Robert Lipsett

Robert Lipsett (Robert Crawford Lipsett Jr.) is an American violinist and teacher born (in Louisville, Kentucky) on October 23, 1947.  He is best known for holding the violin chair at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, a position named after Jascha Heifetz.  He literally teaches in Heifetz’ old music studio, which was disassembled at Heifetz' home in Beverly Hills and reassembled on the Colburn School’s campus.  The studio includes almost all of Heifetz’ furnishings and décor as well.  He has been on the faculty for more than 25 years.  Lipsett gives master classes all over the world and also teaches at the Aspen School of Music.  He began his violin studies as a child, at age 7, in Dallas, Texas with Zelman Brounoff (concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony) and Ruth Lasley.  After his family moved to Saint Louis (Missouri), he continued his music studies with Melvin Ritter (concertmaster of the St Louis Symphony and former student of William Kroll.)  Eventually, he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music and, after graduation, also studied with Ivan Galamian at Juilliard (New York) and Endre Granat, presumably in Los Angeles.  In 1986, he began teaching at USC (University of Southern California.)  Lipsett has also worked as a session (studio) violinist in Los Angeles, recording for movies, television, and CDs.  He has received several awards for his distinguished career as a teacher.  Among his many pupils are Robert Chen, Tamaki Kawakubo, Kathryn Eberle, Leila Josefowicz, Jennifer Frautschi, and Lindsay Deutsch.  From the photo you can see Lipsett plays a fine violin but I don’t know what it is.  About achieving a top concert career, Lipsett has said the following: “One eventually has to face a sort of reality.  Being a top concert violinist is like running for President.  There’s just not much room up there at all.”  

Akiko Suwanai

Akiko Suwanai is a Japanese violinist and teacher born (in Tokyo) on February 7, 1972.  Suwanai won the Tchaikovsky violin competition at age 18 (1990) and is well-known for playing one of Heifetz’ old violins, the Dolphin Stradivarius of 1714.  She initially studied in Tokyo with Toshiya Eto.  Eventually she moved to the U.S where she studied with Dorothy DeLay and Cho Liang Lin at Juilliard.  Then she moved to Berlin to study with Uwe Martin Haiberg at the Advanced School of Art (the University of Art.)  Suwanai has since solidly established her career, gaining praise from critics and audiences throughout the world.  She frequently tours with top orchestras, but mostly in Europe.  She soloed with the New York Philharmonic on November 20, 1997, playing the Mendelssohn concerto – the one in e minor.  Suwanai first performed with the Berlin Philharmonic on September 12, 2000, playing Ravel’s Tzigane.  She was 28 years old.  Charles Dutoit was on the podium.  She opened the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival in 2009, being the first Japanese violinist invited to do so.  She has recorded with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, among others.  Suwanai also teaches master classes occasionally.  As far as I know, Suwanai presently has her home base in Paris.  Paris, New York, Berlin, Rome, and London are probably the most popular cities for concert violinists to work from.  Here is a YouTube video of her playing (in the orchestra) with a few other musicians at the Louvre.  And another is here at the same concert, playing the double concerto by Bach.  Among her collaborators at the concert are Manrico Padovani, Sergey Khachatryan, Viviane Hagner, Hyun-su Shin, Manuela Janke, Steven Isserlis, and Arabella Steinbacher.  There are many other videos of Suwanai in concert on YouTube.  The photo is courtesy of Leslie Kee.  

Favorite Performances

This is a list of my favorite performances or recordings of the standard violin concerto repertoire, and perhaps a couple that are not yet so standard.  The word “favorite” does not necessarily mean “best,” it just means the one I enjoy the most or the one that speaks to me best or the one I favor for reasons I can’t readily explain.  Just as are my choices of violinists who are profiled here, the list is completely arbitrary.  You will notice that Heifetz figures somewhat prominently and perhaps he would have been named even more times but there are many concertos which he – to the best of my knowledge - never recorded: the Barber, Berg, Dvorak, Haydn, Khachaturian, Mendelssohn 1, Saint Saens 3, Schoenberg, Schumann (!!!), Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Vivaldi.  Heifetz is named 12 times; Isaac Stern is named 1 time,  Gil Shaham is named 2 times; Michael Rabin is named 2 times; all the rest only once.  Not counting Vivaldi, there are 42 concertos included. I also threw in a few concert favorites which are not concertos but are very frequently played. 

Actor                        Pip Clarke

Bach 1                      Vladimir Spivakov

Bach 2                      Isabelle Faust

Barber                      Elmar Oliveira

Beethoven                Arabella Steinbacher

Berg                         Ivry Gitlis

Brahms                     Jascha Heifetz

Bruch 1                     Isaac Stern

Bruch 2                     Jascha Heifetz

Conus                       Jascha Heifetz

Dvorak                     Joseph Suk

Elgar                        Jascha Heifetz

Glazunov                  Ilya Kaler

Haydn 1                    Judith Ingolfsson

Khachaturian            Leonid Kogan

Korngold                  Jascha Heifetz

Lalo 2                       Joshua Bell

Mendelssohn 1         Yehudi Menuhin

Mendelssohn 2         Gil Shaham

Mozart 3                   Arthur Grumiaux

Mozart 4                   JuliaFischer

Mozart 5                   Jascha Heifetz

Paganini 1                Michael Rabin

Paganini 2                Tedi Papavrami

Paganini 3                Henryk Szeryng

Paganini 4                Uto Ughi

Paganini 5                Salvatore Accardo

Prokofiev 1              Jascha Heifetz

Prokofiev 2              Jascha Heifetz

Saint Saens 3           Zino Francescatti

Schoenberg              Zvi Zeitlin

Schumann                Frank Zimmermann

Shostakovich 1        Leonid Kogan

Shostakovich 2        Itzhak Perlman

Sibelius                    Jascha Heifetz

Stravinsky                Hilary Hahn

Tchaikovsky            Tossy Spivakovsky

Vieuxtemps 4           Jascha Heifetz

Vieuxtemps 5           Jascha Heifetz

Vivaldi 1-50             Fabio Biondi

Vivaldi 50-100         Giuliano Carmignola

Vivaldi 100-150       Simon Standage

Vivaldi 150-200       Enrico Onofri

Walton                     Jascha Heifetz
Wieniawski I           Gil Shaham 

Wieniawski II         Michael Rabin 

Zigeunerweisen       Joseph Lendvay 
Zigeunerweisen      Arthur Grumiaux 
Zigeunerweisen       Mischa Elman 

Zigeunerweisen       Leila Josefowicz 
Tzigane                    Jascha Heifetz 

Poeme                      Jascha Heifetz 
Rondo Capriccioso Leila Josefowicz 

Bach Chaconne       Viktoria Mullova 

Judith Ingolfsson

Judith Ingolfsson is an Icelandic violinist and teacher born (in Reykjavik, Iceland) on May 13, 1973.  From her home base in Germany, she leads a very busy international career and is well-known for being the Gold Medalist at the 1998 Indianapolis International Violin Competition, now considered one of the top three violin competitions in the world, on a par with the Queen Elizabeth and Tchaikovsky violin competitions, though these last two have been in existence far longer.  In 1999, she was named Debut Artist of the Year by National Public Radio (USA.)  In 2000, she toured the U.S. as soloist with the Iceland Symphony, culminating with highly acclaimed performances in Carnegie Hall (New York) and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.  WQXR (New York) and Chamber Music America gave her their Record Award for her debut CD in 2001.  She has toured throughout the world, appearing with almost every major orchestra, every major conductor, and in every important venue.  Her playing has been described as being “rock solid, marvelously precise, and very elegant.”  Ingolfsson began her violin studies at age 3 (same age as Jascha Heifetz when he began) and had performed in public by age 5.  Her first violin teacher was Jon Sen, concertmaster of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra.  In 1980, her family immigrated to the U.S.  She was 7 years old.  She made her orchestral debut in Germany at age 8, playing Bach’s A minor concerto.  At the age of 14, she entered the Curtis Institute where her main teacher was the famous violin pedagogue Jascha Brodsky (pupil of Lucien Capet, Eugene Ysaye, and Efrem Zimbalist.)  Prior to that, she had a number of different teachers due to the fact that her family lived in various States before settling in Philadelphia.  It is fascinating that Guila Bustabo (a concert violinist who had the dubious distinction of having been arrested by General George C. Patton right after the end of World War Two) was one of her teachers.  Carol Glenn and Josef Gingold were also among her teachers during that time.  After graduation from Curtis, she studied further at the Cleveland Institute of Music under David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein.  In addition to her concert and recital engagements, Ingolfsson plays at a number of music festivals around the world, including the well-known Barge Music series in New York, the Spoleto Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, Juniper Music Festival (Utah), and the Aigues-Vives en Musiques Festival in France - Aigues-Vives is a small city in southern France, perhaps no more than 60 miles from the Spanish border.  Her chamber music concerts have included performances with the Miami String Quartet, the Vogler String Quartet, the Avalon String Quartet, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  Ingolfsson has already appeared with over 100 different orchestras throughout the world, in addition to numerous television and radio broadcasts for PBS, CBS, and NHK (in Japan.)  She was appointed to the faculty of the University of Colorado (Boulder) in August of 2006 but soon moved to the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik und Darstellende Stuttgart (State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart) in Germany in October of 2008.  Her recital accompanist is usually (Russian concert pianist and conductor) Vladimir Stoupel, with whom she formed a duo (the Ingolfsson-Stoupel Duo) in 2006.  Ingolfsson has played the Gingold Stradivarius of 1683 (also known as the Martinelli Strad), a 1750 Lorenzo Guadagnini, and a modern violin by French luthier Yair Hod Fainas, constructed for her in 2010.  I have heard the Gingold and the Guadagnini up close for hours and both are great-sounding violins.  The Fainas violin I have not yet heard but I am willing to bet it has a gorgeous sound, as good a sound as the best Stradivari violins.  (I admit I much prefer new violins to old.)  Ingolfsson has been recording commercially since 1999.  Her abundantly-praised recording of the Tchaikovsky concerto can be found here.  You can also find out why her recent recording of the Ysaye Solo Sonatas has been so highly acclaimed here.  A wonderful YouTube video of Ingolfsson in performance can be seen (and heard) here.  The photo is by Michael Rosenthal, taken during a piano trio performance.  

Jascha Heifetz quote

"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons: First, to discourage the composer from writing any more and, secondly, to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven." - Jascha Heifetz, violinist  

I'm pretty sure Heifetz said this half-jestingly. The serious half is what bothers me, although I might have said this myself.  

Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz was a legendary Russian violinist born on February 2, 1901. That is the traditionally given date of his birth - some sources dispute it. His micro biography is posted here, among the February, 2009 blogs.

Toscha Seidel

Toscha Seidel was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist and teacher born on November 17, 1899 (Stravinsky was 17 years old.) He is remembered for his work in Hollywood studios. He began his studies in Russia at age 7. At age 9, he was already studying in Berlin at the Stern Conservatory. In 1912, he became a pupil of Leopold Auer at the St Petersburg Conservatory, together with Heifetz, Zimbalist, Milstein, and Elman (among others.) As a teenager, he gave several joint recitals with Heifetz. Among his many highly praised solo recitals was one that took place in New York on September 19, 1920. He concertized in Europe and elsewhere for about fifteen years before coming to permanently live in the U.S. in the early 1930s. Soon, as so many other classical musicians of the time did also, he made his way to the motion picture studios in Hollywood where he served as concertmaster of the Paramount Studios orchestra. It is documented that in 1934 he gave Albert Einstein one or more private violin lessons. Einstein paid him by giving him a diagram of a formula which was tied to his Theory of Relativity - Einstein had a good sense of humor. Later on, they gave a joint recital to raise funds for some philanthropic effort. Arnold Steinhardt, leader of the Guarneri Quartet for many years, also studied with Seidel.  Seidel also loved to play chess, as did Oistrakh, Kogan, Menuhin, Elman, Kreisler, and so many other violinists. His violins were a Guadagnini of 1786 and the Da Vinci Stradivarius (1725.) Seidel ended his days as a pit orchestra violinist in Las Vegas. Many refer to his later years as tragic but nobody will say what the tragedy was. He died in Los Angeles on November 15, 1962, at age 63.

Leopold Auer

Leopold Auer was a Hungarian violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer born on June 7, 1845 (Brahms was 12 years old.) He was born in a small town and first studied with Kohne in Budapest then with Dont in Vienna but stopped in 1858 when the scholarship money from his wealthy patrons ran out. At that point, being only 13 years of age, he was actually forced to start playing for a living. Auer went on to study with Joseph Joachim for two very critical years in Hanover (1861-1863.) From there, he went to work as an orchestral musician in Dusseldorf and Hamburg. In 1868, a trip to London proved fruitful. There, he met pianist Anton Rubinstein, who invited him to teach at the recently founded (1862) St Petersburg Conservatory. The rest is history, since Auer stayed on for 49 years. Nevertheless, Auer continued to play in the various orchestras of the Imperial Theatres and to perform extensively as soloist in other venues. He was also first violin of the string quartet of the Russian Musical Society for 38 years. He came to the U. S. in 1918, debuting in Carnegie Hall in March of that year – aged 73. He started teaching at the Juilliard School of Music in 1926 and at the Curtis Institute in 1928. Before then, he had taught privately from his home studio. Auer is remembered for refusing to play the Tchaikovsky violin concerto despite its having been dedicated to him and for having produced some of the finest violinists of the early Twentieth Century – Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman, Boris Chumachenko, Iso Briselli, Mishel Piastro, Kathleen Parlow, Toscha Seidel, Emil Mlynarski, and Efrem Zimbalist among them. He was also somewhat unusual in that, unlike most violinists, he did not idolize J.S. Bach, though he played some of Bach’s music for violin. In addition to three books on violin technique, he wrote some pieces which are now seldom played (if at all) and an arrangement of Paganini’s Twenty Fourth Caprice which Heifetz used to play. Auer died on July 15, 1930, at age 85 (Heifetz was 28 years old.)

My Heifetz Theory

So, what made the great Heifetz so great and distinct? Everyone knows that there have been other very great virtuosos on the scene – Milstein, Kogan, Oistrakh, Gitlis, Rabin, just to name a very few. But almost universally, Heifetz is recognized as being above and beyond this group. Why? He had a unique style, a unique sound, and prodigious technique for sure, but so do the others. It has been said that his intonation was flawless though it wasn’t. Was it just the seriousness of his playing? My theory is that this intrinsic seriousness was part and parcel of the sound. It was communicated via his tone. Somehow, that sound always told you that something special was happening. Every time I hear someone with a similar tone, I pay attention. I take note. I know there are players out there right now who rival Heifetz’ technique, but that’s as far as they get. They do not have the sound. The secret was in his tone - but, how to describe that sound? If we could say it in words, there would be no need to listen. Still, all in all, my favorite fiddler isn’t Heifetz – it’s Ivry Gitlis.

Grigoras Dinicu

Grigoraş Dinicu was a Romanian violinist and composer born on April 3, 1889. Jascha Heifetz once remarked that Grigoras Dinicu was the greatest violinist he had ever heard. He attended the Bucharest Conservatory, where he studied with Kiriac-Georgescu; in 1902, he studied with Carl Flesch. After graduation, he played with the Orchestra of the Ministry of Public Instruction and also performed as a soloist. From 1906 until 1946, he directed popular music concerts. He also toured as a soloist and conductor and played a great deal of light music in nightclubs, hotels, restaurants, and cafés in Bucharest and throughout Western Europe. His compositions are mostly short works for violin and piano. He is best known for his violin showpiece Hora Staccato (1906). I do not know if he ever recorded. That’s easy for you to find out if you care to. Dinicu died in March, 1949, at (almost) age 60.

Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz was a Russian (Lithuanian) violinist, composer, and teacher born on this day (February 2) in 1901 - some sources say January 20, 1901. He has often been called the greatest violinist of the Twentieth Century. After Paganini, he is probably the most famous violinist who ever lived. Ironically, he did not record any of the Paganini concertos. He first took lessons – at age three - from his father (Ruben, concertmaster of the Vilna Symphony Orchestra), and then began lessons at age five with Ilya Malkin. He first played in public at age 7. At age 9 he entered the St Petersburg Conservatory to study under Leopold Auer. While still a very young student, he toured much of Europe, playing with the Berlin Philharmonic as a 13-year-old. His first performance with the Berlin Philharmonic occurred on October 12, 1912.  He played the Tchaikovsky concerto on that occasion.  Arthur Nikisch was on the podium.  On January 4, 1933, he played the 5th concerto by Mozart, the Beethoven concerto, and the Brahms concerto on the same program.  He was 31 years old.  He did not set foot in Germany ever again.  A few violinists have played two concertos on the same program and even fewer have played three concertos on the same program.  Until recently, I did not know that Heifetz had done the same thing.  Heifetz came to the U.S in 1917 and debuted in Carnegie Hall on October 17, 1917, still only sixteen years old. His concertizing and recording career took off after that.  Eddy Brown stated afterward that Heifetz made everyone else, including Kreisler, sound like students.  Heifetz composed a very small quantity of original music but made many arrangements and transcriptions which are still in wide use. He is probably the most recorded violinist of all time, although Louis Kaufman and Ruggiero Ricci biographers claim the same thing about Ricci and Kaufman. Heifetz taught for many years at UCLA and USC (both in Southern California, U.S.A.). Two of his famous pupils were Erick Friedman and Eugene Fodor.  He played the famous Dolphin Stradivarius (1714), a 1742 Guarneri, a 1731 Stradivarius, a 1734 Stradivarius, and a 1736 Carlo Tononi violin. Heifetz died on December 10, 1987, at age 86.