Endre Granat

Endre Granat is a Hungarian violinist, music editor, and teacher born (in Miskolc, Hungary – about 100 miles northeast of Budapest) on August 3, 1937.  He is best known for having recorded prolifically in Los Angeles as a studio (session) musician, (as did Louis Kaufman, Toscha Seidel, and Israel Baker before him), where he almost always served as concertmaster.  He has played and recorded for hundreds of movie soundtracks, CDs, and Television shows.  Granat is easily the most experienced studio violinist working today.  He may also be the only concert violinist in history whose wife was a murder victim (1975).  His first teacher was his father (Josef Granat) who was the concertmaster of the Budapest Philharmonic for many years.  He then studied with Gyorgy Garay at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest in his native country.  I don’t know at what age he entered the Academy.  He fled the country during the revolution in 1956.  He was 19 years old.  He then spent five years living in Switzerland although his initial plans were to go to Paris, France.  Between 1956 and 1964 he was concertmaster or a section violinist with the Hamburg Symphony, the Orchestra of the Suisse Romande, and the Gothenburg Symphony.  He also graduated from the conservatory in Basel with a Master’s degree during that time.  In 1962 he entered and won a violin competition at Heidelberg, Germany.  He was 25 years old.  He came to the U.S. in 1964 and studied further with Josef Gingold at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.  Granat was assistant concertmaster with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1964 to 1966.  In 1967 he participated in the Queen Elizabeth violin competition and came in lower than fifth place – I don’t know how much lower.  He was 30 years old.  He then studied for five years with Jascha Heifetz in Los Angeles.  Between 1975 and 1977, he played very little, spending two years in South Korea studying God-knows-what.  I did not take the trouble to find out; however, he and pianist Edith Kilbuck did record the complete works for violin and harpsichord by J.S. Bach in 1976.  When he returned from Korea, he began playing in the studios in Los Angeles where he has been working ever since.  Granat has taught at various music schools during different times in his career, including the Royal Academy of Music in Gothenburg (Sweden), Seoul National University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and USC in Los Angeles, where he might still be teaching.  He has also frequently participated in several music festivals in the U.S. and abroad and intermittently concertized as a soloist working with some of the world’s conducting luminaries, including George Szell, Zubin Mehta, and Georg Solti.  He was concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony in California from September 1983 to June 1993.  With regard to that experience, Granat has said: “It's one thing to have a great number of wonderful players; it's another thing to have a great orchestra.  Eighty extraordinary musicians do not equal an extraordinary orchestra.  That takes years.”  Granat plays a 1721 Domenicus Montagnana violin which he acquired in 1968.  He may have sold that violin in 2005. 

Scipione Guidi

Scipione Guidi was an Italian violinist born (in Venice) on July 17, 1884.  He is one of many outstanding violinists who established themselves in Hollywood as studio musicians – players such as Louis Kaufman, Israel Baker, Heimo Haitto, Toscha Seidel, Felix Slatkin, Paul Shure, Eudice Shapiro, and Joseph Achron.  He is known among cognoscenti and music specialists, especially because of his extraordinary recording of Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben tone poem, but most everyone else is not at all familiar with him.  The famous recording was done in December of 1928 with the New York Philharmonic and Willem Mengelberg, the conductor to whom Ein Heldenleben was dedicated.  Between November, 1905 and January, 1929, Mengelberg performed the Strauss work no fewer than 21 times with the philharmonic.  Guidi was the soloist for almost all of these performances.  Guidi studied at the Royal Conservatory in Milan.  At what age he began his studies is unknown to me.  He is said to have begun teaching at the same school later on.  However, he soon moved to London where he formed a trio.  I do not know whether it was a string or a piano trio.  From London he moved to New York.  In New York, he was hired (in 1919) as concertmaster for the National Symphony of New York.  He was 35 years old.  In 1921, when the National Symphony of New York was absorbed by the New York Philharmonic, he stayed on as concertmaster.  Willem Mengelberg had been the conductor of the National Symphony and was then hired as conductor of the restructured New York Philharmonic.  Guidi formed the New York Trio in 1919 (with Clarence Adler, piano, and Cornelius Vliet, cello) but had to leave the trio in 1923 because he simply became too busy with orchestral work.  Louis Edlin took his place as violinist.  As far as I know, Guidi first soloed with the New York Philharmonic on November 26, 1922, playing Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy.  Josef Stransky conducted.  Guidi went on to appear at least 12 times as soloist with the orchestra.  Among the works he played were Beethoven’s concerto, Bruch’s g minor concerto, Mendelssohn’s second concerto, Saint Saens’ third concerto, Beethoven’s triple concerto, and Brahms’ double concerto (with Alfred Wallenstein on cello.)  In 1928, the New York Philharmonic merged with the New York Symphony, another New York orchestra.  Guidi retained his post as concertmaster.  In 1931, one year after the ill-tempered Arturo Toscanini took over the orchestra as permanent conductor, Guidi moved to St Louis.  He was 47 years old.  In St Louis, Guidi served as concertmaster of the St Louis Symphony, under conductor Vladimir Golschmann.  On December 7, 1934, Guidi played the Sibelius concerto with the orchestra, with Golschmann conducting.  That was the first performance of the concerto in St Louis.  American violinist Maud Powell had premiered the Sibelius concerto on November 30, 1906 - apparently, it took 28 years for the work to travel from New York to St Louis.  It has been said that it was Golschmann who recruited Guidi for the concertmaster job.  It has also been said that Golschmann later fired him in the middle of a rehearsal in 1942, during a disagreement about how a passage should be played.  Guidi went to Los Angeles after losing his job in St Louis and played in Hollywood studio orchestras.  He also became conductor of the Glendale Symphony.  After Guidi passed away, his spacious home just off Sunset Boulevard was purchased by harmonica virtuoso, George Fields.  Later on, for almost two years, Fields used part of the house as his personal recording studio.  He said Guidi’s inscribed photos of many of his famous colleagues on the walls of his study – Bruno Walter, Jascha Heifetz, Antal Dorati, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Casals, Arturo Toscanini, Yehudi Menuhin, Fritz Reiner, Wanda Landowska, Wilhelm Backhaus, Willem Mengelberg, Walter Damrosch, Vladimir Horowitz, and Wilhelm Furtwangler among others - were “formidably inspiring.”  Among Guidi’s violins was a 1772 Guadagnini, purchased in 1930.  Guidi died (in Los Angeles) on July 7, 1966, at (almost) age 82.  His Guadagnini is now very valuable but I do not know what became of it.  

Israel Baker

Israel Baker was an American violinist and teacher born (in Chicago) on February 11, 1919.  He is best known for having played second fiddle to Jascha Heifetz in several chamber music concert series and recordings begun in 1961.  He is also known for having led innumerable Hollywood movie soundtrack recording sessions as had Toscha Seidel and Louis Kaufmann before him.  In fact, he was concertmaster of the orchestra that recorded the soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous movie, Psycho, in 1960.  His sight reading abilities became legendary.  Although a classical violin soloist and recitalist, Baker spent most of his career as concertmaster of various studio or concert orchestras, just as has David Nadien, who was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for four years.  There is scant information on Baker (on the internet) prior to his turning 20.  However, it is common knowledge that he played in public (in Chicago) at age 6.  The performance is said to have been broadcast nationwide on the radio.  It is also known that his first job as concertmaster was with the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic.  A year later, Leopold Stokowski recruited Baker for his All American Youth Orchestra.  At age 22, while still a student at Juilliard, Baker became its concertmaster.  (At this point, I contacted Hilary Baker.) That was the summer of 1941.   Baker studied first with Adolf Pick in Chicago.  Later, he took lessons from Jacques Gordon (concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony), Louis Persinger (teacher of Yehudi Menuhin), and Bronislaw Huberman.  Two sources state that he later joined the NBC Symphony in New York (under ill-tempered and rude conductor Arturo Toscanini) but I could not find his name on any lists of NBC Symphony musicians - they somehow missed him.  After a lengthy tour with Stokowski, Baker did join the first violin section of the NBC Symphony.  He also recorded Scheherazade with the legendary maestro (Stokowski) - much later, he would record the solos a second time.  During this time with Toscanini, Baker also had a nationally broadcast weekly radio program on NBC.  During World War Two, he was a violinist in the Army Air Force playing for wounded veterans in the U.S. (Atlantic City, New Jersey.)  Afterward, he worked for Phil Kahgan in New York for a few years.  Kahgan was a contractor for free-lance musicians.  Through Kaghan’s connections, Baker ended up in Los Angeles and quickly established himself firmly in the recording world.  On August 24, 1947, he made his debut playing the Tchaikovsky concerto with the Los Angeles Philhamonic, William Steinberg conducting.  Baker was 28 years old.  In 1950, in Los Angeles, he formed a duo with Yaltah Menuhin, violinist Yehudi Menuhin’s younger sister.  In 1951, they gave a joint debut recital in New York.  I don’t know where the debut took place – both artists were in their very early thirties.  Although I’m sure one exists, I could not find a review of that recital on the internet.  However, after their debut in San Francisco in 1950, Alfred Frankenstein - music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle - called their recital a "brilliant achievement." With pianist Alice Shapiro and cellist Edgar Lustgarten, he formed the Pacific Arts Trio.  Baker also led orchestras on the West Coast – in addition to the Paramount Pictures studio orchestra - which recorded with many popular artists, including Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte, Benny Carter, Sammy Davis, Bill Haley, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Chet Atkins, Bobby Darin, Neil Diamond, Count Basie, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and Sarah Vaughn.  CBS recordings done with Bruno Walter with the Columbia Symphony included Israel Baker as concertmaster.  Being in the studio naturally meant that he also worked closely with film composers, among whom were Andre Previn, John Williams, Bernard Hermann, Lalo Schifrin, Franz Waxman, and John Barry.  As a soloist or chamber music player his discography is not extensive but as an orchestral player his sound (even if not individual, except for his recording of Scheherazade with Erich Leinsdorf) is on hundreds of recordings and movie soundtracks.  In any case, his recordings of music by Viotti, W.A. Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Antonin Dvorak, Cesar Franck, Rimsky-Korsakov, George Antheil, Vernon Duke, Eric Zeisl, and Alban Berg are easy to find.  Heifetz was quoted as saying that Baker was "a fine fiddler" (a typical Heifetz understatement) and that he was easy to work with.  Except for Erick Friedman, Heifetz never recorded with any other violinist.  Igor Stravinsky himself picked Baker to record his violin concerto; however, he was overruled by executives at CBS who insisted on Isaac Stern as soloist.  In 1981, Baker was concertmaster of the (Orange County, California) Pacific Symphony.  He was also briefly concertmaster of the Los Angeles Symphony – not to be confused with the Los Angeles Philharmonic – as well as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.  In fact, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra was made up almost entirely of highly accomplished studio musicians.  Baker taught at Scripps College (a private school in Claremont, California, near Los Angeles) for a time and his best known pupil was Jack Benny.  Baker played the Garcin Stradivarius (1731) as well as other violins.  The Garcin Strad is now in the hands of violinist Kees Hulsmann.  Israel Baker died in Los Angeles on December 25, 2011, at age 92.  

Nathan Milstein

Nathan Milstein (Nathan Mironovich Milstein) was a Russian violinist born on December 31, 1903 - some sources say December 31, 1904 and others say January 13, 1904 (Heifetz was 2 years old.) He was often called the "prince of the violin." He started studying the violin at age 4 (some say age 7) with Peter Stolyarsky, a popular teacher in Odessa (Russia) who also taught David Oistrakh around the same time. At age 10 (1914), he left studying with Stolyarsky and entered the Odessa Conservatory. By age 12, he had entered the St Petersburg Conservatory where Leopold Auer was teaching. His fellow students were Elman, Heifetz, Seidel, and Zimbalist, among many others. He studied with Auer until the summer of 1917 and had no additional instruction thereafter. He is said to have premiered the first concerto by Prokofiev in 1923 in Russia.  The concerto had already been played for the first time in Paris that same year.  In 1925, he left Russia to play a few concerts in Europe and never returned. In 1926, he studied with Eugene Ysaye (in Belgium) for a few weeks but later said he learned nothing from him - it was actually Ysaye who told him he had no need of any further lessons. In that same year, Milstein made his Paris debut. On October 17, 1929 (some sources say November 29, 1929) he made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Glazunov's concerto and thereafter concertized non-stop until July, 1986. He is remembered for a very clean and precise technique and very appealing tone. He is also remembered for his Paganiniana - a dazzling arrangement of different tunes written by Nicolo Paganini. Between 1930 and 1986, he recorded most of the violin repertory. Of the Brahms concerto alone there are no fewer than five studio recordings available - each with a different orchestra. Although he made seven (studio) recordings of the Mendelssohn concerto, he didn't record the Sibelius or the Stravinsky concertos even once. Those works were probably not in his repertoire. There are also many superb videos of his playing on YouTube - all of them professionally produced. Milstein died in London on December 21, 1992, at age 88. (Of that era, only Ruggiero Ricci, Albert Markov, Zvi Zeitlin, David Nadien, Camilla Wicks, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis remain.)

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.)

List of Violinists 4 of 4

S-Z: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Emanuel Salvador, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Toscha Seidel, Gil Shaham, Oscar Shumsky, Joseph Silverstein, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Tamara Smirnova, Felix Slatkin, Denise Soriano, Vladimir Spivakov, Mark Steinberg, Simon Standage, Arnold Steinhardt, Malcolm Stewart, Lara St John, Emmy Storms, Joseph Suk, Joseph Swensen, Joseph Szigeti, Kyoko Takezawa, David Taylor, Christian Tetzlaff, Roman Totenberg, Eleonora Turovsky, Eugene Ugorski, Adrian Varela, Maxim Vengerov, Olena Vrublevska, Elizabeth Wallfisch, Reiko Watanabe, Janusz Wawrowski, Eric Wyrick, Eugene Ysaye, Thomas Zehetmair, Wang Zhijiong, Yulia Ziskel, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Nicolaj Znaider, Pinchas Zukerman, Jaap van Zweden.