Robert Schumann quote

“If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble.  Therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.”  Robert Schumann, pianist-composer   

Schumann had the right idea. Throughout history, the orchestra has supported innumerable musicians of considerable talent. Many orchestral players have gone ahead to forge great music careers after leaving the orchestra. Those players include Israel Baker, Max Bendix, Elias Breeskin, Pablo Casals, Carmine Coppola, Joseph Joachim, Louis Spohr, Heimo Haitto, Neville Marriner, Frank Miller, Charles Munch, Eugene Ormandy,  Arturo Toscanini, Janos Starker, Roberto Diaz, Mischa Elman, Zino Francescatti, Leonard Rose, Joseph Fuchs, Milton Katims, William Primrose, Josef Gingold, Daniel Guilet, Alan Gilbert, Felix Galimir, Orlando Barera, Mischa Mischakoff, Louis Persinger, Andor Toth, Gerard Schwarz, Oscar Shumsky, Peter Stolyarski, Theodore Thomas, Lynn Harrell, Jaap Van Zweden, Emanuel Vardi, Tossy Spivakovsky, and Eugene Ysaye.  You never know if you'll be sharing a stand with the  next Mischa Elman, Alan Gilbert, or Arturo Toscanini.  

Heimo Haitto

Heimo Haitto was a Finnish violinist, teacher, conductor, writer, and actor born (in Viipuri, Finland) on May 22, 1925.  He is Finland’s most famous violinist, although he is now (unjustly) forgotten.  Haitto was a notorious, unconventional classical musician, in the style of Nicolo Paganini, Arthur Hartman, Elias Breeskin, and Eugene Fodor.  He was a gambler and loved drinking, although it has been said he was not an alcoholic.  He deliberately turned his concertizing career off a couple of times.  For a time, he actually lived the life of a vagabond, being literally homeless, traveling by train, in boxcars.  However, notwithstanding all of the turmoil, idiosyncrasies, romantic excesses, and bohemian lifestyle, he was a brilliant violinist and a genuine artist.  I think it can be said he had an extraordinary zest for life.  YouTube now contains some of his performances.  As Pinchas Zukerman has done, Haitto married a cellist (Beverly LeBeck, pupil of Pablo Casals) and, later on, an actress (Marja-Liisa Nisula.)  He married a third time in the mid 1970s.  Haitto’s playing style reminds me somewhat of Ivry Gitlis.  Haitto wrote his memoirs in the early 1970s (Heimo Haitto Maailmalla - published in 1976) but I don’t think there’s an English translation available.  He also published a book on his violin playing experiences in 1994 - Viuluniakka Kulkurina.  Although his father worked for the railroad, he was also a violinist and gave Haitto his first lessons, beginning at age 5.  At age 9, Haitto’s father took him to the Vyborg Music Academy and left him entirely in the care of professor Boris Sirpo (1893-1967.)  (Vyborg and Viipuri are one and the same city.)  Under Sirpo’s tough and rigid supervision, Haitto practiced almost constantly.  At age 13, Haitto made his public debut in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic and Sirpo on the podium.  He also appeared in his first movie – Soldier’s Bride – playing the part of a boy violinist.  In that same year he won an international violin competition sponsored by the British Council of Music in London and soon after briefly toured the Scandinavian countries.  In that year also, due to the Russian-Finnish war, Sirpo brought Haitto to the U.S. to tour on behalf of the Red Cross.  In fact, Haitto's Guarnerius had been destroyed in an air raid.  By then, Haitto had already been studying rigorously under Sirpo’s very strict tutelage for five years.  According to some sources, Haitto was not allowed to have contact with his family during those years.  Arriving in the U.S. in February of 1940, Haitto appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra in April of that year, playing the Paganini D major concerto.  That was his U.S. debut.  He also soloed with many other American orchestras.  He played in Carnegie Hall under John Barbirolli as well.  Eventually, accompanied by Sirpo, he settled in Portland, Oregon in 1942.  Most European artists arriving in the U.S in those years chose to begin their American careers from home bases in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or even Chicago, but not Haitto.  In 1943, Haitto was released by his strict teacher and set out on his own.  He then settled in Los Angeles.  There, he played in the Los Angeles Philharmonic (September/1952 to May/1954) and in Hollywood studio orchestras but appeared far and wide as a soloist as well.  He was 18 years old.  He also appeared in another movie: There is Magic in Music.  That's the same movie that violinist Patricia Travers appeared in as a very young teenager. One source says he enlisted in the military but another says he was not accepted because he was foreign-born.  In actuality, he desired to be a parachutist in the Marine Corps but his enlistment was declined, even though he had a letter of recommendation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Instead, he was made a part of the Army Special Services.  That's how he ended up in New York.  Among the group that was in that Special Services Unit with Haitto were Ruggiero Ricci, Red Skelton, Mickey Rooney, and Eddie Fisher.  In New York, he studied privately with Ivan Galamian, famous teacher at Juilliard.  Haitto and Isaac Stern became friends there during this time - Stern was studying with Louis Persinger.  With five other violinists, Haitto performed Paganini's 24 Caprices, each Caprice being alternately played by each violinist until all five played together at the end.  Later, in Los Angeles, Haitto became friends with Jascha Heifetz and was a guest at Heifetz' house many times.  Haitto had married Beverly LeBeck in New York in the spring of 1945.  He was 20 years old.  His new wife later (like him) became a cellist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic - 1949-1950 and, again, 1954-1955.  Evidently, they did not play in the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the same time.  Brilliant as he was, Haitto was dismissed from the orchestra due to excessive absences and other problems.  It has been reported that he loved to go to Las Vegas and gambled heavily.  During the 1950s, he concertized and became the conductor of an orchestra in Salem, Oregon.  Haitto and Beverly moved to Seattle after Beverly left the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  He eventually became the concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony and also conducted a youth orchestra at the Cornish School of Arts in Seattle.  The third photo (circa 1955) shows Beverly and Haitto in the kitchen of the home of a close friend in Seattle.  The photo is courtesy of Mr Ed Vainio, now a resident of Montana (USA), in whose parents' home the photo was taken.  Haitto visited Finland in 1948 and again in 1956.  He moved to Mexico City and lived there (with Beverly LeBeck) between 1960 and 1962, serving as concertmaster of an orchestra, but I don’t know which orchestra.  At the time, there were four professional orchestras in the city.  In 1962, Beverly LeBeck began playing in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (New York.)  Haitto spent the years between 1963 and 1965 in Finland.  After divorcing LeBeck, he married Marja-Liisa Nisula (the actress) in 1964 but divorced her 2 years later.  From 1965 to about 1976, he was a vagabond (in the U.S.) and even spent some time in jail.  In 1976, Haitto returned to Finland permanently and began to practice again.  He was 51 years old.  He also remarried (Eva Vastari this time) in that year and, six months later, he was ready to play again.  Vastari had been a journalist.  In childhood he had played a Guarnerius violin but in adulthood I don’t know what he played.  He actually built two (red) violins which he used for performances and recordings.  Those violins now hang in Haitto's favorite restaurant in Helsinki - Tin Tin Tango.   Vastari and Haitto formed a duo.  She read poetry and he played.  He also did some teaching and lecturing at the Lahti Conservatory and other schools.  They finally settled in Marbella, Spain.  The photo shows him playing dominoes there.  Haitto fell ill in 1995 and died on June 10, 1999, at age 74.  Haitto made several commercial recordings which are still available, though they are not easy to find; however, his recording of the Sibelius concerto (along with Six Humoresques which Sibelius wrote as Opus 87 and Opus 89) can be found here.  Finlandia Classics has also released Haitto's recording of the Paganini concerto (number 1) and the Vieuxtemps concerto (number 4) - that release can be found here.  He also recorded for Finnish National Radio (YLE) broadcasts -  those recordings might not be available.  You can hear his unique style of playing here and here.  Most of Heimo Haitto's video and audio files can be found on this Channel - it is Tuomas Haitto's YouTube channel - Tuomas Haitto is Heimo Haitto's nephew.  

Franz Kneisel

Franz Kneisel was a German (some would say American or Romanian) violinist, conductor, composer, and teacher born (in Bucharest) on January 26, 1865.  He is known for having taught for many years at the Institute of Musical Arts (Juilliard) and for having led the famous Kneisel Quartet for more than thirty years (1886-1917.)  Together with Theodore Thomas, Max Bendix, Simon Jacobsohn, Theodore Spiering, Ferdinand Laub, and Hans Letz, he was a violinist who set the groundwork for the establishment of classical music as a viable and serious art in the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century.  In Europe, that tradition had already been in motion and thriving for over 200 years.  Kneisel graduated from the Bucharest Conservatory in 1879, at age 14.  In Vienna, he studied with Jacob Grun and Joseph Hellmesberger at the Vienna Conservatory for three years.  In 1882, he made his debut in Vienna.  He then soon became concertmaster of the Hofburg Theatre Orchestra in Vienna.  He was 18 years old.  The following year (1884), he became concertmaster of Benjamin Bilse’s Band in Berlin, the precursor of the Berlin Philharmonic.  By then, however, it was actually known as “Former Bilse’s Band,” since most of its musicians had broken away (in 1882) from conductor Benjamin Bilse to form their own organization.  It did not adopt the Berlin Philharmonic name until 1887.  Eugene Ysaye had just left the concertmaster’s post in that orchestra to become a concert violinist, teacher, and composer.  Kneisel left Germany for the U.S. in 1885 and was soon appointed concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, where he played for 18 years (1885-1903), and with which he appeared as soloist many times.  He was also its assistant conductor.  He was 20 years old.  It has been said that over the years, Kneisel conducted the Boston Symphony over a hundred times.  Joseph Silverstein was probably the last concertmaster in Boston who enjoyed the privilege of being an assistant conductor as well.  Kneisel formed the Kneisel Quartet from among members of the orchestra (Emanuel Fiedler, Louis Svecenski, and Fritz Giese.)  Kneisel and Svecenski (violist) stayed with the quartet until it was disbanded in 1917 but the other positions were filled by many other players later on.  The Kneisel Quartet became known all over the U.S. and Europe.  Several sources state that Kneisel gave the premiere performances of the Brahms and Goldmark violin concertos in the U.S. as well as the famous Cesar Franck A major sonata.  According to Bridget Carr, Archivist for the Boston Symphony, Kneisel first performed the Brahms concerto in Boston on December 6, 1889 (almost ten years after it was premiered in Germany by Joseph Joachim) and the Goldmark concerto almost exactly a year later, on December 5, 1890.  In 1897, Kneisel acquired a 1714 Stradivarius which he owned until his death.  It is known as the Grun ex-Kneisel Strad but I have no idea who plays it now.  He had previously played (and presumably owned) a G.B. Guadagnini from 1752.  He also acquired a 1780 Guadagnini in 1914.  In 1905, Kneisel moved to New York to become the head of the violin department at the Institute of Musical Arts (Juilliard) which was newly established.  He was fifty years old.  Eventually, Kneisel became so busy teaching that he had to disband his quartet, by then, considered the best in this country and one of the best in the world.  He taught at Juilliard until the day he died – about 11 years.  Kneisel’s pupils include Elias Breeskin, Louis Kaufman, Joseph Fuchs, Jacques Gordon, Sascha Jacobsen, Samuel Gardner, Michel Gusikoff, Robert Talbot, Bernard Ocko, William Kroll, Lillian Fuchs, Joan Field, and Olive Mead.  He published several study books which are probably no longer in print.  He also wrote a Grand Concert Etude for violin which, as far as I know, nobody plays anymore.  The Kneisel Quartet may have recorded only once – in 1917.  Kneisel died (in New York City) on March 26, 1926, at age 61.  

Elias Breeskin

Elias Breeskin was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist, composer, arranger, teacher, and conductor born in 1896 – the exact date is unknown.  One source gives his year of birth as 1897, but that source (Cozio) is usually messy and unreliable.  He was a notorious gambler and con man who was a very successful musician in spite of his addiction to gambling.  He began violin lessons very early in life and, according to one source, by age 7 was studying formally at a conservatory in Poland.  He played in public at age 8 and was acclaimed.  It has been said that he studied with Leopold Auer in Russia.  Whether that is true is quite debatable.  At age 10 (1906), he played for Franz Joseph, the Austrian Emperor.  After this performance, the Emperor supposedly gave him a priceless ring right off his finger.  That, too, is highly questionable.  Soon after, the family came to the U.S. and settled in Washington D.C., a very odd place for a European musical family to settle – then and even now.  Sponsored by a Washington benefactor, he may have first gone to Baltimore to study at the Peabody Conservatory.  However, Breeskin himself stated that after securing financing from (among a few others) Frank Damrosch (brother of conductor Walter Damrosch and, at the time, Director of the Institute of Musical Arts which later became Juilliard), he began his American musical education at Juilliard (New York) in the spring of 1908.  He studied with Franz Kneisel for about seven years.  A magazine from that era (The Violinist) and the New York Times reported that Breeskin attended Columbia University after hours, studying languages and other subjects.  Possibly upon graduation from Juilliard – in 1915 - he shared the Loeb Memorial Prize with Sascha Jacobsen.  He was 19 years old.  Afterward, as part of the Loeb Prize awarded him, he made his debut in Carnegie Hall and was very well received.  In February or March of 1917, he received (on loan) a Stradivarius violin (the 1703 Rougemont Strad) and a Tourte bow from a benefactor – Edward Schafer – which he used for about ten years.  In 1929, for understandable reasons, the violin was returned to the benefactor to help him with payment of debts after the stock market crash.  The Rougemont was later played for two years by Jacques Gordon, concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony.  I do not know where it is now.  Breeskin joined the New York Symphony in 1917.  At that time, this orchestra was being conducted by Walter Damrosch.  Though it was organized many years after the New York Philharmonic, it was the first American orchestra to tour Europe - it merged with the Philharmonic in 1928.  Among the New York Symphony’s members were Mischa Elman and Pablo Casals.  In early February, 1917, Breeskin appeared in recital at the Aeolian Hall in New York City.  A little over a year later (February 28, 1918), he played there again.  One of the works he played at this second recital was Bruch’s second concerto with Lawrence Goodman at the piano.  On April 1, 1919, he finally made his Carnegie Hall debut, a debut which for unknown reasons, had been postponed several times.  Among the works he played was Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnol.  This time, he was accompanied by pianist Josef Adler.  He was very favorably received at each of his recitals.  In June of 1920, he married into a very wealthy American family.  Anyone else would have used these newly-acquired resources to become a very major and influential figure in music, but not Breeskin.  He was about 24 years old.  At about the same time, it became known that he was a serious gambler.  Around this time, he also became concertmaster of the Capitol Theatre Orchestra in New York.  He was named conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony in 1925.  Because of his gambling habit and the consequent accumulation of gambling debts, that job did not last long.  Having left Minneapolis within the year, he went to Pittsburgh where he helped re-organize the Pittsburgh Symphony.  There, he was concertmaster and associate conductor.  The gambling continued.  His last year in Pittsburgh (1929-1930), he was named Principal Conductor.  He left Pittsburgh after his divorce from his wealthy wife.  I am guessing that up to this time, his wife’s family may have been taking care of his huge gambling debts.  Then, he returned to New York.  He worked as an orchestral musician and arranger for a few years.  He did some recording as conductor of a pickup orchestra for the KBS (Keystone Broadcasting System) label.  Those recordings may still be available though they mostly feature light classical or salon music.  He also recorded several violin pieces with pianist Theodore Saidenberg for KBS, one of which can be found on YouTube.  Breeskin may have also recorded for the RCA and Brunswick labels.  Many years later (1937), he found himself in Hollywood.  There, he wrote and arranged music and he helped form the Hollywood Bowl Symphony.  Nevertheless, having at one point in 1940 stolen the orchestra’s payroll, he exited to Mexico City, where he worked as musical director for radio stations XEW, XEX, and XEB, gave lessons, and composed movie soundtracks.  His second family later joined him.  If it’s true that he studied languages at Columbia, those studies now came in handy.  One source has it that he lived like a king, surrounded by servants.  As far as I know, he never set foot in the U.S. again.  In any case, his great success in Mexico lasted about five years.  The gambling had continued and he was finally imprisoned for supposedly being on the wrong side of the political agenda – he may have been a Communist - and, presumably, for his gambling debts as well.  He was pardoned in 1958.  He was 62 years old.  While in prison, he wrote a piece entitled the City of the Dead.  It got good reviews when he premiered it later on.  Whether it is still performed is anyone’s guess – I’m guessing it is not.  He married for a third and final time after leaving prison.  Breeskin died May 9, 1969, at about age 73.  He left three wives (Adelyn, Anna, and Lena) and seven children.

Eugene Ormandy

Eugene Ormandy (Jeno Blau) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, and arranger born (in Budapest) on November 18, 1899.  Since he became a famous conductor, hardly anyone remembers that he played violin.  He enjoyed the longest tenure (unlikely to ever be surpassed) of any American conductor – 44 years with the Philadelphia Orchestra.  Nobody seems to know where the name “Ormandy” came from – he only adopted it after coming to the U.S. in 1921.  He began studying violin at the Royal Academy of Music (the Franz Liszt Academy) at age 5 then studied with Jeno Hubay (from age 9) for a number of years graduating at age 14, though some sources say at age 17.  Eddy Brown was a fellow student of his – in fact, when Brown and Ormandy competed in the Budapest Concerto Competition, Ormandy took second prize and Brown took first.  He then also studied Philosophy and received a degree in that subject in 1920.  For a time, Ormandy served as concertmaster of the Bluthner Orchestra in Germany and made recital and concert appearances as well.  In the U.S., he started out playing second violin in the Capitol Theatre Orchestra in New York City.  This was a rather large orchestra comprised of about 75 players of which Elias Breeskin, the notorious gambler and future father of Olga Breeskin, was concertmaster.  However, being a superlative violinist, Ormandy was soon promoted to concertmaster.  He was 22 years old.  Though he had been trained as a concert violinist, he never got a chance to concertize in this country since he quickly developed a taste for conducting.  Nevertheless, he recorded as a solo violinist between 1923 and 1929.  I do not know where those recordings can be found; perhaps among his archives at the University of Pennsylvania.  Among other conductors who entirely abandoned the instrument are Neville Marriner, David Zinman, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Orlando Barera, Theodore Thomas, and Jaap Van Zweden.  Though he conducted the New York Philharmonic in 1929, Ormandy’s big break came on October 30, 1931, when he was asked to substitute in Philadelphia for an indisposed Toscanini – the ill-tempered Italian conductor.  Many a big career has been launched under similar circumstances.  It is known that Arthur Judson, another violinist who abandoned the violin (in favor of concert management), helped him to establish his career.  In 1931, he was appointed conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony and stayed until 1936.  That year (1936), he was appointed to his post in Philadelphia where he stayed for 44 years (1936-1980.)  He actually shared the post with Stokowski for the first two years.  Though he conducted many U.S. premieres, he never came close to Theodore Thomas’ record of 112 works premiered with the Chicago Symphony.  His most historic recording might be the three Rachmaninoff piano concertos he recorded with the composer at the keyboard.  His recorded legacy is very extensive and can be easily accessed on the Internet.  The Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy was the first to tour China (1973) and the first to appear on American Television (1948.)  He sometimes guest conducted other orchestras too - the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony, and the Metropolitan Opera among them.  Ormandy died (in Philadelphia) on March 12, 1985, at age 85.  He died of pneumonia, just as did Theodore Thomas eighty years before him.