Henry Holst

Henry Holst was a Danish violinist and teacher born (in Saeby, Denmark) on July 25, 1899.  He spent quite a bit of time in England but is not related – as far as I know – to the other Holst.  He was probably the first violinist to play (in 1921 with the Berlin Philharmonic) three concertos in the same concert program – before Yehudi Menuhin, Henryk Szeryng, Szymon Goldberg, and Raymond Cohen did it.  (See comment below.)  Holst must have begun his violin studies while still very young but I don’t know how young nor with whom.  In 1913, he was admitted into the Royal Danish Academy of Music.  He was 14 years old.  His teachers there were Axel Gade (son of Niels Gade) and violinist/composer Carl Nielsen.  At age 18, he made his debut playing Henri Vieuxtemps’ first violin concerto, the longest violin concerto Vieuxtemps ever wrote.  He then studied further with Hungarian violinist Emil Telmanyi.  After that, he traveled to Berlin to study with Willy Hess, a German violinist who played far and wide during his career, including the U.S.  In 1923, Holst became concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic.  He was 24 years old.  He quit that post in 1931 and went to live in England where he taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music.  There, he founded the Henry Holst String Quartet which he disbanded in 1941 to start the Philharmonia Quartet which itself was disbanded in 1952.  He was also active as a soloist.  Holst gave the European Premiere of the Walton violin concerto, a work which had been championed by Jascha Heifetz for a time, in 1941.  Holst also gave the world premiere of the revised version of the concerto in 1944.  The Walton concerto is very seldom played now.  In 1945, Holst moved to London to teach at the Royal College of Music.  He was 46 years old.  Holst moved back to Denmark in 1954 where he taught at the Royal Danish College of Music.  I don’t know how many years he was there but it must have been quite a few.  Henry Holst died on October 19, 1991 at age 92, largely forgotten. 

Raymond Cohen

Raymond Cohen is an English violinist born on July 27, 1919 (Heifetz was 18 years old.) He first studied violin with his father in Manchester. At 15, he entered the Manchester College of Music where he studied (for four years) with Henry Holst, former concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic. Soon thereafter, still aged 15, he joined the ranks of the famed Halle Orchestra, based in Manchester - the youngest member of England’s oldest orchestra (founded in 1858.) At age 18, he became concertmaster of the Blackpool Orchestra, a city less than fifty miles from Manchester. While still studying, he concertized extensively, playing the concertos of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Busoni, Sibelius, and others. In 1940, he played a historic concert with the Halle Orchestra – still only 19 years old – in which he played the Bach (E Major), the Mendelssohn, and the Brahms concertos in the same evening. Few violinists have ever attempted or accomplished such a feat, though Yehudi Menuhin was one who did. The Second World War interrupted Cohen’s fast rise but he re-emerged in 1945 by winning the Carl Flesch Violin Competition. Soon, he had a full schedule of concerts in Europe, having more than 40 concertos in his repertoire by then. However, he slowly gravitated toward concertmaster positions everywhere – English Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, London Symphony, BBC, and Royal Philharmonic (1959, under Thomas Beecham.) He also started teaching at the Royal College of Music in London. In addition, he was very active in the chamber music arena. With his pianist wife (Anthya) and son Robert (a cellist), he eventually formed the Cohen Trio. He was the first to realize a videotaped performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He has also recorded the entire set of Beethoven Violin Sonatas for the Meridian label. Raymond Cohen teaches privately and is on a very short list of distinguished elder statesmen of the violin still working – with Zvi Zeitlin, Ruggiero Ricci, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis.