Stefan Milenkovich

Stefan Milenkovich (Milenkovic) is a Serbian violinist and teacher born (in Belgrade) on January 25, 1977.  He began studying at an extremely young age – age 3, just like Jascha Heifetz.  His first teacher was his father – again, just as Heifetz’ father was his first teacher as well.  As have other famous violinists – Bronislaw Huberman, Bronislaw Gimpel, Leonora Jackson, Julia Igonina, Hilary Hahn, Natasha Korsakova, and Chloe Hanslip among them - he has performed for world leaders, including President Reagan, President Gorbachev, and Pope John Paul II.  By age 6, he had already given his first public concert.  By 1994, he had played over 1000 concerts.  He was only 16 years old.  Ruggiero Ricci played over 5000 concerts by the time he retired at age 85.  That is probably a world record, although I am not sure about that.  At the rate he was going, Milenkovich would have to play until age 57 before he would surpass the 5000 number; however, few concert artists nowadays play more than 50 concerts per season.  Also in that year (1994), Milenkovic graduated from the University of Belgrade.  He then began studying in New York with Dorothy Delay at Juilliard.  In 2003, he began teaching at that same school.  He was 26 years old.  All the while, he was concertizing all over the world.  He has been known to dance - in the fashion of Maxim Vengerov - during special recitals.  Three other violinists that I know of are (or were) also very good dancers; Jean Marie Leclair,  Andrew Sords, and Tai Murray.  As does Simone Lamsma, Milenkovich loves violin competitions and has won a number of them or placed in the top three, including the Indianapolis, the Queen Elizabeth, the Yehudi Menuhin, the Paganini, and the Spohr competitions.  He has recorded several CDs which are easy to find on the internet.  Currently he teaches at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (about 130 miles south of Chicago) and at the University of Belgrade (since December 26, 2011.)  Here is one of many YouTube videos of him – it features Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen. Milenkovich currently plays a modern violin - a 2006 violin by Chicago luthier Peter Aznavoorian.  

Russian Violinists

These Russian violinists (and a few more) are included among those about whom I have written micro biographies:  Joseph Achron, Iso Briselli, Zakhar Bron, Mischa Elman, Leonard Friedman, Elizabeth Gilels, Ivry Gitlis, Boris Goldstein, Alexei Gorokhov, Eduard Grach, Jascha Heifetz, Julia Igonina, Iliana Isakadze, Ilya Kaler, Leonid Kogan, Andrei Korsakov, Natasha Korsakova, Louis Krasner, Albert Markov, Nathan Milstein, Viktoria Mullova, David Oistrakh, Anna Rabinova, Vadim Repin, Alexander Schneider, Abram Shtern, Toscha Seidel, Vladimir Spivakov, Steven Staryk, Peter Stolyarsky, Maxim Vengerov, Abram Yampolsky, Zvi Zeitlin, Efrem Zimbalist,....  Even among avid and knowledgeable concert goers, only three or four are known.  I asked a violinist colleague the other day whether he had heard a certain recording by Ivry Gitlis.  He did not even know who Gitlis was.  It is generally agreed that Heifetz, Gitlis, Kogan, Milstein, and Oistrakh, are at the very top.  The others are superlative players who for reasons known only to a few, have never achieved that rank which bequeaths an aura of violinistic sainthood of sorts – more than mere historic immortality.  Nevertheless, they form the superstructure on which the others stand, the ones against whom we identify the greatest.  It is also interesting that some of the greatest Russian players were students of a Hungarian, not Russian, violinist: Leopold Auer.

Robert Virovai

Robert Virovai is a Hungarian concert violinist born (in Duravar, Yugoslavia) on March 10, 1921.  Except for this blog profile, he is today almost totally forgotten.  He began his violin studies with his mother at age 6.  By age 8, he was studying at the Belgrade Conservatory with Peter Stojanovich, a Serbian violinist, teacher, and composer.  He spent four years there.  He then studied, from the age of 13, with Jeno Hubay at the Budapest Conservatory.  Hubay later said of him, “Virovai plays so beautifully as to astonish even me.”  Some sources say Hubay declared him his best pupil.  He lived in New York City for a while but later spent most of his career in Europe.  He made his U.S. debut (playing a rented Stradivarius) on November 3, 1938, at age 17, with the New York Philharmonic.  He played Vieuxtemps’ Fourth Concerto in d minor (Opus 31) and all critics agreed he was sensational, one of them declaring that “his attack was positively ferocious.”  He later played a solo recital at Carnegie Hall on December 17 of the same year.  Virovai was soon placed among the front ranks of violinists.  It was said that his playing was “remarkable for speed, accuracy, and beautiful tone.”  He toured the U.S. for two or three years after that, playing with the most important orchestras.  Then he dropped out of sight, spending most of his time in Europe.  As far as I know, he has never commercially recorded anything, though that would be extremely unusual since recording technology had a progressive surge in the 1950s when Virovai would have been in his thirties.  Most violinists reach their apogee between thirty and fifty years of age.  Why there is no record of a discography is a mystery.  Perhaps I just don’t know where to look.  Later on, Virovai played and taught in Switzerland, where he now lives.  As a youth, Virovai was fluent in four languages – German, Hungarian, Croatian, and Slovenian.  Perhaps today, he is fluent in a few more. 

Andrei Korsakov

Andrei Korsakov was a Russian violinist, teacher, and conductor born on May 7, 1946 (Heifetz was 45 years old and would live an additional 41.)  Korsakov was a distant relative of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian composer known for his book on orchestration and, of course, Scheherazade) and is remembered for his exquisite recordings and for having lived (as did Michael Rabin, Paul Kochanski, and Julian Sitkovetsky) a very short life.  His daughter is concert violinist Natasha Korsakova.  (Korsakov was fluent in three languages – German, Russian, and French – Korsakova is fluent in five.)  It is worth noting that few concert violinists have daughters who grow up to be concert violinists themselves – it is usually sons who follow in their footsteps – Mozart, Kogan, Oistrakh, Sitkovetsky, Markov, and Kaler come to mind.  Korsakov began violin studies with his father, Boris Korsakov, at the Central School in Moscow, at age 7.  He made his debut in 1954 (perhaps 1955), at the Moscow Conservatory.  He was either 8 or 9 years old.  By age 18 he was studying at the Moscow Conservatory with Boris Belenky and Leonid Kogan (famous pupil of Abram Yampolsky.)  Korsakov concertized regularly in Russia, Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and the U.S from that point forward.  While still a student, he had already won prizes at the Paganini Competition in Genoa, the Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris, and the Montreal Competition in Canada.  In 1971, he was awarded second prize in the Queen Elizabeth Competition (Miriam Fried was given first) though he was by far the audience favorite and felt he should have won.  It sometimes happens that juries disagree with the audience, though, as I always say, the audience has a much better instinct for what is best.  Among the jury that year were Joseph Szigeti, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, and Zino Francescatti.  (A similar thing happened to Julian Sitkovetsky at this same competition in 1955.  It happened again in 1967 with Gidon Kremer, who was awarded third prize.  Nobody remembers who came in first or second that year.)  Korsakov later taught at the Conservatory – among his pupils are Natalia Alenitsyna and Alexander Spivak.  One critic called Korsakov’s technique “brilliant and dazzling, full of beauty and nobility.  He played everything as if he were a nineteenth century virtuoso.”  In 1980, at age 34, he founded the Russian Ensemble Concertino which he conducted for 11 years.  In 1989, he became the chief conductor and Artistic Director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra (founded by Rudolf Barshai in 1956 and originally known as the Russian State Chamber Orchestra.)  A review (by the Holland Telegraaf) stated: "Korsakov can be compared to Heifetz; he is capable of doing anything, and this ability is combined with his remarkable composure and lack of showiness." An example of his refined and breathtaking playing can be found here on YouTube. Another review (of his recording of the Bruch and Paganini first concertos) stated: "for raw electricity, this performance would be hard to beat." Other recordings (of famous showpieces) have also been described as stunning. There is also his recording of a concerto made famous by Heifetz - the Conus - which is a collector's item. It is nearly impossible to find. (Thanks to my Facebook friend - Alison Whalen - I have it.) A few of his recordings can be found here, here, and here. At one point in his career, Korsakov was named the People's Artist by the Soviet government. He initially played an Andrea Guarneri violin from the Russian State Collection and later on a Vincenzo Rogieri.  Korsakov died on January 19, 1991, at age 44. 

Manrico Padovani

Manrico Padovani is a Swiss-Italian violinist born on August 12, 1973 (Perlman was 27 years old.)  He is the first Swiss violinist to perform all 24 of Paganini’s Caprices in concert in a single evening (Zürich, 2006.)  Born in Zürich to Italian parents, he began his violin studies as a child and later entered (in Winterthur, Switzerland) the class of Aida Stucki-Piraccini (who had also taught Anne-Sophie Mutter much earlier.)  (Winterthur is 15 miles northeast of the city of Zurich and is the city where in 1900, Albert Einstein first worked as a tutor before landing a job in the patent office in Bern)  At the Royal Conservatory in Amsterdam, Padovani studied with Hermann Krebbers.  Additionally, in Europe, he studied with Ruggiero Ricci, Boris Belkin, and Franco Gulli among other master violin teachers and composers.  He graduated from the Winterthurer Conservatory in 1991 and made his debut in Lucerne in 1992.  He has been concertizing in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. ever since and has even been called the “devil’s fiddler” for his brilliant technique and playing style.  Nobody has yet said that Padovani is in league with the devil, as Paganini was said to be, but it could yet happen – music critics can say and write what they wish.  His recordings include the concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Paganini, Prokofiev, and others in the standard repertoire.  His recording of the Beethoven concerto (with the Moscow Philharmonic) is especially remarkable in that Padovani uses Leopold Auer’s cadenza, not Kreisler’s (the Kreisler cadenza is the one most used by violinists.)  He is the only one to do so.  For the Paganini concerto, he uses the most difficult cadenza ever written for this concerto – the one by Emile Sauret.  His recent performances in Vienna and Prague are available on DVD as well (this is not surprising since Padovani is very photogenic) and a live CD recording of the second Paganini concerto (B minor) in Seoul is also already in the catalog.  He also recently recorded the soundtrack to the European film Sinestesia (2010) and the 24 Caprices of Paganini.  (Other concert violinists who have recorded soundtracks are Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Toscha Seidel, and Louis Kaufman.)  In addition, he has made a very large number of radio and television appearances in Europe and Canada.  (Eddy Brown used to play almost exclusively on radio.)  There are also several videos of his concert appearances on YouTube, including the incredibly difficult Ernst arrangement of Schubert’s Der Erlkonig.  He frequently performs chamber music with other major artists and often appears in duo violin performances with Russian violinist Natasha Korsakova with whom he will also record several double concertos in 2011.  (Natasha Korsakova is profiled on this blog - December 15.)  Padovani played on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin (1861) for some time but presently plays the 1722 Jupiter (ex-Goding) Stradivarius.  (There is another Jupiter Strad from the year 1700.) 

Natasha Korsakova

Natasha Korsakova is a Russian violinist and writer born on January 24, 1978 (Itzhak Perlman was 32 years old and Jascha Heifetz was 77 years old.)  She is the only concert violinist that I know of who is fluent in five languages.  (The only other violinists who were fluent in that many languages were Henryk Szeryng and Otakar Sevcik.)  She is also the only one who has an exclusive concert dress designer (Laura Biagiotti) and the only one named artist-of-the-year in two different countries (Italy and Chile.)  It is noteworthy that while female concert violinists are moving towards more glamorous fashions, (witness Sophie Mutter, Sarah Chang, and Akiko Meyers), the males are becoming more ungraceful and casual, perhaps even grotesque (witness Joshua Bell, Leonidas Kavakos, and Nigel Kennedy.)  It has been said that Korsakova is very bold and charismatic.  Her violin studies began at age 5 and her first public performance took place at age 7 in Moscow.  However, her first teacher was not her father but her grandfather (Boris Korsakov), although she later studied with her violinist father (Andrej Korsakov, who studied with the legendary Leonid Kogan.)  She later studied in Germany with Ulf Klausenitzer and Saschko Gawriloff (at the Advanced Music School – Musikhochschule - in Cologne – 1995-1999.)  Nevertheless, her orchestral debut was back in 1985 with the Voronezh (Russia) Orchestra.  (This orchestra has been associated with several leading Russian conductors, including Evgeny Svetlanov, Kiril Kondrashin, Emin Khachaturian, Neemi Yarvi, and Alexander Dmitriev, and regularly plays in Moscow and St Petersburg.  It has also accompanied innumerable major artists: among them, Emil Gilels, Gidon Kremer, Vladimir Spivakov, Igor Oistrakh, Yuri Bashmet, Alexander Zhukov, Maxim Vengerov, and Mikhail Pletnev.)  She spent the first seventeen years of her life in Russia where her musical lineage goes back about six generations and includes composer Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), her great-grand uncle.  Korsakova has already toured (practically) the entire world and, of course, played in most of the world’s prestigious concert halls, with top conductors and major orchestras.  She has recorded several CDs which are available on the internet at ArizonaRecordings (and through ITunes and other electronic download venues) and there are several videos of her playing on YouTube.  She also delves seriously into chamber music and far flung music festivals, as do all concert violinists nowadays.  In the year 2004 she performed the Tchaikovsky concerto in Berlin for the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.  In 2008, she played a special concert in Vienna the night before the official opening of the European Football Championships.  She has also been invited to play for the Italian State President and his guests at the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome.  In 2010, she premiered and recorded (with the Czech Philharmonic) two concertos written for and dedicated to her – one by Robert Vinson (Concerto in F) and the second by Daniel Schnyder (Mozart in China.)  Korsakova has played a Vincenzo Panormo (also known as Vincenzo Trusiano) violin but is currently playing a Giovanni Pressenda (Turin, 1843) from the collection of Giovanni Accornero, Italian expert on luthiers, author, and instrument collector and dealer.  In 2011, she and Swiss violinist Manrico Padovani (the first Swiss violinist to have recorded the 24 Paganini Caprices) will record several double concertos by Alfred Schnittke, J.S. Bach, Arvo Part, and Antonio Vivaldi.