Louis Persinger

Louis Persinger (Louis Humphreys Persinger) was an American violinist, teacher, and pianist born (in Rochester, Illinois) on February 11, 1887 (Brahms was 54 years old.)  Some sources give the year of his birth as 1888.  So fleeting was his fame as a virtuoso that Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Third Edition, 1953) has no mention of him.  His concertizing career was short-lived.  However, his name is now immortal thanks to several outstanding violinists he taught – Yehudi Menuhin, Ruggiero Ricci, Isaac Stern, Donald Erickson, Zvi Zeitlin, Guila Bustabo, Arnold Eidus, Camilla Wicks, Louise Behrend, Nannette Levi, Fredell Lack, Leonard Posner, Frances Magnes, Francis Chaplin, Sonya Monosoff, Roland Vamos, and Hermilo Novelo  among them.  In fact, he not only taught them, being an accomplished pianist (as were Fritz Kreisler and Arthur Grumiaux and now Julia Fischer and Arabella Steinbacher), he accompanied several of them on recitals and recordings.  (Ricci, Erickson, Wicks, Zeitlin, and Lack are still with us and Zeitlin and Ricci are still actively teaching.  I believe Camilla Wicks easily rivaled Heifetz, Ricci, Milstein, and Kogan.  It is an artistic tragedy that she had to interrupt her career in order to raise her five children.)  Persinger also taught Dorothy DeLay who then went on to become the teacher of some of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century.  Some time during his childhood, Persinger moved to Colorado (USA.)  With financial backing from a generous and wealthy patron (Winfield Scott Stratton, Colorado Springs gold mine owner) he started out on his career and eventually travelled to Europe (1909) where he studied with Hans Becker at the Leipzig Conservatory, later with Eugene Ysaye (presumably in Brussels, Belgium), and with Jacques Thibaud in France for two summers.  He made his London debut on May 9, 1912 (at age 25) at Bechstein Hall (now Wigmore Hall) and received excellent reviews.  The Titanic disaster had already occurred - April 15, 1912.  On November 1 and 2, 1912, he played with the Philadelphia Orchestra with Stokowski on the podium.  On November 9 of the same year he made his New York recital debut at the Aeolian Hall, the site of the world premiere of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in 1924.  It was a small hall, seating about 1100.  His accompanist was pianist Samuel Chotzinoff, who would later accompany Jascha Heifetz and Efrem Zimbalist as well, become Director of Music at NBC (1936), become a music critic, and write Toscanini’s biography (1956.)  Among the works Persinger played were a concerto by Pietro Nardini (an obscure work though Pinchas Zukerman has made a recording of it) and the Bruch g minor concerto.  He also played six encores.  The reviews were very favorable.  More than a month later (December 22, 1912), he played Edouard Lalo’s violin concerto in f minor (Opus 20 – not the better-known Symphonie Espagnole, Opus 21) with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.  Returning to Europe, he served as concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic (some sources say he played in the first violin section) and was also concertmaster of the Royal Opera Orchestra in Brussels, Belgium.  In 1915, he accepted the post of concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony.  He was also named assistant conductor.  He was 28 years old.  He later became the Director of the Chamber Music Society of that city.  It was in San Francisco that he had the good fortune to be sought out by Ricci, Menuhin, and Stern.  In 1925, he moved to New York.  In 1930, he was appointed professor at the Institute of Musical Art (Juilliard) to replace Leopold Auer.  He taught at Juilliard until the day he died.  Menuhin later said “I was, in some ways, the pupil of Persinger’s abandoned dreams.”  Around the same time, Persinger was also on the violin faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Persinger played a Nicolas Lupot violin for some time although he also played a Stradivarius and a Guarnerius violin.  YouTube has a recording of him playing the Capriccio Espagnol solos with the San Francisco Symphony and some with him playing piano for Menuhin.  The only other recording by Persinger that I know of is the one with his son Rolf, the late principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony (1963-1976), featuring works by Hindemith and Handel.  He was a chess player too, though not a very good one.  David Oistrakh, among others, beat him at it.  (Since I have beaten a computer at its top level, I know I would probably have been able to beat him, too.  On the other hand, he was a much, much better violinist than I.)  Persinger died in New York City on New Year’s Eve, 1966.  He was 79 years old.