Charles Munch

Charles Munch was a French violinist, conductor, and teacher born (in Strasbourg, when it was German territory) on September 26, 1891.  Today, nobody remembers him as a violinist.  Although he conducted many great orchestras, he is best known for his tenure at the Boston Symphony, from 1949 to 1962.  He first studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory (inaugurated in 1855.)  His first job as a violinist was in an orchestra conducted by his father (an organist), playing in the second violin section.  In 1912, at age 20, he graduated from the conservatory and moved on to Berlin for further study with Carl Flesch.  He also studied with Lucien Capet at the Paris Conservatory.  In 1920, he was appointed professor of violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory while he was also playing as assistant concertmaster of the Strasbourg Philharmonic.  He was 29 years old.  Later on, he was concertmaster of the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne.  (The Gurzenich Orchestra is really not to be trifled with.  It played the world premieres of Brahms’ Double Concerto (1887), Strauss’ Till (1895), Strauss’ Don Quixote (1898), Mahler’s Third Symphony (1902), Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1904), and Max Reger’s Variations (1907.)  He then served as concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (1926 to 1933) under Bruno Walter.  In 1933, he left Germany for Paris.  He had already made his conducting debut there in November, 1932.  He was 41 years old at the time of his debut.  As far as I know, after 1933, he never again touched the violin in public.  In 1938, he helped found the Paris Philharmonic.  He had already begun teaching conducting at the Paris Conservatory (1937-1945.)  During the war years (1939-1945), he conducted the Paris Conservatory Orchestra.  For this, he was later accused of being a Nazi collaborator, though the charge did not stick.  The Boston Symphony he first conducted in December, 1946.  His legacy with the Boston Symphony is well-known and documented in dozens of recordings.  Heifetz recorded the Beethoven concerto with Munch and the Boston Symphony in November of 1955.  I don’t think Heifetz recorded it ever again.  If Munch ever recorded anything as a violinist I don’t know where that recording might be found.  After 1962, Munch conducted European orchestras and guest conducted all over the world.  He once owned (from 1925 to 1960) a violin which had been stolen from Eugene Ysaye in Russia - a 1734 Stradivarius - which had been earlier played by Hugo Heermann.  That violin ended up with Henryk Szeryng who left it to the City of Jerusalem who then let the Israel Philharmonic borrow it.  He died on November 6, 1968, in Richmond, Virginia, at age 77.  Here is one of his many YouTube videos. 

Lucien Capet

Lucien Capet (Lucien Louis Capet) was a French violinist, teacher, and composer born on January 8, 1873 (Brahms was 40 years old.)  He is remembered for his book on bow technique, Superior Bowing Technique (1916), and for being the teacher of Ivan Galamian, Jascha Brodsky, Charles Munch, and Mario Dias de Figueiredo.  In fact, thanks to Capet, Galamian emphasized bow technique over most everything else.  I do not know who his teachers were when he was a child but he later studied at the Paris Conservatory where he was a pupil of someone named Morin (J.P. Maurin.)  He appeared as soloist with many French orchestras, but especially the Lamoureux Orchestra, of which he was concertmaster from 1896 to 1899.  Capet had been supporting himself by playing in dance halls and cafes since he was fifteen years old.  From 1899 to 1903, he taught at the Society of Saint Cecilia School.  It has been said that he studied the Brahms concerto for seven years before playing it in public.  With Henri Casadesus on viola and Marcel Casadesus on cello (uncles of pianist Robert Casadesus) he formed the Capet Quartet in 1893.  In 1924, Capet and fellow violinist Suzanne Chaigneau founded the Modern Violin Institute.  Between 1925 and 1930, after several changes in personnel, the Capet Quartet recorded at least 12 quartets – 5 of them by Beethoven and the others by Mozart, Haydn, Ravel, Debussy, Schumann, Franck, and Schubert.  Josef Gingold heard the quartet perform in Brussels in 1928 and many years later said that it was the greatest string quartet concert he had ever heard.  It was an all-Beethoven program.  There is an audio file on YouTube of the Capet Quartet playing Mozart.  Capet also wrote three string quartets which are now completely forgotten.  He died on December 18, 1928, at age 55. 

Jaap van Zweden

Jaap van Zweden is a Dutch violinist and conductor born on December 12, 1960 (Perlman was 14 years old.) His father was one of his first teachers in Amsterdam. In the U.S., while still a teenager, he studied with Dorothy Delay at Juilliard. In 1979 (at age 19), he was appointed concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the youngest to ever hold that position. He left the Concertgebouw in 1995 and gradually moved toward a conducting career - Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Eugene Ormandy, Theodore Thomas, Alan Gilbert, and David Zinman were also highly accomplished violinists who became conductors. Van Zweden became a full-time conductor in 1997, his post with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra being one of his first (1997-2000.) In 2005, he became the chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and will also lead the Dallas Symphony (from 2008) until 2012. In addition, he will simultaneously lead the Royal Flemish Orchestra (Belgium.) I do not know if he even still plays the violin. However, here is proof that he was indeed a virtuoso violinist at one time.