Antonin Bennewitz (Antonin Benevic) was a Czech violinist, teacher, and
conductor born (in Privrat, Bohemia) on March 26, 1833. Johannes Brahms was born the same year, about
a month later. Bennewitz is one of those
violinists who, despite significant achievements and the advantages that accrue
to a very long life, somehow manage to get overlooked by historians. He is mostly mentioned in connection with three
or four famous pupils he had. The most
famous of these are probably Otakar Sevcik, Josef Suk, and Karl Halir. From the age of 12, from 1846 to 1852, he
studied at the Prague Conservatory with another obscure violinist, Moritz
Mildner (teacher also – at about the same time - of Ferdinand Laub, one of
Tchaikovsky’s favorite violinists.) In
1852, he became concertmaster of the Estates Theatre orchestra. He was 19 years old. He stayed for nine years. The Estates Theatre was a very important
concert venue in Europe. As part (since
1920) of the present-day Czech National Theatre, it still is. Mozart’s Don Giovanni had its world premiere
there in 1787. Paganini gave concerts
there. Gustav Mahler and Karl Goldmark
also conducted concerts there. Bennewitz
undertook short concert tours during his years at the Estates Theatre and
subsequently played in orchestras in Stuttgart and Salzburg. He participated in various premieres of
chamber music and orchestral works by Czech composers, as violinist or
conductor – Bedrich Smetana was one of them.
In 1866, he became violin teacher at the Prague Conservatory. He was 33 years old. He became first violinist of the Bennewitz
String Quartet in 1876. In 1882, he was
made Director of the Prague Conservatory.
He remained for nineteen years – Antonin Dvorak took over in November of
1901. After 1901, Bennewitz seems to
have disappeared. He died on May 29,
1926, at age 93. Brahms was long dead by
then and Richard Wagner, Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius, Richard Strauss, and
Igor Stravinsky had already revolutionized the musical landscape. I am sure Bennewitz played a superlative
violin, though I could not find a single source which mentioned any specific
instrument. The Bennewitz Quartet is
alive and well, having been resurrected in 1998.
Nicolai Berezowsky (Nicolai Tikhonovich Berezowsky) was a Russian violinist,
composer, and conductor born (in St Petersburg, Russia) on May 17, 1900. It has been said that at one time he was more
famous than Aaron Copland, the iconic American composer – today, Berezowsky is
all but forgotten. The 1953 edition of
Grove’s Dictionary of Music makes no mention of him. He studied violin, piano, and singing at the
Imperial Chapel in St Petersburg, graduating in 1916. One source has him studying violin in Vienna
as well with an obscure teacher named Robert Pollak (aka as Robert Pollack), an
Austrian violinist who made his New York recital debut on December 18, 1913 and
who taught at the Vienna Conservatory from 1919 to 1926. Pollak is said to be one of Isaac Stern’s
teachers, too. After graduation from the
Imperial Chapel, Berezowsky played violin with the opera or ballet orchestras
in Saratov (1917-1919) and Moscow (1919-1920.)
According to one source, he left Russia in 1920 – other sources say
1922. He arrived in the U.S. in 1922 and
studied at Juilliard (New York) with Paul Kochanski for some time. He also played for a while with the Capitol
Theatre Orchestra of New York – the same orchestra which hired Eugene Ormandy
as a violinist when he first arrived in the U.S. and it is quite possible they
played in that orchestra at the same time.
From 1923 to 1929, Berezowsky played with the New York Philharmonic –
actually, the New York Philharmonic Society merged with the New York Symphony
in 1928 so it could have been with one or the other orchestra that he played;
internet sources are not clear on that. From
1932 to 1936 he was an assistant conductor at CBS. From 1929 to about 1931 he must have been a
freelance conductor and violinist playing and conducting for radio since it
wasn’t until 1932 that he again had a steady job. He played second violin in the Coolidge
String Quartet with William Kroll (on first violin) from 1935 until 1940. From 1941 to 1946 he again worked at
CBS. As far as composition, Serge
Koussevitsky (the Boston Symphony conductor) was a great champion of his and
gave the premieres of many of his major works.
His cello concerto was premiered by Gregor Piatigorsky and the Boston
Symphony. It seems not to have been
terribly popular with the public since Piatigorsky played it only three times
in quick succession – once in New York also - then never played it again. The concerto was premiered in Boston on February 22, 1935, then repeated on February 23 and finally played in New York's Carnegie Hall on March 2, 1935. (Thanks to Bridget Carr, archivist for the Boston Symphony, for these details.) Nevertheless, Berezowsky’s other music was
performed far and wide and enjoyed much success while he lived – Carl Flesch
performed his violin concerto and William Primrose played his viola concerto. Berezowsky began composing while still a
teenager. His Hebrew Suite was premiered
by the New York Philharmonic on December 6, 1928 – Willem Mengelberg was the
conductor. Later on, the philharmonic
played other works of his as well. The
last Berezowsky work to be performed by that orchestra was his Christmas
Festival Overture back in December of 1953 so, for 60 years now, Berezowsky’s
music has been absent from its programs. Be that as it may, his music is still
occasionally performed and some of it has been recorded. Of all his compositions, the most popular is
probably his children’s opera, Babar, the Elephant. That was one of his last works. He also wrote concertos for violin, cello,
viola, and harp; an oratorio, two operas, four symphonies, various light
orchestral pieces, and many chamber music works, including no fewer than 5
string quartets. Columbia University and
the New York Public Library have substantial archives on Berezowsky. It would not be difficult to resurrect his
music, if someone wanted to. Here is a
YouTube audio file featuring the Coolidge Quartet in 1938, playing a 1921 quartet
by Paul Hindemith. It is superb and Berezowsky’s
magnificent, warm, clean violin playing can be distinguished from Kroll’s more
austere sound. Berezowsky also did some
recording as an orchestral conductor. Berezowsky’s
first wife (Alice Newman) published a 1943 memoir which covered much of their
life together, titled “Duets with Nicky.”
Berezowsky died (in New York City) on August 27, 1953, at age 53. As was violinist Christian Ferras much later
(in 1982), Berezowsky was a victim of suicide.
Isabelle Faust is a German violinist and teacher born (in Esslingen, Germany – near
Stuttgart) on March 19, 1972. Faust is a
supremely gifted artist known for her thorough involvement in both, the early
music and contemporary styles of playing, possessed of a markedly identifiable
sound who nevertheless maintains an unorthodox view of marketing – she just
plays and lets the chips fall where they may.
As one writer puts it, she has an admirable and “refreshingly devil-may-care”
attitude. I do not usually exercise the privilege
of writing subjectively on this blog but there are exceptions. To quote further, Faust delights in “the pure
process of producing what I think the composer wants to hear.” She began her violin studies at age
five. By age 11, she was playing second
violin in a string quartet she helped organize.
She kept playing in this quartet until age 15. She had up to then been studying with
Christoph Poppen. During the summer she
would study with Denes Zsigmondy, a Hungarian pedagogue who helped her navigate
the (Bela) Bartok violin sonatas. However,
she gives most of the credit for her training to Poppen, with whom she studied between 1988 and 1994 at the Advanced School for Music in Detmold (Germany) (Musikhochschule Detmold.) Detmold is located about 120 miles north of Frankfurt. None other than Johannes Brahms spent time working there. As do also many other modern concert violinists, Faust plays
contemporary music – music which I consider sub-standard and (for the most part) intensely
dislike - as often as she can. Many contemporary composers have written works
for her or dedicated works to her – I won’t bother to list them since I don’t
care for their work. Faust’s technique
is truly fabulous and not over-stated – her considerable technical prowess is not
worn on her sleeve, so to speak. What intrigues me is her sound. It has been written that rather than “merely
mastering her instrument and its repertoire, experiencing and deeply exploring
music [is what] lies at the heart of her work.”
The New York Times wrote that "her sound has passion, grit and
electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the
music’s hidden strains of lyricism."
Faust won the Leopold Mozart violin competition (Augsburg, Austria) in
1987 (at age 15) and the Paganini competition (Genoa, Italy) in 1993. I have heard that the winner of the Paganini
competition has the right to play a recital on Paganini’s famed Cannone
Guarnerius violin but there is no mention of her doing that. The Dvorak concerto was one of the first major
concertos she recorded (2003.) Her
recording of the Beethoven concerto was released in 2007. Faust has also recorded the violin sonatas of
Bartok, Beethoven, Szymanowski, Janacek, and Bach. She performs extensively at chamber music
festivals around the world and, of course, has worked with almost all of the
major orchestras and conductors. She
made her U.S. debut in 1995 with the Utah Symphony. She was 23 years old. Her first appearance with the New York
Philharmonic did not take place until March 20, 2013 - she played both Bach
concertos on that occasion. Her current violin
is the Sleeping Beauty Stradivarius of 1704.
As far as I could ascertain, before Faust obtained it, this Stradivarius
had never been played by a concert violinist.
In fact, it is one of very few Stradivarius violins with its original
neck intact. Supposedly, it lay dormant in a bank vault, in its original violin case, for decades, and was named Sleeping Beauty for that very reason. The original label reads 1720 or 1729 but violin "experts" have decided that the year of construction is closer to 1704. Claude Lebet - an obscure luthier - found it in 1991. Faust has also played a JB
Guadagnini of 1761. She is shown here
playing the Beethoven Triple Concerto with two of her colleagues and the
Orchestra of the 18th Century (the Netherlands.) It is a magnificent live performance from
2010. This early music orchestra
(founded in 1981) is very rare in that it does not audition its members. Its conductor is Frans Bruggen. If you prefer hearing a much shorter piece,
she splendidly plays the Bach g minor concerto in this YouTube audio file.
Casimir von Blumenthal was a German violinist, conductor, composer, and
teacher born (in Brussels, Belgium) on August 8, 1787. His father was Baron Joseph von
Blumenthal. Unfortunately, some
political turmoil which began in 1787 resulted in his losing most of his
fortune. His sons, including Casimir, instead
of becoming titled nobles, became musicians.
In 1789, the family moved to Prague to avoid the short-lived revolution
and subsequent violence. Blumenthal
began to study violin and composition with Georg Joseph Vogler. Two sources state that Blumenthal studied
with Vogler (aka Abbe Vogler) in Vienna.
Vogler is mainly known as an organist and teacher who traveled far and
wide and did not stay put too long in one place so Blumenthal’s lessons could
have taken place sporadically. I am not
certain of that but I’m not taking the trouble to precisely ascertain it one
way or the other. Be that as it may,
Casimir and his two (older) brothers were all admitted into the Orchestra of
the Theatre on the Banks of the Wien River (Theater an der Wien, in
Vienna.) This venue was brand new and became
very famous in its day and still (for the most part) stands today. It was the site selected for some of
Beethoven’s most important premieres. Casimir
was 17 years old then. Prior to 1811,
the violinist Franz Clement was Director at the theatre but sometime after
1811, Blumenthal took his place. Blumenthal
later worked as a teacher and conductor in Czechoslovakia (Prague, Brno, and
Bratislava.) In 1821, he was appointed
conductor of the Allgemeine Musik-Gesellschaft (aka the AMG - General Music
Society or Universal Music Company) and settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where
he married, founded a choral society, and joined a Masonic Lodge. He was 34 years old and he never looked back. Until the Tonhalle Orchestra came along in
1868, the AMG had the best orchestra in Switzerland, although it was composed
of both amateur and professional musicians who would often not attend all
rehearsals required for performances. He
was there for 25 years. Blumenthal
conducted the Swiss Music Society Festivals in Zurich in 1828 and 1838. For the inaugural performance in the
Aktientheater, on November 10, 1834, he composed an overture based on Swiss
folk songs. I’m guessing the piece is
not nowadays available through a publisher.
The AMG library might have it.
With the reluctant blessing of the authorities, Blumenthal began to also
conduct opera performances at that theatre. Blumenthal retired from his post in 1846. He died on July 22, 1849 (in Lausanne,
Switzerland) at age 61. Today, he is
completely forgotten.
