Naoum Blinder

Naoum Blinder was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist and teacher born (in Lutzk) on July 19, 1889 – since various sources vary his exact date and place of birth are approximate.  He is best remembered for being one of Isaac Stern’s teachers – between 1932 and 1935.  He was a touring concert violinist for a while but finally settled in San Francisco to become the orchestra’s concertmaster for 25 years.  He began his violin studies as a child although I don’t know at what age.  By age 14 he had graduated from the Imperial Conservatory in Odessa.  There, he had studied with Peter Stolyarsky and Alexander Fiedemann.  He then entered the Moscow Conservatory (in about 1904) and studied with an unknown teacher there until about 1910.  He was by then 21 years old.  From there, he went to pursue further study in England at the Royal Manchester College of Music.  His main teacher there was Adolph Brodsky.  Blinder graduated from the RMC in 1913 or 1914 and then returned to Odessa to teach at the Conservatory.  He was 25 years old.  He remained there until 1920.  All the while, he toured (mostly Russia and the Middle East) as a soloist.  Between 1923 and 1927, he taught at the Moscow Conservatory.  I don’t know what he did or where he was between 1920 and 1923.  Blinder and his family (his wife and daughter) came to the US (via Japan) in December, 1927.  Between 1929 and 1931, Blinder taught at Juilliard in New York.  In 1931, he became the concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony at the invitation of a friend who had known him in Russia.  Blinder was 42 years old.  He continued to tour intermittently as a soloist and founded the San Francisco String Quartet in 1935 as well.  In that year, he and Isaac Stern played the Bach concerto for two violins with the orchestra.  That is fairly typical of teachers and their favorite students to do.  Blinder had a very large body of students; many of them became members of the San Francisco Symphony and other orchestras.  Glenn Dicterow and Joseph Roisman also studied with him for a time.  Blinder owned and played several violins – a 1774 G.B. Guadagnini, a 1753 G.B. Guadagnini, and an 1850 J.B. Vuillaume are among them.  He died on November 21, 1965, at age 76.  Here is a rare solo recording of his. 

Boris Brovtsyn

Boris Brovtsyn is a Russian violinist and teacher born (in Moscow) in 1977.  He is known for his amazing technique and the use of rubato – in the style of many virtuoso violinists of another generation – violinists such as Mischa Elman, Fritz Kreisler, Jacques Thibaud, Ida Haendel, Nathan Milstein, and Ivry Gitlis.  He began playing the violin at age 4.  At age 6, he made his public debut at the famous Bolshoi Theatre.  His grandfather, a pupil of the famous pedagogue, Abram Yampolski (teacher of Leonid Kogan) was his first teacher.  At age 7 (1984), Brovtsyn entered the Central Music School in Moscow and graduated ten years later.  Then he entered the Tchaikovsky (Moscow) Conservatory where he studied with Maya Glezarova.  From there he graduated in 1999.  He had already made his U.S. debut in 1995 and his U.K debut in 1998.  He had already played for the Pope in 1993.  He studied further at the Guildhall School of Music in London where he won the Gold Medal in 2004.  His main teacher there was David Takeno.  His career has taken him to places all over the world, but especially Europe.  As do practically all concert violinists, he plays at music festivals all over the world.  Brovtsyn plays an 1862 Vuillaume violin.  Here is a performance of his on YouTube – the Mendelssohn concerto in e minor with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.  He gets a tremendous ovation and is obliged to play a very nice encore by Ysaye.  

Vilde Frang

Vilde Frang (Vilde Frang Bjaerke) is a Norwegian violinist and teacher born (in Oslo) on August 19, 1986.  She is known for having successfully made the jump from child prodigy to mature violin superstar.  That transition does not always prove successful for artists.  In addition to being technically brilliant, her playing has been described as being fresh, seductive, sinewy, inspired, voluptuous, and possessed of startling emotional sincerity.  A highly regarded music critic went so far as to say that he had never heard such a great violinist since the late Jascha Heifetz.  Her playing is rhythmically and tonally flexible, not straight-laced, predictable, and pedantic.  She began her violin studies at age four, on a violin built by her father, a professional bass player.  By 1993, she was a student at the Barratt Due Institute of Music (founded in 1927) in Oslo.  She was 7 years old.  Her teachers there were Stephan Barratt Due, Alf Kraggerud, and Henning Kraggerud.  Frang made her public debut at age ten with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (some sources say Norwegian Chamber Orchestra.)  She graduated from the Barratt Due Institute in 2002.  In 1999, aged 12 (or 13), she debuted with the Oslo Philharmonic, playing Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy.  Mariss Jansons was on the podium.  The concert was a great success and her career took off after that.  However, from 2003 to 2009, Frang studied further with Kolja Blacher at the Advanced School for Music and Theatre in Hamburg and with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy in Kronberg (about ten miles from Frankfurt, Germany.)  She debuted with the London Philharmonic in 2007.  Her first album was released in 2009.  She records exclusively for EMI/Warner Classics and has received numerous awards for her recordings, including the Diapason d’Or, Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Classical BRIT, and the ECHO Klassik Award.  As far as I know, Frang has never entered any violin competitions.  In 2010, Frang received an award of 1 million NOK (Norwegian Krone – about 175,000 U.S. dollars) from a large Norwegian business enterprise.  She also received an award of 75,000 Swiss francs (approximately 79,000 U.S. dollars) from Credit Suisse (international bank) in 2012.  The award included a performance with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Lucerne Festival.  She made her BBC London Proms debut in August, 2013, playing Bruch’s first concerto.  She was 26 years old.  By now, Frang has played with virtually every major orchestra in the world and been accompanied by most major conductors.  She has also played recitals or made solo appearances in all of the world’s important venues, including those in China, Japan, Korea, Austria, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Russia, and the U.S.  Frang now teaches at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.  One of her violins is one constructed in 1864 by J.B. Vuillaume, a maker not considered to have the status of a Guarneri, a Stradivari, or even a Guadagnini.  She has also played (since the summer of 2013) the 1709 Stradivarius known as the Engleman Strad.  Frang has made the following interesting comment regarding her artistic perspectives: “I need things to worry about.  I need some resistance and struggle.  That’s part of my music making.  I think talent has a lot to do with knowing how to be inspired.  Inspiration is really the most important thing. ”  On April 1 and 2, 2015 (last week) Frang was to have played the Korngold concerto with the Toronto Symphony (and James Conlon) but had to cancel due to “scheduling difficulties.”  What that really means is anyone’s guess since concerts are scheduled (and contracts are signed) very far in advance (sometimes three years in advance) in order to avoid this sort of difficulty.  Perhaps all it means is that her concert managers are disorganized, although that is extremely unlikely.  Here is a YouTube video of one of her performances.  Photo is courtesy of Marco Borggreve, photographer of (mostly European) musicians.  

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.  

The Strange Case of Joseph Tang - the conclusion

While it appears that Joseph Tang got away with a lot, it could have been much worse - he never dealt in really pricy violins ($250,000 and above), though perhaps he did want to get to that top tier.  His downfall came as a result of his effort to fool everyone all the time.  Tang should have known it cannot be done.  Many people are attracted to beautiful masterpieces, be they paintings or violins or jewels or books or furniture.  Some take that appreciation for beauty to the level of an obsession.  They will do almost anything (that does not involve violence) to acquire a masterpiece – one or several.  There are many forgers too, who are gifted at replicating exact copies of instruments or paintings or anything worth the trouble.  They sell the copies in lieu of the originals or simply fabricate new works (forgeries) and masterfully antique them.  Elmyr de Hory, David Stein, and Han van Meegeren were three such artists.  They fooled the world’s greatest experts.  This is, of course, the key.  If you can’t fool an expert, then what’s the point?  Imagine discovering an old manuscript by Vivaldi or Bach or Mozart.  Who would authenticate it?  No one would call Jean Baptiste Vuillaume a forger, though he could replicate a violin so perfectly even the owner could not tell the difference.  As early as 1685, none other than Tomasso Antonio Vitali (the assumed composer of the famous Chaconne in g minor – the authenticity of the piece itself is very much in question) claimed to have been fooled by a violin dealer, Francesco Capilupi.  He purchased what was supposed to be a Nicolo Amati violin which turned out to really be a Francesco Ruggieri.  The dealer had placed a false label right on top of the real one and Vitali claimed he paid four times as much as the violin was really worth because he thought it was an Amati.  (Interestingly, today, those violins are of almost equal value.)  Nonetheless, labels are not the only things that can be faked - well-trained violin makers can artificially distress the varnish, simulate wear patterns, insert neck grafts for purported proof of conversion from baroque fingerboards and necks to a more modern neck length, and create strategically placed repaired cracks with interior studs and patches.  In 1997 and 1999, the estate of Englishman Gerald Segelman (who died in 1992, leaving a large collection of rare violins), alleged that several violin dealers and investors defrauded Segelman's charitable trust by providing low appraisals of the instruments (in the collection) before purchasing them from the estate, then selling the instruments to one another at steep markups.  Some of the transactions involved highly reputable dealers in London and Chicago (who need to remain anonymous.)  The estate claimed that investors made six and seven-figure profits on individual Segelman instruments.  In one instance, one dealer allegedly acquired a Guarnerius violin from Segelman for $950,000 and quickly resold it for $2.3 million.  Shortly after the start of the London trial in 2001, one dealer settled, agreeing to pay the estate $4.5 million.  By 2004, every single case had been settled out of court.  Nobody pled guilty and nobody went to jail.  However, not every case of this sort has a happy ending.   In November, 2008, a violin teacher in Rome who was caught selling fake antique violins to his students for vast sums, hanged himself in his apartment.  Sergei Dyachenko, the teacher, had already confessed that he had bought violins at a flea market in Rome and sold them to his students at hundreds of times their true value.  One of his students had bought a violin from him for $830,000.  Dyachenko claimed the instrument had been made in Italy in 1784.  Experts found that the violin was a much newer German model, worth only $3,800.  In addition to all this chicanery, there are also several very valuable stolen violins out there which have never been recovered.  When a valuable instrument is stolen, the insurance company will cover the loss but it will never forget.  Such a thing occurred when the famous Gibson Stradivarius (1713) was located in 1987, after having been stolen in 1936.  The insurance company initially paid the owner $30,000 for the loss but, in 1987, again had to pay a $263,000 finder’s fee in order to acquire it.  They could have paid a lot more but they didn’t.  In 1988, after the instrument had undergone some minor repairs, the company sold it for $1.2 million.  In 2001, violinist Joshua Bell paid $4 million for it.  Had Joseph Tang worked himself up to this level of dealing, he may well have made himself a fortune.  Instead, he decided to cheat a little girl out of $1,250. 

Camillo Sivori

Camillo Sivori (Ernesto Camillo Sivori) was an Italian violinist, composer, and teacher born (in Genoa) on October 25, 1815 (Beethoven was 45 years old.) He is remembered for being Paganini’s only pupil (although some say that Catarina Calcagno also studied with Paganini.) It is known that he initially studied with Paganini (for six months) at age six, but then also with Restano, Costa, and Dellepiane (the Director of the Conservatory at Genoa.) These last three musicians are now completely forgotten. Before leaving Genoa, Paganini wrote some sonatas for Sivori to play publicly. His last teacher, however, was Paganini, whose virtuosic style he adopted. Sivori supposedly later said that Paganini was the worst teacher the world had ever seen. From age 12, he began his career as a traveling virtuoso. He first played in Paris in 1827; Germany, Russia, and Italy in 1839; Belgium in 1841; England in 1846, 1851, 1853, and 1864; the U.S. in 1846 and 1847; all of Europe plus Ireland and Scotland in 1853. He also travelled to Mexico and parts of South America (presumably after touring the U.S. in the fall of 1846.) He actually lived in Paris for many years. Like his famous teacher, Sivori was a very generous man. He taught pupils between his concert tours but they are not well known. One of them was Zino Francescatti’s father. In his classes, Sivori emphasized the study of scales - he even said that that had been the only thing he learned from Paganini. Among his many compositions are two violin concertos which are now forgotten although recordings are now available of some of his minor works. Unlike Paganini, he frequently played works by other composers. One piece which he was very fond of playing was Francois Prume's La Melancolie.  Sivori gave the English premiere of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto (the one in e minor) in London on June 6, 1846. It is said that he owned many fine instruments – a Stradivarius, a Vuillaume, a Bergonzi, and an Amati among them. His Vuillaume was a replica of Paganini’s Guarnerius (the famous Cannone.) Sivori died in Genoa on February 18, 1894, at age 78 (Stravinsky was 11 years old.)

Cyril Reuben

Cyril Reuben was an English violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra for many years. He was born on October 8, 1926 (some sources say October 6). I do not know anything else about him, other than that he played on a Vuillaume. In fact, I do not even know whether he played first or second violin. (Please see comment below.) As is the case with most orchestral players, he was invisible to history - nearly anonymous, though his sound can be heard in more than a hundred LSO recordings. He died on September 2, 1996, at age 69.

Castagneri

Andreas Castagneri was an important French violin maker born around 1696 (nobody knows for sure.) Very little is known about his life and work. It's a highly esoteric field after all. An encyclopedia of violin and bow makers is available from some publisher in New York. It sells for $595 plus shipping, in case you're interested. Castagneri built many violins like this one (circa 1740), though he is better known and appreciated for his cellos. Nowadays, his violins sell for between $5,000 and $25,000. Should you, or someone you know, find one in the attic, parting with it might be worth your while. This example is a little beat up - you can better see the scratches if you click on the photo. Castagneri died in 1747.