Wilma Neruda

Wilma Neruda (Wilhelmine Maria Franziska Neruda aka Madame Norman-Neruda aka Lady Halle) was a Czech (Moravian) violinist and teacher born (in Brno) on March 21, 1838.  (As far as I could determine, her year of birth is still in question - it could be 1838, 1839, or even 1840.)  She was very famous and influential in her day but now – even among serious music enthusiasts – is largely forgotten.  However, her name will be immortal in music history for the fact that she married one of the best known names in the conducting world, Charles Halle, founder of the Halle Orchestra.  She began violin studies with her father, Josef Neruda, at age 4.  At age six, Neruda began studying with Leopold Jansa, in Vienna.  Jansa was also the teacher of Composer Karl Goldmark.  At age 7, she made her public debut in Vienna, with her sister at the piano, playing a Bach violin sonata.  In 1848, she made her English debut in London – she was 10 years old.  (One source gives the date as June 11, 1849.)  In 1852, she presented a series of concerts in Moscow.  It has been said that none other than Henryk Wieniawski considered her one of his main rivals.  In 1859, Neruda formed the Neruda Quartet, comprised of three of her siblings and herself as first violinist.  She was 20 years old.  She subsequently enjoyed a very busy and successful career.  In 1864, she married F. W. Ludwig Norman, a well-known Swedish musician, and subsequently presented herself as Wilma Norman Neruda.  The couple separated after four years and she soon moved to London – she had not returned to England since 1848.  She was now 30 years old.  In 1869, she was named professor of violin at the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm.  Many years later, in 1888, Neruda married Charles Halle and, after Halle was knighted that same year, became Lady Halle.  She and Halle, who was an accomplished pianist, had participated in many chamber music concerts together before their marriage and continued to do so afterward.  In 1890, they toured Australia.  In 1895, they toured South Africa.  Shortly after her husband died in October of 1895, she was gifted a palace in Italy (near Venice) by several members of the aristocracy.  She resided there for a while.  In 1899, four years after Halle died, she toured the United States and Canada.  Although she retired from concert life at age sixty, she continued to perform sporadically.  In late 1898, she moved to Berlin to teach, but continued to live part of the year in London.  In 1907, she played at the memorial concert for Joseph Joachim.  Neruda played a Stradivarius violin from 1709 (or 1710), known as the Vieuxtemps Strad.  The violin was a gift to her made (by several members of the aristocracy) in 1876.  She also owned several other violins.  Neruda died on April 15, 1911, in Berlin, at age 73. 

Edouard Rappoldi

Edouard Rappoldi (Eduard Rappoldi) was an Austrian violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer born (in Vienna) on February 21, 1839.  He is best known for his teaching and his close association with Joseph Joachim.  He began his violin studies at an early age, as do most concert violinists.  His first teachers were two violinists I had never heard of until now - Leopold Jansa and a Mr. Doleschall, whose first name eluded me as I was doing my research, such as it was.  At only age 7, he made his first public appearance as a violinist and pianist.  It has been said that he later became a skilled pianist.  At the Vienna Conservatory he studied (1851-1854) with two of the best teachers in the world, Georg Hellmesberger (Sr.) – or possibly Josef (Joseph) Hellmesberger (Sr.) - and Joseph Bohm.  From 1854 to 1861, he played violin in the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra, though presumably not as concertmaster.  He also toured Europe as a soloist.  He was 15 years old when he joined the orchestra and 22 when he left.  From 1861 to 1866 he was concertmaster of the Rotterdam German Opera Orchestra.  He then became conductor of orchestras (I don’t know which orchestras) - between the years 1866 and 1870 - in Lubeck (in 1866), Stettin (in 1867), and Prague (in 1869), successively.  In 1871, at age 32, he was appointed violin teacher at the Royal School of Music in Berlin, which Joachim had helped establish.  Joachim was already teaching there.  Rappoldi was a member of the Joachim Quartet (as violist) between 1871 and 1877.  When Rappoldi joined the quartet, Heinrich De Ahna moved from viola to second violin and after Rappoldi left the quartet, Emmanuel Wirth took his place as violist.  De Ahna stayed on second.  In 1877, Rappoldi was appointed principal violin instructor at the Dresden Conservatory.  He taught there for 15 years.  He was also concertmaster of the Dresden Opera during those years but retired from playing in 1898.  He was 59 or 60 years old – I don’t know which.  One source claims he was also the conductor at the Dresden Opera.  Perhaps he was one of the conductors, as opera companies seldom – if ever – hire just one conductor.  His compositions include symphonies, quartets, and sonatas.  As far as I know, his music is seldom performed now except perhaps in Germany and Austria.  One of Rappoldi’s best known and most accomplished pupils was Charles Loeffler, a very influential violinist and composer in the U.S. in the first half of the twentieth century.  According to a usually-reliable source, Rappoldi played a 1719 Stradivarius violin now known as the Rappoldi Strad.  Rappoldi died (in Dresden) on May 16, 1903, at age 64.  

Andrew Sords

Andrew Sords is an American violinist and teacher born (in Newark, Delaware) on June 4, 1985.  As do violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell, Sords writes a blog to keep his wide audience informed about things related to his career; he also writes about his unique view of many other things as well.  I will say that his website is worth visiting for the blog alone although you will see so much more.  His repertoire includes two of my favorite and (unfortunately) seldom-played concertos – Bruch’s second concerto in d minor and the Schumann concerto.  In fact, I think the time will come when every concert violinist will take on both of these neglected concertos and perform them as regularly as the Brahms and Tchaikovsky.  Incidentally, the Schumann concerto was in danger of never surfacing thanks to a low opinion of it given to Clara Schumann (Robert Schumann’s widow) by none other than Joseph Joachim.  Sords has a very active solo concert and chamber music career which has taken him all over the globe.  He has given concerts with over 100 (different) orchestras, including the well-known major ones, and played the most important venues in every continent.  That may well be a record for any violinist but even those numbers, of course, will continue to increase.  Sords began to study violin privately at about age 6.  His first teacher was Liza Grossman.  However, his first instrumental studies were actually on piano, which he still plays.  He thus joins a number of concert violinists who have been quite proficient as pianists - Fritz Kreisler, Louis Persinger, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Grumiaux, Andor Toth, Arabella Steinbacher, and Julia Fischer just to name a few.  Sords later studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Southern Methodist University.  His main teachers were Linda Cerone (pupil of Ivan Galamian), David Russell, and Chee-Yun (Kim Chee Yun – pupil of Dorothy DeLay.)  As do violinists Maxim Vengerov and Tai Murray, Sords enjoys and has a deep appreciation for dancing and has even participated in the famous “Dancing With The Stars” show for a charity benefit.  He was the first classical artist to do so.  That may seem unusual but French violinist Jean-Marie LeClair was actually a professional dancer, choreographer, and violinist in the early 1700s.  Sords is also unique in that he plays a modern violin constructed in 1912 by Belgian violin maker Augustine Talisse, a violin maker I had never heard of until now.  Albert Markov, Tai Murray, Christian Tetzlaff, Giora Schmidt, Judith Ingolfsson, Pip Clarke, Ilya Kaler, and Alina Pogostkina are among the growing number of concert violinists who are gravitating to modern instruments which, as you may know from reading this blog, I also favor.  Sords’ performances are typically characterized by music critics as being “utterly radiant.”  You can see his Facebook page here.  His most recent audio release is the New Age music CD with composer Sean Christopher.  

Henri Marteau

Henri Marteau was a French violinist, teacher, and composer, born (in Reims, France) on March 31, 1874.  He was a child prodigy and was similar to Felix Mendelssohn in that both of his parents came from wealthy families; however, Marteau’s parents were musicians as well – his mother was a pianist (and former pupil of Clara Schumann) and his father was a violinist and President of the Philharmonic Society of Rheims.  After hearing Camillo Sivori play a concert at the Marteau residence at age 5, Marteau began his violin studies with his father.  One usually reliable source states that Sivori himself presented the child with a violin.  Sivori would have been about 64 years old at the time.  Marteau later proceeded to study with a Swiss violinist named Bunzl (a pupil of Wilhelm Molique) and after three years went to study with Hubert Leonard at the Paris Conservatory.  He was 8 years old.  Leonard may have been Marteau’s uncle but I am not certain of that.  He made his debut at age 10 in Reims, playing for a very large audience – possibly more than 2000.  At age 13, on December 14, 1887, he played a Bruch concerto (probably the one in g minor) in Vienna, with Hans Richter on the podium.  Brahms was in the audience - it has been said that he was fascinated with the young violinist.  Grove’s Dictionary of Music says this took place when Marteau was 10 years old but that is probably quite incorrect.  In 1888, he made his debut in London, England.  He was 14 years old.  He then studied with Jules Garcin at the Paris Conservatory beginning in 1891.  In 1892, he was awarded first prize by the conservatory.  By then he was already an established touring artist.  In 1893, he toured the U.S. and again in 1898.  He also played in the U.S. in the years 1894, 1900, and 1906.  I don’t know if those appearances were part of a broader concert tour.  Marteau was a sensation each time.  It has been said that when he performed in Boston on his first U.S. tour, he played the Bruch g minor concerto with the Boston Symphony without rehearsal.  Arthur Nikisch was on the podium and Marteau had 12 curtain calls.  On March 3, 1893, he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic playing the first Bruch concerto.  Anton Seidl was on the podium.  His last concert with this orchestra was on March 18, 1906.  He played Vieuxtemps' concerto number 5 on that occasion.  He was 31 years old.  On November 28, 1894, he premiered Theodore Dubois’ violin concerto in Paris.  That work has probably not been heard from since, except, perhaps, in France.  Marteau toured Russia in 1897 and 1899.  By age 26, he was professor of violin at the conservatory in Geneva, Switzerland.  Seven years later (1907), he was called upon to take over Joseph Joachim’s position at the Advanced School of Music (Hochschule fur Musik) in Berlin, where he remained until 1915.  There was some grumbling over this appointment because he was not German and it was rumored he had even been asked to renounce his French citizenship if appointed.  He supposedly refused and, being an international celebrity of the violin, was appointed anyway.  However, being French, he was placed under house arrest in Lichtenberg in 1916 because of hostilities between France and Germany in World War One (1914-1918.)  He eventually settled in Sweden and became a Swedish citizen in 1920.  Marteau eventually also taught at the music conservatories in Prague (1921), Leipzig, and Dresden.  Max Reger and Jules Massenet composed violin concertos for Marteau.  In fact, Marteau was a champion of Reger’s music and played dozens of concerts with him throughout Europe.  He premiered Reger's monumental violin concerto in Leipzig in October, 1908.  It has been reported that it was over a dispute over Reger’s music that Marteau’s first string quartet ensemble broke up.  The quartet probably had a name but I don’t know what it was.  He later re-assembled another quartet in Berlin.  Marteau was also a champion of Swedish composer Franz Berwald's music.  He played Berwald's violin concerto all over the place but the piece never entered the standard repertoire.  (The standard concerto repertoire consists of about twenty concertos and, sadly, that will probably never change.)  In April of 1894, Marteau played a piano quartet concert with Anton Hegner (cellist), Jan Koert (violist), and Aime Lauchame in New York.  It wasn’t the first time so it would appear that he played chamber music concerts on a regular basis though his ensembles are not reported (in any sources I found) to have been well-established or even well-known.  He played a Giovanni Paolo Maggini violin which had belonged to his teacher, Hubert Leonard, and had previously been in the possession of the Austrian Emperor.  He also owned and played a 1709 Stradivarius violin which now bears his name, a 1720 Guarnerius Del Gesu (one source says from 1731) which also bears his name, an 1827 J.B. Vuillaume, and a 1925 Gaetano Sgarabotto violin.  These last four violins together were valued, in Marteau’s day, at approximately $15,000, or $175,000 in today’s dollars.  They are now worth approximately $7,000,000.  In 1920, one could buy a Stradivarius for less than $5,000.  An average person in 1920 could buy one if he worked 25,000 hours or 12 years at minimum wage and saved every penny for just that purpose.  An average person today could buy one if he worked 400,000 hours or 192 years at minimum wage.  It has always been my opinion that those old violins are simply not worth the trouble.  Their values have been hyper-exaggerated by dealers.  Marteau’s tone was said to be large and brilliant and his style warm and charming.  One reference (E.N. Bilbie, 1921) claims that Marteau, prior to 1914, played six concerts at intervals of one every two weeks and that he played three concertos at each of them – 18 different concertos altogether.  Besides a substantial amount of chamber music, Marteau composed an opera, a cantata, two violin concertos, and a cello concerto.  Marteau died (in Lichtenberg, Germany) on October 3, 1934, at age 60.  In 2002, his home in Lichtenberg became the site for part of the tri-annual Henri Marteau violin competition which was established in that year.  

Jacob Grun

Jacob Grun (Jakob Maurice Grun) was a Hungarian violinist and teacher born (in Budapest) on March 13, 1837.  When Grun was born, Brahms was 4 years old, Felix Mendelssohn was 28 years old (and already very famous), and Paganini was 54 and would live four more years.  Today, Grun is known as a teacher who had several critically important and famous pupils. He is also known as a very capable concertmaster who spent most of his life and career in Austria.  He first studied with someone named Gustav Ellinger in his hometown.  Later on, his most important teacher was Joseph Bohm at the Vienna Conservatory.  From 1858 to 1861 he played in the Grand Duke’s Royal Band in Weimar.  He was 21 years old.  Then he played in the Royal Band at Hanover (The Queen’s Orchestra) from 1861 to 1865.  Joseph Joachim was the concertmaster of the Hanover orchestra at the time.  Because Grun was not granted a position in the prestigious Court Chamber Orchestra (which would have entitled him to a pension), Joachim resigned his position as concertmaster in protest (together with Grun) in February of 1865.  Grun then embarked on a long concertizing tour of Germany, England, Holland, and Hungary.  Officially, Grun did not qualify for a position in the Chamber Orchestra because he was Jewish.  Joachim, the Chamber Orchestra’s concertmaster, was also Jewish but his situation was viewed somewhat differently because he (like Mendelssohn) had converted to Christianity.  Three years later (1868), Grun was appointed concertmaster of the Vienna Opera Orchestra (aka Vienna Court Opera, very closely tied to the Vienna Philharmonic.)  He was 31 years old.  His Jewishness apparently played no part in that appointment.  In 1877, he began teaching at the Vienna Conservatory, retiring in 1909.  He was 72 years old when he retired from teaching and playing in the Vienna Opera.  It has been said that he was very kind-hearted with his beginning pupils.  Among his students are Carl Flesch, Oskar Back, Oscar Morini, Franz Kneisel, Erica Morini, Peter Stojanovic, and Rosa Hochmann.  He played a 1714 Stradivarius which bears his name and which was later owned by Franz Kneisel.  Grun died in obscurity (in Vienna) on October 1, 1916 at age 79.  The First World War had already begun, Claude Debussy had composed Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Richard Strauss had composed Don Juan, Igor Stravinsky had written his Rite of Spring, and Serge Prokofiev was already 25 years old.  

Tivadar Nachez

Tivadar Nachéz was a Hungarian violinist, teacher, and composer born (in Budapest) on May 1, 1859.  He began his violin studies at age 5, then later studied with the concertmaster of the Budapest Opera, known to me only as Mr. Sabathiel.  He was never a virtuoso of the first rank but was nonetheless successful as a performer, arranger, and composer.  He lived in England most of his life and even became a naturalized English citizen.  While still a young boy, he was accompanied by Franz Liszt.  In Berlin, he studied for three years with Joseph Joachim - at the same time as Jeno Hubay - and privately in Paris with Belgian violinist Hubert Leonard.  He made formal debuts in Hamburg and London in 1881.  He was 22 years old.  He toured regularly - and made friends with all the important musicians of his day - for the rest of his life.  Even as early as 1889, critics who heard him expressed admiration for his musicianship but pointed out technical deficiencies in his playing.  An indication of his limitations as a violinist can be gathered from his opinion that Ernst’s arrangement of Schubert’s Erlkonig for solo violin was “so difficult, in fact, that it should not be played.”  He was quoted as saying that he often practiced between 8 and 10 hours a day.  He performed his second violin concerto with the London Philharmonic on April 17, 1907.  His best known works are probably his edition of one of Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins – the one in a minor, Opus 3, Number 8 – and his Gypsy Dances.  It has been said he used a Tourte bow previously owned by Heinrich Ernst.  He also owned several magnificent violins, including a 1716 Stradivarius which I was not able to find on any list of Stradivari violins.  Nachez died in Switzerland on May 29, 1930, at age 71.  

Joseph Bohm

Joseph Böhm (Josef Bohm) was a Hungarian violinist and composer born (in Budapest) on March 4, 1795.  He is best known for having been the Director of the Vienna Conservatory and the teacher of famous violinists; Joseph Joachim, Jeno Hubay, Jacob Grun, Heinrich Ernst, Eduard Remenyi, and Jacob Dont among them.  He is also considered the founder of something called the Viennese School of violin playing, whatever that means.  His first teacher was his father, concertmaster of the Pest Theatre Orchestra.  Later, he studied with Pierre Rode.  Bohm made his public debut in Vienna in 1816.  He was 21 years old.  He toured Europe as a soloist for several years.  In 1819, he became the first violin professor at the Vienna Conservatory.  Vienna was the musical capital of Europe at the time.  In 1821, Bohm established a string quartet.  He also became a member of the Court Orchestra - the Imperial band.  He continued to tour but retired from concertizing in 1827.  He retired from the Conservatory in 1848, but only because the Revolution caused it to close its doors.  He was 53 years old.  He continued to play in the Court Orchestra until 1868.  He was 73 years old by then.  He worked with Beethoven but how much time he spent in his company is unknown.  Beethoven never dedicated any works to him.  Bohm’s quartet sort of premiered Beethoven’s string quartet number 12 (opus 127, written in 1825), which turned out to be the first of Beethoven’s late quartets.  The actual premiere took place on March 6, 1825, under the direction of violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh.  That performance was a flop and Beethoven was very displeased.  Beethoven then asked Bohm to take charge of a second premiere which took place in late April, 1825.  That second premiere was, by all accounts, an unqualified success.  Beethoven was by this time completely and irrevocably deaf but he could tell how things went by watching the movement of the performers.  Bohm played none other than the Prince Khevenhuller Stradivarius of 1733 (from 1820 until the day he died – 56 years he had it.)  Upon his death, the violin went to his nephew (Louis Bohm) and eventually (in 1930) ended up in the hands of another famous violinist – Yehudi Menuhin.  Bohm died (in Vienna) on March 28, 1876, at age 81.  Beethoven had been dead 49 years.

Hans Letz

Hans Letz (Jean Letz) was a German violinist born (in Ittenheim) on March 18, 1887.  He is mostly remembered as a teacher of many students at Juilliard (New York.)  He studied at the Strasbourg Conservatory and at the Berlin Royal Academy of Music with the famous Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), concertized in Europe for a while then came to the U.S. in June of 1908.  He was 21 years old.  He soon joined the Chicago Symphony (in 1909) and was appointed concertmaster in 1910.  Theodore Thomas had already left the scene, so to speak.  Letz left this position in the spring of 1912 and in May of that year joined the Kneisel Quartet (the best string quartet in the country according to several critics) as second violinist.  (For some odd reason, Chicago Symphony concertmasters do not stay on for long periods, unlike other top orchestra concertmasters at the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.)  Letz also began teaching at the Institute of Musical Art (now Juilliard) in 1912 and continued doing so until 1920.  When Kneisel disbanded the quartet in 1917, Letz formed his own – the Hans Letz Quartet it was called.  It was active until 1925.  It is doubtful that any recordings of the quartet exist – I do not know.  Letz then again taught at Juilliard (the Institute of Musical Art) from 1925 onward.  He was 38 years old.  Letz retired from Juilliard in 1960, though he took two years off between 1956 and 1958.  He had been there more than forty years.  Letz played a Pressenda violin from 1829, a Guadagnini from 1783, a Testore from 1739, and a Montagnana from 1730.  The Guadagnini eventually ended up in the hands of Lorin Maazel, a sometime violinist who became a conductor - he sold it late last year for an undisclosed sum.  Letz is said to have favored a small, refined tone, especially suited to chamber music.  Among Letz’ many pupils are Mary Canberg, Dorothy DeLay, Sally Thomas, Vittorio Giannini, Anatoly Kaminsky, Robert Kurka, Peter Marsh, Calvin Sieb, Andor Toth, and Patricia Travers.  Hans Letz died (in Hackensack, New Jersey) on November 14, 1969, at age 82, largely forgotten.

Leonora Jackson

Leonora Jackson (Leonora Jackson McKim) was an American violinist born (in Boston, USA) on February 20, 1879 (Brahms was about 46 years old.)  One source gives the year of her birth as 1880.  She concertized at a time when female concert violinists were a rarity.  Although she lived a long life, she is almost completely forgotten today.  As did many artists before her, she received financial support from a benevolent patron to enable her to study in well-known conservatories.  In her case, the patron was none other than Frances Cleveland, wife of U.S. President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908.)  Another of her well-known patrons was George Vanderbilt.  The schools she attended were in Chicago, Paris, and Berlin.  I have no idea who she studied with in Chicago but I do know she won the well-regarded Mendelssohn Stipendium (Mendelssohn Scholarship) in October of 1897, the first American to do so.  The award consisted of about $90,000 in today’s dollars and was intended to assist foreign students to attend the Leipzig Conservatory.  For obvious reasons, it was discontinued in 1934 but later re-established.  Subsequent winners of this prize have included Ernst Toch, Kurt Weill, Max Rostal, and Roman Totenberg (Nina’s father.)  In Berlin, she studied with Joseph Joachim.  Her debut is said to have taken place in 1896.  Jackson often played for European royalty and was also decorated by Queen Victoria of England.  She performed with the top orchestras of Europe and the U.S., including those of Boston and London.  Her career was so successful that in the 1900-1901 season, she played over 160 concerts in the U.S. alone.  Nonetheless, on February 22, 1900, she played the Mendelssohn concerto in New York (with the Boston Symphony) and received a very unfavorable review.   Her retirement came in 1915, at age 36, after her marriage to William McKim (1855-1935.)  As far as I know, she never recorded anything; however, a well-known Stradivarius violin (1714) bears her name and is now owned by William Sloan of Los Angeles.  She sold it four years after her marriage.  The violin had been previously owned by Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim - one of her teachers.  Leonora Jackson died on January 7, 1969, at age 89, in complete obscurity.  

Bronislaw Huberman

Bronisław Huberman was a Polish violinist, teacher, and writer born on December 19, 1882 (Brahms was 49 years old.) He is best known for founding the Israel Philharmonic and for his individualistic style of playing. He is also the only concert violinist who had the same violin stolen from him twice – the 1713 Gibson Stradivarius – in 1919 and again in 1936. As Jacques Thibaud before him, he had to spend a year rebuilding his technique after a plane crash (in 1937.) (Thibaud’s hand injuries were suffered while he served in the armed forces in the First World War. His later plane crash in 1953 was fatal.) He also married an actress, just as Pinchas Zukerman did much later – not the same actress, of course. (Jascha Heifetz and Ivry Gitlis also married actresses.) He also advocated a United Europe, but mostly in his writings and lectures (though he did confer with some high-ranking political leaders.). Later, he had a public disagreement with a German conductor over his refusal to play in Germany after 1932. Violin pedagogue Carl Flesch had an intense dislike for him, though I don’t know why. It may have been because he simply didn't like his style of playing.  Huberman was known in his time for being nervous, intense, and having strong convictions about everything.  Those qualitites were probably reflected in his playing as well.  Huberman first studied with Mieczyslaw Michalowicz and Maurycy Rosen from the Warsaw Conservatory and with Isidor Lotto in Paris (the study with Lotto may have been in Warsaw as well.) He played a Spohr concerto in public at age 7. From age ten, 1892 until about 1896, he studied with Joseph Joachim in Berlin, although his lessons with Joachim were sporadic – Joachim was absent from Berlin quite often. Huberman later said that another teacher – Charles Gregorovitch (student of Wieniawski) - had taught him everything he (Huberman) knew. However, he also studied with Joachim’s assistant (Karl Markees), Hugo Heermann in Frankfurt, and Martin Marsick in Paris. By the time he was 12, he had already toured Holland and Belgium. When he played in London a little later on, he was not as successful as he had been elsewhere. Back in Germany, despite his growing reputation, there were few concerts to play and money became very scarce. He had become the sole provider for his family and things began to take a desperate turn. It has been stated that during this time (1894), in Paris, Count Andrzej Zamoyski presented the Gibson Stradivarius violin to him.  (This particular Count Zamoyski was the son of Count Stanislaw Kostka Andrzej Zamoyski – there are several Counts from this family named Andrzej. Other sources have him receiving the violin from either Count Jan Florian Zamoyski, Count Maurycy Klemens Zamoyski, or the Austrian Emperor in that same year - 1894. However, a respected violin site - Cozio - has him acquiring the violin in 1911, not 1894.  According to the Huberman Archives in Tel Aviv, Huberman himself bought the violin in 1911. Obviously, these discrepancies need to be reconciled and I am therefore pursuing a solution to this seemingly simple riddle.)  In that year also, Adelina Patti, a singer who was well-known back then, invited Huberman to play with her on her farewell tour coming up in 1895. Though he only played at her last concert (January 22, 1895), things went well for Huberman and his family after that - the concert was a huge and critical success for them. He was still only 12 years old. The following January (1896) turned out to be a memorable one, too. Everyone agreed that he was brilliant and unencumbered in his interpretations. At one of his concerts in Vienna (January 29, 1896), he played the Brahms concerto. Brahms was present (among other great musicians), sitting in the balcony, and was incredibly impressed. The critics called him a genius. After 1896, he had no need for further lessons. In November of that year, he toured the U.S., making his debut at Carnegie Hall (New York) with the Mendelssohn concerto on November 21. He was 13 years old. It would be 25 years before he would return (1921). His playing was often described as very original, authoritative, and impetuous, but his tone was said to be somewhat un-beautiful, lacking finesse, sweetness, and warmth. In Europe, he had performed for royalty – including the Austrian Emperor - in the U.S., he played for wealthy patrons. In 1897 and 1898 he toured Russia. After that tour, he took three years off to rest and practice some more – perhaps also to help care for his sick father (who died in 1902.) Though he disliked recording, he did some of that in 1900. He later recorded (among other things, for Columbia Records) the Tchaikovsky concerto (1928-1929), becoming, according to some sources, the first violinist to do so. He toured Italy in 1903 and even played a recital on Paganini’s Cannone Guarnerius – a replica of which luthier Daniel Houck has constructed for me. Up to that time, only Camillo Sivori (Paganini’s pupil) had played the famous violin – Ruggiero Ricci, Eugene Fodor, Salvatore Accardo, Regina Carter, Dmitri Berlinsky, In Mo Yang, Maxim Vengerov, Gerard Poulet, and Leonid Kogan have also played the Cannone since then. He continued to tour extensively and very successfully – including South America - for the rest of his life. After 1932 he did not play in Germany. In 1937, he left Vienna for Switzerland. A year after the airplane accident (1937), he returned to the stage with a concert in Egypt. In 1939, he moved to New York but returned to Switzerland after the end of the Second World War. YouTube has many sound recordings of his on its site. Here is a sample of one of them. Huberman died on June 16, 1947 at age 64. It has been suggested that he died in his sleep. Joshua Bell now plays the twice-stolen Gibson Strad.

Maud Powell

Maud Powell was an American violinist, writer, and arranger born on August 22, 1867 (Brahms was 34 years old.)  She is remembered for having been a concert violinist at a time when women violinists – even among orchestral players - were a rarity.  Her career was spent almost exclusively in the U.S. Her first violin studies began when she was seven.  At age 9 she became a pupil of William Lewis in Chicago.  She then began playing in and was soon made assistant concertmaster of the Aurora (Illinois) Symphony Orchestra.  Her debut as soloist with this orchestra took place in 1880.  She further studied in Europe with Henry Schradieck in Leipzig (1881-1882) and Charles Dancla in Paris (1882-1883.)  She spent a year intermittently concertizing in London and then studied briefly with Joseph Joachim (1884-1885) who conducted the orchestra when she gave her Berlin debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in March of 1885 playing the Bruch g minor concerto.  Returning to the U.S., she gave her New York debut with the New York Philharmonic on November 14, 1885 again playing Bruch’s first concerto.  She was then eighteen years old.  She soon began including works by contemporary American composers in her programs, including Arthur Foote, Henry Huss, Victor Herbert, and John Carpenter.  She gave the American premieres of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos.  Her fan club claims she premiered the Dvorak concerto as well but that is not true.  Max Bendix premiered the Dvorak concerto with the Chicago Symphony on October 30, 1891.  Powell gave the first New York performance of the concerto in 1893 but that's all. Mastering a very extensive repertoire, Powell also frequently played the concertos of Saint Saenz, Lalo, Arensky, Conus, and Rimsky Korsakov, among others.  Her premiere of the Sibelius concerto on November 30, 1906 was especially significant although this concerto did not enter the standard violin repertoire until after Jascha Heifetz championed it.  Powell founded a quartet in 1894 and a trio in 1908.  She frequently wrote her own program notes and wrote numerous articles for music journals.  I don’t know if she ever took students.  Among her many violins was a supposed JB Guadagnini (1775) which was later sold to Henry Ford, the car maker.  The Guadagnini was later declared (by Kenneth Warren) to actually be a copy made by New York Luthier George Gemunder on or about 1865.  (She had purchased -  around 1886 - a violin from a dealer named Victor S. Flechter which turned out to be a fake. Powell later sued the dealer because she had paid $500 and the violin was said to be worth only $40. The violin had  supposedly been made by Gaspard Duiffoprugcar in 1515.)  Powell also owned a Guarneri from 1731, the Mayseder Guarneri.  She did a lot of recording for RCA during the industry’s infancy (1904-1907).  YouTube has postings of a few of her recordings.  Maud Powell died (in Uniontown, Pennsylvania) on January 8, 1920, at age 52, while preparing for a concert. 

Nahan Franko

Nahan Franko was an American violinist, conductor, and concert promoter born (in New Orleans) on July 23, 1861 (Brahms was 28 years old.) He made his New York debut in 1869, at age eight, and then went on to study with Joseph Joachim and August Wilhelmj in Europe. Instead of embarking on a solo career, he played in professional orchestras most of his life. He became the concertmaster of the Metropolitan Orchestra in 1883, at age 22, and stayed until 1907. On November 30, 1904, at age 33, he conducted Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, thus becoming the first American conductor to conduct at the Met. He subsequently conducted there more than sixty times, though not all of his performances were opera productions. As an assistant conductor and concertmaster he was being paid what would be about $96,000 in today’s dollars. (Today’s concertmasters earn about $350,000.) In 1908, he was one of the first to present open air concerts in New York City. An interesting piece of trivia about him is that he was (briefly), the brother-in-law of the owner of the New York Yankees (Jacob Ruppert.) Franko died on June 7, 1930, at age 68.

Erica Morini

Erica Morini (Erika Morini) was an Austrian violinist born on January 5, 1904 (Heifetz was 3 years old.) Morini was known for a refined, silken tone and for being one of the few female concert violinists of the early twentieth century. She received her first instruction from her father (Oskar Morini, student of Joseph Joachim) and mother and completed her studies under the famous pedagogue Otakar Sevcik although she also studied with Jakob Grun, Alma Rose, and Adolf Busch. In 1916, she made her orchestral debut in Vienna, playing Mozart's A major concerto.  In 1917, she made her debut in Berlin under Arthur Nikisch. Her U.S. debut in New York on January 26, 1921 (in Carnegie Hall) was a phenomenal success.  She was 17 years old.  Soon afterward, Maud Powell's Guadagnini violin was presented to her, though most likely only as a loan, since the instrument was later sold to Henry Ford, the car maker.  She made her first visit to London in 1923. When she was 21, her father purchased the Davidoff Strad from a Paris dealer for her and that's the instrument she used for the remainder of her career. After 1938, Morini lived in New York City. She concertized far and wide until her retirement in 1976. She was 72 years old. It has been said that she taught Jascha Heifetz the bowing technique known as staccato.  There are numerous recordings of hers still available and at least one video on YouTube. Some time in 1994 or 1995, her Stradivarius was stolen from her Fifth Avenue apartment but (according to one source), Morini was never told about the theft. It has not been heard from since. Whether the instrument was insured or not is unknown to me. Erica Morini died on October 31, 1995, in relative obscurity, at age 91.

Emmanuel Wirth

Emanuel Wirth (Emmanuel Wirth) was a German (some would say Bohemian) violinist born on October 18, 1842 (Brahms was 9 years old, but Paganini was already dead.)  He studied at the Prague Conservatory then became concertmaster of the opera orchestra in Rotterdam. He also taught at the Conservatory there. Later on, he taught at the Berlin Music School as Joachim’s assistant. He also played viola in the Joachim String Quartet. He must have been a great teacher because August Wilhelmj said of him that he was the best violin teacher of his generation. That generation would include Wieniawski, Ysaye, Ernst, Georges Enesco, Joseph Joachim, Henri Vieuxtemps, Charles De Beriot, Carl Flesch, Leopold Auer, and Wilhelmj himself. The 1713 Stradivarius violin he played now bears his name. Wirth retired in 1910 and died in Berlin on January 5, 1923, at age 80. (Heifetz was 21 years old.)

Jenö Hubay

Jenö Hubay (Eugen Huber) was a German (some would say Hungarian) violinist, composer, and teacher born on September 15, 1858 (Brahms was 25 years old.) He first studied with his father, concertmaster of the opera orchestra in Budapest. At age 11, he made his first public appearance, playing a concerto by Viotti. Two years later, he began studying with Joseph Joachim in Berlin, where he remained for five years. In 1878, he made his Paris debut. He then undertook a course of study with Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps. Beginning in 1882, he taught for four years at the Brussels Music Institute (some say it was the Brussels Conservatory.) He returned to Hungary in 1886 and took a post as head of the Budapest College of Music, where his father used to teach. (He also held a violin teaching post at the Budapest Conservatory at the same time.) Soon thereafter, he (and David Popper) founded the original Budapest String Quartet, which ceased to exist in 1913. Brahms frequently played chamber music with this group. (The subsequent Budapest Quartet was founded by other players in 1917 and was disbanded in 1967.) Together with Popper and Brahms, Hubay premiered Brahms’ third Piano Trio (1886.) Among his many pupils were Joseph Szigeti, Eugene Ormandy, Peter Stojanovic, and Stefi Geyer (Bartok’s girlfriend.) Hubay wrote four violin concertos, the first and second of which – as far as I know - are played only by English violinist Chloe Hanslip. In fact, Hanslip’s Naxos recording of the first and second concertos will be released this month. The third concerto is played (and has been recorded) by Israeli violinist Hagai Shaham. In addition, Hubay wrote several operas and symphonies which have been utterly neglected, except perhaps in Hungary. Among violinists, he is remembered for his short violin encore pieces, one of which is the popular Hejre Kati. Livia Sohn and Benjamin Loeb did recently record Hubay’s Fantasy on themes from the opera Carmen and that recording (also on the NAXOS label) is very much available everywhere on the internet. Aside from that, Hubay’s considerable output lies dormant somewhere. Hubay died on March 12, 1937, at age 78 (Heifetz was 36 years old.)

Willy Hess

Willy Hess was a German violinist and teacher born on July 14, 1859 (Brahms was 26 years old.) He first studied with his father, who was a student of Louis Spohr, and later with Joseph Joachim. He was the concertmaster of the opera orchestra in Frankfurt from 1878 to 1886. Thereafter he taught violin at the Rotterdam Conservatory from 1886 to 1888. He then left to sit first chair in the Halle Orchestra (1888-1895.) From there, he went to the Cologne Conservatory (1895-1903.) For six years he was the concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1904-1910.) While there, he also taught at Harvard University. In 1910, he moved back to Berlin to teach violin at the Hochschule (Academy for Music) after receiving an invitation some time in March of that year. Hess worked closely with composer Max Bruch for a time and even premiered some of his violin works. Adolf Busch, Henri Temianka, and Arthur Fiedler were among his many students. It has been said that Hess was a tall and slender man, in the style of Paganini. He also sometimes sported a beard. I have no photos of him, only his autograph, with a quote from the Beethoven violin concerto. Hess died in Berlin on the eve of World War Two - February 17, 1939.

Jan Kubelik

Jan Kubelík was a Czech violinist and composer born on July 5, 1880 (Brahms was 47 years old.) His first lessons were with his father, who was an amateur violinist. At age 8, he entered the Prague Conservatory where he studied with Otakar Sevcik. He began concertizing ten years later (1898), the same year he graduated from the Conservatory. Along with Joseph Joachim and Pablo De Sarasate, he was one of the first violinists to be recorded in the early 1900s. Following debuts in Vienna and London in 1900 and 1901, he toured the U.S. for the first time in 1901, starting out in Carnegie Hall on December 2, 1901. At that first U.S. concert, Kubelik was criticized for being a mere showman. However, he enjoyed great financial success everywhere he went. He was a society darling and was already wealthy in his mid-twenties. Carl Sandburg even titled a poem after him. In the latter part of his career, he played the Emperor Stradivarius (1715.) In 1903, Kubelik married Countess Marianne Czáky Szell and eventually became the father of (among others) conductor Rafael Kubelik. As late as 1930, he was still being hailed as the best-known name in the violinist world. Kubelík also wrote music, including six violin concertos which are now never played, and cadenzas for the violin concertos of Brahms, Beethoven, Paganini, and Mozart. A number of his recordings are posted on YouTube. Jan Kubelík died in Prague on December 5, 1940, having never actually retired.

Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer born on June 28, 1831 (Mendelssohn was 22 years old.) Because he was associated with so many important musicians (and pupils) during his lifetime, he is still regarded as one of the most influential violinists of all time. One of his early teachers was Stanislaus Serwaczynski, concertmaster of the opera orchestra in Pest, who also taught Henri Wieniawski. At age 8, he began studies at the Vienna Conservatory where he studied with Joseph Bohm, among others. After studying in Leipzig for a while, he made his London debut with the Beethoven violin concerto in 1844 (at age 13) which concert Mendelssohn conducted. Returning to Leipzig, he became assistant concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra - Ferdinand David was concertmaster. He was most likely playing in the orchestra when David premiered the Mendelssohn concerto on March 13, 1845. In 1848, he left Leipzig to join Franz Lizst in his new music endeavors (and his Weimar orchestra), serving as concertmaster. In 1852 (at age 21), he left Weimar (and Liszt’s New German School ideals) to work in Hanover (as concertmaster of the Hanover Court Orchestra), rejoining the old guard, which included Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Brahms. Fourteen years later, in 1866, Joachim moved to Berlin, where he founded the Royal Academy of Music and, in 1869, the Joachim String Quartet. He left the Hanover orchestra (at age 35) over a dispute concerning another player, Jacob Grun. On January 1, 1879, he premiered the Brahms concerto in Leipzig, with the composer conducting. On the same program was the Beethoven concerto. On January 13, 1883, he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, again playing the Beethoven concerto.  He was 51 years old.  One source states that Joachim made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic on March 17, 1899.  That is probably quite incorrect because Joachim would have been 67 years old by then.  Brahms himself related how, after Joachim played his concerto in Vienna on January 14, 1879, the audience applauded right after Joachim finished the cadenza.  The same thing happened years later (1896) when Bronislaw Huberman played it in Vienna - Brahms was again present at that performance.  It was probably a coincidence.  In 1903 (at age 72), he became one of the first violinists to record. Joachim composed a number of works (including 3 violin concertos) which today remain obscure. His best known work is probably the Hungarian concerto in d minor. Though he inspired at least two concertos in the standard violin repertory – the Dvorak and the Schumann – he never played them in public. Thanks partly to his criticism of the work, the Schumann concerto (written in 1853) was not premiered until 1937. A number of cadenzas which he composed for several violin concertos are still in use. Joachim died on August 15, 1907, at age 76. Heifetz was about six years old. Among Joachim's many pupils is Max Pilzer. 

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.)