Eda Kersey

Eda Kersey was an English violinist and teacher born (in Goodmayes, a district of London) on May 15, 1904.  She was a very accomplished musician whose career was mostly spent in England.  She was also one of quite a few female violinists who died young – Maud Powell, Johanna Martzy, Ginette Neveu, Edith Volkaert, Alma Rose, Alma Moodie, and Arma Senkrah are among them.  Several sources speak very highly of her and emphasize that she would have left a great legacy if only she had lived long enough to record the great works of the violin repertoire.  She is also known to have stated that practicing seven hours a day (which she routinely did) should be sufficient for any violinist.  Her musical education began on the piano at age four.  She took up the violin at age six when she actually began studying at the Trinity College of Music in London.  Two years later, she was awarded a certificate from the college with very high marks.  She was eight years old.  After that, she began studying with Edgar Mouncher (a pupil of Otakar Sevcik.)  After only two years, at age ten, she played Wieniawski’s second concerto (first movement only) in Southampton, a city which is 65 miles from London.  That concert (in 1915) was a great success.  At age 13, she moved to London to live with an aunt and uncle in London and began studying with Margaret Holloway, a pupil of Leopold Auer.  Her first London recital took place three years later at the Aeolian Hall when she was sixteen years old.  (New York City also had its own Aeolian Hall.)  Along the way, she premiered the concertos of Arnold Bax, Erno Dohnanyi, and Stanley Wilson, as well as works by other contemporary composers.  She also gave the first English performance of the Barber concerto at a Proms concert in 1943.  Her first Proms concert had been in 1930 playing the Beethoven concerto with the famous Henry Wood conducting.  She was 26 years old.  That performance was the first of several appearances she made at the popular Proms concerts.  In 1931, she formed a piano trio which was simply named The Trio Players.  Her last concert took place in June, 1944, at the Albert Hall in London.  Kersey played a Nicolo Amati, a J.B. Vuillaume, and a Guarnerius del Gesu (which she acquired from Belgian violinist Alfred De Reyghere in 1942), among other violins.  Eda Kersey died on July 13, 1944, at age 40.  Negotiations for many recordings of the standard repertoire had nearly been concluded before her sudden death but she never got to actually record anything other than some small pieces (with piano accompaniment) and the Bax concerto (with orchestral accompaniment) several months earlier. 

Alan Gilbert

Alan Gilbert is an American violinist, conductor, and teacher, born (in New York) on February 23, 1967.  Although trained as a violinist from an early age, he pursued a conducting career while still very young – Daniel Barenboim did essentially the same thing.  His conducting pursuits took such a serious turn that the highest post he attained as a violinist was assistant concertmaster of the Santa Fe Opera Company (New Mexico) in 1993.  He was 26 years old.  Gilbert is much better known as the recently appointed conductor of the New York Philharmonic.  He joins Peter Oundjian, Neville Marriner, Jaap Van Zweden, Jean-Pascal Tortelier, David Zinman, Lorin Maazel, Eugene Ormandy, Pierre Monteux, Jacques Singer, Charles Munch, and Theodore Thomas, in a group of violinists who essentially almost entirely left the violin for the podium.  There is another group of contemporary violinists who also conduct but who continue to concertize assiduously – Jaime Laredo, Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Salvatore Accardo, Joseph Silverstein, Joshua Bell, and Leonidas Kavakos are in this group.  Do violinists or pianists make better conductors?  I would not know.  According to at least one source, Gilbert made his violin debut with the New York Philharmonic in October of 2011.  The piece he chose was Bach’s two-violin concerto.  The same piece was chosen by Alma Rose' for her debut in 1926.  Gilbert has an affinity for modern music, music which is, for the most part, unintelligible, as far as I’m concerned.  Though Gilbert has already programmed a number of world premieres, it is doubtful that he will ever match Theodore Thomas’ record of 112 world premieres with the Chicago Symphony.  In any case, Gilbert’s premieres would be music which almost nobody wants to listen to a second time.  Thomas, by the way, conducted the New York Philharmonic for four years way back in 1887.  Gilbert began his violin studies as a child.  It was not difficult since his mother, his father, and his grandfather were (are) all professional violinists.  He later enrolled at Harvard University, the New England Conservatory of Music, the Curtis Institute, and Juilliard.  Beginning in 1994, Gilbert won a number of conducting prizes which helped further his conducting career.  Gilbert was assistant conductor with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1995 to 1997.  In January of 2000, he became conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he held until 2008.  From 2003 to 2006, he served as Music Director of the Santa Fe Opera.  He has also been Principal Guest Conductor of the NDR Symphony (Hamburg, Germany) since 2004.  In September of 2009, he began his tenure as Chief Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, although his appointment came in July of 2007.  He was 42 years old.  In September of 2011, he was appointed Director of Conducting and Orchestral studies at Juilliard.  As for his violin, I guess it is safely put away, though not forgotten.  I happened to hear the performance of the Bach double violin concerto and was impressed with Gilbert’s style as well as his technical accomplishments as a violin player.  Gilbert’s website features him as a conductor and chamber musician and there are several videos of performances on YouTube – one such is here with the Sibelius concerto.  

Longevity

I have been curious lately about the longevity - life span -  of concert violinists.  It seems most of them age rather well and die in old age.  Some have died young, of course, but, among the ones I surveyed here, half reached 80 years of age or more and the other half at least reached age 72.  I did a random check of twenty violinists born in the Twentieth Century (on this blog) and found the average age at death was 81.  The one lasting the longest died at age 99.  Curiously, among female concert violinists, a great number of them (comparatively) died young.  The ratio is, of course, skewed because, over time, there have been fewer women violinists than men.  Katya Tsukanova died at 17, Ginette Neveu died at 30; Arma Senkrah died at 36; Alma Rose' at 37; Eda Kersey at 40; Jitka Suranska at 40; Edith Volkaert at 42; Alma Moodie at 44; Maud Powell at 52; Ida Levin at 53; Johanna Martzy at 54; and Camilla Urso at age 59.  With time, that disproportion will correct itself since there appear to now be more female concert violinists than male.  Among the men who have died young are: Josef Hassid (26), Gregory Cardi (28), Eitan Silkoff (29), Nico Richter (29), Julian Sitkovetsky (32), Francois Prume (33), Ottokar Novacek (33), Ossy Renardy (33), Dmitri Kogan (38), Noel Pointer (39), Michael Rabin (40), Lucien Martin (42), Ferenc Vecsey (42), Andrei Korsakov (44), Henryk Wieniawski (44), Benjamin Godard (45), Tor Aulin (47), Joseph Ghys (47), Paul Kochanski (47), Carl Rosa (47), Christian Ferras (49), Karl Halir (50), Philippe Hirschhorn (50), Alfred Dubois (50), Chevalier De Saint George (53), Nicolai Berezowsky (53), Lucien Capet (55), Joseph Achron (56), Eddie South (57), Stuff Smith (58), Desmond Bradley (58), Leonid Kogan (58), Nicolo Paganini (58), Julian Olevsky (59), Grigoras Dinicu (59), and Vasa Prihoda (59).  On the other hand, Olga Rudge lived to age 100 and Roman Totenberg to age 101.  

Edith Lorand

Edith Lorand was a Hungarian violinist, singer, and conductor born (in Budapest) on December 17, 1898.  She is remembered for the great number of recordings she produced for German labels of the 1920s and 30s – Odeon, Parlophone, and Beka.  Her specialty was salon music of that era – it included opera music arrangements, dance music, popular songs, and light classical pieces.  That was during a time when live music was played at the more elegant hotels and restaurants all over Europe.  Up to a point, her biography reads somewhat like Alma Rose’s.  She studied to be a concert violinist but her ambition (and abilities) took her in a different direction.  Though her mother was an accomplished pianist, her father was not a musician.  Her first public performance was at a charity concert in Budapest at age six.  Lorand graduated from the Royal Music Academy in Budapest where she studied with Jeno Hubay.  She also later studied with Carl Flesch – either in Berlin or Vienna.  She made her debut in Vienna and Berlin in 1920.  She was 22 years old.  One source states that critics of the day compared her to Fritz Kreisler and Pablo Sarasate.  Lorand also became fluent in French, Italian, and English.  She made Berlin her home and base of operations until 1934.  After her debut, Lorand played as a concert soloist a few times and founded and recorded with a quartet and a trio (which included Gregor Piatigorsky, the cello player) but soon found her calling as conductor of a 15-piece all-male orchestra called the Edith Lorand Orchestra.  The orchestra, but especially Lorand, enjoyed great success throughout Europe.  They made regular radio broadcasts in Holland, Austria, Sweden, Germany, and England, and even appeared in movies.  The orchestra performed in the most important theatres as well, not just hotels.  It has been said that she became a symbol of female emancipation.  By the late 1920s, she was one of the top stars of the record industry.  In France, she was known as the Queen of the Waltz and in England as the Female Johann Strauss.  On April 1, 1930, she signed a three year recording contract with Lindstrom AG, which called for her to produce at least 144 tunes per year, averaging six two-sided records per month, with a fee of at least 36,000 Marks per year (about $107,000 in today’s dollars.)  Despite her great popularity and success, she had to flee Germany for Hungary in 1934.  In Hungary, she organized her All-Gypsy Orchestra which toured as far as the U.S.in 1935, where one of her concerts took place in Carnegie Hall.  In December 1937, she had to flee Hungary for the U.S., where she established herself in Woodstock, New York.  She was 39 years old.  Her orchestra in the U.S. (with different musicians, of course) was called the Viennese Orchestra.  Her success here did not come close to what she had in Europe but she managed, playing as far afield, in September of 1939, as the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where composer Ingolf Dahl became her pianist for a short while.  She had a reputation for being demanding and autocratic.  In 1945, she was engaged to play in Vienna for an extended time but returned to the U.S. afterward.   In May 1960, she returned to Berlin, intending to resettle and restart her career.  However, on November 23, 1960, she died in New York, at age 61.  Many of her recordings are easily found on the internet and a very old video of her conducting a fast rendition of a famous waltz is available here.  Lorand played a 1744 Guarneri Del Gesu which later ended up (for 15 years) in the hands of Richard Burgin (of the Boston Symphony) and is now in Europe.  She must have taken very good care of that violin because it has been described as being in stunning condition and appearance.  A 1775 Guadagnini was also hers for a while.  That violin is now being played (though not owned) by Seattle violinist Maria Larionoff. 

Alma Roseˊ

Alma Roseˊ (Alma Maria Rose´) was an Austrian violinist and conductor born (in Vienna) on November 3, 1906 (Heifetz was 5 years old and would live an additional 81.) She is remembered for having (for ten months) conducted the world’s, and possibly history’s, most notorious orchestra – the all-female orchestra which played for inmates at the Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners’ camp (in Poland, also known as Auschwitz II – there were three Auschwitz camps, Birkenau being the largest) during the final days of World War Two. It is important to point out at this juncture that Alma Rose´ was Jewish, although both parents were converts and were well-assimilated into Viennese Christian society, as she was. Her father was long-time Vienna Philharmonic concertmaster Arnold Rose´ (one and the same who turned Fritz Kreisler down after Kreisler’s audition to join the orchestra. He was highly respected and esteemed all over Europe.) Her uncle was composer-conductor Gustav Mahler, on her mother’s side. She may even have been named after Mahler’s wife, Alma Mahler. She was also at one time married (1930-1935) to brilliant Czech violinist Vasa Prihoda (1900-1960.) Books have been written (by Fania Fenelon and Richard Newman) and films produced about her (one of them using an Arthur Miller script) which go into great detail concerning her activities during her tenure at Auschwitz-Birkenau, if one can call it that. It is generally agreed that her talent was modest but that she had great ambition. She studied at the Vienna Conservatory and at the Vienna State Academy. Her debut came in 1926, playing the Bach double concerto alongside her father – that in itself is indicative of her abilities. (They recorded the concerto two years later and – amazingly - an audio version is available on YouTube, here. If you choose to listen to it, be prepared to hear a bombastic cadenza, some odd-sounding glissandi, and a style of playing which is very much from a long, long time ago. Don’t say I did not warn you.) She never became a full-fledged solo artist or an acclaimed concert violinist. However, in 1932, she formed an all-female orchestra called The Vienna Waltzing Girls (or The Waltzing Girls of Vienna) and enjoyed great success with the highly-accomplished ensemble, which toured all over Europe. It was a wonderful life – while it lasted. The orchestra quickly disbanded after the German annexation of Austria in March of 1938. Shortly thereafter, a few months before the outbreak of World War Two (September of 1939), with the help of several friends, including Bruno Walter, Carl Flesch, and Adrian Boult, she and her father managed to make their way to London. Since Arnold Rose’s pension had been terminated by the Nazis, they experienced acute financial difficulties. In England, they played where they could. At this point, Arnold Rose´ was 76 years old. Alma returned to Holland to play and earn money for expenses back in London. She considered it safe to do so and she had many engagements. However, after the German invasion of the Netherlands in May of 1940, she could no longer perform openly and went into hiding for many months, eventually making her way to France, from where she hoped to get away to safety. In late 1942, she tried to transfer herself to (neutral) Switzerland but was betrayed to the Gestapo and captured before she could do so. She was then interned at Drancy (near Paris.) A few months later, in July 1943, she was sent from Drancy to Auschwitz. When she arrived, she was not immediately recognized. She was placed in a block from which inmates were taken for medical research purposes - experiments. In the nick of time, someone identified her and she was then engaged as a musician for a rag tag orchestra which then already existed at the camp. Among them were at least three professional musicians. The camp commander was a serious music lover. Eventually, Rose´ took over the duties of a full-fledged conductor and arranger and built it up to include 45 members, much larger than a typical chamber orchestra. She would also occasionally play violin solos with the orchestra.  It is generally agreed that she treated the players quite harshly.  On or about April 2, 1944, Rose´ attended a birthday party for one of the camp’s block leaders where, it has been said, she ate some bad meat. As soon as she arrived back at her private quarters, she exhibited symptoms of food poisoning. She was taken to the camp infirmary and, despite treatment, died two days later – April 4, 1944. She was 37 years old. During her tenure, none of the orchestra members died – whether from natural or other causes. Her 1757 Guadagnini violin – which she had entrusted to some friends in Europe – made its way to London in 1945 or 1946 and was soon sold to Felix Eyle, concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the time. A usually reliable source has it that Zakhar Bron (Russian violin pedagogue) now owns it.

Max Rostal

Max Rostal was an Austrian violinist, arranger, and teacher born (in Teschen) on July 7, 1905 (Heifetz was four years old.)  He is not particularly well-known for anything other than that he had a long teaching career and was under-rated as a violinist.  He began his violin studies at age 5.  He began playing in public from age 6 (1911.)  From the age of 8, after arriving in Vienna, one of his teachers was Arnold Rose, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years.  (When Fritz Kreisler - as a teenager - applied to the Vienna Philharmonic, it was Arnold Rose who turned him down.)  In 1920, his mother took Rostal to Berlin, along with his siblings. There, he took private lessons with Carl Flesch, when Flesch was still teaching there.  According to at least one source, Rostal was often compared to Bronislaw Huberman, Fritz Kreisler, and Eugene Ysaye. Rostal made his formal debut in Berlin on February 3, 1923. He was 17 years old. Although he played pieces by Reger, Vivaldi, Dvorak, and Paganini, the main work on the program was the violin concerto by Alexander Glazunov. In 1925, he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship.  Another obscure violinist who won this prize was Leonora Jackson in 1897.  In 1926, Rostal moved to Vienna, where he made a living mostly by giving private lessons.  In 1927, he was offered the position of concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic. In 1928, he returned to Berlin to become assistant to Carl Flesch at the Berlin Music Academy. From 1930 to 1933 he taught at the Advanced School for Music in Berlin.  Rostal organized the Rostal String Quartet in 1930. The quartet enjoyed great success for the duration of its existence (three years.)  In April of 1933, he was dismissed from his teaching position and subsequently (in 1934) moved to England, where he established himself, primarily as a teacher. From 1944 to 1958, he taught at the Guildhall School of Music in London and played many concerts broadcast over the BBC.  He then taught in Cologne (Germany) from 1957 to 1982.  Simultaneously, he was a violin teacher at the Conservatory in Bern, Switzerland (1958-1985.)  Several recordings of his are posted on YouTube and it is said that his few recordings are now treasured by collectors.  Many critics have also said that he had a very individual style.  He was especially praised for his interpretation of Bartok’s second concerto (as is Silvia Marcovici nowadays) and was known to champion contemporary music.  Rostal premiered Alan Bush’s violin concerto in 1949, a work which has not been heard from since.  He also edited quite a few works for violin and wrote a method book as well.  These works can easily be found on the internet.  A violin (and viola) competition (begun in Bern in 1991 and now held in Berlin) is named after him.  In 1944, Rostal was instrumental in organizing the Carl Flesch violin competition (which ran from 1945 until 1992. Raymond Cohen was the first winner of that competition.)  Among his pupils were Thomas Brandis, Sergiu Luca, Norbert Brainin, Yfrah Neaman, Desmond Cecil, Edith Peinemann, and Igor Ozim.  His Guarnerius del Gesu is now owned by the Stradivari Society (Chicago, USA.)  Max Rostal died in Switzerland on August 6, 1991, at age 86.

Erica Morini

Erica Morini (Erika Morini) was an Austrian violinist born on January 5, 1904 (Heifetz was 3 years old.) Morini was known for a refined, silken tone and for being one of the few female concert violinists of the early twentieth century. She received her first instruction from her father (Oskar Morini, student of Joseph Joachim) and mother and completed her studies under the famous pedagogue Otakar Sevcik although she also studied with Jakob Grun, Alma Rose, and Adolf Busch. In 1916, she made her orchestral debut in Vienna, playing Mozart's A major concerto.  In 1917, she made her debut in Berlin under Arthur Nikisch. Her U.S. debut in New York on January 26, 1921 (in Carnegie Hall) was a phenomenal success.  She was 17 years old.  Soon afterward, Maud Powell's Guadagnini violin was presented to her, though most likely only as a loan, since the instrument was later sold to Henry Ford, the car maker.  She made her first visit to London in 1923. When she was 21, her father purchased the Davidoff Strad from a Paris dealer for her and that's the instrument she used for the remainder of her career. After 1938, Morini lived in New York City. She concertized far and wide until her retirement in 1976. She was 72 years old. It has been said that she taught Jascha Heifetz the bowing technique known as staccato.  There are numerous recordings of hers still available and at least one video on YouTube. Some time in 1994 or 1995, her Stradivarius was stolen from her Fifth Avenue apartment but (according to one source), Morini was never told about the theft. It has not been heard from since. Whether the instrument was insured or not is unknown to me. Erica Morini died on October 31, 1995, in relative obscurity, at age 91.

Vasa Prihoda

Vasa Prihoda was a Czech violinist born on August 24 (or 22nd), 1900 (Stravinsky was 18 years old.) His father, Alois Prihoda, was his first teacher and remained so for ten years. Afterward, Prihoda attended the Prague Conservatory, where he studied with Marak (who himself studied with Otakar Sevcik.) He graduated in 1912 and gave his first public performance playing Mozart’s fourth violin concerto (D Major.) Most violinists choose Brahms, Mendelssohn, or Paganini for a debut, but not Prihoda. It has been said that Toscanini discovered him playing in a Café (Grande Italia) in Milan, Italy, on December 27, 1919. Prihoda is remembered for his prodigious technique (which included exceptionally clear articulation), his ease in playing Paganini showpieces, and his 1930 marriage to (and 1935 divorce from) violinist Alma Rose (Gustav Mahler’s niece.) [In 1944, Alma, whose father had been concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for 50 years, died in a concentration camp.] After the war, Prihoda was censured by the Czech government because he did not boycott any of the German-occupied territories during the war. Prihoda concertized extensively all over the world and made a number of recordings when the industry was in its infancy. Unfortunately, some of his recordings were not well-produced so the sound quality is poor. He played in the U.S. many times and was greatly admired for his style, dazzling technique, and finesse. Critics have suggested that Heifetz was jealous of him. Vienna was his base of operations for many years though he taught in Prague, Munich, and Salzburg as well. After 1950, he dedicated most of his time to teaching and he also composed small chamber works which are no longer played. Prihoda also composed his own cadenzas to all the concertos he played. He gave his last concerts in April, 1960 and died (of heart disease) on July 26, 1960, at age 59 - Heifetz would live another 27 years. There are many  amazing sound files and videos of his posted on YouTube.