Paul Kochanski

Paul Kochanski was a Polish violinist, composer, teacher, and arranger born on September 14, 1887 (Brahms was 54 years old.) He first studied with his father then, at age 7, with Emil Mlynarski, one of the founders of the Warsaw Philharmonic. In 1901, Mlynarski, having by then become a conductor, invited the then fourteen-year-old Kochanski to be concertmaster of the Philharmonic. That probably made him – with the possible exception of Amadeus Mozart – the youngest concertmaster in history. In 1903, Kochanski found himself in Brussels, at the Brussels Conservatory. By 1908, he was touring Europe with Artur Rubinstein. He became professor of violin at the Warsaw Conservatory in 1909 and was there until 1911. In 1916, Karol Szymanowski dedicated his first violin concerto to Kochanski, who had written the cadenza for it. In that same year, he took over for Leopold Auer at the St Petersburg Conservatory. He also taught for a year (1919-1920) at the Kiev Conservatory. During this time, he advised Prokofiev on matters of technique having to do with Prokofiev’s first violin concerto. Kochanski made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1921, playing Brahms' violin concerto. From 1922, he lived in New York, becoming the head of the violin teaching staff at Juilliard (1924-1934.) In 1933, Kochanski premiered Szymanowski’s second violin concerto and again, Szymanowski dedicated the work to him. On January 12, 1934, at age 47, Kochanski died, though not unexpectedly. Among his pall bearers were Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, and Efrem Zimbalist. Among Kochanski's pupils was Jacques Singer.