Henri Dupont

Henri Dupont (Henri Joseph Dupont) was a Belgian violinist, conductor, composer, and teacher born (in Ensival) on January 3, 1838.  Brahms was five years old that year and Belgium itself was almost a brand new country at that time.  Other than that he has a very recognizable surname, Dupont is not known – with regard to the violin - for anything in particular.  Belgium has for generations produced many spectacular violin virtuosos but Dupont is not one of them.  His name is most often mentioned as a conductor of opera – according to several sources, he conducted many outstanding performances in England (Covent Garden) which today (had they been filmed for posterity) would probably be acclaimed.  He received his training from the conservatories at Liege and Brussels – I don’t know how early he began his violin studies nor who his teachers were.  In 1863 he won the Belgian version of the Rome Prize (Prix de Rome) for composition.  He was 25 years old.  After that, he took off on a study tour throughout Europe which lasted four years – this excursion was probably subsidized by the Belgian government, although I am not certain of that.  In 1867, he became concertmaster of the Warsaw Opera House.  He was 29 years old.  In 1871, he took a similar post at the Imperial Theatre of Moscow.  One year later, he was back in Brussels where he was hired as professor of harmony at the Conservatory while simultaneously serving as concertmaster of the Monnaie Theatre (Theatre Royal de la Monnaie or Royal Theatre of the Coin – a theatre dating back to 1700.)  He also served as conductor there beginning that same year.  He was 34 years old.  He also guest conducted operas at the Royal Opera House in London many times.  In 1873, he took over as director of the Popular Concerts (Concerts Populaires) from none other than Henri Vieuxtemps (who had become incapacitated as the result of a stroke that same year.)  Dupont was made a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1899.  He died on December 21, 1899, at age 61, just ten days before the start of the Twentieth Century.  

Adolfo Betti

Adolfo Betti was an Italian violinist, teacher, and music editor born (in Bagni Di Lucca, Italy) on March 21, 1875.  (Bagni Di Lucca is a small village in Tuscany, Italy - it is situated about 30 miles northwest of Florence and about 70 miles south of Cremona.)  He is known for leading, as first violinist, the Flonzaley Quartet from 1903 to 1929.  In its first few years, he and second violinist, Alfred Pochon, actually alternated playing first violin.  Two other quartets who used to or still do this are the Emerson and the Jacobsohn string quartets.  The Flonzaley quartet was one of two very famous (and important) American string quartets playing in the early twentieth century - the other was the Kneisel Quartet.  Interestingly, its founder was not a professional musician.  He was philanthropist Edward J. De Coppet.  The quartet was actually named for De Coppet’s summer home near Geneva, Switzerland.  Although I have no idea who Betti’s early teachers were, I do know he made his public debut as a child of either six or seven - accounts vary.  He entered the Liege Conservatory (Belgium) in 1892.  There, he studied with Cesar Thomson.  He graduated in 1896, at age 21.  Thereafter, he concertized in Europe.  In 1900, he was appointed assistant to his former teacher (Thomson) at the Brussels Conservatory.  In 1903, he was invited, by Alfred Pochon, to become part of the Flonzaley Quartet.  Pochon was also teaching at the Brussels Conservatory at the time.  Betti was 28 years old.  After the quartet disbanded, Betti spent his time between New York and his birthplace, teaching, editing music, and playing occasionally.  The public library in Bagni Di Lucca is named after him.  According to one source, he was even mayor of Bagni Di Lucca for a while.  In New York, Betti taught at the Mannes College of Music.  He played, among other violins, a 1782 J.B. Guadagnini and a 1741 Guarnerius Del Gesu.  I don’t know who owns or plays those violins today.  One of his better known students was David Nadien, who very recently passed away.  Betti died on December 2, 1950, at age 75. 

Lola Bobesco

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. 

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.  

Cesar Thomson

Cesar Thomson was a Belgian violinist, teacher, arranger, and composer born (in Liege, Belgium) on March 18, 1857.  Although he was considered a brilliant violinist in his time, he is now remembered more for his teaching.  He began violin lessons with his father at age 5 or 6.  By age 7 he had entered the Liege Conservatory where he studied with Jacques Dupuis, a very strict teacher.  (Liege is about 50 miles east of Brussels, Belgium.)  He also studied with Rodolphe Massart and Desire Heynberg, who also taught Eugene Ysaye.  According to Grove’s Dictionary, it was said that Thomson, by age 16, had a technique unrivalled by any other living violinist – the year was 1873, so that is saying quite a lot.  Take it with a grain of salt.  Thomson later studied additionally with Hubert Leonard, Henryk Wieniawski, and Henri Vieuxtemps.  If he was already a superlative, pre-eminent violinist, it is hard to imagine what it was they taught him.  In 1873, he became concertmaster of a private orchestra (in Switzerland) at the service of Paul von Derwies, a Russian banker, railroad industrialist, and serious patron of the arts.  Thomson stayed for four years and during the interim, married into the nobility.  By 1879, he was assistant concertmaster of Benjamin Bilse’s Band in Berlin, where Eugene Ysaye was the concertmaster.  Thomson was barely 22 years old - Ysaye was 21.  A few years later, this orchestra would become the Berlin Philharmonic, but not under the direction of Benjamin Bilse.  One source clearly states that Thomson was concertmaster of the Bilse Band but that may be due to a tradition in German orchestras of having two or more concertmasters, making no distinction between two or three leaders in the same position.  By 1882, Thomson was back where he started, in Liege, teaching at the Liege Conservatory.  In 1897, he took over for Eugene Ysaye at the Brussels Conservatory.  He was 40 years old.  A year later, he formed a string quartet.  Many sources state that Thomson was austere and cerebral in his approach to music - he can perhaps be compared to Joseph Szigeti.  A review of his first concert in New York City on October 30, 1894, stated the following: “His treatment of the Bruch concerto [in d minor] proved him to be a player of substantial force, but it revealed no influential emotional power.  It was dignified, well-considered, and thoughtful.  Mr. Thomson may be classed with the scholarly players who interest the mind rather than overwhelm the heart.”  On November 9, 1894, he played one of the violin concertos of Leopold Damrosch with the New York Symphony, Walter Damrosch conducting.  That concerto has probably not been heard from since, but that I do not know for sure.  Thomson toured a great deal in Europe, South America, and the U.S.  Between 1924 and 1927, he taught at Ithaca College (New York) and at Juilliard as well.  Students came from faraway places to study with him.  Among Thomson’s pupils are Haydn Wood, Johan Halvorsen (famous for his Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia for violin and viola), Paul Kochanski, Adolfo Betti, Antoinette Zoellner, Joseph Zoellner, Alma Moodie (Carl Flesch’s favorite pupil), Aylmer Buesst, Edwin Grasse (blind violinist and composer), Hugo Alfven, and Guillermo Uribe Holguin (founder of the National Symphony of Colombia.)  Thomson edited, arranged, and transcribed music by Arcangelo Corelli, George Frederick Handel, Giuseppe Tartini, J.S. Bach, Pietro Nardini, and Vitali – I don’t know which of the Vitalis.  Among his own works is a Gypsy Rhapsody for violin but I don’t know if it has been recorded or even published.  He played a G.B. Guadagnini violin (1780), a Santo Serafin (constructed in 1740 – later owned for many years by Zino Francescatti), Giuseppe Guarneri (1703, auctioned in late 1990s for about $400,000), and an Andrea Guarneri violin (1650) which ended up in a museum.  Thomson died (in Bissone, Switzerland) on August 21, 1931, at age 74.  In Liege, a street is named after him.   

Martin Marsick

Martin Marsick (Martin Pierre Joseph Marsick) was a Belgian violinist, teacher, and composer born on March 9, 1847.  He created a scandal toward the latter part of his life as did Jean Marie Leclair at the very end of his.  Thanks to a few of his students, he will forever remain in the history books, even if his name is not exactly the most remembered among violinists.  These students included Bronislaw Huberman, Carl Flesch, George Enesco, and Jacques Thibaud.  He is also identified with the violin David Oistrakh played from 1966 until the day he died – the Marsick Stradivarius of 1705.  That violin ended up in the hands of Igor Oistrakh, but its present whereabouts are unknown to me.  In 1854, seven-year old Marsick was admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Liege (in other words, the Liege Conservatory.)  He studied violin with a very obscure teacher named Desire Heynberg and graduated in 1864.  Brahms was about 31 years old at the time.  Marsick then continued his studies in Brussels with Hubert Leonard.  Later still (1868) he went to Paris – which he made his home from that time forward - to study with Joseph Lambert Massart at the Paris Conservatory.  He was 21 years old.  Sponsored by the Belgian government, he went to Berlin in 1870 to study privately with Joseph Joachim.  In 1871, he founded a string quartet – not an unusual thing to do for recently-graduated violinists.  His debut took place in Paris in 1873.  He then concertized in Europe and the United States for about 20 years.  He was by then playing a Nicolo Amati violin from 1652, given to him by a member of the French nobility.  Conductors with whom he frequently worked in Paris included Edouard Colonne, Jules Pasdeloup, and Charles Lamoureux.  He also gave concerts with a piano trio which included Anatolyi Brandukov (teacher of Gregor Piatigorsky), and Vladimir de Pachmann (pupil of Anton Bruckner.)  In 1892, Marsick was appointed professor of violin at the Paris conservatory.  He was 45 years old.  He stayed until 1900.  In that year, he left his job, his students, and his wife and did not return until 1903.  The woman he lived with during this brief time was married and the situation, which was widely known, created a scandal.  It has been said that this incident ruined his career.  In 1906, he published a study book for violinists entitled Eureka (Opus 34, 18 pages long) and another book (Violin Grammar) published in 1924.  Perhaps these books are available in France.  Thibaud did record at least one of his pieces (Opus 6, number 2, Scherzando) about one hundred years ago and that recording is still available.  Among many other things, Marsick also composed three violin concertos, a quintet, a piano quartet, and a music drama.  Whether these works are nowadays performed is unknown – I would guess probably not, except perhaps in France.  According to some sources, Marsick died in poverty (in Paris) on October 21, 1924, at age 77.