Jacob Dont

Jacob Dont (Jakob Dont) was an Austrian violinist, composer, and teacher born (in Vienna) on March 2, 1815.  Although he was a well-known musician in his day, he is now mostly remembered as a composer of several violin etude books.  His father, Joseph Valentin Dont, was a cellist who was well-acquainted with Beethoven.  I don’t know who Dont’s first teachers were but he eventually studied with Josef Bohm and Georg Hellmesberger, Sr. at the Vienna Conservatory.  (Josef Bohm was also the teacher of Joachim, Ernst, Hubay, Remenyi, and Grun.  Interestingly, there are two Georg Hellmesbergers and two Josef Hellmesbergers – all four were related and all four were violinists.)  In 1831, Dont joined the Hofburgtheater orchestra and three years later the Vienna Hofkapelle.  He began concertizing while still a teenager but decided against a solo career.  One source states he taught at the Academy of Art (Akademie der Tonkunst) and the Seminary at St Anna at around this time, although I have no idea what or where those places are - I suspect they are both located in or near Vienna.  He simply continued to play in the imperial orchestras until he was appointed violin professor at the Pedagogical Institute in Vienna in 1853.  He was 38 years old by then.  In 1871 (some sources say 1873) Dont became violin professor at his old school, the Vienna Conservatory.  He was now 56 years old.  Ironically, Dont’s many instructional books for violin were not allowed to be used at the Conservatory.  His Opus numbers 17, 18, 20, 33, 35, and 37 are his best known works for violin studies – most violin students are familiar with these etudes.  Dont also wrote considerable vocal music, some chamber music, piano music, and solo works for violin and piano.  Almost all of this music was published during his lifetime.  His most famous pupil is Leopold Auer, the Hungarian violinist and pedagogue.  This fact alone makes Dont nearly immortal as a musician and violinist.  Dont died (in Vienna) on November 17, 1888, at age 73.  

Franz Vecsey

Franz von Vecsey (Ferenc Vecsey) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, and composer born (in Budapest) on March 23, 1893.  He was a child prodigy in the early part of the last century but is for the most part now forgotten.  There are a few YouTube audio files which attest to his unbelievable artistry at a very young age.  Bela Bartok served as his piano accompanist for a time.  The Sibelius violin concerto was dedicated to him (in 1905) when he was only 12 years old.  Although he did not premiere the concerto, he first played the Sibelius concerto one year later.  His first teacher was his father, Lajos Vecsey.  He studied with Jeno Hubay from age 8.  It has been said that he became Hubay’s favorite pupil.  (Eugene Ormandy and Joseph Szigeti also studied with Hubay.)  His debut took place on May 17, 1903 in Berlin.  He was ten years old and on that occasion played the Beethoven concerto while Joseph Joachim conducted the orchestra.  Afterward, he studied with Leopold Auer in St Petersburg, Russia.  Jeno Hubay dedicated his third violin concerto (probably his best-known among the four he composed) to Vecsey.  Later, after concertizing for about ten years, Vecsey married into an aristocratic family, as did four or five other famous violinists (Teresina Tua, Johanna Martzy, Cesar Thomson, and Georges Enesco come to mind.)   He managed his career from a palace in Venice.  It has been suggested that he became psychologically scarred after serving in the Austrian army during World War One and that his career suffered as a result.  He was very interested in a conducting career in the mid-1930s but became seriously ill just about then and died after an unsuccessful operation in Rome.  Vecsey’s compositional output consisted mainly of miniature violin works, one of which is Le Vent (Caprice number 1), a rather difficult work which is still very popular today.  A 1716 Stradivarius instrument was among the violins he played.  It is now owned by an Italian philanthropic foundation, which also owns other great and valuable string instruments.  Here is a YouTube audio file where Vecsey plays a Paganini caprice.  Vecsey died on April 5, 1935, at age 42.  

Jacques Singer

Jacques Singer (Jakob Singer) was a Polish (some would say American) violinist and conductor born (in Przemysl, Poland) on May 9, 1910.  Although he was a very fine violinist, he is today remembered as a conductor, owing to the fact that he spent the latter part of his career as a conductor of various well-known orchestras, having almost given up playing the violin altogether.  In this respect he joins Edouard Colonne, Eugene Ormandy, Theodore Thomas, Charles Munch, Pierre Monteux, Neville Marriner, David Zinman, Alan Gilbert, Peter Oundjian, Orlando Barera, Jaap Van Zweden, and a few others.  Singer acquired a reputation for improving orchestras as well as improving audience attendance dramatically but he also faced problems wherever he went, feuding with music critics, orchestra members, or boards of directors.  He began his violin studies at a very early age and by age 7 had already performed in public.  When he was 10 years old, the family moved to the U.S, arriving in November of 1920.  They settled in Jersey City, a place very close to New York City.  In 1925, at about age 15, Singer made his American debut at Town Hall.  He then attended the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia), studying with Carl Flesch.  A year later (1927) he began studying at Juilliard.  He was 17 years old.  His teachers there were Paul Kochanski and Leopold Auer.  Singer graduated in 1930.  Two years before he graduated, he had joined the Philadelphia Orchestra, becoming the youngest player at that time.  One source claims he was fourteen years old when he joined the orchestra but that is very unlikely.  According to one source, Leopold Stokowski encouraged him to take up conducting.  By 1936, Singer had become the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Youth Orchestra.  He was 26 years old.  The New York Times said he was a conductor to watch.  Singer was one of the first conductors to address the audience during concerts, something which violinist Henri Temianka also used to do before everyone else thought it was a good idea.  Singer was permanent conductor with the Dallas Symphony from 1938 to 1942.  He was very well received in Dallas but his tenure there was interrupted by the war.  In the Army, he conducted bands but also served as a soldier.  He possibly could have rejoined the Dallas Symphony after the war but he didn’t.  Why that is so is anyone’s guess.  During his tenure there, subscriptions tripled.  In 1946, he conducted summer concerts for two months in New Orleans.  In 1947, he was appointed music director at Vancouver (Canada.)  He stayed until 1951, leaving after feuding with the board of directors over budget issues.  He then formed a competing orchestra (the British Columbia Philharmonic) but that didn’t last.  He guest conducted in New York (Broadway) and in Israel (Jerusalem Radio Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, and Haifa Symphony) in 1952.  From 1955 until 1962, he served as conductor of the Corpus Christi Symphony.  In 1962, he was again guest-conducting in England (London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic) among many other places, including South America.  He renewed his contract with the Corpus Christi Symphony in 1962 but soon asked to be released because the Portland Symphony offered him a position (and possibly a better financial deal) beginning the same year.  He conducted in Portland from 1962 to 1971 – he did not conduct during the 1972-1973 season although he was paid for it.  He left after a feud about artistic matters.  The Portland Symphony became the Oregon Symphony during his tenure.  Players in that orchestra (and others) often complained about his brusque, bombastic manner, his volatile temper, and his poor conducting technique, but admired his musicianship and exciting entrepreneurial style.  Singer spent the rest of his life in New York and DeKalb (Illinois), conducting, among others, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Northern Illinois Philharmonic.  I’m guessing that there are some recorded broadcasts around somewhere although not readily available.  Singer died in Manhattan on August 11, 1980, at age 70.  

Oscar Shumsky

Oscar Shumsky was a Russian (most people would say American) violinist, violist, conductor, and teacher born (in Philadelphia) on March 23, 1917.  He had a long and busy career during which he almost completely stopped concertizing in favor of teaching.  It has been said that Otokar Sevcik had over 5,000 students over the span of a greater-than sixty-year teaching career.  Shumsky had lots of students but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t more than five thousand.  It has also been said of Shumsky that he had an un-compromising, opinionated personality – in the style of Berl Senofsky.  Shumsky began to study the violin at age three - one source says age 4 - with Albert Meiff.  He first appeared with orchestra at age seven with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski on the podium, playing Mozart’s fifth concerto – known as the Turkish concerto.  At age 8 he began to study privately with Leopold Auer in New York.  Three years later (1928) he entered the Curtis Institute where he continued to study with Auer and later on (beginning in 1930) with Efrem Zimbalist.  He made his New York debut in 1934.  He was 17 years old.  He graduated from Curtis in 1936 but continued to study privately with Zimbalist until 1938.  He joined the NBC Symphony under the ill-tempered conductor Arturo Toscanini in 1939.  He was the youngest member of the orchestra and sat in the second stand of the first violins.  That same year, he also joined the Primrose Quartet as first violinist – William Primrose was also a member of the NBC Symphony.  At the time, many top-flight New York musicians had become members of either the NBC Symphony or the New York Philharmonic because solo work was scarce.  From 1941, he served in the Navy, playing as one of the orchestral soloists and playing in the Navy string quartet with cellist Bernard Greenhouse, violist Emanuel Vardi, and David Stone (please see comments below).  After the war, Shumsky was featured on weekly radio programs on NBC, as were a few other violinists of the time.  However, a very reliable source says that this broadcast activity actually occurred in 1939, before the war.  It may have been both, before and after.  Whether any of those programs survive in recordings is anybody’s guess.  Shumsky also worked as a studio musician, leading the RCA and the Columbia Symphonies as concertmaster on various occasions.  Shumsky taught at the Curtis Institute (1961 to 1965), the Peabody Conservatory (from 1942), Yale University (from 1975), and the Juilliard School (from 1953.)  I do not know how long he taught at each particular school.  On December 15, 1956, he appeared with the New York Philharmonic playing the Beethoven concerto.  Leonard Bernstein was on the podium.  Shumsky made his conducting debut in 1959.  As far as I know, he never conducted any major orchestras.  His commercial discography includes Rode’s 24 Caprices, Beethoven’s concerto, Brahms’ concerto, two Mozart concertos (4 and 5), three Bach concertos, the Glazunov concerto, the complete Mozart Sonatas, the complete Brahms Hungarian Dances, and the Bach solo Partitas and Sonatas.  He also recorded with the Primrose Quartet and those recordings are still available.  Here is a YouTube video of one of his recorded performances.  It is the famous Richard Strauss sonata – the one responsible for the attack on Jascha Heifetz (which resulted in his broken arm.)  Glenn Gould is the accompanist.  Shumsky’s students include Steven Staryk, Stanley Ritchie, Guillermo Figueroa, and Ida Kavafian.  Among many other violins, Shumsky played (and owned) the 1715 Stradivarius known as the Pierre Rode Stradivarius.  The violin was inherited by Shumsky’s two sons who sold it to Tokuji Munetsugu in 2004.  According to at least one source, this violin was subsequently played (at least for a while) by Ryu Goto, brother of the famous violinist, Midori.  Shumsky died (in New York) on July 24, 2000, at age 83.  

Francois Prume

Francois Prume (Francois Hubert Prume) was a Belgian violinist and composer born (in Stavelot, Belgium) on June 3, 1816.  Nicolo Paganini was then 33 years old and Beethoven, though he didn’t know it at the time, had another ten years to live.  Prume was a highly gifted and accomplished violinist who came on the scene, made an impression, and then left almost without leaving a trace.  According to one source, he began his violin studies at age 3.  His father was the organist at Stavelot.  At age 5, he began studying at the nearby town of Malmedy, in the Province of Liege, a French-speaking section of Belgium.  From 1827 to 1830, he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Liege (the Liege Conservatory.)  He then studied for two years with Francois Habeneck (Director of the Paris Opera) at the Paris Conservatory.  After graduation in 1832, he returned to Liege and was immediately appointed professor of violin at the conservatory.  He was 17 years old.  His most famous pupil was probably Hubert Leonard, though Leonard probably only studied privately with Prume since he (Leonard) began his studies at the Brussels Conservatory in the same year (1832) that Prume returned to Liege.  Prume was only 3 years older than Leonard.  In 1839, Prume toured Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Holland, and Belgium.  In 1844, he played in Paris and in that same year was made head of the violin department at the Liege Conservatory.  He was 28 years old.  He continued touring and teaching during his entire career.  It has been said that he played with Franz Liszt on several occasions.  One source claims that he was totally blind for the last few years of his life.  Prume wrote six violin studies, a violin concerto, and a few concert pieces for his own use but which were also probably published during his lifetime.  His most famous piece is La Melancolie for violin and piano (or orchestra) which Camillo Sivori (one of Paganini’s pupils) was very fond of playing.  Leopold Auer mentioned that piece in his book on violin pedagogy.  Prume died on July 14, 1849, after a very short illness, at age 33.  

Adolph Brodsky

Adolph Brodsky (Adolph Davidovich Brodsky) was a Russian violinist, teacher, and conductor born (in Taganrog) on April 2, 1851.  He is perhaps best known as the violinist who premiered Tchaikovsky’s difficult violin concerto after Leopold Auer turned it down because he found it unplayable.  Although he spent three years in the U.S., his career began and ended in Europe.  His grandfather and father (David) were both violinists and he is said to have begun his lessons at age 4 in his hometown.  At age 9, he played a concert in Odessa (Russia-Ukraine) and was subsequently sponsored by a wealthy patron, to continue his studies in Vienna, at the Vienna Conservatory, with Joseph Hellmesberger (the elder.)  For a time, Brodsky played second violin in the Hellmesberger Quartet, said to be the first string quartet that actually bore a specific name.  In addition, from 1866 to 1868, Brodsky played in the Imperial (Vienna) Court Orchestra.  He was 15 years old.  In 1870, at about age 20, he left Vienna to tour as a concert violinist.  He settled in Moscow in 1873 where he obtained a teaching position at the Moscow Conservatory in 1875.  He held this post until 1878.  On December 4, 1881, he premiered the Tchaikovsky concerto in Vienna with Hans Richter conducting.  He was 30 years old.  Although initially dedicated to Leopold Auer, the dedication was re-assigned to Brodsky.  Nevertheless, Auer subsequently learned the concerto and taught it to his young pupils, one of which was Jascha Heifetz.  Tchaikovsky was not present at Brodsky’s premiere performance although he later attended a concert in Leipzig (in 1888) in which Karl Halir was the soloist and was extremely pleased with the concerto.  From 1883 to 1891, Brodsky taught at the Leipzig Conservatory.  It was here that Brodsky formed the Brodsky String Quartet with Ottokar Novacek, Hans Sitt, and Leopold Grutzmacher.  It was also at Brodsky’s home that Tchaikovsky, Edvard Grieg, and Johannes Brahms met (all at once) for the first time.  Though Brahms advised against it, in 1891, Brodsky accepted a position as concertmaster of the New York Symphony (for which Carnegie Hall was built), playing under Walter Damrosch.  Brodsky returned to Europe in 1894.  Some sources say he returned in 1895.  He was 43 years old.  After spending some time in Berlin, he was invited to England (by Charles Halle) to teach at the Royal Manchester College of Music and to lead the Halle Orchestra as concertmaster.  It was here that he changed his name from Adolf to Adolph.  From 1895 until his death in 1929, Brodsky taught and was Director at the Royal College.  He also occasionally conducted the Halle Orchestra.  It is said that he was one of the first automobile owners in town.  While in Manchester, Brodsky re-established his string quartet with Rawdon Briggs, Simon Speelman, and Carl Fuchs.  In 1919, Edward Elgar wrote and dedicated his Opus 83 string quartet (in e minor) to this new Brodsky Quartet.  In 1927, Brodsky played the Elgar violin concerto with the Halle Orchestra with Elgar on the podium.  He was 75 years old.  For 17 years (1880 to 1897) his violin was the LaFont Guarnerius of 1735, for many years now played by Nigel Kennedy.  Brodsky, who was also a chess player, died on January 22, 1929, at age 77.  Other than Naoum Blinder (Isaac Stern's teacher), I don’t know if he had any famous pupils.  

Ferdinand Laub

Ferdinand Laub was a Czech violinist, teacher, and composer, born (in Prague) on January 19, 1832.  Though he worked closely with Tchaikovsky and other famous musicians, he is almost completely forgotten today.  It has been said that he lived the life of a Romantic (Bohemian) because he had no permanent residence.  Since he gave a public concert at age six, he must have had lessons from infancy, though it is not known with whom he began his violin studies – it may have been his father or mother.  By age nine, he was already being praised by well-known musicians, including the Norwegian violinist, Ole Bull.  In 1843, he entered the Prague Conservatory, where he studied with Moritz Mildner.  He was 11 years old.  Archduke Stephan subsequently gave him an Amati violin and recommendations which helped Laub in Vienna.  Upon leaving the Conservatory in 1846, he played in the Imperial band (Court Orchestra) in Vienna.  He was 14 years old.  Hungarian violinist Joseph Bohm was playing in the same orchestra at that time.  In 1850, he toured Europe as a soloist and was very well received in Paris and London.  From 1853 to 1855, he taught at a music school in Weimar, where Joseph Joachim had previously taught.  From 1855 to 1862, he taught at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin.  He was also concertmaster of the Court Orchestra there (until 1864.)  In 1864, he undertook another European tour with three other musicians.  Musicians with whom he came in contact included Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Hans Von Bulow, Clara Schumann, Bedrich Smetana, Heinrich Ernst, and Joseph Joachim.  In 1866, at age 34, he became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.  Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky called him “the best violinist of our time.”  Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky did not write his famous violin concerto for Laub – Laub died before the concerto was even begun.  Perhaps it might have been – we will never know.  Tchaikovsky wrote the concerto for Joseph Kotek (who later refused to play it) but dedicated it to Leopold Auer, a teacher at the St Petersburg Conservatory, who did not particularly like it and did not play its premiere.  However, Laub, as first violinist of a string quartet, did give the first performances of Tchaikovsky’s first and second string quartets.  In 1874, Laub was forced to stop working altogether because of illness.  On March 17, 1875, he died (in Gries, Northern Italy), on his way to a spa, being only 43 years old.  Laub played the Laub Stradivarius of 1722 (or 1727 – sources differ) which later went to violinist Alexander Petschnikoff and later still to Calvin Sieb, concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony.  It is now presumably in the hands of one of the concertmasters of that orchestra, since the violin belongs to the orchestra.  Laub’s compositions include violin and vocal works which are now never performed.

Richard Burgin

Richard Burgin was a Polish (many would say American) violinist, conductor, and teacher born (in Warsaw) on October 11, 1892 (Stravinsky was ten years old and Joseph Szigeti had been born about a month before in Hungary.)  He is best known for being the concertmaster of the Boston Symphony for many years (1920-1962); easily the longest tenure by a Boston Symphony concertmaster.  Burgin began the study of violin at age 6.  After studying with local teachers and with Isidor Lotto in Poland, Burgin moved to Germany in 1903 to study with Joseph Joachim at the Advanced Academy for Music in Berlin.  Burgin's first public performance was in 1904 with the Warsaw Philharmonic.  He was 11 years old.  From 1908 to 1912, he studied with Leopold Auer at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he graduated in 1912, winning the Silver medal in violin in that year. Mischa Mischakoff took the Gold.   He was never a star pupil of Auer’s, as were Milstein, Elman, Heifetz, Zimbalist, and Seidel.  Burgin became concertmaster of the Warsaw Philharmonic in 1914, at age 22.  (He was not the youngest concertmaster the Warsaw Philharmonic had ever had; Paul Kochanski was, at age 14.)  He was concertmaster of the Oslo (Norway) Symphony in 1915, and of the Stockholm Concert Society (Sweden) from 1916 to 1919.  Some sources list Helsinki (Finland) and Leningrad as other cities where he worked, presumably as concertmaster.  Only Steven Staryk and Mischa Mischakoff have been concertmaster of as many orchestras.  During those years, he played under several famous conductors, including Richard Strauss, Arthur Nikisch, and Jean Sibelius.  Burgin came to the U.S. in 1920 and soon joined the Boston Symphony as concertmaster.  Within a few months after that, he founded the Burgin String Quartet.  According to the Boston Symphony, he used to spend summers in Paris during the 1920s and 30s, probably up until the beginning of World War Two – what he did while there is not known.  From 1927 until he retired, Burgin also served as Assistant Conductor of the orchestra, conducting more than 300 of its concerts in diverse places, including Japan and Australia.  He declared a well-known attitude of concertmasters when he was quoted thus (by TIME Magazine): "I know many virtuosos and I do not envy them. They tell me what it's like to play the same few pieces over and over and know they have to go here and then be there. Not for me. I like the orchestra."  He played under Pierre Monteux, Serge Koussevitzky, and Charles Munch.  He also, of course, played in dozens of recordings under these, and other, conductors.  One of the high points of his career was his playing the U.S. premiere (in Boston under Koussevitzky) of Prokofiev’s first concerto on April 24, 1925 (two years after it was written.)  Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Koussevitzky conducted the world premiere of the concerto with the Paris Opera Orchestra, its concertmaster (Marcel Darrieux) playing the solo part, on October 18, 1923. One obscure source actually states that the world premiere of this concerto was given by Mischa Mischakoff in Russia in 1917, before the work was even published.   Burgin taught violin and conducting (and directed the Conservatory Orchestra from 1953) at the New England Conservatory.  At the Berkshire Music Center he taught conducting.  In 1959, he began teaching at Boston University.  His most famous pupil is probably Sarah Caldwell, Boston organizer and director of operas.  Because all this was (evidently) not enough to keep him totally busy, he conducted the Portland, Maine symphony as well.  I ordinarily don’t touch upon personal details of a violinist’s life but I must report that, in 1940 (July 3), Burgin married Ruth Posselt, about whom I will write something later.  He was 47 and she was 25.  Her concert career (as a violinist) was just beginning to blossom.  As far as I know, Burgin was not a chess player, as are (and were) so many other top violinists, but he was an accomplished Bridge player.  Burgin retired from the Boston Symphony in May, 1962, and moved to south Florida, where he taught at Florida State University and founded the Florestan Quartet.  He was 69 years old.  Burgin also conducted the Florida State Chamber Orchestra.  A great source of very detailed information about him is at this site. Among the several violins he owned and played was a 1744 Guarnerius Del Gesu which is unusual in that it is the only known Guarnerius made entirely of beech wood (instead of spruce and maple.)  It is now somewhere in Europe.  Richard Burgin died (in St. Petersburg, some sources say Gulfport, Florida) on April 29, 1981, at age 88.  His widow died 26 years later. 

Isolde Menges

Isolde Menges (Isolde Marie Menges) was an English violinist born on May16, 1893 (Igor Stravinsky was 11 years old but Fritz Kreisler was already 18 years old.)  She is known for having a major prize named after her at the Royal College of Music (RCM-England.)  Menges was said to possess a very legato and fine tone and her playing was described as being soulful and exuberant.  She began her violin studies with her father.  She later studied for three years in Russia (St Petersburg) with Leopold Auer, although she was never known as one of his famous pupils.  She also studied with Carl Flesch – she was not one of his famous pupils either.  She began her concertizing career at an early age, as do most violinists, while still a very young student.  For her formal London debut in February of 1913, she played both the Tchaikovsky concerto and the Symphonie Espagnol by Eduard Lalo, something that no concert violinist today would dare do (for a debut.)  She was 19 years old.  (A few violinists – Raymond Cohen and Yehudi Menuhin, for instance - have played three concertos in one evening, but not two in a debut performance.)  Two weeks later, she played the Beethoven and the Wieniawski concertos at another concert.  Soon thereafter, she again played two concertos in a single program - the Brahms and the Glazunov concertos.  Her interpretations were highly praised and she was compared to Marie Hall.  In 1918, she spent several months teaching in Canada.  Menges was entrusted with presenting the English premiere of Ernst Von Dohnanyi’s first violin concerto (opus 27 - 1915) in 1923, a work which was later championed by another English violinist, Eda Kersey.  She also toured the U.S.  Three famous conductors with whom she worked early on were Willem Mengelberg, Bruno Walter, and Ernest Bloch.  In September 1931, she was appointed violin and chamber music teacher at the Royal College of Music in England.  She was 38 years old.  Coincidentally, she also founded the Isolde Menges Quartet in that same year.  The quartet was somewhat unusual for the time in that it brought together female and male players – Isolde Menges, Beatrice Carelle, John Dyer (viola), and Ivor James (cello.)  Menges also played and gave many concerts with a Quintet.  In 1938, her Quartet was one of the first to present the entire cycle of Beethoven Quartets in London.  Menges retired from the Royal College of Music in 1971.  She was 78 years old.  Her pupils include Leonard Salzedo, Norma Varga, Isobel Murray, and Malinee Peris.  The only YouTube performance of hers is here – Bach’s Air on the G String.  Interestingly, her brother, (conductor-composer) Herbert Menges, conducted the recordings by Joseph Szigeti, of the Brahms and the first violin concerto of Prokofiev.  Isolde Menges died on January 13, 1976, at age 83.  She is now completely forgotten, although there is a fan page on Facebook.

Joseph Achron

Joseph Achron (Youssel Yulyevich Akhron) was a Russian (Lithuanian) violinist, teacher, and composer born on May 13, 1886 (Brahms was 53 years old.)  Although he was a prodigy on the violin and a virtuoso violinist in his adult life, he is mostly remembered as a composer and, particularly, as an early advocate for the incorporation of Jewish folk melody in classical music.  (Smetana, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Bartok, Bloch and other composers undertook a similar journey.)  He first studied with his father at age five and later (1891) in Warsaw (at the Warsaw Conservatory with Isidor Lotto), where he gave his first public performance at age 7.  By age 10, he had already played for the Russian nobility (the Czar’s brother.)  At age 13 (1898 – some sources say 1899) he began studying with Leopold Auer at the St Petersburg Conservatory (Heifetz was not yet born.)  Composition he studied with Anatoly Liadov and Maximilian Steinberg.  He graduated from the Conservatory in 1904.  In 1913 he became head of the violin department at the Kharkiv Conservatory in Northeastern Ukraine.  1916 through 1918 he spent in the Russian Army, performing wherever he was assigned.  Achron toured Europe and Russia from 1918 until about 1924, playing more than 1000 concerts during this time.  Between 1919 and 1922, he was head of the violin department at the Leningrad Artists’ Union.  The Revolution had already taken place.  He moved to Berlin in 1922.  In 1925 (December 31, 1924), he came to the U.S. and settled in New York City.   He taught at the Westchester Conservatory, played many concerts, and wrote music for the Yiddish Art Theatre.  Achron premiered his first violin concerto, Opus 60, (1925 - dedicated to Jascha Heifetz) with the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky on January 24, 1927.  It is said to be a very difficult work.  Some sources say that his actual first violin concerto was his Opus 4 from 1899, whose manuscript is lost.  A recording (of Opus 60) by Elmar Oliveira and Joseph Silverstein (conducting) is available on the internet.  Achron moved from New York City to Los Angeles in 1934, where he composed for films, gave concerts, and played in the Hollywood studio orchestras as well.  His second and third violin concertos he premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on December 19, 1936 and March 31, 1939, respectively; both times with Otto Klemperer on the podium.  His best known work is probably Hebrew Melody, written early in his composing career (1911 – Opus 33).  (You can listen to the Joseph Hassid recording of it on YouTube.)  Jascha Heifetz was one of his benefactors, commissioning the third violin concerto in 1938 or 1939.  I don’t think Heifetz ever recorded it.  (Kreisler never recorded the Elgar concerto either, though it was dedicated to him.)  On the website of the Joseph Achron Society, Heifetz is quoted as saying: "He is one of our foremost modern composers and I cannot say enough on his behalf both as a musician and as a man."  This site also contains very detailed information on recordings (old and new) as well as published works available to the general public.  Achron eventually composed nearly 100 works – more than half of them unpublished.  The lion's share of his manuscripts are at the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL) in Jerusalem (although some sources state that they are at the University of Tel Aviv and others say they are at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In any case, they are not hard to locate.)  Hagai Shaham recorded a CD of some of his unpublished works on a British label more than ten years ago (Biddulph - B000001ZEC) but I do not know if the recording is still available from their catalog - I very much doubt it.  Something that is not well-known is that Achron wrote cadenzas for the Beethoven, Mozart, Paganini, and Brahms violin concertos - none are published.  He probably used these in his own performances.  He also edited (using the term loosely) eleven of Paganini’s 24 Caprices (still unpublished.)  A recording of these seriously re-worked Caprices with violinist Ingolf Turban (founder of the Virtuosi Di Paganini Chamber Orchestra and a recognized Paganini specialist) and Jascha Nemtsov (pianist) is available and referenced in detail at the Joseph Achron Society page. Achron was the brother of the pianist and composer Isidor Achron, who became an early Jascha Heifetz accompanist.  After Achron, only Albert Markov composes and plays his own concertos – the only one in the world to do so.  The University of Rochester Library has a website with several of Achron’s digitized scores available.   Late in life, Achron played a Giovanni Guadagnini violin (1774) but what instrument he used before then I do not know.  Joseph Achron died in Hollywood, California on April 29, 1943, at age 56.

Thanks to Bridget Carr of the Boston Symphony, Steve LaCoste of the LA Philharmonic, and Samuel Elliot Zerin of the Joseph Achron Society for providing critical details for this profile.

Kathleen Parlow

Kathleen Parlow was a Canadian violinist and teacher born (in Calgary) on September 20, 1890 (Stravinsky was 8 years old.)  Today, although there is an abundance of information about her everywhere, she is largely forgotten.  Her biography reads – at least somewhat – like that of Camilla Urso and Guila Bustabo combined.  She never actually studied in Canada.  As a concert violinist, she struggled to make ends meet and finally settled for a teaching career after thirty years of concertizing.  Parlow was said to possess a sweet, legato sound that made her seem to be playing with a nine-foot bow and was admired for her effortless playing.  At age four, she began her violin studies with a cousin, Conrad Coward, in San Francisco (USA). At age six, she gave her first recital.  Still in San Francisco, she continued her studies with Henry Holmes (pupil of Louis Spohr), who helped her obtain playing engagements in England, where he had many good contacts.  The expenses for her (and her mother’s) trip and stay in England were paid by Harriet Pullman Carolan of San Francisco, a wealthy admirer.  After getting settled there, she played at Wigmore Hall (then known as Bechstein Hall), Buckingham Palace, and other places.  She also performed with the London Symphony.  She was fifteen years old.  In 1906, through the sponsorship of a Canadian industrialist (Lord Strathcona – also known as Donald Alexander Smith), she travelled to Russia for further study.  She became the first foreign student enrolled at the St Petersburg Conservatory.  Her teacher there was Leopold Auer.  Her classmates included Efrem Zimbalist (founder of the Curtis Institute) and Mishel Piastro (for a time, concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony.)  She gave nine solo recitals in St Petersburg and learned Alexander Glazunov's violin concerto which she subsequently performed frequently.  (Glazunov was then the Director of the Conservatory.)  Glazunov later chose her to play his concerto at the Ostend Music Festival in 1907, at which he was a featured composer.  She also appeared in Finland several times and even met Jean Sibelius (some sources claim she never met him) whose concerto she often played.  Also in 1907, she made her debut in Berlin, thereafter touring in Europe.  Parlow later said that, after expenses, her Berlin debut netted her exactly ten pounds.  She did not know it at the time but this was an indication of what her future would be like.  She would study with Auer each summer in order to prepare additional repertoire for subsequent tours.  With time, that repertoire became very extensive.  It has been said that she played more than 375 concerts between 1908 and 1915.  In Norway, Einar Bjornson – part of the well-to-do Bjornson family - gave her the Viotti Guarnerius (1735) to play on (1908 - 1962.)  She also several times played for the King and Queen of Norway.  Her first tour in North America began in 1910.  In 1911, the New York Herald declared her “one of the phenomena of the musical world,” on a par with Mischa Elman.  She also made her first appearance with the Toronto Symphony in February of 1911 – the first of many.  Between 1912 and 1925 she lived in England (at Meldreth, near Cambridge) and continued her touring, including tours to China, the U.S., Korea, and Japan (where she recorded for the Nipponophone Company.)  In 1912, she played a benefit concert in New York for the survivors of the Titanic disaster.  She was highly praised everywhere she played.  Her mother, to whom she was very close, accompanied her on all her tours.  She recorded several small pieces for Columbia Records between 1914 and 1916.  As far as I know, she never recorded after that.  Between 1917 and 1919 she was not able to tour outside England due to travel restrictions (due to the First World War.)  In 1920, she toured the U.S. for the fifth time and made her first radio broadcast (from Seattle, in 1922.)  Considering that her prospects in England were not as good as they had been on the Continent of Europe, they (Parlow and her mother) decided to move to San Francisco (U.S.A. - 1926).  It has been stated that she suffered a mental (nervous) breakdown in 1927, perhaps due to a broken personal relationship.  They then took a year off, about which – understandably - little is known.  In 1929, she toured Mexico – travelling without her mother for the first time.  She was 39 years old.  Despite playing many concerts there and receiving very high praise, financially, she barely broke even.  She later told an interviewer that, when things were very hard, she and her mother had talked about her getting a job to ensure their security for the future but that she just couldn’t do it.  She ended up teaching at Mills College (Oakland, California) from 1929 to 1936.  They moved to New York in 1936.  From 1935 to 1941 she taught in Massachusetts during the summers.  In 1941 she was offered a job at the Toronto College of Music and began making appearances with orchestras, a duo she formed with pianist Ernest MacMillan, the Canadian Trio (with Zara Nelsova, cellist, and Macmillan), and a string quartet – the Parlow String Quartet which was active for fifteen years.  During this time, she was being assisted financially by Godfrey Ridout (Canadian composer, teacher, writer, and conductor) and other friends.  In October of 1959 she was made head of the string department at the London College of Music (Western Ontario, Canada.)  Among her pupils were Victor Feldbrill, Joseph Pach, and Marjorie Edwards.  In 1982, the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) broadcast a three-part radio series about her career.  The Kathleen Parlow Scholarship was set up with the proceeds from the sale of her Guarnerius and other money from her estate.  YouTube has a few videos of her playing (sound only), one of which contains exceptionally fast trills – faster than Heifetz , Prihoda, or Rabin.  Parlow died on August 19, 1963, at age 72.

Manrico Padovani

Manrico Padovani is a Swiss-Italian violinist born on August 12, 1973 (Perlman was 27 years old.)  He is the first Swiss violinist to perform all 24 of Paganini’s Caprices in concert in a single evening (Zürich, 2006.)  Born in Zürich to Italian parents, he began his violin studies as a child and later entered (in Winterthur, Switzerland) the class of Aida Stucki-Piraccini (who had also taught Anne-Sophie Mutter much earlier.)  (Winterthur is 15 miles northeast of the city of Zurich and is the city where in 1900, Albert Einstein first worked as a tutor before landing a job in the patent office in Bern)  At the Royal Conservatory in Amsterdam, Padovani studied with Hermann Krebbers.  Additionally, in Europe, he studied with Ruggiero Ricci, Boris Belkin, and Franco Gulli among other master violin teachers and composers.  He graduated from the Winterthurer Conservatory in 1991 and made his debut in Lucerne in 1992.  He has been concertizing in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. ever since and has even been called the “devil’s fiddler” for his brilliant technique and playing style.  Nobody has yet said that Padovani is in league with the devil, as Paganini was said to be, but it could yet happen – music critics can say and write what they wish.  His recordings include the concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Paganini, Prokofiev, and others in the standard repertoire.  His recording of the Beethoven concerto (with the Moscow Philharmonic) is especially remarkable in that Padovani uses Leopold Auer’s cadenza, not Kreisler’s (the Kreisler cadenza is the one most used by violinists.)  He is the only one to do so.  For the Paganini concerto, he uses the most difficult cadenza ever written for this concerto – the one by Emile Sauret.  His recent performances in Vienna and Prague are available on DVD as well (this is not surprising since Padovani is very photogenic) and a live CD recording of the second Paganini concerto (B minor) in Seoul is also already in the catalog.  He also recently recorded the soundtrack to the European film Sinestesia (2010) and the 24 Caprices of Paganini.  (Other concert violinists who have recorded soundtracks are Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Toscha Seidel, and Louis Kaufman.)  In addition, he has made a very large number of radio and television appearances in Europe and Canada.  (Eddy Brown used to play almost exclusively on radio.)  There are also several videos of his concert appearances on YouTube, including the incredibly difficult Ernst arrangement of Schubert’s Der Erlkonig.  He frequently performs chamber music with other major artists and often appears in duo violin performances with Russian violinist Natasha Korsakova with whom he will also record several double concertos in 2011.  (Natasha Korsakova is profiled on this blog - December 15.)  Padovani played on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin (1861) for some time but presently plays the 1722 Jupiter (ex-Goding) Stradivarius.  (There is another Jupiter Strad from the year 1700.) 

Ivan Galamian

Ivan Galamian (Ivan Alexander Galamian) was an Armenian violinist and teacher (some sources say Persian because he was born in Iran) born on January 23, 1903 - some sources say February 25 and others say February 5 - (Heifetz was 2 years old.)  He is remembered as one of the best violin teachers of the 20th Century – an institution at the Juilliard School (New York.)  As a young man, Galamian studied at the School of the Philharmonic Society with Konstantin Mostras, in Moscow, where he resided with his family from infancy.  It is said he also studied with Julius Conus.  Conus taught in Moscow until 1919, so that is entirely possible. Galamian graduated from the school in 1919, at age 16, and began playing in the opera orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre.  In 1922, he moved to France where he studied further with Lucien Capet in Paris (1922-1923.)  He made his Paris debut on May 5, 1924 although he played another recital there on December 24, 1926 which is also called his debut recital.  It has been widely reported that he suffered from an incapacitating but undefined nervous condition (possibly stage fright) and soon gave up his dream of a concertizing career – unlike Ruggiero Ricci who never experienced nervousness when playing.  From 1925 until 1929 he taught at the Russian Conservatory in Paris while still performing occasionally.  Even at this early stage of his teaching career, he produced a special student in the person of Vida Reynolds, the first woman to play with the first violins of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  Galamian came to the U.S. in 1937, where he remained for the rest of his life.  While setting up a private studio in New York City he also taught at the Henry Street Settlement House there.  He was hired by Efrem Zimbalist – via a recommendation by Zino Francescatti - to teach at the Curtis Institute (1944) and then was also offered a similar post at Juilliard (1946 – some sources say 1948.)  In 1944 he founded the Meadowmount Music School (Westport, New York) which operated during summer months – a sort of intense music camp which became very successful.  Galamian had hundreds of students and therefore used more than half a dozen teaching assistants – Dorothy DeLay and Robert Lipsett among them.  (In 1970, he and Dorothy DeLay acrimoniously parted ways because of a difference of opinion regarding teaching approaches and he refused to speak to her for the remainder of his life.  He also tried to get her fired from Juilliard – unsuccessfully.)  It has been said that due to his authoritarian methods all his pupils sound the same – unlike Leopold Auer’s.  In 1962, Galamian published two books on violin technique which are still in print.  He also edited many standard works for violin.  As far as I know, he never recorded anything commercially.  Among Galamian’s famous pupils are Michael Rabin, Pinchas Zukerman, Eugene Fodor, Tigran Vardanyan, Hyman Bress, Simon Standage, Stuart Canin, Linda Rose, and Ani Kavafian.  Galamian taught until the day he died, April 14, 1981, at age 78.

Eddy Brown

Eddy Brown was an American violinist, teacher, and radio pioneer born on July 15, 1895 (Brahms was 63 years old.)  His father, with whom he had his first lessons, was Austrian and his mother, Russian.  He later studied with Hugh McGibney in Indianapolis while still a child.  He is known for having launched and hugely influenced classical music radio programming in the U.S.  In fact, he gave the first radio performance of all ten Beethoven sonatas.  In 1936, he pioneered radio station WQXR in New York City (devoted exclusively to classical music) which survives to this day.  His first public appearance as a violinist was at age six.  At age nine (1904), he enrolled at the Royal Conservatory in Budapest where he studied with Jeno Hubay, Bela Bartok and others.  Two years later, he took first prize in the Budapest Concerto Competition.  Eugene Ormandy took second.  Brown graduated in 1909 and soon after made his formal debut in Budapest playing the Beethoven concerto.  That same year he made his London debut with the London Philharmonic playing Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto – he was fourteen years old.  His Berlin debut came in 1910 with the Brahms concerto.  He then studied further (until 1916) with Leopold Auer at the St Petersburg Conservatory and concertized world wide for some time after that.  His U.S. debut was at Indianapolis in 1916 with the Beethoven concerto.  He made his New York debut that same week.  He began to record (if one can call it that) in 1916.  He also formed a string quartet (name unknown) and established the Chamber Music Society of America.  After becoming involved in radio in 1930, he essentially stopped touring, though he played for many of the different radio programs which he created and in various venues close to New York.  Ironically, almost none of the hundreds of performances he gave on radio survive.  Brown started to teach at the University of Cincinnati in 1956.  He was named Artist-in-Residence of Butler University (Indianapolis) in 1971.  His only modern recording was of a violin concerto by Mana Zucca, which few people have ever heard.  A complete recording of it is posted on YouTube, if you should be curious, as are other Eddy Brown recordings. Brown died unexpectedly (in Italy) on June 14, 1974, at age 78. 

Mischa Elman

Mischa Elman (Mikhail Saulovich Elman) was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist born on January 20, 1891 (Stravinsky was 9 years old.) He was known for his short stature, unusual vibrato technique, soulful style, and beautiful tone. He auditioned for Leopold Auer at age 11, playing Wieniawski's concerto in d minor and Paganini's 24th Caprice. Auer then had Elman admitted to the St Petersburg Conservatory, where he (Auer) was a violin instructor. (An amusing song later composed by the Gershwin brothers mentioned Mischa (Elman), Jascha (Heifetz), Toscha (Seidel), and a few other students of Leopold Auer.) In 1903, Elman began to play concerts in the homes of wealthy patrons and, in 1904, made his debut in Berlin. In 1905, he made his London debut with Glazunov's concerto. In 1908, he came to the U.S. and played in Carnegie Hall. He recorded extensively but not nearly as much as other violinists of his time (such as Heifetz, Menuhin, Gitlis, Francescatti, and Ricci.) Elman died on April 5, 1967, at age 76.

Nathan Milstein

Nathan Milstein (Nathan Mironovich Milstein) was a Russian violinist born on December 31, 1903 - some sources say December 31, 1904 and others say January 13, 1904 (Heifetz was 2 years old.) He was often called the "prince of the violin." He started studying the violin at age 4 (some say age 7) with Peter Stolyarsky, a popular teacher in Odessa (Russia) who also taught David Oistrakh around the same time. At age 10 (1914), he left studying with Stolyarsky and entered the Odessa Conservatory. By age 12, he had entered the St Petersburg Conservatory where Leopold Auer was teaching. His fellow students were Elman, Heifetz, Seidel, and Zimbalist, among many others. He studied with Auer until the summer of 1917 and had no additional instruction thereafter. He is said to have premiered the first concerto by Prokofiev in 1923 in Russia.  The concerto had already been played for the first time in Paris that same year.  In 1925, he left Russia to play a few concerts in Europe and never returned. In 1926, he studied with Eugene Ysaye (in Belgium) for a few weeks but later said he learned nothing from him - it was actually Ysaye who told him he had no need of any further lessons. In that same year, Milstein made his Paris debut. On October 17, 1929 (some sources say November 29, 1929) he made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Glazunov's concerto and thereafter concertized non-stop until July, 1986. He is remembered for a very clean and precise technique and very appealing tone. He is also remembered for his Paganiniana - a dazzling arrangement of different tunes written by Nicolo Paganini. Between 1930 and 1986, he recorded most of the violin repertory. Of the Brahms concerto alone there are no fewer than five studio recordings available - each with a different orchestra. Although he made seven (studio) recordings of the Mendelssohn concerto, he didn't record the Sibelius or the Stravinsky concertos even once. Those works were probably not in his repertoire. There are also many superb videos of his playing on YouTube - all of them professionally produced. Milstein died in London on December 21, 1992, at age 88. (Of that era, only Ruggiero Ricci, Albert Markov, Zvi Zeitlin, David Nadien, Camilla Wicks, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis remain.)

Samuel Dushkin

Samuel Dushkin was a Polish (some would say American) violinist born on December 13, 1891 (Stravinsky was 9 years old.) He is remembered as the violinist who premiered the Stravinsky violin concerto and who collaborated with this Russian composer in nearly all of his works for violin. He was never considered a virtuoso violinist but rather a very respectable musician. A not-too-flattering review of his New York Town Hall recital of February 9, 1943 is fairly typical. He initially studied at the Paris Conservatory and later with Leopold Auer and Fritz Kreisler. His European debut took place in 1918. He also premiered Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins (with Robert Soetens) in 1932. The famous Stravinsky violin concerto premiere was given on October 23, 1931 with the Berlin Radio Orchestra with Stravinsky himself conducting. The premiere was also broadcast. Dushkin premiered the work in the U.S. as well. Later on, with Stravinsky on the podium, he was the first to record the work. The well-known Dushkin Stradivarius (1701) is named after him, although he also owned one other Strad, a Guarnerius, and a Guadagnini. His widow (Louise) was the founder of the Harlem School of the Arts. (She died in Santa Fe, New Mexico.) Dushkin died on June 24, 1976, in obscurity, at age 84.

Josef Hellmesberger

Josef Hellmesberger (Sr.) was an Austrian violinist, conductor, composer, and teacher born on November 23, 1828 (Paganini was 46 years old.) He is related to four other famous Viennese musicians. (His son, Joseph Hellmesberger Jr. taught Leopold Auer and Fritz Kreisler.) Hellmesberger actually learned violin from his father (Georg Hellmesberger Sr.) from childhood until he graduated from the Vienna Conservatory, where his father was violin professor. In 1849, he founded the Hellmesberger Quartet. In 1851, he became director of the Vienna Conservatory, where he continued until his death. In 1860, he was appointed concertmaster of the Court Opera Orchestra. Hellmesberger died on October 24, 1893, at age 64.

Toscha Seidel

Toscha Seidel was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist and teacher born on November 17, 1899 (Stravinsky was 17 years old.) He is remembered for his work in Hollywood studios. He began his studies in Russia at age 7. At age 9, he was already studying in Berlin at the Stern Conservatory. In 1912, he became a pupil of Leopold Auer at the St Petersburg Conservatory, together with Heifetz, Zimbalist, Milstein, and Elman (among others.) As a teenager, he gave several joint recitals with Heifetz. Among his many highly praised solo recitals was one that took place in New York on September 19, 1920. He concertized in Europe and elsewhere for about fifteen years before coming to permanently live in the U.S. in the early 1930s. Soon, as so many other classical musicians of the time did also, he made his way to the motion picture studios in Hollywood where he served as concertmaster of the Paramount Studios orchestra. It is documented that in 1934 he gave Albert Einstein one or more private violin lessons. Einstein paid him by giving him a diagram of a formula which was tied to his Theory of Relativity - Einstein had a good sense of humor. Later on, they gave a joint recital to raise funds for some philanthropic effort. Arnold Steinhardt, leader of the Guarneri Quartet for many years, also studied with Seidel.  Seidel also loved to play chess, as did Oistrakh, Kogan, Menuhin, Elman, Kreisler, and so many other violinists. His violins were a Guadagnini of 1786 and the Da Vinci Stradivarius (1725.) Seidel ended his days as a pit orchestra violinist in Las Vegas. Many refer to his later years as tragic but nobody will say what the tragedy was. He died in Los Angeles on November 15, 1962, at age 63.

Guido Papini

Guido Papini was an Italian violinist born on August 1, 1847 (Brahms was 14 years old.) It is said that he studied alongside Leopold Auer, though that is highly questionable. He was initially a pupil of a teacher named Giorgetti and made his debut at the age of 13 playing Louis Spohr’s third Concerto. He is known for being one of the early editors of Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin and for having owned the Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarnerius Del Gesu (1739.) He became the leader of the Quartet Society of the City of Florence, where he was born, as well as the Court Violinist to the Queen of Italy. Papini made his English debut in 1874 (at age 27), at the Musical Union and later at the Crystal Palace with the London Symphony Society. His Paris debut took place in 1876 at the Concerts de Pasdeloup and the Bordeaux Philharmonic Concerts. Thereafter, he regularly toured throughout Europe, making England his home. In 1893, he accepted the post of head of the violin department at the Dublin Conservatory. In 1896, he returned to London, where he dedicated a good deal of time to composing a large body of works (which are now never played) and taught at the Royal Academy in London. Papini died in London on October 3, 1912, at age 65.