Joseph Hassid

Josef Hassid (Michael Jozef Chasyd) was a Polish violinist born on December 28, 1923 (or December 9, 1922) in Koenigsberg, Poland (Heifetz was 22 years old.) He is famous for having had an incredibly short and tragic career (April, 1940 to March, 1941.) It has been said that he only played a total of 5 public concerts. Everyone agrees that he was a phenomenally gifted player - he was greatly admired by Thibaud, Huberman, Szigeti, and Kreisler, among many other musicians. Such was his talent that Kreisler said of him "A Menuhin comes around every 100 years but a Hassid once every 200." He received an honorary diploma at the 1935 Wieniawski competition (Ginette Neveu placed first and David Oistrakh second.) He was only 12 years old but he supposedly did not advance to the second round due to a memory lapse. Prior to Carl Flesch, his teachers were, in chronological order, his father, Alter Gutman, Wilhelm Krysztal, Micczyslaw Michalowitcz, and Irena Dubiska. He began studying with Carl Flesch at age 12. In 1937, while studying with Carl Flesch in Belgium, he fell in love with a young fellow-student, Elizabeth Lockhart. The romance was ended abruptly by the parents when it was discovered that there were religious differences. Hassid and his father moved to England in 1938 where he continued his studies with Flesch. Late in 1939, he made his first recording for EMI in London. It is posted on YouTube. In 1940, he recorded eight more times - he would never get to record again. On April 3, 1940, he played a recital at Wigmore Hall with pieces by Schubert, Corelli, Bach, and Paganini, among others - there were no concertos on the program. The recital was well-received. On April 25, 1940, he played the Tchaikovsky concerto with the London Philharmonic. Gregory Fitelberg was on the podium.  This time, the reviews were rather lukewarm.  He is said to have suffered a memory lapse during the performance. On January 5, 1941, he played the Beethoven concerto with Adrian Boult on the podium.  His next concert was on March 1, 1941, playing the Brahms concerto.  It was reported (in a newspaper review) that the performance was rather uneven. (Violinist Yfrah Neaman, who was present at the concert, reported that Hassid stopped twice during the performance and was actually escorted backstage after the second interruption. The newspapers did not mention that.) His last concert was on March 2, 1941, playing the Brahms concerto again. Louis Cohen was the conductor. Later that year, Hassid experienced a mental breakdown. He was admitted to a hospital on June 19, 1941, treated, and discharged but finally had to be committed to a mental asylum in 1943 due to recurring episodes of erratic behavior. He was 20 years old. He remained institutionalized for about seven years until a lobotomy done in 1950 sealed his fate. The cause of death may have been meningitis. He died on November 7, 1950, at age 26 (or 27.)