Uto Ughi is an
Italian violinist, teacher, writer, and conductor born (in Busto Arsizio) on
January 21, 1944. His name has been
closely associated with the National Academy of Saint Cecilia (in Rome) for
many years. He is a high-profile
promoter of musical culture all over the world, but especially in Italy, as is
Vladimir Spivakov in Russia. Ughi has
founded several music festivals along the way.
His discography covers most of the standard violin repertoire. Because he came of age in the 1960s, he has had
a chance to work with some of the legendary names in the conducting world (who
are for the most part now dead) as well as the most current luminaries of the
baton. He began his lessons at age 4. His father was an amateur violinist but his
first formal teacher was a nameless violinist from the opera orchestra of La
Scala. At age 7, Ughi gave his first
recital in Milan. Though it’s hard to
believe, according to one source, he played some Paganini Caprices as well as
the ubiquitous Bach Chaconne at that recital.
Ughi studied for ten years at the Chigiana Music Academy in Siena
(Tuscany.) He also took lessons from
George Enesco for a time. He began his
uninterrupted concertizing career in 1959 – he was 15 years old. Among his pupils are Augustin Hadelich and
Sayaka Shoji. Ughi’s recording of
Paganini’s fourth concerto is my favorite recording of that particular concerto. Here is a YouTube video of one of his
performances. He has also recorded a
seldom-played work – the Schumann concerto.
Here is the first movement from that recording - the second and third
movements are here. Between 1987 and
1992, he was the principal conductor of the Orchestra of the St Cecilia
Academy. Ughi has owned or played the
Kreutzer Stradivarius (the one from 1701 – there are 4 Strads named Kreutzer),
the General Kyd, the Ole Bull, and a Guarneri from 1744.
Augustin Hadelich is a German violinist born (in Cecina, Italy) on April
4, 1984. He is best known for a very
fast rise to stardom after winning the Indianapolis Violin Competition in
2006. It was virtually a clean sweep of
the competition since he also won special awards for the best performance in
the following categories: Romantic concerto, Classical concerto, Beethoven
sonata, Bach work, commissioned work, encore piece, Paganini caprice, and
sonata other than Beethoven. His reviews
have been full of superlatives since the beginning of his career and,
understandably, he has already appeared with most of the world’s top
orchestras. He soloed with the New York
Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall in New York on October 18, 2012, playing the
Symphonie Espagnol by Edouard Lalo. He
had three times previously played with this orchestra, though not in New
York. He is not yet 29 years old. Hadelich began his violin studies at age 5 with
his father, a farmer who is also a cellist.
At the time, the family was living in Riparbella, Italy (in Tuscany –
Riparbella is about 30 miles south of Florence.) From about age 7, he studied (sporadically)
with, among other teachers, Uto Ughi in Siena for a few years. He eventually ended up in the Istituto
Mascagni in Livorno (Italy) from which he graduated. He was playing recitals in Europe during
this time, too. Later on, in Berlin, he
studied at the Academy of Music. From
there he came to the U.S and enrolled at Juilliard, studying with Joel
Smirnoff. Hadelich graduated from
Juilliard in 2007, a year after he won the Indianapolis competition. His discography is small but, by all
accounts, brilliant. He has recorded all
of Haydn’s violin concertos and Telemann’s fantasias for violin - rarely-heard
works. He also sometimes writes his own
cadenzas, something that few contemporary violinists do. Hadelich currently plays the Kiesewetter
Stradivarius (1723) but previously played the 1683 Gingold Stradivarius. One of his many YouTube videos is here. And here is another – yes, he is that
good!
