Jascha Brodsky was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist
and teacher born (in Kharkof aka Kharkiv) on June 6, 1907. Although he began his career as a concert
violinist, he is primarily remembered as a great violin pedagogue, in the same
league as Peter Stolyarsky, Carl Flesch, Leopold Auer, Zakhar Bron, Ivan
Galamian, and Josef Gingold. Brodsky
shares a surname with another (not related) famous violinist: AdolphBrodsky. His first lessons (at age six) were
with his father. Such was also the case
with Jascha Heifetz and his father. He
also studied at the music conservatory of Tblisi (Georgia) and began
concertizing in Russia, appearing with several orchestras in Russia in his
early teens. He left for Paris in
1926. He was 19 years old. In Paris he studied with Lucien Capet and
later on, in Belgium, with Eugene Ysaye.
During that time, he played with Nathan Milstein and Vladimir
Horowitz. Milstein and Horowitz were
very close friends and had fled Russia at almost the same time in 1925. In 1930, with advice from Mischa Elman, Brodsky became a student of Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute (U.S.). In 1932, he began teaching at Curtis. By then, he had also become first violinist
of what became the Curtis String Quartet, with Benjamin Sharlip, Max Aronoff,
and Orlando Cole. The quartet was
invited to play at the White House at a later time. It was also the quartet for whom Samuel Barber wrote his string quartet - the one that includes the famous Adagio (Opus 11, completed in 1936.) The Curtis String Quartet did not, however, premiere the Barber quartet - Barber did not finish it in time. Barber's Opus 11 was premiered by the Pro Arte Quartet in late 1936 in Italy and was subsequently revised and re-premiered by the Budapest String Quartet in the U.S. in 1943. Brodsky retired from the quartet in 1981 and from
Curtis in 1996. He was 88 years old. An audio file of Schumann's Opus 41, number 1 (with Louis Berman on second violin) can be heard here in its entirety. He also taught (from
1942 onward) at the New School for Music (later – in 1986 - merging with Temple
University) in Philadelphia. His students include Jaime Laredo, Judith
Ingolfsson, Juliette Kang, Judy Barrett, Julie Kurtzman, Joey Corpus, Hilary
Hahn, Alan McChesney, Herbert Greenberg, Monica Bauchwitz, Ellen de Pasquale, Joseph
de Pasquale, Robert de Pasquale, Levon Zarasian, Martin Chalifour, Chin Kim,
Leila Josefowicz, and Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg.
For a short while, Brodsky played
– on loan from Curtis – the 1697 Molitor Stradivarius. Curtis acquired the Molitor in 1929 but got
rid of it in 1936. The Molitor has been
around a bit and is now owned by Anne Akiko Meyers - it had been previously played by Henri
Temianka and (more recently) Elmar Oliveira. For about
ten years, Brodsky also played a Stradivarius violin from 1694, also from the
Curtis Institute’s collection. The
violin had previously been owned by Karl Halir.
Curtis sold it in 1947. I don’t
know what violin Brodsky played after that. He died (in Ocala, Florida) on March 3, 1997, at age 89.
Charles Munch was a French violinist, conductor, and teacher born (in Strasbourg, when it was German territory) on September 26, 1891. Today, nobody remembers him as a violinist. Although he conducted many great orchestras, he is best known for his tenure at the Boston Symphony, from 1949 to 1962. He first studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory (inaugurated in 1855.) His first job as a violinist was in an orchestra conducted by his father (an organist), playing in the second violin section. In 1912, at age 20, he graduated from the conservatory and moved on to Berlin for further study with Carl Flesch. He also studied with Lucien Capet at the Paris Conservatory. In 1920, he was appointed professor of violin at the Strasbourg Conservatory while he was also playing as assistant concertmaster of the Strasbourg Philharmonic. He was 29 years old. Later on, he was concertmaster of the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne. (The Gurzenich Orchestra is really not to be trifled with. It played the world premieres of Brahms’ Double Concerto (1887), Strauss’ Till (1895), Strauss’ Don Quixote (1898), Mahler’s Third Symphony (1902), Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1904), and Max Reger’s Variations (1907.) He then served as concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (1926 to 1933) under Bruno Walter. In 1933, he left Germany for Paris. He had already made his conducting debut there in November, 1932. He was 41 years old at the time of his debut. As far as I know, after 1933, he never again touched the violin in public. In 1938, he helped found the Paris Philharmonic. He had already begun teaching conducting at the Paris Conservatory (1937-1945.) During the war years (1939-1945), he conducted the Paris Conservatory Orchestra. For this, he was later accused of being a Nazi collaborator, though the charge did not stick. The Boston Symphony he first conducted in December, 1946. His legacy with the Boston Symphony is well-known and documented in dozens of recordings. Heifetz recorded the Beethoven concerto with Munch and the Boston Symphony in November of 1955. I don’t think Heifetz recorded it ever again. If Munch ever recorded anything as a violinist I don’t know where that recording might be found. After 1962, Munch conducted European orchestras and guest conducted all over the world. He once owned (from 1925 to 1960) a violin which had been stolen from Eugene Ysaye in Russia - a 1734 Stradivarius - which had been earlier played by Hugo Heermann. That violin ended up with Henryk Szeryng who left it to the City of Jerusalem who then let the Israel Philharmonic borrow it. He died on November 6, 1968, in Richmond, Virginia, at age 77. Here is one of his many YouTube videos.
Lucien Capet (Lucien Louis Capet) was a French violinist, teacher, and composer born on January 8, 1873 (Brahms was 40 years old.) He is remembered for his book on bow technique, Superior Bowing Technique (1916), and for being the teacher of Ivan Galamian, Jascha Brodsky, Charles Munch, and Mario Dias de Figueiredo. In fact, thanks to Capet, Galamian emphasized bow technique over most everything else. I do not know who his teachers were when he was a child but he later studied at the Paris Conservatory where he was a pupil of someone named Morin (J.P. Maurin.) He appeared as soloist with many French orchestras, but especially the Lamoureux Orchestra, of which he was concertmaster from 1896 to 1899. Capet had been supporting himself by playing in dance halls and cafes since he was fifteen years old. From 1899 to 1903, he taught at the Society of Saint Cecilia School. It has been said that he studied the Brahms concerto for seven years before playing it in public. With Henri Casadesus on viola and Marcel Casadesus on cello (uncles of pianist Robert Casadesus) he formed the Capet Quartet in 1893. In 1924, Capet and fellow violinist Suzanne Chaigneau founded the Modern Violin Institute. Between 1925 and 1930, after several changes in personnel, the Capet Quartet recorded at least 12 quartets – 5 of them by Beethoven and the others by Mozart, Haydn, Ravel, Debussy, Schumann, Franck, and Schubert. Josef Gingold heard the quartet perform in Brussels in 1928 and many years later said that it was the greatest string quartet concert he had ever heard. It was an all-Beethoven program. There is an audio file on YouTube of the Capet Quartet playing Mozart. Capet also wrote three string quartets which are now completely forgotten. He died on December 18, 1928, at age 55.
Leila Josefowicz (Leila Bronia Josefowicz) is a Canadian violinist born on October 20, 1977 (Heifetz was 76 years old.) She is an intense genius who is sometimes not well-understood. She also plays the violin stupendously well. She has been criticized for her physicality while playing but you will not likely find someone performing with greater conviction, precision, and audacity. She began violin lessons at age three. By age 8, she was studying with Robert Lipsett in Los Angeles. She entered the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia) at age 13 where she studied with Jaime Laredo, Joseph Gingold, Jascha Brodsky, and Felix Galimir, among others. By this time, she was already concertizing. She graduated from Curtis in 1997. There is an impressive video of her (on YouTube) playing Paganini with the Boston Pops (conducted by John Williams) at a very young age. Her Carnegie Hall debut was in 1994. Her discography - even this early in her career - is fairly extensive. Josefowicz was the recipient of a no-strings-attached MacArthur grant in 2008. (Jazz violinist Regina Carter received one in 2006.) She has played a 1739 and a 1724 Guarnerius.
Louis Krasner was a Russian (Ukrainian) violinist, teacher, and composer born on June 21, 1903 (Heifetz was 2 years old.) He is remembered for having commissioned and premiered Alban Berg’s violin concerto. Krasner asked for the concerto in 1934 - Berg completed it in 1935 and Krasner premiered it in 1936 in Spain. He also premiered the Schoenberg violin concerto (in 1940) among other modern works. Krasner’s live recordings of each concerto date from 1938 and 1954, respectively. Krasner came to the U.S. from Russia as a 5 year-old boy. After the usual course of study at Boston English High School, he attended and graduated from the New England Conservatory. As had Alfredo Campoli, Geza Legocky, Albert Sammons, Vasa Prihoda, Jacques Thibaud, and Grigoras Dinicu, he played popular music in clubs in order to support himself while he studied. He also studied violin in Europe with Lucien Capet, Otakar Sevcik, and Carl Flesch. In the U.S., he studied with Eugene Gruenberg (of the Boston Symphony), among others. He played his New England Conservatory graduation recital in 1922 though he graduated in 1923. After concertizing for two decades, he became concertmaster of the Minneapolis Symphony (1944-1949.) He then moved to Syracuse, New York to teach at Syracuse University. Krasner retired from concertizing in 1973 but dedicated the rest of his life to teaching - he taught at the New England Conservatory from 1976 until the year he died. Krasner died on May 4, 1995.
