Stefi Geyer

Stefi Geyer (Steffi Geyer) was a Hungarian violinist and teacher born (in Budapest) on June 28, 1888.  Although a very popular and distinguished violinist in the early part of the century, she is better known for her relationship to Bela Bartok, one of the greatest composers of the 20^th Century.  Bartok dedicated his first violin concerto (composed in 1907 but not published until 1959) to her, although she never performed it in public.  It is said she had the only copy of the score and did not release it until very late in her life, after Bartok had died.  Her violin studies began at age three – her father was her first teacher.  From age seven she studied with Kalman Adolf, an obscure violinist.  At age ten she began studying at the Budapest Academy of Music with Jeno Hubay, one of the most respected violinists and teachers of the time.  Geyer began concertizing in Hungary and Austria at age twelve.  Her studies with Hubay ended in 1902.  She was fourteen years old.  She toured Europe frequently and was admired for her intelligent and elegant interpretations of a very wide repertory.  She moved to Vienna in 1911.  In 1919 she settled in Zurich.   She was very busy playing throughout Europe, giving over 100 concerts in the 1922-23 season alone.  She toured the U.S. in 1924, although not for the first time.  Geyer taught at the Zurich Conservatory from 1934 to 1953 (one source says 1923 to 1953.)  In 1935 she was appointed concertmaster of the Sacher Chamber Ensemble.  She became the concertmaster of the Collegium Musicum in Zurich in 1941.  Beginning in 1938, she would often play in the orchestra of the Lucerne Festival.  She played a 1742 Guarnerius (del Gesu) violin known as the Soldat.  The violin has an interesting history.  Her recordings from the 1930s are numerous but somewhat hard to find.  Here is a YouTube audio file of one of her recordings from the year 1927.  Geyer died in Zurich on December 11, 1956, at age 68.  

Boris Belkin

Boris Belkin (Boris Davidovich Belkin) is a Russian violinist and teacher born (in Yekaterinburg – aka Sverdlovsk) on January 26, 1948.  He began his violin studies at age 6.  One year later, he made his first public appearance with Kiril Kondrashin on the podium.  He was a student at the Central Music School (for specially gifted children) in Moscow, a branch of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.  At the Moscow Conservatory, his teachers – among others – were Yuri Yankelevich (teacher also of Leonid Kogan, Ilya Kaler, Zakhar Bron, Vladimir Spivakov, and Ruben Aharonyan), Maya Glezarova (assistant to Yuri Yankelevich), and Felix Andrievsky.  He began his concertizing career in Russia while still a student, a very common practice everywhere.  In 1974, at age 26, he left Russia and settled in Western Europe.  (He had applied to take part in the Paganini Competition in Genoa but the authorities denied him a visa so he then applied to emigrate to Israel and from there, he made his way to Belgium.)  He has appeared with virtually every major orchestra in the world.  He performed the Tchaikovsky concerto with the New York Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein on April 22 and 24, 1975.  On June 6 and 7, 1978, he played the Tchaikovsky concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic.  Belkin's discography is not extensive by any measure but it includes the rarely performed Strauss concerto.  He began teaching in Italy – at the Accademia Chigiana (founded in 1932) – in 1986.  He also teaches in the Netherlands at the Advanced Music School (College of Music) in Maastricht (about 90 miles south east of Amsterdam – the city is a lot closer to Cologne, Germany and Brussels, Belgium than it is to Amsterdam.)  Belkin has played a Stradivarius from the Russian State collection, a 1754 Guadagnini, and two modern violins (1994 and 2007) by Roberto Regazzi.  For many years, he has used a bow made by a famous maker - Daniel Tobias Navea Vera.  Here is one of Belkin’s YouTube files.