Adolfo Betti

Adolfo Betti was an Italian violinist, teacher, and music editor born (in Bagni Di Lucca, Italy) on March 21, 1875.  (Bagni Di Lucca is a small village in Tuscany, Italy - it is situated about 30 miles northwest of Florence and about 70 miles south of Cremona.)  He is known for leading, as first violinist, the Flonzaley Quartet from 1903 to 1929.  In its first few years, he and second violinist, Alfred Pochon, actually alternated playing first violin.  Two other quartets who used to or still do this are the Emerson and the Jacobsohn string quartets.  The Flonzaley quartet was one of two very famous (and important) American string quartets playing in the early twentieth century - the other was the Kneisel Quartet.  Interestingly, its founder was not a professional musician.  He was philanthropist Edward J. De Coppet.  The quartet was actually named for De Coppet’s summer home near Geneva, Switzerland.  Although I have no idea who Betti’s early teachers were, I do know he made his public debut as a child of either six or seven - accounts vary.  He entered the Liege Conservatory (Belgium) in 1892.  There, he studied with Cesar Thomson.  He graduated in 1896, at age 21.  Thereafter, he concertized in Europe.  In 1900, he was appointed assistant to his former teacher (Thomson) at the Brussels Conservatory.  In 1903, he was invited, by Alfred Pochon, to become part of the Flonzaley Quartet.  Pochon was also teaching at the Brussels Conservatory at the time.  Betti was 28 years old.  After the quartet disbanded, Betti spent his time between New York and his birthplace, teaching, editing music, and playing occasionally.  The public library in Bagni Di Lucca is named after him.  According to one source, he was even mayor of Bagni Di Lucca for a while.  In New York, Betti taught at the Mannes College of Music.  He played, among other violins, a 1782 J.B. Guadagnini and a 1741 Guarnerius Del Gesu.  I don’t know who owns or plays those violins today.  One of his better known students was David Nadien, who very recently passed away.  Betti died on December 2, 1950, at age 75. 

Lucien Martin

Lucien Martin was a Canadian violinist, conductor, and composer born (in Montreal) on May 30, 1908.  He had a brief concertizing career and later worked as an orchestral player, though not a concertmaster.  That, in itself, is unusual.  His first lessons were with his father, who was also a violin maker.  He began playing in public at age 7.  At age 9 he had already earned a gold medal from the National Conservatory in Montreal at which he had been enrolled for two years.  His teachers were Albert Chamberland (1917-1920), Alfred De Seve (1920-1923), and Camille Couture (1923-1925) – Camille Couture was also a highly respected violin maker who had made copies of the violins used by Jacques Thibaud, Eugene Ysaye, Jan Kubelik, and Adolfo Betti.  Martin began playing professionally - concertizing, mostly in the U.S. - in 1925.  He was 17 years old.  From 1928 he continued his studies with Couture for about a year.  He then went to Paris to study with Maurice Hayot at the Normal School for Music (Ecole Normale de Musique), not to be confused with the Paris Conservatory.  In 1933, after receiving his “license” in the art of violin performance, Martin returned to Canada and gave several recitals here and there.  He became a member (first violin section) of the Montreal Symphony in 1935.  He performed Bruch’s first concerto with that orchestra on February 4, 1935.  In 1936, he again traveled to Paris for further study with George Enesco.  Martin returned to Montreal in 1937 – Enesco left Paris to conduct the New York Philharmonic for a couple of years beginning in 1937.  After that, Martin played second violin in the Dubois String Quartet for a year – unfortunately, the quartet was disbanded in 1938, when the founding member died.  Martin was then 30 years old.  In the late 1930s and early 1940s Martin played for numerous radio broadcasts.  I do not know if recordings of those broadcasts were made and are archived somewhere.  He also conducted several concerts at about the same time.  Only one of his compositions – a song - was published during his lifetime.  A popular source which is often very unreliable says that Martin owned a 1769 Ferdinando Gagliano violin from 1972 to 1982, which is, of course, impossible.  None of the sources I found mentioned whether Martin ever taught violin anywhere.  On October 29, 1950, Lucien Martin died.  He was 42 years old.  

Cesar Thomson

Cesar Thomson was a Belgian violinist, teacher, arranger, and composer born (in Liege, Belgium) on March 18, 1857.  Although he was considered a brilliant violinist in his time, he is now remembered more for his teaching.  He began violin lessons with his father at age 5 or 6.  By age 7 he had entered the Liege Conservatory where he studied with Jacques Dupuis, a very strict teacher.  (Liege is about 50 miles east of Brussels, Belgium.)  He also studied with Rodolphe Massart and Desire Heynberg, who also taught Eugene Ysaye.  According to Grove’s Dictionary, it was said that Thomson, by age 16, had a technique unrivalled by any other living violinist – the year was 1873, so that is saying quite a lot.  Take it with a grain of salt.  Thomson later studied additionally with Hubert Leonard, Henryk Wieniawski, and Henri Vieuxtemps.  If he was already a superlative, pre-eminent violinist, it is hard to imagine what it was they taught him.  In 1873, he became concertmaster of a private orchestra (in Switzerland) at the service of Paul von Derwies, a Russian banker, railroad industrialist, and serious patron of the arts.  Thomson stayed for four years and during the interim, married into the nobility.  By 1879, he was assistant concertmaster of Benjamin Bilse’s Band in Berlin, where Eugene Ysaye was the concertmaster.  Thomson was barely 22 years old - Ysaye was 21.  A few years later, this orchestra would become the Berlin Philharmonic, but not under the direction of Benjamin Bilse.  One source clearly states that Thomson was concertmaster of the Bilse Band but that may be due to a tradition in German orchestras of having two or more concertmasters, making no distinction between two or three leaders in the same position.  By 1882, Thomson was back where he started, in Liege, teaching at the Liege Conservatory.  In 1897, he took over for Eugene Ysaye at the Brussels Conservatory.  He was 40 years old.  A year later, he formed a string quartet.  Many sources state that Thomson was austere and cerebral in his approach to music - he can perhaps be compared to Joseph Szigeti.  A review of his first concert in New York City on October 30, 1894, stated the following: “His treatment of the Bruch concerto [in d minor] proved him to be a player of substantial force, but it revealed no influential emotional power.  It was dignified, well-considered, and thoughtful.  Mr. Thomson may be classed with the scholarly players who interest the mind rather than overwhelm the heart.”  On November 9, 1894, he played one of the violin concertos of Leopold Damrosch with the New York Symphony, Walter Damrosch conducting.  That concerto has probably not been heard from since, but that I do not know for sure.  Thomson toured a great deal in Europe, South America, and the U.S.  Between 1924 and 1927, he taught at Ithaca College (New York) and at Juilliard as well.  Students came from faraway places to study with him.  Among Thomson’s pupils are Haydn Wood, Johan Halvorsen (famous for his Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia for violin and viola), Paul Kochanski, Adolfo Betti, Antoinette Zoellner, Joseph Zoellner, Alma Moodie (Carl Flesch’s favorite pupil), Aylmer Buesst, Edwin Grasse (blind violinist and composer), Hugo Alfven, and Guillermo Uribe Holguin (founder of the National Symphony of Colombia.)  Thomson edited, arranged, and transcribed music by Arcangelo Corelli, George Frederick Handel, Giuseppe Tartini, J.S. Bach, Pietro Nardini, and Vitali – I don’t know which of the Vitalis.  Among his own works is a Gypsy Rhapsody for violin but I don’t know if it has been recorded or even published.  He played a G.B. Guadagnini violin (1780), a Santo Serafin (constructed in 1740 – later owned for many years by Zino Francescatti), Giuseppe Guarneri (1703, auctioned in late 1990s for about $400,000), and an Andrea Guarneri violin (1650) which ended up in a museum.  Thomson died (in Bissone, Switzerland) on August 21, 1931, at age 74.  In Liege, a street is named after him.   

David Nadien

David Nadien is an American violinist and teacher born (in Brooklyn, New York) on March 12, 1926 (Heifetz was 25 years old.)  He is best known (perhaps somewhat unjustly) for his recordings for the Suzuki Violin School.  He began his violin studies as a child and his father (a bantamweight champion boxer) was his first teacher.  He also studied with Adolfo Betti (Mannes School of Music) while very young and moved on to Ivan Galamian (Juilliard) and Adolph Busch later on.  In 1938-1939 he studied in Italy with Betti.  He returned to the U.S. after war broke out in Europe and made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in 1940, at age 14.  Four years later, having been drafted, he was playing in the Armed Services Orchestra.  Two years after that he won the Leventritt Award (1946 – for this, some give credit to Arturo Toscanini and others to George Szell.)  He concertized for a while after that but soon settled into a career which involved lots of studio work (and, in fact, he even became a contractor, hiring studio musicians of very high caliber to play for recording sessions.)  Nadien is said to be one of the best sight readers in the world, a skill which is invaluable for studio work.  (Franz Clement was also phenomenally gifted when it came to sight reading.)  A persistent rumor has it that Isaac Stern was able to shut down Nadien’s concertizing career, though the rumor might be baseless.  In February of 1966, Nadien auditioned (having received an invitation to audition) for the concertmaster’s position in the New York Philharmonic, of which Leonard Bernstein was then chief conductor.  It has been said that he easily beat Joseph Silverstein (of the Boston Symphony) and 40 other candidates.  He had never played in a major symphony orchestra before.  Upon accepting the job of concertmaster, his annual income actually decreased.  Very soon into his first season with the orchestra, on October 8, 1966, Nadien played the Tchaikovsky concerto as the orchestra's guest artist to great (and memorable) acclaim and subsequently soloed with the philharmonic on several occasions.  The New York Times said: “Mr. Nadien’s style, tone, and technique are perfect.”  Many have said that his vibrato and sound (“pure, silken, suave, razor-sharp and rhythmically-driven”) are unique and that at least some of his vibrato actually emanates from his fingertips, very much like Mischa Elman’s.  (Coincidentally, as was Mischa Elman, Nadien is also of very short stature.)  It is highly interesting that Oistrakh and Menuhin are among those who sought Nadien out for advice on technique at that time.  He left the Philharmonic job in 1970 and returned to studio work, solo appearances, and teaching.  One of his outstanding performances after that took place at New York’s Town Hall on January 17, 1973.  His discography (outside of the anonymous world of the recording studio) is small but includes the Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Glazunov concertos, apart from several miscellaneous violin works (Zigeunerweisen, Havanaise, Tzigane, etc.), all of them available on the internet.  There are a few videos of his playing on YouTube.  A reviewer has stated that Nadien “has by now gleaned a cult-like status among cognoscenti who savor marvelous fiddlers.”  An interview of him on DVD is also available.  He was on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music for many years but is no longer there even though he might be teaching privately.  Nadien’s violin was a Guarneri del Gesu but I don’t know if he still owns it.