Oscar Shumsky

Oscar Shumsky was a Russian (most people would say American) violinist, violist, conductor, and teacher born (in Philadelphia) on March 23, 1917.  He had a long and busy career during which he almost completely stopped concertizing in favor of teaching.  It has been said that Otokar Sevcik had over 5,000 students over the span of a greater-than sixty-year teaching career.  Shumsky had lots of students but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t more than five thousand.  It has also been said of Shumsky that he had an un-compromising, opinionated personality – in the style of Berl Senofsky.  Shumsky began to study the violin at age three - one source says age 4 - with Albert Meiff.  He first appeared with orchestra at age seven with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski on the podium, playing Mozart’s fifth concerto – known as the Turkish concerto.  At age 8 he began to study privately with Leopold Auer in New York.  Three years later (1928) he entered the Curtis Institute where he continued to study with Auer and later on (beginning in 1930) with Efrem Zimbalist.  He made his New York debut in 1934.  He was 17 years old.  He graduated from Curtis in 1936 but continued to study privately with Zimbalist until 1938.  He joined the NBC Symphony under the ill-tempered conductor Arturo Toscanini in 1939.  He was the youngest member of the orchestra and sat in the second stand of the first violins.  That same year, he also joined the Primrose Quartet as first violinist – William Primrose was also a member of the NBC Symphony.  At the time, many top-flight New York musicians had become members of either the NBC Symphony or the New York Philharmonic because solo work was scarce.  From 1941, he served in the Navy, playing as one of the orchestral soloists and playing in the Navy string quartet with cellist Bernard Greenhouse, violist Emanuel Vardi, and David Stone (please see comments below).  After the war, Shumsky was featured on weekly radio programs on NBC, as were a few other violinists of the time.  However, a very reliable source says that this broadcast activity actually occurred in 1939, before the war.  It may have been both, before and after.  Whether any of those programs survive in recordings is anybody’s guess.  Shumsky also worked as a studio musician, leading the RCA and the Columbia Symphonies as concertmaster on various occasions.  Shumsky taught at the Curtis Institute (1961 to 1965), the Peabody Conservatory (from 1942), Yale University (from 1975), and the Juilliard School (from 1953.)  I do not know how long he taught at each particular school.  On December 15, 1956, he appeared with the New York Philharmonic playing the Beethoven concerto.  Leonard Bernstein was on the podium.  Shumsky made his conducting debut in 1959.  As far as I know, he never conducted any major orchestras.  His commercial discography includes Rode’s 24 Caprices, Beethoven’s concerto, Brahms’ concerto, two Mozart concertos (4 and 5), three Bach concertos, the Glazunov concerto, the complete Mozart Sonatas, the complete Brahms Hungarian Dances, and the Bach solo Partitas and Sonatas.  He also recorded with the Primrose Quartet and those recordings are still available.  Here is a YouTube video of one of his recorded performances.  It is the famous Richard Strauss sonata – the one responsible for the attack on Jascha Heifetz (which resulted in his broken arm.)  Glenn Gould is the accompanist.  Shumsky’s students include Steven Staryk, Stanley Ritchie, Guillermo Figueroa, and Ida Kavafian.  Among many other violins, Shumsky played (and owned) the 1715 Stradivarius known as the Pierre Rode Stradivarius.  The violin was inherited by Shumsky’s two sons who sold it to Tokuji Munetsugu in 2004.  According to at least one source, this violin was subsequently played (at least for a while) by Ryu Goto, brother of the famous violinist, Midori.  Shumsky died (in New York) on July 24, 2000, at age 83.  

Hyman Bress

Hyman Bress was a Canadian violinist born (in Cape Town, South Africa) on June 30, 1931 (Heifetz was 30 years old.)  He is known for having recorded the violin concertos of Joseph Joachim and Ernest Bloch, probably the first to do so, among many other obscure works.  He was also the first violinist of the Montreal String Quartet in its third incarnation in 1955.  It was composed of Hyman Bress, Mildred Goodman, Otto Joachim, and Walter Joachim (cellist and brother of Otto Joachim, violist.)  In fact, on May 21, 1956, the quartet played the premiere of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s string quartet (Gould’s Opus 1), a work that has kindly been described as being serious and pensive.  Bress later recorded a series of five records for Folkways Records entitled The Violin.  (Folkways is a special project of the Smithsonian Institution.)  The series covered material from the Baroque to the Twentieth Century (1960s) and included one of his own electronic compositions – the Fantasy for Violin, Piano, and electric tape.  (One of the pieces recorded in this series is the Sarasate Zapateado played at the fastest tempo I have ever heard.)  He first studied with his father and gave his first public performance in Cape Town (South Africa) at age nine with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra.  After that debut, he performed throughout South Africa for a time.  In 1946, at age 15, he began studying with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia) and continued with Galamian until 1951.  In 1951, he moved to Canada and established himself in Montreal, giving recitals and playing in radio as well (mostly for the CBC.)  He performed regularly there, in the U.S., and in Europe, eventually founding the Montreal String Quartet in Canada with the Joachim brothers.  He became concertmaster, at age 27, of the Montreal Symphony for one season (1958-59) then continued his concertizing career as a soloist, often with major orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony.  He first appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic on April 1, 1968, playing a work by Boris Blacher.  Reinhard Peters was on the podium.  (Bress was never a guest artist with the New York Philharmonic.)  He also continued playing with the quartet (until 1963.)  A Canadian newspaper reported that in 1966, Bress became the first Canadian violinist to tour Russia, though it seems unlikely.  In 1973 he toured the Far East.  He settled in Europe for a time but returned to Canada in the 1980s.  By this time, he was no longer playing, being prevented by what has been called mental illness.  He was 55 years old.  Bress premiered several works which are no longer heard and will most likely not be heard again for some time, including Violet Archer’s violin concerto, Udo Kasemets’ concerto, and Kelsey Jones’ Introduction and Fugue.  In New York, he presented his Fantasy in 1962 (or thereabout) while the score of the piece was being shown on a large screen as it was being played – one of the first instances of a multi-media concert presentation.  YouTube has a sound recording of his – the Tchaikovsky concerto – which you can listen to by pressing here.  His recordings are not hard to find on the internet.  Hyman Bress died on October 30, 1995, in Montreal, largely forgotten, at age 64.