Lola Bobesco (Lola
Violeta Ana Maria Bobesco) was a Romanian violinist born (in Craiova, Romania)
on August 9, 1921. She spent most of her
career in Europe and many of those years were spent in Belgium, which is why Bobesco
is frequently referred to as a Belgian violinist. She initially studied with her father, a
noted composer and conductor. At age 6,
she gave her first public recital. From
1928 to 1935, she studied at the Normal School of Music in Paris. Her main teacher there was Marcel Chailley, a
well-known violinist of the time. She
almost simultaneously studied at the Paris Conservatory from 1931 to 1935, with
Jules Boucherit. She also studied
privately with George Enesco and Jacques Thibaud. She apparently made her orchestral debut in
Paris in 1936 with the (Edouard) Colonne Orchestra with Paul Paray
conducting. Paray would later become
chief conductor of the Detroit Symphony, when Detroit was in its prime. It was an unusual debut in that she performed
not a concerto from the standard repertoire but a work by a now-obscure
Romanian composer, Stan Golestan. She
was 17 years old. The next year, she won
seventh prize in the Queen Elizabeth (Eugene Ysaye) violin competition – David
Oistrakh came in first. After that, she
returned to Romania and established a career in Bucharest. On January 17, 1960 she made her first appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic, playing the Brahms concerto, She was 38 years old. She performed with most of the major European
orchestras, including the Concertgebouw, the London Philharmonic, and the
Berlin Philharmonic, under conductors famous at the time, including Rudolph
Kempe, Ernest Ansermet, Karl Bohm, and Otto Klemperer. Having relocated to Belgium in her early
thirties, from 1958 to 1978, she led the Royal Wallonia Chamber Orchestra in Mons,
Belgium. Mons is situated about 30 miles
south of Brussels. She was also violin
professor at the Brussels Conservatory. From
1962 to 1974, she taught at the Liege Conservatory. In 1990, she founded a string quartet as well
– the Arte Del Suono Quartet. She was 69
years old. You can hear how this quartet
sounds here and – I predict - you will most certainly be (pleasantly)
surprised. She recorded quite a bit for
various labels and those recordings – mostly standard violin sonatas and
concertos – are available and easily found on the internet. Her violin, among others, was a 1754 GB
Guadagnini. Bobesco died (in Spa,
Belgium) on September 4, 2003, at age 82, largely forgotten.
Edouard Colonne (Edouard Juda Colonne) was a French
violinist and conductor born (in Bordeaux) on July 23, 1838. He is best recognized as the founder
(actually, co-founder) of the Concerts Colonne and what became known as the
Colonne Orchestra in Paris, in 1873. He
was an orchestral violinist for at least ten years but is now almost
exclusively remembered as a conductor and concert promoter, in the style of
Theodore Thomas. He began his music
studies at age 8, but not on the violin.
He entered the Paris Conservatory at about age 17 but did not study with
any famous teachers there. While going
to school, he played in the orchestra of the Lyric Theatre. In 1863 he won first prize for his violin
playing and had already (in 1858) won first prize in harmony. He was engaged as concertmaster for the Paris
Opera orchestra in 1858 – he was 20 years old.
He also played second violin in the Lamoureux Quartet at the same time –
Charles Lamoureux played first violin. Possibly
(actually, very probably) simultaneously, he also played in Jules Pasdeloup’s
orchestra. In 1867, he came to New York
to play in an orchestra for a newly founded comic opera company; while in New
York, Colonne later led an ensemble called Niblo’s Garden Orchestra which until
now I had never heard of. He returned to
Paris in 1871 and conducted a hotel orchestra for a while. In 1873, he founded – together with a music
publisher – the orchestra that would become the Colonne Orchestra. His concerts became known as the Concerts
Colonne. This name was used until the
1960s – about ninety years. At first,
the orchestra presented its concerts at the Odeon Theatre and later at the
Theatre of the Chatelet. Colonne was
known to champion the music of Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler,
and Camille Saint Saens. It has been
said that Pierre Monteux was Principal violist of the Colonne Orchestra. Other famous players who played in his
orchestra for a time were Julius Conus and Jacques Thibaud. Colonne gave the Paris premiere of
Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony in 1878, the year it was completed. The orchestra toured Spain, Russia, Portugal,
Germany, and England. Among the musical luminaries who conducted the orchestra in performances of their own works were Serge Prokofiev, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Peter Tchaikovsky, Claude Debussy, Edvard Grieg, and Maurice Ravel. In 1892, Colonne became
conductor and adviser at the Paris Opera.
He was 54 years old. In 1907 (one
source says 1906), he was one of the first to record with an orchestra. It has been said that he was hard on his
players. Colonne was a pioneer in that
his program books were the first to include program notes. Perhaps they included advertisements as well
though I’m not at all sure about that. He
died (in Paris) on March 28, 1910, at age 71.
Julius Conus (Juli Eduardowitsch Conyus or Konius) was a French violinist and composer born on February 1, 1869 (Brahms was 36 years old.) He was actually born in Moscow since his family had migrated to Russia in the early 1800s. Today, he is remembered for his violin concerto in e minor, although he wrote other music, though not much. He studied violin with Jean (Jan) Hrimaly (a Czech violinist) at the Moscow Conservatory and received the gold medal in 1888. At the same time, he studied composition with Tchaikovsky. Afterward, he studied in Paris (with Joseph Lambert Massart) and played in the opera orchestra and in Edouard Colonne's Orchestra as well. He was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic from 1891 until 1893. He returned to Moscow in 1893 to teach at the Conservatory, concertize as a soloist, and play in chamber music ensembles. One of his students was Ivan Galamian. He premiered his popular violin concerto in 1898. He had been working on it since 1896 and he dedicated it to his teacher, Jean Hrimaly. Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz both championed the concerto, though critics never liked it. Conus moved out of Russia again in 1919, establishing himself in Paris and teaching at the Russian Conservatory there until 1939. In that year, Conus returned to Moscow where he lived out the rest of his life. He was 70 years old. It has been said that the Russian government refused him an exit visa and starved him to death because he refused to join the Communist Party, putting out a decree that anyone helping him by offering him food or shelter would be imprisoned. He supposedly died on the streets of Moscow on January 3, 1942, at age 73. Nobody intervened to save him - however, all of this is hard to believe because he was still a French citizen when he died.
Jacques Thibaud was a French violinist born on September 27, 1880 (Brahms was 47 years old.) After studying with his father, he entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 13, studying with Martin Marsick, among others. Upon graduation in 1896, he shared first prize in violin with Pierre Monteux (who later dedicated his life to conducting.) At first, in order to just make a living, he played in the Cafe Rouge in Paris. The French conductor, Edouard Colonne, heard him playing there and offered Thibaud a position in his orchestra. In 1898, he made his debut with this orchestra and subsequently enjoyed great success as a soloist in Europe and everywhere else. This episode mirrors that of another famous violinist who was discovered playing in an Italian Cafe by Toscanini – Vasa Prihoda. (Albert Sammons was also discovered in similar fashion by Thomas Beecham.) In any case, Thibaud made his first tour of the U.S. in 1903 and thereafter came often. He was in the French armed forces during World War One (1914) and suffered injuries which required him to rebuild his technique. With his two brothers (a pianist and a cellist), he also formed a piano trio. Later, he disbanded the brothers’ trio in order to join Pablo Casals and Alfred Cortot in another trio (1930-1935.) Eugene Ysaye dedicated his second unaccompanied violin sonata to him. In 1943, with pianist Marguerite Long, he established the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Competition for violinists and pianists. His recordings are (understandably) few but they are now collectors’ items. He had a habit of holding his violin pointing downward although that did not detract from the technique or the sound. There are even a few videos of him playing on YouTube – from filming done in the 1930s. Here is one of them. Thibaud died on September 1, 1953 in an airplane crash in the French Alps. He was 72. His fellow French concert violinist, Ginette Neveu, had earlier died in a plane crash as well (1949 - at age 30.) Thibaud owned the 1716 Colossus Stradivarius violin which was stolen in 1998. It has been missing ever since.
Ginette Neveu was a French violinist born on August 11, 1919 (Heifetz was 18 years old.) She was considered one of the greatest of her time, despite a career that was cut short. Neveu was a child prodigy whose first teacher – at age 5 - was her mother, an accomplished violinist. She made her debut at age 7 in Paris with the Colonne Orchestra (at the Sorbonne Amphitheatre.) Further study at the Paris Conservatory, with George Enesco, and with Carl Flesch, completed her training. She is remembered for having beaten David Oistrakh (who came in second) when competing for the top prize at the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in 1934. She was 15 years old. After that, except for the interval during World War Two, during which she did some recording, she never stopped concertizing. She toured the U.S., Australia, Russia, Poland, Germany, South America, and Canada. Her London debut, however, did not come until 1945. Her brother, Jean-Paul Neveu, was often her accompanist. Her favorite composers were Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. It is said she possessed an intense, powerful sound. There are several videos of her playing on YouTube. Her last concert, at which she played the Sibelius violin concerto, was with the Halle Orchestra – October 20, 1949. A week later, en route to the U.S., Neveu, age 30, died in a devastating plane crash, October 27, 1949. Her brother was with her.
