Alfred Dubois

Alfred Dubois was a Belgian violinist and teacher born (in Brussels) on November 19, 1898.  He is one of many brilliant violinists who enjoyed wide recognition during his lifetime but was (undeservedly) relegated to the realm of forgotten artists after his death.  (The 1953 edition of Grove’s Dictionary does not mention him.)  Many of his recordings were made prior to the high-fidelity era and were not until recently released as remastered CDs.  They are now easy to find on the internet.  It has been said that his recordings of Bach and Franck works have rarely been equaled.  Understandably, during his career, he was more famous as a teacher than as a concert violinist.  I don’t know who his first teachers were, but it is known that Dubois entered the Royal Conservatory in Brussels in 1910 – he was 12 years old.  His main teacher there was Alexandre Cornelis.  (Cornelis is said to have composed piano accompaniments to the 42 famous Kreutzer etudes for violin.)  Dubois graduated in 1913 (at age 15) but continued to study with Cornelis until Cornelis’ death in 1917 - another four years.  It has been said that he also studied with Eugene Ysaye afterward although some people dispute that.  (When Ysaye died in 1931, Dubois took his place teaching at the conservatory.  He also played at Ysaye’s funeral that year.)  Dubois won the Vieuxtemps Prize in 1920.  He then embarked on a solo career – he was twenty-one years old.  He played in the Trio of the Court of Belgium from 1925 onward (with pianist Emile Bosquet and cellist Maurice Dambois.)  He began teaching at the Royal Conservatory in 1927 – he was 29 years old.  He taught there until the day he died.  He also formed a duo with pianist Marcel Maas with whom he toured the U.S. in 1938.  During the war, Dubois played in the Artis Quartet with Arthur Grumiaux on second violin, Robert Courte on viola, and Robert Maas on cello.  It is widely reported that the quartet did not play for German officials during the war (Belgium was a neutral country), but I find that hard to believe.  One source states that he spent the war years in France.  After Dubois died, his pupil, Grumiaux, took his place at the conservatory – he had already been serving as Dubois’ assistant for eight years.  Having been regarded as an extraordinary teacher, Dubois served on violin competition juries often.  Here is an audio file from YouTube in which Dubois plays the Vieuxtemps concerto number five.  You might find his tone resembling Heifetz’ sound, with very precise rhythmic control and superb intonation.  It has been said that Dubois was also a skilled violin maker although I don’t know where any of his violins are.  He may have played a Stradivarius violin made in 1667 and another from 1713, but that is not at all certain.  Alfred Dubois died (in Brussels) on March 24, 1949.  He was 50 years old. 

Tai Murray

Tai Murray is an American violinist and teacher born (in Chicago) on May 22, 1982.  She is known for having recently recorded what is now considered the standard by which all other recordings of the Ysaye solo violin sonatas will be judged - as a young student, she participated in masterclasses with a direct disciple of Ysaye: Josef Gingold.  Murray is also known for having privately played a violin “in the nude” – an unvarnished violin, that is.  That violin was created for her in 2007 by Mario Miralles, one of the best violin makers in the world.  It has been said he has a ten-year waiting list.  I do not know why Murray played it - not in a concert, of course - before it was finished - possibly because Miralles wanted to hear how it was coming along while still in the workshop.  Luthiers find it easy to disassemble and re-assemble violins.  Of course, the violin is now fully varnished although Murray actually used her (circa) 1690 Giovanni (aka Joannes or Johannes) Tononi violin to record the six Ysaye Sonatas.  (Johannes Tononi was the father of the more famous luthier, Carlo Tononi, one of whose violins Jascha Heifetz owned and played - in fact, the Tononi violin was the instrument he played in his famous Carnegie Hall debut.)  Murray began her violin studies at age 5 with Brenda Wurman and shortly thereafter entered the Sherwood Conservatory of Music (founded in 1895) in Chicago.  Even though money was very scarce (a financial condition which befell many nineteenth century child violinists and their families, including the hyper-famous Bronislaw Huberman), by age 8, she had transferred to the University of Indiana where she studied with Mimi Zweig, Yuval Yaron, and Franco Gulli.  At age 9, she made her public debut, playing Mozart’s fourth concerto (in D) with the Chicago Symphony.  (Notorious Czech violinist Vasa Prihoda also made his public debut with this concerto.)  She played Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnol with the Utah Symphony (and Joseph Silverstein) at age 16.  The reviews were very favorable.  Her intonation was said to be “superhuman” and her bowing technique “magical.”  The Strad has said that she displays “sophisticated bowing and vibrato.”  You can observe (and enjoy) her superlative handling of the bow on several YouTube videos.  Another music critic described her sound as being imbued with “steely sweetness.”  It is truly almost impossible to describe sound with words but I think that comes close.  You can hear for yourself here.  Murray received her Artist Diploma from Indiana University’s School of Music at 18 then moved on to Juilliard in 2001.  There, she studied with Joel Smirnoff (former first and second violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet and now President of the Cleveland Institute of Music.)  She graduated from Juilliard in 2006 - some sources say 2004.  Meanwhile, she had been concertizing.  On February 3, 2001, she soloed with the San Antonio Symphony, playing the Glazunov concerto.  Michael Morgan was on the podium.  She was 18 years old.  Since then, she has gone on to concertize as a soloist with some of the world’s major orchestras, as a recitalist, and in conjunction with several prestigious chamber music ensembles, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  In addition to the Tononi and Miralles violins, she has played a 1727 Guarnerius Del Gesu, on loan from the Juilliard violin collection.  Murray is now based in Berlin, indulging in her passion for languages – she has already immersed herself in French, Japanese, and German.  That, unbeknownst to the general public, is not an unusual activity for violinists.  That and chess.  Murray has said that when not performing, she practices into the wee hours of the morning.  She likes to be where people have a “sense of shared general curiosity, a certain crackle-and-pop that drives things.”  (I love that quote.)  Aside from Maxim Vengerov, she is the only violinist I know who loves to dance Tango, although she also dances swing and salsa, and loves ballet.  (Murray’s portrait is courtesy of Marco Borggreve, a European photographer who photographs the world of music.) 

Cesar Thomson

Cesar Thomson was a Belgian violinist, teacher, arranger, and composer born (in Liege, Belgium) on March 18, 1857.  Although he was considered a brilliant violinist in his time, he is now remembered more for his teaching.  He began violin lessons with his father at age 5 or 6.  By age 7 he had entered the Liege Conservatory where he studied with Jacques Dupuis, a very strict teacher.  (Liege is about 50 miles east of Brussels, Belgium.)  He also studied with Rodolphe Massart and Desire Heynberg, who also taught Eugene Ysaye.  According to Grove’s Dictionary, it was said that Thomson, by age 16, had a technique unrivalled by any other living violinist – the year was 1873, so that is saying quite a lot.  Take it with a grain of salt.  Thomson later studied additionally with Hubert Leonard, Henryk Wieniawski, and Henri Vieuxtemps.  If he was already a superlative, pre-eminent violinist, it is hard to imagine what it was they taught him.  In 1873, he became concertmaster of a private orchestra (in Switzerland) at the service of Paul von Derwies, a Russian banker, railroad industrialist, and serious patron of the arts.  Thomson stayed for four years and during the interim, married into the nobility.  By 1879, he was assistant concertmaster of Benjamin Bilse’s Band in Berlin, where Eugene Ysaye was the concertmaster.  Thomson was barely 22 years old - Ysaye was 21.  A few years later, this orchestra would become the Berlin Philharmonic, but not under the direction of Benjamin Bilse.  One source clearly states that Thomson was concertmaster of the Bilse Band but that may be due to a tradition in German orchestras of having two or more concertmasters, making no distinction between two or three leaders in the same position.  By 1882, Thomson was back where he started, in Liege, teaching at the Liege Conservatory.  In 1897, he took over for Eugene Ysaye at the Brussels Conservatory.  He was 40 years old.  A year later, he formed a string quartet.  Many sources state that Thomson was austere and cerebral in his approach to music - he can perhaps be compared to Joseph Szigeti.  A review of his first concert in New York City on October 30, 1894, stated the following: “His treatment of the Bruch concerto [in d minor] proved him to be a player of substantial force, but it revealed no influential emotional power.  It was dignified, well-considered, and thoughtful.  Mr. Thomson may be classed with the scholarly players who interest the mind rather than overwhelm the heart.”  On November 9, 1894, he played one of the violin concertos of Leopold Damrosch with the New York Symphony, Walter Damrosch conducting.  That concerto has probably not been heard from since, but that I do not know for sure.  Thomson toured a great deal in Europe, South America, and the U.S.  Between 1924 and 1927, he taught at Ithaca College (New York) and at Juilliard as well.  Students came from faraway places to study with him.  Among Thomson’s pupils are Haydn Wood, Johan Halvorsen (famous for his Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia for violin and viola), Paul Kochanski, Adolfo Betti, Antoinette Zoellner, Joseph Zoellner, Alma Moodie (Carl Flesch’s favorite pupil), Aylmer Buesst, Edwin Grasse (blind violinist and composer), Hugo Alfven, and Guillermo Uribe Holguin (founder of the National Symphony of Colombia.)  Thomson edited, arranged, and transcribed music by Arcangelo Corelli, George Frederick Handel, Giuseppe Tartini, J.S. Bach, Pietro Nardini, and Vitali – I don’t know which of the Vitalis.  Among his own works is a Gypsy Rhapsody for violin but I don’t know if it has been recorded or even published.  He played a G.B. Guadagnini violin (1780), a Santo Serafin (constructed in 1740 – later owned for many years by Zino Francescatti), Giuseppe Guarneri (1703, auctioned in late 1990s for about $400,000), and an Andrea Guarneri violin (1650) which ended up in a museum.  Thomson died (in Bissone, Switzerland) on August 21, 1931, at age 74.  In Liege, a street is named after him.   

Jascha Brodsky

Jascha Brodsky was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist and teacher born (in Kharkof aka Kharkiv) on June 6, 1907.  Although he began his career as a concert violinist, he is primarily remembered as a great violin pedagogue, in the same league as Peter Stolyarsky, Carl Flesch, Leopold Auer, Zakhar Bron, Ivan Galamian, and Josef Gingold.  Brodsky shares a surname with another (not related) famous violinist: AdolphBrodsky.  His first lessons (at age six) were with his father.  Such was also the case with Jascha Heifetz and his father.  He also studied at the music conservatory of Tblisi (Georgia) and began concertizing in Russia, appearing with several orchestras in Russia in his early teens.  He left for Paris in 1926.  He was 19 years old.  In Paris he studied with Lucien Capet and later on, in Belgium, with Eugene Ysaye.  During that time, he played with Nathan Milstein and Vladimir Horowitz.  Milstein and Horowitz were very close friends and had fled Russia at almost the same time in 1925.  In 1930, with advice from Mischa Elman, Brodsky became a student of Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute (U.S.).  In 1932, he began teaching at Curtis.  By then, he had also become first violinist of what became the Curtis String Quartet, with Benjamin Sharlip, Max Aronoff, and Orlando Cole.  The quartet was invited to play at the White House at a later time.  It was also the quartet for whom Samuel Barber wrote his string quartet - the one that includes the famous Adagio (Opus 11, completed in 1936.)  The Curtis String Quartet did not, however, premiere the Barber quartet - Barber did not finish it in time.  Barber's Opus 11 was premiered by the Pro Arte Quartet in late 1936 in Italy and was subsequently revised and re-premiered by the Budapest String Quartet in the U.S. in 1943.  Brodsky retired from the quartet in 1981 and from Curtis in 1996.  He was 88 years old.  An audio file of Schumann's Opus 41, number 1 (with Louis Berman on second violin) can be heard here in its entirety.  He also taught (from 1942 onward) at the New School for Music (later – in 1986 - merging with Temple University) in Philadelphia.  His students include Jaime Laredo, Judith Ingolfsson, Juliette Kang, Judy Barrett, Julie Kurtzman, Joey Corpus, Hilary Hahn, Alan McChesney, Herbert Greenberg, Monica Bauchwitz, Ellen de Pasquale, Joseph de Pasquale, Robert de Pasquale, Levon Zarasian, Martin Chalifour, Chin Kim, Leila Josefowicz, and Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg.   For a short while, Brodsky played – on loan from Curtis – the 1697 Molitor Stradivarius.  Curtis acquired the Molitor in 1929 but got rid of it in 1936.  The Molitor has been around a bit and is now owned by Anne Akiko Meyers - it had been previously played by Henri Temianka and (more recently) Elmar Oliveira.  For about ten years, Brodsky also played a Stradivarius violin from 1694, also from the Curtis Institute’s collection.  The violin had previously been owned by Karl Halir.  Curtis sold it in 1947.  I don’t know what violin Brodsky played after that. He died (in Ocala, Florida) on March 3, 1997, at age 89.  

Franz Kneisel

Franz Kneisel was a German (some would say American or Romanian) violinist, conductor, composer, and teacher born (in Bucharest) on January 26, 1865.  He is known for having taught for many years at the Institute of Musical Arts (Juilliard) and for having led the famous Kneisel Quartet for more than thirty years (1886-1917.)  Together with Theodore Thomas, Max Bendix, Simon Jacobsohn, Theodore Spiering, Ferdinand Laub, and Hans Letz, he was a violinist who set the groundwork for the establishment of classical music as a viable and serious art in the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century.  In Europe, that tradition had already been in motion and thriving for over 200 years.  Kneisel graduated from the Bucharest Conservatory in 1879, at age 14.  In Vienna, he studied with Jacob Grun and Joseph Hellmesberger at the Vienna Conservatory for three years.  In 1882, he made his debut in Vienna.  He then soon became concertmaster of the Hofburg Theatre Orchestra in Vienna.  He was 18 years old.  The following year (1884), he became concertmaster of Benjamin Bilse’s Band in Berlin, the precursor of the Berlin Philharmonic.  By then, however, it was actually known as “Former Bilse’s Band,” since most of its musicians had broken away (in 1882) from conductor Benjamin Bilse to form their own organization.  It did not adopt the Berlin Philharmonic name until 1887.  Eugene Ysaye had just left the concertmaster’s post in that orchestra to become a concert violinist, teacher, and composer.  Kneisel left Germany for the U.S. in 1885 and was soon appointed concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, where he played for 18 years (1885-1903), and with which he appeared as soloist many times.  He was also its assistant conductor.  He was 20 years old.  It has been said that over the years, Kneisel conducted the Boston Symphony over a hundred times.  Joseph Silverstein was probably the last concertmaster in Boston who enjoyed the privilege of being an assistant conductor as well.  Kneisel formed the Kneisel Quartet from among members of the orchestra (Emanuel Fiedler, Louis Svecenski, and Fritz Giese.)  Kneisel and Svecenski (violist) stayed with the quartet until it was disbanded in 1917 but the other positions were filled by many other players later on.  The Kneisel Quartet became known all over the U.S. and Europe.  Several sources state that Kneisel gave the premiere performances of the Brahms and Goldmark violin concertos in the U.S. as well as the famous Cesar Franck A major sonata.  According to Bridget Carr, Archivist for the Boston Symphony, Kneisel first performed the Brahms concerto in Boston on December 6, 1889 (almost ten years after it was premiered in Germany by Joseph Joachim) and the Goldmark concerto almost exactly a year later, on December 5, 1890.  In 1897, Kneisel acquired a 1714 Stradivarius which he owned until his death.  It is known as the Grun ex-Kneisel Strad but I have no idea who plays it now.  He had previously played (and presumably owned) a G.B. Guadagnini from 1752.  He also acquired a 1780 Guadagnini in 1914.  In 1905, Kneisel moved to New York to become the head of the violin department at the Institute of Musical Arts (Juilliard) which was newly established.  He was fifty years old.  Eventually, Kneisel became so busy teaching that he had to disband his quartet, by then, considered the best in this country and one of the best in the world.  He taught at Juilliard until the day he died – about 11 years.  Kneisel’s pupils include Elias Breeskin, Louis Kaufman, Joseph Fuchs, Jacques Gordon, Sascha Jacobsen, Samuel Gardner, Michel Gusikoff, Robert Talbot, Bernard Ocko, William Kroll, Lillian Fuchs, Joan Field, and Olive Mead.  He published several study books which are probably no longer in print.  He also wrote a Grand Concert Etude for violin which, as far as I know, nobody plays anymore.  The Kneisel Quartet may have recorded only once – in 1917.  Kneisel died (in New York City) on March 26, 1926, at age 61.  

Emanuel Vardi

Emanuel Vardi (Emanuel Rosenbaum) was a Russian (many would say American or Israeli) violinist, violist, composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, and painter, born (in Jerusalem, Israel) on April 21, 1915.  There is anecdotal evidence which actually gives his date of birth as October 14, 1917.  He is known for having been one of only two violists to have ever given a solo recital in Carnegie Hall.  He was also the first violist to record the 24 Paganini (violin) Caprices – transposed a fifth lower, of course.  Vardi began his violin studies with his violinist father at about age 3 in Israel (Palestine, at that time.)  He began piano studies simultaneously with his pianist mother.  The family was already settled in New York when he – at age 6 - gave a piano recital in Aeolian Hall which created a very favorable impression, even among professional critics.  Vardi continued private violin lessons with Joseph Borisoff and others until age 12, at which time he entered the Institute of Musical Art, the precursor of the Juilliard School.  There, he studied with Constance Seeger.  It has been said that he also took one lesson from Leopold Auer, who died soon thereafter (1930.)  Later, he enrolled at Juilliard, where he studied with Edouard Dethier and Felix Salmond, among others.  However, he was then still a violinist.  At age 21 he left Juilliard to join the NBC Symphony as a violist.  He became the youngest member of this legendary orchestra.  Carlton Cooley and William Primrose were on the first stand of the viola section so Vardi was further back, but I don’t know how far back.  In any case, after Primrose left the orchestra, Vardi moved up to the first desk as Assistant Principal.  The ill-tempered Arturo Toscanini was the conductor.  Five years later, Vardi’s New York recital debut at Town Hall in February, 1941 was a sensation.  He was 25 years old.  He also soon thereafter played at the White House, accompanied by pianist Earl Wild, for President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.  During World War II, he played in the Navy Band (the Navy’s Symphony Orchestra) and with the Navy’s string quartet, which included violinists Oscar Shumsky and David Stone (please see comments below), and cellist Bernard Greenhouse.  He was one of four official soloists, the others being Shumsky, Earl Wild, and David Soyer, whose duty it was to alternatively perform a concerto with the orchestra once every month.  After the war, Vardi rejoined the NBC orchestra, but continued to expand his solo activities.  On May 23, 1946, he appeared as viola soloist in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic - something considered unorthodox in those days - playing Alessandro Rolla’s viola concerto – Rolla had been a violinist and violist and was one of Nicolo Paganini’s teachers.  From 1950 to 1952, Vardi was studying art in Florence, Italy, and concertizing all over Europe, playing a 1770 Guadagnini violin.  Returning from Europe, Vardi again played with the NBC orchestra but became Principal Violist of the Symphony of the Air, the orchestra which was formed after the NBC Symphony was disbanded.  He also played with the Guilet Quartet, led by the last NBC Concertmaster Daniel Guilet – Guilet later organized the well-known Beaux Arts Trio.  By then, Vardi had begun to solidly put the viola on the musical firmament as a solo instrument.  From that point, Vardi’s career encompassed painting, teaching, concertizing, conducting, and recording with both classical and jazz and pop musicians - this was many years before crossover work had become fashionable or had even been contemplated by violinists Ivry Gitlis, Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, and Nigel Kennedy, and cellist YoYo Ma.  Among many others, he worked with Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, and Nina Simone.  As have Joshua Bell, Toscha Seidel, Louis Kaufman, Yehudi Menuhin, Ytzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Israel Baker, Endre Granat, and Glenn Dicterow, Vardi recorded for many movie soundtracks – Aladdin, Tootsie, Fame, Kramer Vs Kramer, and Sleepless in Seattle are among them.  He also championed contemporary composers and inspired them to write music for the viola.  A very rare audio file of Alan Shulman’s Variations for Viola (with Vardi and the NBC Orchestra) is available here.  YouTube also has various audio files of Vardi’s Paganini Caprices recording – you can listen to number 17 here.  Several of his solo recordings are also available on the internet although Vardi recorded on violin as well – the two Bartok Rhapsodies and the Tibor Serly violin concerto are examples of Vardi’s violin discography.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s (1978 to 1982), Vardi was chief conductor of the South Dakota Symphony.  In addition, he conducted for movie and television soundtracks.  In 1984, at age 69, as have several other highly gifted artists (Andre Previn, Charles Dutoit, Eugene Ysaye, Ole Bull, Pablo Casals, and Richard Wagner), Vardi married a much younger woman – violinist and painter Lenore Weinstock, a student of his.  They relocated from New York to the state of Washington in 2007.  By then, Vardi had injured an arm (in 1993 – I don’t know which arm) and had given up playing almost entirely.  He had nevertheless continued giving master classes, teaching privately, working with various music festivals around the world, and painting.  An iconic painting of William Primrose by Vardi can be seen at the Vardi art website.  I do not know where the original painting is.  I do know that Lenore Vardi plans to publish a book about Vardi’s life in the near future.  Among his many compositions for viola is the Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Paganini.  As far as paintings go, he completed more than 300 originals.  Vardi played two Strad violas early in his career – one of them the Strauss Stradivarius (Stradivari possibly only made between 13 and 18 violas – nobody knows for sure.)  I had not heard of the Strauss Strad viola until now.  The Strad violas I know of are the Archinto, the Axelrod, the Gibson, the Cassavatti, the Mahler, the Russian, the Tuscan, the Spanish Court, the MacDonald, the Paganini, and the Kux.  Nonetheless, Vardi’s favorite viola was one constructed in 1980 by Hiroshi Iisuka of Philadelphia.  He also played a Vincenzo Postiglioni violin.  Vardi died (in North Bend, Washington) on January 29, 2011, at age 95.

Charles Munch

Charles Munch was a French violinist, conductor, and teacher born (in Strasbourg, when it was German territory) on September 26, 1891.  Today, nobody remembers him as a violinist.  Although he conducted many great orchestras, he is best known for his tenure at the Boston Symphony, from 1949 to 1962.  He first studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory (inaugurated in 1855.)  His first job as a violinist was in an orchestra conducted by his father (an organist), playing in the second violin section.  In 1912, at age 20, he graduated from the conservatory and moved on to Berlin for further study with Carl Flesch.  He also studied with Lucien Capet at the Paris Conservatory.  In 1920, he was appointed professor of violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory while he was also playing as assistant concertmaster of the Strasbourg Philharmonic.  He was 29 years old.  Later on, he was concertmaster of the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne.  (The Gurzenich Orchestra is really not to be trifled with.  It played the world premieres of Brahms’ Double Concerto (1887), Strauss’ Till (1895), Strauss’ Don Quixote (1898), Mahler’s Third Symphony (1902), Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1904), and Max Reger’s Variations (1907.)  He then served as concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (1926 to 1933) under Bruno Walter.  In 1933, he left Germany for Paris.  He had already made his conducting debut there in November, 1932.  He was 41 years old at the time of his debut.  As far as I know, after 1933, he never again touched the violin in public.  In 1938, he helped found the Paris Philharmonic.  He had already begun teaching conducting at the Paris Conservatory (1937-1945.)  During the war years (1939-1945), he conducted the Paris Conservatory Orchestra.  For this, he was later accused of being a Nazi collaborator, though the charge did not stick.  The Boston Symphony he first conducted in December, 1946.  His legacy with the Boston Symphony is well-known and documented in dozens of recordings.  Heifetz recorded the Beethoven concerto with Munch and the Boston Symphony in November of 1955.  I don’t think Heifetz recorded it ever again.  If Munch ever recorded anything as a violinist I don’t know where that recording might be found.  After 1962, Munch conducted European orchestras and guest conducted all over the world.  He once owned (from 1925 to 1960) a violin which had been stolen from Eugene Ysaye in Russia - a 1734 Stradivarius - which had been earlier played by Hugo Heermann.  That violin ended up with Henryk Szeryng who left it to the City of Jerusalem who then let the Israel Philharmonic borrow it.  He died on November 6, 1968, in Richmond, Virginia, at age 77.  Here is one of his many YouTube videos. 

Joseph Lambert Massart

Joseph Lambert Massart was a Belgian violinist and teacher born (in Liege) on July 19, 1811 (Paganini was 29 years old and would live another 29.)  He performed as a soloist only infrequently and devoted most of his time to teaching. As a young student, because he was not admitted to the Paris Conservatory (because he was a foreigner), he took private lessons with Rodolphe Kreutzer.  Luigi Cherubini (the Italian composer) was the Conservatory Director at the time. Paradoxically, at age 32, he was accepted as a Professor at the same Conservatory (1843.)  He then taught there for 47 years.  Massart performed Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata with none other than Franz Liszt – his teacher had previously rejected it as unintelligible.  Among Massart’s students were legendary violinists Isidor Lotto, Fritz Kreisler, Franz Reis, Eugene Ysaye, Pablo Sarasate, Julius Conus, Teresina Tua, Arma Senkrah, and Henryk Wieniawski.  When one teaches for forty seven years, one is bound to find at least a few good students.  Among this group, Pablo Sarasate and Fritz Kreisler are the only ones who produced no extraordinary students although, to be fair, Kreisler did teach Samuel Dushkin, the violinist who premiered Stravinsky's violin concerto.  Massart has been credited with the origination of the systematic vibrato.  This is his claim to fame, since he is not among the trio of violinists who earlier established the violin method taught at the Paris Conservatory – Rode, Baillot, and Kreutzer.  It has been conjectured that Kreisler championed such a system, though it was widely criticized at the time, being considered a little too emotive and perhaps even vulgar.  Massart was also a chamber music player and gave many concerts with his wife (Louise Aglae Marson), who was a pianist.  He died in Paris on February 13, 1892, at age 80.  Other than in connection with his famous pupils, his name is infrequently mentioned nowadays.

Nathan Milstein

Nathan Milstein (Nathan Mironovich Milstein) was a Russian violinist born on December 31, 1903 - some sources say December 31, 1904 and others say January 13, 1904 (Heifetz was 2 years old.) He was often called the "prince of the violin." He started studying the violin at age 4 (some say age 7) with Peter Stolyarsky, a popular teacher in Odessa (Russia) who also taught David Oistrakh around the same time. At age 10 (1914), he left studying with Stolyarsky and entered the Odessa Conservatory. By age 12, he had entered the St Petersburg Conservatory where Leopold Auer was teaching. His fellow students were Elman, Heifetz, Seidel, and Zimbalist, among many others. He studied with Auer until the summer of 1917 and had no additional instruction thereafter. He is said to have premiered the first concerto by Prokofiev in 1923 in Russia.  The concerto had already been played for the first time in Paris that same year.  In 1925, he left Russia to play a few concerts in Europe and never returned. In 1926, he studied with Eugene Ysaye (in Belgium) for a few weeks but later said he learned nothing from him - it was actually Ysaye who told him he had no need of any further lessons. In that same year, Milstein made his Paris debut. On October 17, 1929 (some sources say November 29, 1929) he made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Glazunov's concerto and thereafter concertized non-stop until July, 1986. He is remembered for a very clean and precise technique and very appealing tone. He is also remembered for his Paganiniana - a dazzling arrangement of different tunes written by Nicolo Paganini. Between 1930 and 1986, he recorded most of the violin repertory. Of the Brahms concerto alone there are no fewer than five studio recordings available - each with a different orchestra. Although he made seven (studio) recordings of the Mendelssohn concerto, he didn't record the Sibelius or the Stravinsky concertos even once. Those works were probably not in his repertoire. There are also many superb videos of his playing on YouTube - all of them professionally produced. Milstein died in London on December 21, 1992, at age 88. (Of that era, only Ruggiero Ricci, Albert Markov, Zvi Zeitlin, David Nadien, Camilla Wicks, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis remain.)

Louis Zimmermann

Louis Zimmermann (Louis Johann Heinrich Zimmermann) was a Dutch concert violinist, composer, and teacher born on July 19, 1873 (Brahms was 40 years old.) His first lessons were with his father. As a teenager, in Leipzig (1890), he studied with Hans Sitt. Later on, he studied with Eugene Ysaye in Brussels. In the late 1890s, he played in some Royal Court Orchestra in Germany. He then played first chair (in the first violin section) of the Royal Concertgebouw (Orchestra) from 1899 to 1904. He had the distinction of playing the violin solos at the English premiere of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben in 1902, with the composer on the podium. From 1904 he was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in Amsterdam and then Concertmaster of the Concertgebouw from January, 1911 to January, 1940. He was a regular soloist with the orchestra, as when he played the Beethoven violin concerto with them on November 29, 1931, and again on January 10, 1937. A live recording of his rendering of the Beethoven is still available. Here is a rare YouTube audio file of one of his recordings.  Zimmermann’s compositions include chamber music, a violin concerto (premiered in 1921), and cadenzas for the Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart violin concertos. Louis Zimmermann died on March 6, 1954, at age 80.  

Eugene Ysaye

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer, conductor, and teacher born on July 16, 1858 (Brahms was 25 years old.) His first lessons were with his father but later on, he was largely self-taught until about age 12. After he entered the Conservatory at Liege at age 7, he was dismissed because he made little progress. As a teenager, he became a pupil of both Henryk Wieniawski and Henri Vieuxtemps. Having graduated from the same conservatory he had previously been kicked out of, he became concertmaster of a highly accomplished orchestra which was about to become (in 1882) the Berlin Philharmonic – Benjamin Bilse’s Band. Many famous musicians frequented the beer hall where this orchestra played – among them were Joseph Joachim, Franz Lizst, Clara Schumann, and Anton Rubinstein. At age 27, Ysaye made his Paris debut and thus began a highly successful concert career. The following year, he was appointed violin professor at the Conservatory in Brussels, Belgium. Louis Persinger, Josef Gingold, Nathan Milstein, Alfred Dubois, Jascha Brodsky, Nikolai Sokoloff, and William Primrose were among his many students. In 1886, he founded the Ysaye String Quartet. Debussy, Saint Saenz, Chausson, and Franck were among composers who dedicated works to him. Ysaye was a busy concert artist. In fact, he turned down the conductor’s post at the New York Philharmonic when it was offered to him (1898) precisely because he was too busy. Understandably, Ysaye did not have too much time to compose though he wrote six sonatas for solo violin which are part of the standard repertoire, some chamber music, a few orchestral pieces, and an opera (Peter the Miner.) Carl Flesch, the Hungarian violin pedagogue was quoted as saying that Ysaye was the most outstanding and individual violinist that he had ever heard in his life.   Ysaye was principal conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony for four years – 1918 to 1922 – and made a few recordings with that orchestra. It was during his tenure there that he met his second wife – he was 66 and she was 22 (Jeanette Dincin, a violinist.) Ysaye died in Brussels on May 12, 1931, at age 72.