Mari Samuelsen (Mari Silje Samuelsen) is a Norwegian violinist born (in
Hamar, Norway) on December 21, 1984. She
is well-known for having the most views for one of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
concertos on YouTube – more than 31,729,000.* (Please see updates below.) That is probably a record for a classical musician on YouTube. It is a really superb performance. The video is posted on Samuelsen's own channel on YouTube which has 97 thousand subscribers. However, although she is a supremely gifted
artist and technically brilliant, her discography is truly tiny – the reasons for
that, as far as I know, are a mystery. She
began violin lessons at age 3 then began studying with Norwegian violinist and
teacher Arve Tellefsen from age four.
After about ten years, she began studying with Stephan Barratt Due in Oslo. She also later studied with well-known
pedagogue Zakhar Bron in Switzerland. In
addition, she attended masterclasses with Ivry Gitlis, Ana Chumachenco, Midori,
Donald Weilerstein, Pamela Frank, and Robert Mann. Samuelsen’s career is well-established in
Europe although she has performed in several venues in the US as well. She has also played with several major
orchestras led by high profile conductors in some of the world’s great concert
halls. As far as I know, she has never entered any violin competitions. On August 25, 2016, Samuelsen and
her cellist brother (with whom she frequently performs as a duo) gave the
American premiere (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) of a work for violin and
cello by the late film composer James Horner.
Samuelsen plays a 1773 Guadagnini violin on loan from a Norwegian
foundation. Here is one YouTube video of
hers (Vivaldi) and here is another (variations on the theme God Save the King
by Adrien Servais and Joseph Ghys.)
Vaclav Hudecek is a
Czech violinist, conductor, and teacher born on June 7, 1952. He is known for his effortless, natural
artistry and having been one of David Oistrakh’s last students. His recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (with
the Virtuosi di Praga - 1992) is the most successful classical recording in the
Czech Republic’s history. He has
recorded standard concertos under the direction of famous violinists, namely,
Igor Oistrakh, Pavel Kogan, and Dmitry Sitkovetsky, who are themselves sons of
famous Russian violinists. I do not know
who his first teacher was but I do know he later studied and graduated from the
Prague Conservatory. His studies with
David Oistrakh took place between 1970 (or 1971) and 1974. One of his early successes took place on
November 11, 1967 when he appeared as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic in
London. He was 15 years old. He has concertized throughout the world and
played in the most prestigious venues as well as participated or led renowned
music festivals in Europe, Japan, and Australia. Hudecek has also presented master classes in
Canada, Germany, and Japan, as well as other countries. He plays a 1729 violin constructed by
well-known violin maker Antonio Stradivari.
There are several YouTube videos of his performances, including this
one. His recordings are easy to find on
the internet.
Giuliano Carmignola is an Italian violinist,
conductor, and teacher born (in Treviso, Italy) on July 7, 1951. He is known for his career as an eminent
exponent of Baroque music. However, his
repertoire encompasses works from the early Baroque to late modern. His repertoire includes the Schumann violin
concerto, a piece which has an interesting history. Nonetheless, his discography is focused on
the Baroque. He first studied with his
father. His later teachers included
Luigi Ferro, Nathan Milstein, Franco Gulli, and Henryk Szeryng. Among the music schools he attended are the Venice
Conservatory, the Accademia Chigiana (Siena, Italy – school of Salvatore
Accardo, John Williams, and Daniel Barenboim also) and the Geneva
Conservatory. From early in his career,
Carmignola has collaborated with many conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Roberto
Abbado, Trevor Pinnock, and Christopher Hogwood.
He has regularly played and recorded with various chamber orchestras –
the Virtuosi Di Roma (1970-1978), Mozart Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, Basel
Chamber Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, and Venice Baroque Orchestra are
among them. A similar path has been taken by Vladimir Spivakov and Fabio Biondi. Carmignola's best known recordings
are probably his complete Mozart concertos, complete Haydn concertos, a number of Pietro
Locatelli concertos, the Four Seasons (Vivaldi), and several two-violin
concertos by Vivaldi with Viktoria Mullova.
YouTube has many videos of his playing, including one of the Brahms
Double concerto. You can hear one such
video (of the Summer portion from the Four Seasons) here – it is played at the
fastest tempo I have ever heard. He
spends almost all of his time in Europe and did not make his U.S. debut until
2001 at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
Since 2003, he has been an exclusive artist for the Deutsche Gramophone
label. Carmignola has taught at the
Advanced Music School in Lucerne (Switzerland) and at his old school, the Accademia Chigiana. His violins include the Baillot Stradivarius
of 1732 and a 1739 violin by Johannes Florenus Guidantus.
Maddalena Lombardini (Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen) was an Italian violinist, harpsichordist, singer, and composer born (in Venice) on December 9, 1745 (Bach was 60 years old and would live an additional five.) Today, she is remembered thanks to a well-known (and lengthy) letter which her teacher, Giuseppe Tartini wrote to her on March 5, 1760, outlining several details of violin technique. The letter is often quoted in music journals and Tartini biographies. From age seven (1753), she was trained in one of the four hospitality homes (orphanages or Ospedale) in Venice. This one was called the Ospedale dei Mendicante – Home for the Indigent. (The orphanage where Antonio Vivaldi usually taught was called the Ospedale della Pieta.) These institutions, begun in the sixteenth century, were combination orphanages and churches. They not only took in orphans, but the elderly, poor, and infirm as well. Music instruction for girls was important to these institutions for both its educational value, and for the income from public attendance of church services at which excellent music performances were featured. The student body consisted of between sixty and eighty girls. Although Lombardini was not an orphan – she was the daughter of impoverished aristocrats - she was admitted to the music school of the Ospedale based on her musical talent, as were a few other children who were not orphans. Her teachers at the orphanage were Antonio Vivaldi, Baldassare Galuppi, and Nicola Porpora. While at the Ospedale, Lombardini was occasionally allowed to leave the orphanage to study both violin and composition with Tartini in Padua (about twenty five miles west of Venice.) It has been said she was his favorite pupil. Lombardini could have become a nun but, in 1767, she chose to marry a violinist-composer by the name of Ludivico Sirmen. She was 22 years old. They took off on a tour together and were well-received everywhere. However, she also concertized by herself to great public acclaim. Lombardini and Sirmen eventually separated and from that day forward, her constant travel companion was a priest - Don Giuseppe Terzi; according to one source, they died within nine days of each other. Sirmen established a personal relationship with someone else, too - a now-forgotten Countess. Lombardini and Terzi's travels took them to London, Paris, and St Petersburg (Russia), among other places. She first played in London on January 9, 1771 and was highly praised. Curiously, on April 15 of that year, instead of playing a violin concerto, she played a harpsichord concerto at a benefit concert. By the time she was 28, she had turned her attention to singing (for reasons known only to herself) but was not able to duplicate her earlier violinistic successes. In London, she played in the Italian opera orchestra and sang leading opera roles as well. Nine years later, she was appointed concert singer to the Court of Saxony (Dresden, Germany, 1782.) In 1785, she appeared at a Concert Spirituel in Paris for the last time. She was 40 years old and her star power had dimmed. However, at least one source states that by then, she was already a wealthy woman - she had been since 1798. Her compositions - most of them works which included the violin - were well-regarded by her contemporaries. Interestingly, most of her pieces were published (in England, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany) before 1774. There is speculation that some of them may have been written while she was still a student at the Ospedale. In any case, she was not yet thirty years old at the time of publication. Even Leopold Mozart praised her writing after hearing one of her concertos played in Salzburg in April of 1778. Her string quartets have been compared to Joseph Haydn's. YouTube has several examples of her music - violin concertos and string quartets - here, here, and here. Recordings of her music are not hard to find on the internet. Lombardini, who had once been compared to the great Pietro Nardini, apparently died in obscurity (in Venice) on May 18, 1818, at age 72. Nonetheless, her compositions (and Tartini's letter) have made her immortal.
Giovanni Battista Somis was an Italian violinist, composer, and teacher born (in Savoy-Piedmont – a then French-Italian state in northwest Italy of which Turin was once the capital) on December 25, 1686 (Bach was born the previous year.) Although rather obscure, many consider him a critical link between Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) and virtuoso violinists who came after him. It has been suggested that the connection follows this sequence: Corelli-Somis-Pugnani-Viotti-Baillot-Kreutzer-Massart-Wieniawski (1835-1880.) His first teacher was his father, Lorenzo Francesco, a violinist in the court orchestra of Duke Vittorio Amedeo II’s mother (Marie Jeanne Baptiste.) Somis' family was well-known for its important musical role at the royal court. (Lorenzo Francesco was also employed by the prince of Carignano, the duke’s cousin.) At age 10, little Somis was already playing in the orchestra as well. In 1703, at age 17, he was sent to Rome (by the Duke) to study with Corelli and he remained under Corelli’s tutelage until 1706 or 1707. He may also have studied with Vivaldi in Venice. Upon finishing his studies, he became leader of the orchestra (at Turin) and eventually solo violinist to the king of Turin (1713) – the former Duke of Savoy, the same patron who had sponsored his studies with Corelli. In 1709, he was made an assistant at court to the prince of Carignano as well. Although he sometimes traveled with the royal household, he almost never ventured outside Turin after these appointments. He did play – in 1731 – a concert in Paris for the Concerts Spirituel for which he was highly praised. Records indicate that some of his music, though written in Turin, was intended for performance in Paris, where musicians from the Piedmont region were active. It is not certain how much music he composed; however, it is known that he published (between 1717 and 1750) eight collections of violin sonatas, some of them for two violins (Opus 5 and 7) – 78 sonatas in all. One source conjectures that Somis also wrote 134 concertos, although only nine survive (in manuscript.) In composition, Somis’ influence on the transition from Baroque to Classic styles is considered negligible. His pupils included Gaetano Pugnani and Jean-Marie Leclair. Somis died on August 14, 1763, at age 76. Joseph Haydn was 31 years old and Mozart was already six.
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.
Shlomo Mintz is a Russian violinist, violist, teacher, and conductor born on October 30, 1957 (Heifetz was 56 years old.) (Mintz was born on the same day as Leonidas Kavakos, although ten years earlier.) He is known for a career which encompasses a very wide range of activities – solo appearances, teaching, chamber music, recording, recitals, judging, philanthropic sponsorships, and conducting. He began his violin studies in Israel with the famous and beautiful Hungarian violinist Ilona Feher at age two. He studied with her until 1973. At age 11 (April 23, 1969), he made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic playing Mendelssohn's concerto (Uri Segal conducting.) Soon afterwards, as Itzhak Perlman fell ill, he substituted for him (again with the Israel Philharmonic), playing the first concerto of Paganini. Many concert musicians have launched their careers in exactly this same fashion. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of sixteen with the Pittsburgh Symphony playing the Bruch g minor concerto. He then began his studies with Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard although his career was already well on its way. In 1997, he played Paganini’s famous Cannone violin (Guarneri del Gesu, 1742) - a replica of which I will soon have in my hands (thanks to luthier Daniel Houck) - during a concert in Maastricht (the Netherlands) with the Limburg Symphony. From the age of eighteen, Shlomo Mintz added the role of conductor to his artistic life and has since conducted many orchestras worldwide, including the Royal Philharmonic (England), the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Japan), the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic. On April 6, 1992, Mintz made his New York conducting debut, conducting the Israel Chamber Orchestra on that occasion. In March 1994 he was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra (The Netherlands). In 2008 Mintz was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic. Shlomo Mintz gives master classes worldwide and has been a member of the jury of several international violin competitions. His discography does not include the Tchaikovsky concerto nor the concertos of Bach or Paganini. Otherwise, it is fairly extensive. It has been reported that Mintz has recorded all of Vivaldi’s violin concertos in a single collection but I seriously doubt that – Vivaldi wrote about 230 violin concertos. I would have to see the collection to believe it. There are many videos of his on YouTube. As far as I know, Mintz still plays a Guarneri del Gesu (1700) and a Carlo Testore viola built in 1696.
Louis Kaufman was an American violinist born on May 10, 1905 (Heifetz was four years old.) He was probably the most recorded violinist of all time, though Heifetz and Ricci can claim the same thing. He played for the soundtracks on as many as 500 movies and also made 125 recordings on 30 different labels. It has been said that his tone was similar to Heifetz’. Kaufman began to study at Juilliard with Franz Kneisel at age 13. His solo debut took place at Town Hall in 1928 and was very successful. He played viola in the Musical Art Quartet for seven years (1926-1933.) Among his chamber music colleagues were Jascha Heifetz, Pablo Casals, Mischa Elman, Fritz Kreisler, and Efrem Zimbalist. His 1947 recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons brought Vivaldi’s music to the general public’s attention, though violinist Olga Rudge (Ezra Pound’s mistress) is given credit for rediscovering Vivaldi in Italy, just as Mendelssohn is credited with rediscovering Bach’s music. (Alfredo Campoli is credited with the first recording of the Four Seasons - in 1939 from a radio broadcast - and Bernardo Molinari with the second - in 1942.) A YouTube post of Kaufman playing the third concerto of Camille Saint Saens is available here. If Heifetz had recorded the Saint Saens concerto, it might have sounded something like that. Kaufman also championed the works of many contemporary composers, Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud among them. Even while he worked for the movie studios, he concertized around the world. Among the hundreds of movie soundtracks his violin is heard in are Casablanca, The Grapes of Wrath, Cleopatra, and Gone With The Wind. Kaufman was also the first to record Samuel Barber’s violin concerto. His autobiography, published in 2003, is titled A Fiddler’s Tale. Kaufman died on February 9, 1994, at age 88.
Giuseppe Matteo Alberti was an Italian violinist and composer born (in Bologna, Italy) on September 20, 1685 (J.S. Bach was six months old and Antonio Vivaldi was 7 years old.) In 1705, he became a member of the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna. He was twenty years old. He was associated with the Academy for many years. From 1709, he played the violin in the orchestra of the Basilica in that same city. His music was influenced by Vivaldi and it enjoyed success in England, as did the music of Bach’s sons, Handel, and Haydn. He was not nearly as prolific as Vivaldi but he did manage to write 12 symphonies and 10 concertos for violin. Some of these works have been recorded; I doubt, however, that you will ever hear a live performance of any of his music. If you were wondering, this is not the same Alberti after which the “Alberti bass” is named (that was Domenico Alberti.) Alberti died on February 18, 1751, at age 65 (one year after Bach.)
Olga Rudge was an American violinist and writer born (in Youngstown, Ohio) on April 13, 1895 (Brahms was 62 years old.) Today, she is mostly remembered for her relationship to Ezra Pound, an often misunderstood poet-musician, and for having lived more than 100 years (1895–1996). As far as I know, Rudge never studied at a conservatory but became a violin virtuoso nonetheless and began her career as a soloist in 1918. She often played before distinguished political dignitaries but stopped concertizing after the Second World War. She was also instrumental (during the 1930s) in bringing the works of Vivaldi to international attention and acclaim. She discovered over 300 Vivaldi concertos which had been lost or forgotten. Rudge died on March 15, 1996, at age 100.
