Henry Schradieck

Henry Schradieck was a German violinist, teacher, conductor, and composer born (in Hamburg) on April 29, 1846.  Johannes Brahms had been born there 13 years earlier.  Schradieck is best known for his many study books for violin (and viola) and for several editions of various works for violin, including the Mendelssohn violin concerto in e minor.  It has been said that he moved frequently and preferred not to remain in one place too long.  Among other violinists, Willy Hess, Mischa Mischakoff, and Steven Staryk did the same thing.  Schradieck received his first lessons from his father, who was a violinist, and first played in public at age 6, possibly age 5.  One source states that in 1854, at age 8, he entered the Brussels Conservatory and graduated in 1858.  He was 12 years old.  It has been stated that Teresa Milanollo paid for his tuition at the conservatory.  His teacher there was Hubert Leonard.  He then went to Leipzig to study with Ferdinand David.  In 1864, he was hired as professor of violin at the Moscow Conservatory.  He remained there for three years and then returned to Hamburg to lead the Hamburg Philharmonic Society Orchestra.  After 6 years, he joined (in 1874) the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig as concertmaster.  Felix Mendelssohn and Ferdinand David had already left the scene – in fact, David had died the previous year.  Schradieck also taught at the Leipzig Conservatory and conducted the theatre orchestra.  He was 28 years old.  In 1883, he came to the U.S and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio.  There, he organized an orchestra and taught at the College of Music.  He returned to Hamburg in 1889 to teach at the Hamburg Conservatory.  Nine years later, in 1898, he returned to the U.S.  He devoted most of his time to teaching in Philadelphia and New York.  Among the oddly interesting things about his career are that he could play all the Beethoven quartets (presumably the first violin part) from memory and he seriously studied the art of violin making.  Among Schradieck’s pupils are Maud Powell, Theodore Spiering, Ottokar Novacek, and Carl Tollefsen.  Schradieck died (in Brooklyn, New York) on March 25, 1918, at age 71.  

Francois Prume

Francois Prume (Francois Hubert Prume) was a Belgian violinist and composer born (in Stavelot, Belgium) on June 3, 1816.  Nicolo Paganini was then 33 years old and Beethoven, though he didn’t know it at the time, had another ten years to live.  Prume was a highly gifted and accomplished violinist who came on the scene, made an impression, and then left almost without leaving a trace.  According to one source, he began his violin studies at age 3.  His father was the organist at Stavelot.  At age 5, he began studying at the nearby town of Malmedy, in the Province of Liege, a French-speaking section of Belgium.  From 1827 to 1830, he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Liege (the Liege Conservatory.)  He then studied for two years with Francois Habeneck (Director of the Paris Opera) at the Paris Conservatory.  After graduation in 1832, he returned to Liege and was immediately appointed professor of violin at the conservatory.  He was 17 years old.  His most famous pupil was probably Hubert Leonard, though Leonard probably only studied privately with Prume since he (Leonard) began his studies at the Brussels Conservatory in the same year (1832) that Prume returned to Liege.  Prume was only 3 years older than Leonard.  In 1839, Prume toured Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Holland, and Belgium.  In 1844, he played in Paris and in that same year was made head of the violin department at the Liege Conservatory.  He was 28 years old.  He continued touring and teaching during his entire career.  It has been said that he played with Franz Liszt on several occasions.  One source claims that he was totally blind for the last few years of his life.  Prume wrote six violin studies, a violin concerto, and a few concert pieces for his own use but which were also probably published during his lifetime.  His most famous piece is La Melancolie for violin and piano (or orchestra) which Camillo Sivori (one of Paganini’s pupils) was very fond of playing.  Leopold Auer mentioned that piece in his book on violin pedagogy.  Prume died on July 14, 1849, after a very short illness, at age 33.  

Julian Olevsky

Julian Olevsky (Julian Olewsky) was an American violinist and teacher born (in Berlin) on May 7, 1926 - Olevsky's mother was Russian and his father was Polish.  He was a highly respected and admired musician who died at a relatively young age.  At age 7, Olevsky began his studies with his father (Siegmund Olewsky), who was a professional violinist and leader of an orchestra in Berlin.  In 1935, the family had to move from Berlin (by way of Luxembourg) to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they stayed for about 12 years and perhaps many more.  There, he first studied with Aaron Klasse for two years and then with Alexander Petschnikoff, both of whom were pupils of the famous Hungarian violin pedagogue Leopold Auer, although Petschnikoff also studied with Jan Hrimaly in Moscow.  At age 10, Olevsky made his recital debut and about two years later - in 1938 - made his debut with orchestra.  On that occasion, with the Orquesta Sinfonica Argentina under Austrian conductor Kurt Pahlen, Olevsky played the Glazunov concerto.  He was 12 years old.  Interestingly, Mischa Elman made his British debut with this concerto and Nathan Milstein and Efrem Zimbalist both made their U.S. debuts with this concerto as well.  It has been said that Fritz Busch (brother of violinist Adolf Busch) conducted the orchestra for Olevsky's debut but such is not the case.  However, he later did play (in that same year, 1938) with an orchestra conducted by Fritz Busch - Orquesta de la Asociacion Wagneriana (Orchestra of the Wagner Association) - at the Teatro Presidente Alvear.  The work on the program was Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante (for violin and viola) and the violist was Andre Vancoillie.  Olevsky went on to present his Teatro Colon debut (in Buenos Aires - similar to playing a Carnegie Hall debut in the U.S.) in 1942 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires with Juan Jose Castro on the podium.  Olevsky subsequently toured South America extensively and eventually came to reside in the U.S. (1947.)  He was 21 years old.  I could not find any reference stating that he had ever attended a conservatory so it is quite possible that all of his music studies were done privately.  In 1949, he made his New York debut at Town Hall.  Between 1947 and 1949, he had devoted much of his time to studying and enriching his recital repertoire.  During that time he also briefly studied with Raphael Bronstein, another pupil of Leopold Auer.  His appearance at Town Hall was highly successful and much-praised.  His accompanist was Wolfgang Rose', Mischa Elman's former accompanist.  Until 1965, Rose' would remain his accompanist for concerts and recordings.  In 1950, Olevsky played his first recital at Carnegie Hall.  He played three more recitals there over the course of his career.  He went on to play in most of the great halls around the world and with some of the great orchestras and conductors - too numerous to mention - who have since become icons and legends in the classical music firmament.  In 1965, he formed a duo with pianist Estela Kersenbaum with whom he toured and later recorded all of the Mozart Sonatas.  With the addition of cellist Paul Olefsky (Olevsky's cousin), the duo also performed as the Olewsky Trio, recording all of the trios by Brahms as well as trios by Arensky and Tchaikovsky.*  In 1967, Olevsky was appointed to a teaching position at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), where he taught until the year he died.  His discography on the Westminster label is somewhat limited but includes twelve concertos of Vivaldi (including the Four Seasons with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra), Bach’s six works for unaccompanied violin, Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, the Brahms concerto, Bruch’s first concerto, Mendelssohn’s second concerto, and Wieniawski’s second concerto.  I don’t think all of the records have been digitized but you can still acquire one via record collectors – they usually run about forty dollars - although many of his recordings have also been re-issued on the Doremi label.  You will discover that music critics frequently compared Olevsky to Jascha Heifetz and David Oistrakh.  Here is a YouTube file of a performance by Olevsky.  His collection of orchestral and piano scores is now housed at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  Among the violins he played was the Emperor Guarnerius Del Gesu from 1738, one of the better-known Guarnerius violins.  That violin had been owned by one of Napoleon’s Military Assistants and that’s supposedly how it acquired its name.  None of that has actually been confirmed by anyone but is part of violin lore.  Olevsky died suddenly (in Amherst) on May 25, 1985, at age 59.  His students include Charles Sherba, Chris Devine, David Tasgal, Dean Radin, Eric Bachrach, Eric Tanner, Gerald Itzkoff, Matthew Hunter, and Steve Leonard.  
* I am indebted to Ms Estela Kersenbaum Olevsky for much of the information on this blog post. Her website pays tribute to this magnificent violinist, her late husband. 

Hugo Heermann

Hugo Heermann was a German violinist and teacher born (in Heilbronn) on March 3, 1844.  He taught briefly in the U.S. but spent most of his teaching career in Frankfurt, at the well-known Hoch Conservatory.  He taught there for 25 years - from 1878 until 1904 – but also concertized sporadically.  Joseph Lambert Massart and Joseph Joachim were among his teachers.  At 20 years of age (1864), he established himself in Frankfurt.  Beginning in 1865, he played first violin in the Heermann Quartet (which also used other names) with Fritz Bassermann on second, Adolf Rebner on viola, and Hugo Becker on cello.  As mentioned previously, he became a teacher at the Hoch Conservatory in 1878.  His most famous pupil at the conservatory (by far) is Bronislaw Huberman – that fact alone is sufficient to keep his name in the music history books forever.  In the early 1900s Heermann came to the U.S. and played the Beethoven concerto in his first U.S. appearance on February 5, 1903.  I don’t know which orchestra accompanied him but I do know he played a cadenza he composed himself.  He very soon after played the Brahms concerto with the New York Philharmonic on February 13, 1903 and received very favorable reviews.  It is said to be the first New York performance of the concerto.  Walter Damrosch was on the podium so it was probably the New York Symphony which he played with, although it was later merged with what we now know as the New York Philharmonic.  Franz Kneisel had already played the first Boston performance – possibly the first U.S. performance of the Brahms concerto - on December 6, 1889.  On April 3 of the same year Heermann played the first Bruch concerto with the philharmonic under the same conductor.  His final appearance with the philharmonic was on January 26, 1907 – by then, he had already settled in the U.S.  He played the Beethoven concerto on that occasion.  A critic pointed out that he had made a “deep impression upon the audience, and was rewarded with all the enthusiastic applause which his performance warranted, being recalled again and again.”  Heermann taught at the Chicago Musical College from 1906 to 1909.  He was later appointed concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony, where he served between 1909 and 1911.  In 1911, he returned to Europe, taking up teaching; first at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, and, beginning in 1912, at the Music Conservatory in Geneva, Switzerland.  For many years, Heermann used a 1733 Stradivarius violin which he purchased in 1860.  On or about the year 1888, Heermann acquired another Stradivarius violin presumably made in 1734.  That violin was purchased by Eugene Ysaye in 1895, from whom it was stolen in 1908.  After it was found in a Paris shop in 1925, none other than (violinist) Charles Munch bought it and kept it until 1960.  It was later played by Henryk Szeryng, who bequeathed it (in 1972) to the City of Jerusalem, to be used by the concertmaster of the Israel Philharmonic.  The violin goes by various names but that does not make it hard to trace.  Another Stradivarius which Heermann used and which was constructed in (about) 1734, is now played by Gidon Kremer.  That violin is known as the Heermann Stradivarius.  Heermann also used yet another Stradivarius violin (from about 1700 - the Jupiter Strad) from 1892 to 1895.  According to the Cozio website, that violin is now in the hands of Hollywood studio violinist Arnold Belnick.  Heermann retired in 1922, living mostly in Merano, Italy, where he eventually died on November 6, 1935, at age 91.  

Arma Senkrah

Arma Senkrah (Anna Loretta Harkness) was an American violinist born (in Williamson, New York) on June 6, 1864.  She had an extraordinary but very short career (1882-1888) and, as did Patricia Travers much later, stopped playing and dropped out of sight altogether quite suddenly.  Nevertheless, a 1750 G.B. Guadagnini violin (which Isaac Stern owned and played for more than fifty years) is named after her and that alone will ensure she is forever remembered.  If not for that, then there are also very famous photos of her and Franz Liszt playing together.  In fact, she participated in duo recitals with several of Liszt’s pupils on several occasions.  Her career was spent entirely in Europe.  According to almost all sources, her life ended tragically in Weimar, Germany.  Her mother was her first violin (and piano) teacher.  At age 9, she went to Europe with her in order to pursue more advanced instruction.  (At that time, the U.S. had not yet established a solid framework of advanced music schools which Americans could rely on to further their education.  The very few American orchestras then in existence were made up almost entirely of European musicians.)  Between 1873 and 1875, Senkrah studied in Leipzig with Arno Hilf and, in Brussels, with Henryk Wieniawski.  It is not clear whether Senkrah was actually enrolled as a student at the Leipzig Conservatory (where Hilf was a teacher) or the Brussels Conservatory where Wieniawski taught.  It is far more likely that, due to her young age, she studied privately with both teachers.  She is also said to have studied with Henri Vieuxtemps – Vieuxtemps was teaching at the Brussels Conservatory at the time.  From 1875 to 1881, she studied at the Paris Conservatory with Joseph Lambert Massart and received a first prize in 1881.  She was 17 years old.  She began almost immediately to concertize all over Europe, still using her birth name - Harkness.  On November 25, 1882, she made her London debut at the Crystal Palace, playing Vieuxtemps’ fourth concerto, the one in d minor.  The reviewers praised her highly.  It was written that the concerto was “wonderfully interpreted,” that her tone “was clear and soulful,” and that “her mastery of the technical possibilities of her instrument left nothing to be desired.”  Wherever she played, the reviews were just as enthusiastic, if not more.  In Germany, she achieved even greater success.  It may have been in the autumn of 1883 that, at the urging of her German agent, she changed her name to Senkrah.  On December 28, 1883, she played the Mendelssohn concerto at a new theatre in Leipzig.  On January 3, 1884 she played at the Gewandhaus (Leipzig.)  And so it went.  She was compared to Italian violinist Teresina Tua who was touring England and Germany at about the same time.  Some reviewers made it a point to mention that Senkrah was Tua’s equal in technique but not in good looks.  Ironically, Tua and Senkrah both stopped playing publicly at about the same time.  On September 30, 1884, she made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic with the Vieuxtemps d minor concerto.  On November 13, 1884, she again played with the same orchestra, this time playing the Wieniawski concerto in d minor.  A critic in 1885 mentioned that she overcame any difficulty “with the greatest of ease.”  In the summer of that year, she met Franz Liszt.  She was welcomed into his circle of friends and professional colleagues.  She was 21 years old.  Senkrah and Liszt played Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata (and some of Liszt’s music transcribed for violin and piano) on July 20, 1885.  I do not know whether it was a private or public recital.  Several sources say that Liszt was very fond of her and that they gave many public concerts together.  Her handling of the violin was then described as “incomparable.”  She also undertook several tours of Austria and Hungary with pupils of Franz Liszt.  In 1886, she was in Russia and met Tchaikovsky.  In 1888, she was appointed chamber virtuoso to the court of the Grand Duke (Charles Alexander Augustus John) of Saxony.  Karl Halir was the concertmaster of the Grand Ducal Court Orchestra (in Weimar) at the time.  On September 5, 1900, the New York Times reported that Arma Senkrah had committed suicide the previous day.  Another source gives the date of her suicide as September 3.  She was 36 years old.  Be that as it may, it was accepted as fact that she had indeed committed suicide with a pistol, although it was never confirmed.  In the autumn of 1888, she had met and soon after married a Weimar attorney surnamed Hofmann (or Hoffman) – nobody seems to know his first name.  She had henceforth not played in public.  Some sources say her brief marriage was happy but that she suffered from a disorder of the brain which supposedly rendered her emotionally unstable.  Other sources say her marriage was unhappy because she suspected her husband of infidelity and was chronically and hysterically jealous, which eventually resulted in her ending her life in despair.  One source states that she shot herself through the heart.  Whether it might be true that her husband at one time was infatuated with an actress is anyone’s guess.  One source claims that to be the case.  Senkrah owned a 1685 Stradivarius violin which bears her name.  I do not know who owns it now.  She also played the previously-mentioned Guadagnini.  Her mother was forced to sell both instruments (and perhaps others) when she later became destitute.  

Tijana Milosevic

Tijana Milosevic is a Serbian violinist and teacher born on March 1, 1978.  She is the youngest concertmaster in the history of the Belgrade Philharmonic.  She is also the only concertmaster – and perhaps the only violinist in history – to pose nude for Playboy magazine.  The Belgrade Philharmonic has been described as Serbia’s “cult”orchestra.  Though the orchestra itself is 90 years old, the average age of the 96 musicians is only 35.  When you visit the orchestra’s website, you’ll have an understanding of what makes this orchestra work so well – it is exciting, stimulating, and imaginative.  As Milosevic’s historic and unafraid entry into the pages of Playboy indicate, the orchestra does not shy away from provocative marketing.  In the U.S., Milosevic might have gotten fired for doing something so daring.  
Tijana Milosevic began her violin studies at age 4.  By age 15, she had been admitted into the Belgrade School of Music.  She studied with, among others, violin pedagogue Dejan Mihailovic.  After graduation, she further studied in New York with Dorothy Delay and Lewis Kaplan at the Juilliard School of Music.  Milosevic also participated in master classes with Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Bell.  Soon thereafter and for a brief time she was assistant concertmaster of the Athens Camerata under Neville Marriner, the famous British conductor.  At age 20, she was appointed concertmaster of the Belgrade Philharmonic.  Milosevic has already recorded several CDs and performed with various well-known artists including Maxim Vengerov, Zubin Mehta, Hagai Shaham, Sarah Chang, and Kurt Masur.  
At the time that she appeared on Playboy, Milosevic caused a scandal in the classical music world, even though the nude profile was, in my view, quite artistic.  When pianist Yuja Wang appeared on stage wearing a mini dress (as shown on the bottom photo at left), she caused a scandal too.  But she was on stage, not doing a photo shoot for a fashion or a gentleman’s magazine.  The question arises whether a female concert artist should ever appear in very short and showy attire (or no attire at all) and when and where.  Opinions will vary, of course, but I think Milosevic’s nude pictorial in Playboy is far more appropriate than Yuja Wang’s on the stage since Wang’s short dress is very distracting during performance - Milosevic wears professional concert dress in performance.  It’s an issue about which you will have to decide for yourself.  
Here is one of Milosevic’s YouTube videos of a work for violin and piano by Serbian composer Aleksandra Dokic - it is beautifully played.  Until the very end, one cannot tell that it is a live recording.  Of herself and the orchestra Milosevic says: “I take special pride in my common sense, adamantly standing between the Old Russian School and the Juilliard – the American school.  I am proud of my orchestra and the energy we radiate in our creative trance.”  Her violin is a 1910 Enrico Rocca (1847-1915), a relatively modern violin.  

Wanda Wilkomirska

Wanda Wilkomirska (Jolanta Wanda Wilkomirska) is a Polish violinist and teacher born on January 11, 1929.  She was the first violinist to play at gala concerts of three world famous concert halls; the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall (1955), the Barbican Hall (London-1976) and the Sydney (Australia-1973) Opera House.  Her concertizing career was especially fruitful between 1950 and 1980.  Her website says she is the most famous Polish violinist but that is, of course, a big stretch, considering she is in the company of such luminaries and geniuses as Karol Lipinski, Henryk Wieniawski, Isidor Lotto, Joseph Hassid, Henryk Szeryng, Szymon Goldberg, Samuel Dushkin, Henri Temianka, Paul Kochanski, Richard Burgin, Ida Haendel, Cecylia Arzewski, George Bridgetower, and the incomparable Bronislaw Huberman.  She is, understandably, known for promoting modern Polish music.  She began her studies with her father at age 5.  At age 7, she made her public debut in a recital, playing a Mozart sonata.  I don’t know which sonata.  Subsequently she attended the Lodz Academy of Music in Poland.  Lodz is about 80 miles south of Warsaw.  She graduated in 1947.  She was 18 years old.  I do not know how she was able to elude the Nazis between 1939 and 1945.  There is no mention of that anywhere.  In 1950, she graduated from the Liszt Academy in Budapest.  She then studied with Henryk Szeryng for three months in Paris.  In 1952, she competed in the Wieniawski violin competition and took second prize.  She was 23 years old.  Her concertizing career began more or less at about that time and she subsequently went on to play around the world with all the major orchestras and conductors.  On August 22, 1959, she played Paganini’s first concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic.  On October 15, 1960, she again soloed with the philharmonic playing the Mendelssohn concerto – none other than Paul Hindemith was on the podium.  On October 22, 1962, she played the Mendelssohn concerto (the one in e minor) with the Chicago Symphony - the performance took place in Milwaukee.  On September 15 through September 20, 1977, she made her first and last appearances with the New York Philharmonic playing the second concerto of Shostakovich.  Erich Leinsdorf conducted.  She was 48 years old.  In 1982, Wilkomirska decided to settle in (West) Germany, where she began to teach at the Advanced Music School in Heidelberg in 1983.  However, as do practically all concert artists who take teaching posts, she continued to concertize.  In 1999, she settled in Australia, where she has lived ever since.  Wilkomirska has been teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music since that time and has also taught at the Australian Academy of Music in Melbourne, although she no longer teaches at either school.  She has been a member of the jury at various violin competitions and has played chamber music concerts with other artists many times.  Among other premieres, Wilkomirska has given the premieres of the violin concertos numbers 5 and 7 by Grazyna Bacewicz.  Here is a You Tube posting of one of her performances.  Her recordings can be easily found on the internet.  Her record labels have included Naxos, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Philips, and Polskie Nagrania.  Wiłkomirska performs on a 1734 Pietro Guarneri violin.  She also played a violin for some twenty years which four well-known appraisers (Bein, Beare, Kass, and Rosengard) have said is a fake – a 1740 Domenico Montagnana.  The violin was owned by the Polish government before being sold to Herbert Axelrod who sold it to the New Jersey Symphony in 2003.  The violin had already passed through the hands of Dietmar Machold, the now infamous violin dealer who is in jail for defrauding violin buyers and sellers and banks.  He issued a certificate back in 2002 which assigned a value of $750,000 to the violin.  Experts have said it is likely worth about $25,000.