held in
Poznan, Poland, every five years.) She
was 23 years old. In 2010 she won first
prize in the Prague Spring International Music Competition. She currently teaches at the Music Academy in
Madrid, in addition to teaching masterclasses around the world, as so many
other soloists do. Her
concert tours span the entire world and she has played in almost all of the
important musical venues and concert halls. Her repertoire is very extensive although her discography is still quite small. I
know Vasileva has played a Guarneri Del Gesu violin from 1724 and a 1752 Carlo
Antonio Testore violin on many concerts but I don’t know if those are her
current instruments – I will try to find out and post it as a comment below. Vasileva is fluent in four languages;
Russian, English, German, and Hebrew. Here
is a YouTube video where she plays a well-known piece by Tchaikovsky. Here is a sound file where she plays the
seldom-heard Ysaye sonata for two violins – the other violinist is Dmitri
Kogan, grandson of the great Leonid Kogan.
Antal Zalai (Antal Szalai) is a Hungarian
violinist, composer, and teacher born (in Budapest) on January 31, 1981. He is known for what has been described as a
perfect technique and refined artistry.
He is a former child prodigy who was offered his first recording contract
while still a teenager and his musical education is very broad. Zalai began his violin studies with his
father and mother at age 5. From age 7
to age 14 he studied, in Budapest, with Laszlo Denes. His other teachers in Budapest were Josef
Kopelman and Peter Komlos. In fact, it
has been said that he acquired his 1733 Stradivarius violin from Professor
Komlos. That violin had been owned by
another Hungarian violinist, Gyorgy Garay, who is now almost completely
forgotten. Zalai graduated from the
Royal Conservatory in Brussels in 2009.
He was 28 years old. However,
Zalai had been concertizing since age 12.
Along the way, he had participated in masterclasses given by Erick
Friedman, Pinchas Zukerman, Tibor Varga, Lewis Kaplan, Isaac Stern, Gyorgy Pauk,
and an assortment of other concert violinists.
He made his British debut in Liverpool in 2008. That same year he made his debut in
Berlin. The venues he has played in
include Carnegie Hall (New York), the Musikverein (Vienna), the Philharmonie
(Berlin), and the Moscow Conservatory.
Zalai has toured almost the entire globe and played with some of the
most famous names in the conducting world.
He also frequently conducts masterclasses wherever he performs. As are so many violinists, he is a chess
player. The cadenzas he plays are very
frequently his own. Here is a YouTube
video where he teams up with Russian violinist Marianna Vasileva to play the
violin duos by Shostakovich – Zalai plays the second violin part. These duos are written in a style which we
do not associate with the famous Russian composer. The (intense and emotional) performance is
easily the best on YouTube. This othervideo is also quite unique and interesting.
Kristof Barati is a Hungarian violinist and
teacher born (in Budapest) on May 17, 1979.
Although born in Hungary, he and his family spent a few years in
Venezuela (for reasons unknown) and he even began violin lessons there with his
mother at age 5. By age 8 he was giving
concerts with orchestras in Venezuela. I
don’t know at what point the family moved from Venezuela to Europe but several
sources state he performed in France at age 11.
Sometime after or before this, he relocated to Hungary to study at the
well-known Franz Liszt Academy. Exactly
what year that was is unknown to me. His
teachers at the academy were Miklos Szenthelyi and Vilmos Tatrai. By 1995, at age 16, he began entering violin
competitions at which he was very successful, placing either first, second, or
third at all of them. In 1996, he began
studying privately with a little-known professor of violin, Eduard Wulfson, in
Paris. Music critics frequently praise
his musicianship (artistry) in addition to his phenomenal technical
prowess. In addition to his world-wide
concertizing, he also takes part in important music festivals in Italy, France,
Switzerland, and elsewhere as a chamber music player. Barati’s discography is not yet extensive,
but his recordings of the first and second Paganini concertos are among the
best. His recording of the Mozart
concertos (all five) has also been very highly praised. Although he has played other very fine and
valuable violins, for about 14 years (from 2003), he played (and recorded with)
the Lady Harmsworth Stradivarius violin constructed in 1703. I don’t know if he is currently using that
instrument. He is known for being a very
strong chess player and avid photographer.
Barati has taught at the Sorbonne in Paris and at other venues as a
masterclass professor. Although he has
not (as far as I know) performed all 24 Paganini Caprices at a single recital,
he has performed all six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin by Bach in one
(very lengthy) recital (in France, then again in Russia.) Here is a link to the entire recording of the
Mozart concertos, courtesy of Brilliant Classics recordings. Here is a YouTube video of a movement from
the Bach Sonata number 1.
Alexander Markov is a Russian (some would say
American) violinist, composer, and teacher born (in Moscow) on January 24,
1963. Although his repertoire is very
extensive, he is best known for his performances (in concert, on CD, and DVD)
of the 24 Paganini Caprices. One YouTube
video of his performance of the last Caprice has over 6 million views. In fact, Markov’s playing of the pizzicato
section of this Caprice sometimes leaves the audience so spellbound they
interrupt the performance with rapturous, spontaneous applause – as the New
York Times music critic recently explained it: “…the dazzling
left-hand pizzicato variation drew a vigorous ovation midway through the work.” Markov also plays a six-string electric
violin in a rock band which he co-founded.
He co-wrote a unique rock concerto for his own use which he has had
great success with. I don’t think a
commercial recording of this concerto is yet available. Markov’s violin studies began at age 5. His father (concert violinist Albert Markov)
was his first (and most influential) teacher. However, Markov was also enrolled at the famous Central Music School for gifted children, which is part of the Moscow (Tchaikovsky) Conservatory. There, he studied with the well-known violin pedagogue Felix Andrievsky. (Andrievsky is now teaching at the Royal College of Music in London.) By age 8 he had already appeared in public. His family emigrated to the U. S. when he was
12. They arrived in Vienna on September 11, 1975 and spent three months there before heading for the United States. He continued studying with his
father for many years. At age 16, he
made his Carnegie Hall debut in New York.
(Two sources state that he made his Carnegie Hall debut on October 9,
1983, at age 20. He himself has said he
made his debut at age 16. The first was his debut with orchestra; the second was as soloist, in recital.) At
age 18, he began studying with Juilliard teacher Ivan Galamian. Galamian died a few months afterward. (Emanuel Vardi used to tell a joke that he
killed Leopold Auer because Auer died a few months after Vardi began taking
lessons with him.) At age 19 (1982)
Markov won second prize (most sources say the Gold Medal) at the famous
Paganini Competition (Genoa, Italy) and five years later he received the Avery
Fisher Career Grant. As a result of his Paganini
Competition award, he was granted the use of Paganini’s own 1743 Cannone
Guarnerius for a recital performance. (Other
violinists who have played this famous violin are Leonid Kogan, Schlomo Mintz,
Eugene Fodor, Salvatore Accardo, Maxim Vengerov, Gerard Poulet, Regina Carter, Dmitri
Berlinsky, and Ruggiero Ricci.) Markov’s
concertizing has taken him to all corners of the world and to most of the
world’s great concert halls and orchestras with top conductors on the podium. As do most concert violinists, he also
participates in music festivals far and wide.
He also frequently gives masterclasses all around the world. He has recorded for the Erato and Warner
Classics labels. His recordings are easy
to find on the internet. Although he
used to play a Guarnerius Del Gesu violin, Markov has been playing a 1970
Sergio Peresson violin for some time. He
recorded the 24 caprices on that violin.
I have heard it up close - it is indistinguishable from any Strad or
Guarneri violin. Here is a YouTube video
of the Paganini Caprice number 5 with Markov using the original bowings. The photo is courtesy of the Alexander Markov website.
Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist,
composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, and concert impresario, born (in Bonn)
on or about February 20, 1745 – he was christened (baptized) on February 20 so
it’s a sure thing he was born a few days before that. Salomon spent more than half of his career in
England. To say that he was a well-rounded
musician is quite an understatement; nevertheless, nowadays, he is remembered for two
things: (1) he was born in the same house as Ludwig Van Beethoven and (2) he
persuaded Joseph Haydn to visit London - twice.
It has been said that he had a unique style of playing, especially in
chamber music with his string quartet. He
must have had more than one teacher but I only know of one: Franz Benda, a
member of the Benda musical dynasty. By
age 13, he was playing violin in the court orchestra, presumably in Bonn since
that was where his benefactor (Clement August, a lover of the arts) presided. Salomon also made a brief concert tour as a
soloist (begun in August, 1765) which took him to Frankfurt and Berlin. By age 20, he was concertmaster of the
orchestra in the court of Prince Heinrich of Prussia (Germany), a brother of
Frederick the Great, presumably in Rheinsberg, a town which is about 40 miles
north of Berlin. (An interesting thing
about Prince Heinrich is that he almost became King of the United States.) While working for Prince Heinrich (a period
which lasted about 15 years), Salomon composed many works, among which were a
number of operas, all of them now forgotten.
Sometime in 1780, after his patron had suddenly disbanded his orchestra,
Salomon visited Paris and from there decided to travel to London. He was 35 years old. There, he gave his first concert at Covent
Garden, as conductor and violinist, on March 23, 1781. From that day forward, Salomon was very
active in English musical life, giving concerts as leader (concertmaster),
violin soloist, conductor, composer, organizer, and quartet player. How he became fluent in the English language
is unknown to me although it has been reported that he was actually fluent in
four languages. He also found time to
teach privately. As far as the famous
Haydn visits to England, I was able to ascertain, from various sources,
everything that follows. After Joseph
Haydn had become internationally popular from the dissemination of much of his
music, several persons in England tried to persuade him, since the early 1780s,
to visit and to present concerts there.
These efforts were all unsuccessful because Haydn was still under
contract to one of the Esterhazy Princes (for whom he ultimately worked thirty
years) and was very loyal to him. Regarding
a visit or tour, Salomon had also corresponded with Haydn for a while and had
even sent a personal emissary but that trip had not been totally successful. So Haydn remained out of reach. As luck and coincidence always play a part in
everybody’s life, so it was with Salomon.
After a particular trip that he made to Italy (to secure the services of
several opera singers for a London event) – being the well-known and energetic
impresario that he was – Salomon stopped in Cologne on his way back to
London. While there, he read in the
newspapers that the good Prince Nikolaus from Esterhazy (Haydn’s employer) had
died (in Vienna, on September 28, 1790.)
Salomon immediately seized the opportunity to seek Haydn out and ask him
(again) to come to London. This time,
Haydn agreed. After signing an agreement
and figuring out the logistics, they left Vienna on December 15, 1790. It was a Wednesday. On their way to England, they stopped by Bonn
to pay their respects to Beethoven, which they did on December 26, 1790. Salomon had known Beethoven much earlier (in
their Bonn days) and by this time he had also programmed some of his works for
his London concerts. They were good
friends. Haydn had never met
Beethoven. In any case, Haydn and
Salomon crossed the English Channel (from a point in Calais, France) on or
about January 1, 1791 (a Saturday) and shortly thereafter arrived in
London. Salomon was 45 years old. The rest is history. Haydn went on to write 12 symphonies for
Salomon’s concerts in London and other works as well. Salomon would soon be at work arranging most
of these symphonies for small chamber ensembles. One such work is the symphony number 104
which Salomon arranged for string quartet, flute, and double bass. It may be that these arrangements were not
artistic endeavors but a purely commercial venture on Salomon’s part. Salomon’s arrangements were available to the
public before any orchestral parts were even printed. (In his contract with Salomon, Haydn had
given up all rights to those works he composed in London for Salomon’s
concerts. However, Haydn was paid very
handsomely for his efforts.) In March of
1813, Salomon and a few other English musicians and patrons of the arts founded
what was called the Philharmonic Society, which still exists today. It was a de facto sponsor and/or administrator
of a professional symphony orchestra and choral society which established
concerts which were regularly presented to and for the general public and not
associated solely with the aristocracy.
The orchestra did not have a name but it could very well have had a name
if they had thought of one. Salomon
conducted its first concert in March of 1813.
He was 68 years old. As far as I
know, Salomon was active as a violinist, composer, teacher, impresario, arranger,
and conductor until the day he died. As
a composer, his most famous work is probably the opera titled Windsor Castle,
written in 1795. All of his other
compositions (including his many arrangements) have been neglected and
forgotten. It has been said that Salomon
played a Stradivarius violin which Corelli had played before him but I could
not substantiate that from more than one source. It has also been said that Salomon gave the
Jupiter nickname to Mozart’s last symphony, number 41. Perhaps it is true. Salomon’s most famous pupils are Franz Anton
Ries (Beethoven’s violin teacher and father of pianist Ferdinand Ries) and
George Pinto, English violinist, pianist, and composer. Salomon died on November 28, 1815, after a
brief illness brought on by an accident.
He was 70 years old. Here is a Vimeo file of Salomon’s Romance in D for violin, played by English violinist,
Simon Standage. The photo is courtesy of
ArtUK and Oxford University.
Igor Ozim is a Slovenian (Yugoslavian) violinist and
teacher born (in Ljubljana) on May 9, 1931.
(Ljubljana – formerly in Yugoslavia - is now in Slovenia and it is its
capital.) He is widely known as a violin
pedagogue rather than as a touring concert violinist, although that is how he
began his career. He started violin
lessons in his native city with Leon Pfeifer (a student of Otakar Sevcik) at
the Academy of Music at age 8. However,
by that time, he had already been studying violin for three years but with
someone I don’t know anything about. When
he was 18, after graduating from the academy, he traveled to England to study
with Albert Sammons at the Royal College of Music (commonly referred to as the
RCM.) He followed that up with two years
of study with Max Rostal, either as a private student or at the Guildhall
School of Music where Rostal was a teacher.
Ozim was now 20 years old. In
1951, he won the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition. After that, Ozim made his formal debut in
England – first in a recital at the Wigmore Hall in London and then in
Liverpool, playing the Mendelssohn e minor concerto with the Liverpool
Philharmonic. In 1953, he won another
violin competition (the ARD Competition, in Munich, in its second year of
existence. The name ARD in German is a
very long name but translates to something like “German Consortium of Public
Broadcasters.” Technically, every German
household is a member of the ARD since fees charged by and paid to the ARD are
not optional; they are mandatory.) He
was 22 years old. Ozim then embarked on
a concertizing career which eventually took him to the Far East, Australia, the
U.S., Europe, and Russia. He has
appeared with top orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the London
Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, and many
others. His repertory ranges from early
Baroque to contemporary and includes approximately 60 concertos. Understandably, he has premiered many works
by Slovenian composers. His recordings
are few but cover some of the standard repertoire as well as many contemporary,
modern works. He continues to tour as a much-respected
violin pedagogue, holding master classes in several countries. Ozim has held teaching posts at the Advanced
Music School in Cologne (Germany), the Advanced School of the Arts in Bern
(Switzerland), and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. His most famous pupils are probably Richard
Tognetti and Lea Birringer. Here is a
YouTube audio file of the Mozart Rondo in C with Ozim and the Ljubljana
Symphony Orchestra.
Joseph Lendvay (Jozsef Lendvay)
is a Hungarian violinist and conductor born (in Budapest) on November 7,
1974. He is best known as a crossover
violinist who is very successful as a traditional classical violinist and a
gypsy fiddler. He often performs with
his own gypsy band – a group of five or six players – two violins, cello,
cembalom, bass, and guitar. He
(probably) began his violin studies with his father, a very popular gypsy
violinist. By age 14, he was already
playing some of the most difficult standard works for classical violin. He studied at the Bela Bartok Conservatory in
Budapest as well as the famous Franz Liszt Academy, also in Budapest. He has won numerous European-based violin
competitions; the Koln International Violin Competition and the Tibor Varga
International Violin Competition are among them. In 2002, the President of the Hungarian
Republic awarded him the Golden Cross for his artistic contributions to the
nation. He was 28 years old. It has been said that due to his classical
training, his folkloric interpretations sound lighter and more virtuosic and,
because of his folkloric roots, his classical performances are more emotional
and powerful. Lendvay was concertmaster
of an orchestra called the Philharmonic of Nations (founded by pianist and
conductor Justus Frantz in 1995) for a time.
Here is a YouTube video of Lendvay and Vadim Repin playing Csardas. Here is another where he is playing Gypsy
Airs by Sarasate – the harmonies have been altered in several places and the
accompaniment includes some traditional folk instruments. You may likely want to watch it more than once in order to appreciate some of the unusual bowings and fingerings which Lendvay uses. Finally, here is one where Lendvay plays the
Tchaikovsky concerto.
