Nicolai Berezowsky

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.   

Joseph Fuchs

Joseph Fuchs (Joseph Philip Fuchs) was an American violinist and teacher born (in New York) on April 26, 1899.  His early studies were with his father.  He later studied at Juilliard (Institute of Musical Arts - New York) with Franz Kneisel and Louis Svecenski and graduated in 1918.  His American debut took place in 1920 at the Aeolian Hall.  He then went to Berlin for further study and to play in several German orchestras in Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin.  Returning to New York in 1922 or 1923, he played in the Capitol Theatre Orchestra for some time (where Eugene Ormandy was concertmaster) but also played wherever else the opportunity arose.  Though very highly respected with a distinguished career as teacher and concert violinist, his profile was never very high because – Alessandro Rolla comes to mind - he lived during a time when Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Michael Rabin, Isaac Stern, Leonid Kogan, David Oistrakh, Arthur Grumiaux, Joseph Suk, Christian Ferras, Zino Francescatti, Joseph Szigeti, and Ruggiero Ricci dominated the violin scene.  Since he was concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra for fourteen years (1926 to 1940), his delayed entry into the concertizing world for that many years may have cost him dearly.  His Carnegie Hall debut did not come until 1943.  He was 44 years old.  Nevertheless, Fuchs toured extensively all over the world (Europe – 1954, South America – 1957, Russia - 1965) while developing a teaching career in the U.S.  Fuchs was also one of a few violinists who had to retrain after undergoing surgery on his left hand – Huberman and Thibaud did the same thing.  His first appearance with the New York Philharmonic was on August 1, 1945.  He played Bruch’s first concerto on that occasion.  Soon thereafter – on October 27, 1945 - he premiered the Nikolai Lopatnikoff concerto with the same orchestra.  That concerto has probably not been played much after that though it was recorded by Fuchs.  He premiered several other modern works as well.  In 1946, the same year he acquired the famous Cadiz Stradivarius violin, he began teaching at Juilliard and taught there almost until the day he died – 51 years.  One of his pupils is Anna Rabinova.  In 1952, he recorded (with Artur Balsam) one of the first complete sets of the Beethoven violin sonatas.  His last appearance with the New York Philharmonic was on August 1, 1962.  A YouTube audio file featuring Fuchs playing Beethoven’s Romance in G can be found here.  Fuchs’s last recital was in 1992, at Carnegie Hall.  He was 93 years old.  Nathan Milstein, Joseph Szigeti, Ruggiero Ricci, Ida Haendal, Abram Shtern, Ivry Gitlis, Zvi Zeitlin, and Roman Totenberg have also played recitals at a very advanced age.  On the other hand, it may well be that Nicolo Paganini played his last concert when he was only 52.  Joseph Fuchs died in New York City on March 14, 1997, at age 97.  By the way, the Cadiz Strad (1722), having been sold to an American Foundation, is now on loan to another American violinist.  

Elias Breeskin

Elias Breeskin was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist, composer, arranger, teacher, and conductor born in 1896 – the exact date is unknown.  One source gives his year of birth as 1897, but that source (Cozio) is usually messy and unreliable.  He was a notorious gambler and con man who was a very successful musician in spite of his addiction to gambling.  He began violin lessons very early in life and, according to one source, by age 7 was studying formally at a conservatory in Poland.  He played in public at age 8 and was acclaimed.  It has been said that he studied with Leopold Auer in Russia.  Whether that is true is quite debatable.  At age 10 (1906), he played for Franz Joseph, the Austrian Emperor.  After this performance, the Emperor supposedly gave him a priceless ring right off his finger.  That, too, is highly questionable.  Soon after, the family came to the U.S. and settled in Washington D.C., a very odd place for a European musical family to settle – then and even now.  Sponsored by a Washington benefactor, he may have first gone to Baltimore to study at the Peabody Conservatory.  However, Breeskin himself stated that after securing financing from (among a few others) Frank Damrosch (brother of conductor Walter Damrosch and, at the time, Director of the Institute of Musical Arts which later became Juilliard), he began his American musical education at Juilliard (New York) in the spring of 1908.  He studied with Franz Kneisel for about seven years.  A magazine from that era (The Violinist) and the New York Times reported that Breeskin attended Columbia University after hours, studying languages and other subjects.  Possibly upon graduation from Juilliard – in 1915 - he shared the Loeb Memorial Prize with Sascha Jacobsen.  He was 19 years old.  Afterward, as part of the Loeb Prize awarded him, he made his debut in Carnegie Hall and was very well received.  In February or March of 1917, he received (on loan) a Stradivarius violin (the 1703 Rougemont Strad) and a Tourte bow from a benefactor – Edward Schafer – which he used for about ten years.  In 1929, for understandable reasons, the violin was returned to the benefactor to help him with payment of debts after the stock market crash.  The Rougemont was later played for two years by Jacques Gordon, concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony.  I do not know where it is now.  Breeskin joined the New York Symphony in 1917.  At that time, this orchestra was being conducted by Walter Damrosch.  Though it was organized many years after the New York Philharmonic, it was the first American orchestra to tour Europe - it merged with the Philharmonic in 1928.  Among the New York Symphony’s members were Mischa Elman and Pablo Casals.  In early February, 1917, Breeskin appeared in recital at the Aeolian Hall in New York City.  A little over a year later (February 28, 1918), he played there again.  One of the works he played at this second recital was Bruch’s second concerto with Lawrence Goodman at the piano.  On April 1, 1919, he finally made his Carnegie Hall debut, a debut which for unknown reasons, had been postponed several times.  Among the works he played was Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnol.  This time, he was accompanied by pianist Josef Adler.  He was very favorably received at each of his recitals.  In June of 1920, he married into a very wealthy American family.  Anyone else would have used these newly-acquired resources to become a very major and influential figure in music, but not Breeskin.  He was about 24 years old.  At about the same time, it became known that he was a serious gambler.  Around this time, he also became concertmaster of the Capitol Theatre Orchestra in New York.  He was named conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony in 1925.  Because of his gambling habit and the consequent accumulation of gambling debts, that job did not last long.  Having left Minneapolis within the year, he went to Pittsburgh where he helped re-organize the Pittsburgh Symphony.  There, he was concertmaster and associate conductor.  The gambling continued.  His last year in Pittsburgh (1929-1930), he was named Principal Conductor.  He left Pittsburgh after his divorce from his wealthy wife.  I am guessing that up to this time, his wife’s family may have been taking care of his huge gambling debts.  Then, he returned to New York.  He worked as an orchestral musician and arranger for a few years.  He did some recording as conductor of a pickup orchestra for the KBS (Keystone Broadcasting System) label.  Those recordings may still be available though they mostly feature light classical or salon music.  He also recorded several violin pieces with pianist Theodore Saidenberg for KBS, one of which can be found on YouTube.  Breeskin may have also recorded for the RCA and Brunswick labels.  Many years later (1937), he found himself in Hollywood.  There, he wrote and arranged music and he helped form the Hollywood Bowl Symphony.  Nevertheless, having at one point in 1940 stolen the orchestra’s payroll, he exited to Mexico City, where he worked as musical director for radio stations XEW, XEX, and XEB, gave lessons, and composed movie soundtracks.  His second family later joined him.  If it’s true that he studied languages at Columbia, those studies now came in handy.  One source has it that he lived like a king, surrounded by servants.  As far as I know, he never set foot in the U.S. again.  In any case, his great success in Mexico lasted about five years.  The gambling had continued and he was finally imprisoned for supposedly being on the wrong side of the political agenda – he may have been a Communist - and, presumably, for his gambling debts as well.  He was pardoned in 1958.  He was 62 years old.  While in prison, he wrote a piece entitled the City of the Dead.  It got good reviews when he premiered it later on.  Whether it is still performed is anyone’s guess – I’m guessing it is not.  He married for a third and final time after leaving prison.  Breeskin died May 9, 1969, at about age 73.  He left three wives (Adelyn, Anna, and Lena) and seven children.