Sophie Heinrich is a German violinist, writer,
and teacher known for being the first female concertmaster of the Vienna
Symphony Orchestra (2019 to 2023.) Prior
to that engagement, she was the concertmaster of the Berlin Comic Opera
Orchestra (2012 to 2019.) The Berlin
Comic Opera Company produces operas, light operas, ballets, concerts, and
musicals and is known for being very innovative. She has also served as concertmaster in other
German orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Bavarian State
Opera (one of Carlos Kleiber’s favorite orchestras), and the Dresden State
Orchestra. Although she has concertized
and taught classes in the U.S., Asia, and South America, Heinrich’s career has
for the most part been spent in Europe. Her
webpage is easy to find on the internet.
She began her violin studies at age 4 but I don’t know who her first
teacher was. She later studied at the
Hanns Eisler school in Berlin with Antje Weithaas (Director of the Joseph
Joachim Violin Competition in Hanover); at the Lubeck University of Music (which
is about 150 miles northwest of Berlin) with Thomas Brandis (former
concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and pupil of Max Rostal); and received
additional instruction from Reinhard Goebel (at Austria’s Mozarteum), Lothar
Strauss (concertmaster of the State Orchestra of Berlin), Gidon Kremer, Midori,
and the Artemis String Quartet. For a
time (approximately 2010 to 2017), she was Thomas Brandis’ assistant in
Lubeck. Heinrich has won top prizes at
various violin competitions, including the Leopold Mozart competition in 1999, and
the Max Rostal Competition in 2002. She
was awarded the Possehl Music Prize in Lubeck in 2008. Besides concertizing as a soloist and chamber
music player, Heinrich currently teaches at a private music school in
Feldkirch, Germany, the Stella Vorarlberg Private University. She is also the leader of the string section
at the Grafenegg Academy, located about thirty miles from Vienna. The Academy takes place during the summer at
Grafenegg Castle and involves classes in various disciplines in music. It is open (via audition) to young musicians
from all over the world. Heinrich’s
emphasis in teaching is the encouragement of female leadership. She is, as are most violinists, fluent in
three languages. She has said that her
Bible is Bach, her soul is Haydn (and Mozart), and her passion is Tango. (Incidentally, other classical violinists who
love dancing are: Tai Murray, Maxim Vengerov, Stefan Milenkovich, Rusanda
Panfili, and Andrew Sords. Violinists
from the past who, in addition to being musicians were also professional
dancers, are Jean Marie Leclair and Joseph de Bologne.) Here is one of Heinrich’s YouTube videos of a
recent concert featuring the popular Mozart Turkish concerto. Heinrich has played a Stradivari violin from
1698, a G.B. Guadagnini from 1753, and a modern violin by David Bague, a
well-known luthier from Barcelona.
(Leonidas Kavakos and Ruggiero Ricci also own violins by this violin
maker. Bague has said that he aspires to
create instruments to which nobody can be indifferent, which I think is a very
noble attitude toward his craft.)
Max Rostal was an Austrian violinist, arranger, and teacher born (in Teschen) on July 7, 1905 (Heifetz was four years old.) He is not particularly well-known for anything other than that he had a long teaching career and was under-rated as a violinist. He began his violin studies at age 5. He began playing in public from age 6 (1911.) From the age of 8, after arriving in Vienna, one of his teachers was Arnold Rose, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years. (When Fritz Kreisler - as a teenager - applied to the Vienna Philharmonic, it was Arnold Rose who turned him down.) In 1920, his mother took Rostal to Berlin, along with his siblings. There, he took private lessons with Carl Flesch, when Flesch was still teaching there. According to at least one source, Rostal was often compared to Bronislaw Huberman, Fritz Kreisler, and Eugene Ysaye. Rostal made his formal debut in Berlin on February 3, 1923. He was 17 years old. Although he played pieces by Reger, Vivaldi, Dvorak, and Paganini, the main work on the program was the violin concerto by Alexander Glazunov. In 1925, he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship. Another obscure violinist who won this prize was Leonora Jackson in 1897. In 1926, Rostal moved to Vienna, where he made a living mostly by giving private lessons. In 1927, he was offered the position of concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic. In 1928, he returned to Berlin to become assistant to Carl Flesch at the Berlin Music Academy. From 1930 to 1933 he taught at the Advanced School for Music in Berlin. Rostal organized the Rostal String Quartet in 1930. The quartet enjoyed great success for the duration of its existence (three years.) In April of 1933, he was dismissed from his teaching position and subsequently (in 1934) moved to England, where he established himself, primarily as a teacher. From 1944 to 1958, he taught at the Guildhall School of Music in London and played many concerts broadcast over the BBC. He then taught in Cologne (Germany) from 1957 to 1982. Simultaneously, he was a violin teacher at the Conservatory in Bern, Switzerland (1958-1985.) Several recordings of his are posted on YouTube and it is said that his few recordings are now treasured by collectors. Many critics have also said that he had a very individual style. He was especially praised for his interpretation of Bartok’s second concerto (as is Silvia Marcovici nowadays) and was known to champion contemporary music. Rostal premiered Alan Bush’s violin concerto in 1949, a work which has not been heard from since. He also edited quite a few works for violin and wrote a method book as well. These works can easily be found on the internet. A violin (and viola) competition (begun in Bern in 1991 and now held in Berlin) is named after him. In 1944, Rostal was instrumental in organizing the Carl Flesch violin competition (which ran from 1945 until 1992. Raymond Cohen was the first winner of that competition.) Among his pupils were Thomas Brandis, Sergiu Luca, Norbert Brainin, Yfrah Neaman, Desmond Cecil, Edith Peinemann, and Igor Ozim. His Guarnerius del Gesu is now owned by the Stradivari Society (Chicago, USA.) Max Rostal died in Switzerland on August 6, 1991, at age 86.
Leonora Jackson (Leonora Jackson McKim) was an American violinist born (in Boston, USA) on February 20, 1879 (Brahms was about 46 years old.) One source gives the year of her birth as 1880. She concertized at a time when female concert violinists were a rarity. Although she lived a long life, she is almost completely forgotten today. As did many artists before her, she received financial support from a benevolent patron to enable her to study in well-known conservatories. In her case, the patron was none other than Frances Cleveland, wife of U.S. President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908.) Another of her well-known patrons was George Vanderbilt. The schools she attended were in Chicago, Paris, and Berlin. I have no idea who she studied with in Chicago but I do know she won the well-regarded Mendelssohn Stipendium (Mendelssohn Scholarship) in October of 1897, the first American to do so. The award consisted of about $90,000 in today’s dollars and was intended to assist foreign students to attend the Leipzig Conservatory. For obvious reasons, it was discontinued in 1934 but later re-established. Subsequent winners of this prize have included Ernst Toch, Kurt Weill, Max Rostal, and Roman Totenberg (Nina’s father.) In Berlin, she studied with Joseph Joachim. Her debut is said to have taken place in 1896. Jackson often played for European royalty and was also decorated by Queen Victoria of England. She performed with the top orchestras of Europe and the U.S., including those of Boston and London. Her career was so successful that in the 1900-1901 season, she played over 160 concerts in the U.S. alone. Nonetheless, on February 22, 1900, she played the Mendelssohn concerto in New York (with the Boston Symphony) and received a very unfavorable review. Her retirement came in 1915, at age 36, after her marriage to William McKim (1855-1935.) As far as I know, she never recorded anything; however, a well-known Stradivarius violin (1714) bears her name and is now owned by William Sloan of Los Angeles. She sold it four years after her marriage. The violin had been previously owned by Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim - one of her teachers. Leonora Jackson died on January 7, 1969, at age 89, in complete obscurity.
Sergiu Luca was a Romanian (some would say American) violinist and teacher born (in Bucharest) on April 5, 1943 (Heifetz was 42 years old.) He is best known for having been the first to record the Bach unaccompanied violin works on a baroque violin. That recording is an early example of one of the causes he championed. The desire for playing (and learning to play) on original (authentic) instruments took off after that, especially in England, where the Academy of Ancient Music and the English Concert were founded. He began his violin studies at age 4 and entered the Bucharest Conservatory at age 5. His family moved to Israel when he was 7 and he made his public debut as a soloist with the Haifa Symphony when he was 9. Prior to coming to the U.S. to study under Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia), he studied in London (with Max Rostal) and in Switzerland. He is one of a handful of prodigies whom Isaac Stern helped bring from Israel to study in the U.S. - Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, and Shlomo Mintz are three others. None of them ever returned, except to play concerts or participate in music festivals now and then. Luca made his American debut playing the Sibelius Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1965. He played it again later that year with the New York Philharmonic (February 13, 1965), though he only played the first movement of the concerto. It was for one of Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts - he was 21 years old. I do not know why but he did not play with the Philharmonic ever again. In contrast, over the years, Zino Francescatti soloed with this orchestra more than 50 times – so did Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, and Isaac Stern. Luca made his New York recital debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in November, 1969. For many years afterward, he concertized in Europe, Latin America, Israel, Japan, and the U.S. Luca founded the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, Oregon (1971-1980), and the Cascade Head Music Festival in Lincoln City, Oregon (about 60 miles southeast of Portland) (1985–2006.) He was one of the first artists to speak to audiences from the stage prior to concerts. In 1983, he became a violin professor at Rice University, a job from which he never retired. He was forty years old. He was also director of Houston's Texas Chamber Orchestra from 1983 to 1986. In 1988 he founded the Da Camera Society of Houston (1988-1994) – some say it was his most ambitious project. Until now, I had never heard of it. He also had a hand in starting the Context chamber group (in 1995) in Houston, which was dedicated to performances on period instruments. I should note that these quoted dates vary by as much as a year (in both directions) from one source to another. For instance, in one source, Luca’s tenure at the Texas Chamber Orchestra is given as 1982-1987. In another, those years are given as 1983-1986. He recorded with Context on the Zephyr label, but also recorded with several orchestras and chamber ensembles on Nonesuch and other labels. He also recorded works, such as the Mozart Sonatas, for violin and piano. In the mid 1970s, he began his forays into authentic baroque performances. Although by appearances he was very involved in original instrument performances, he plainly stated several times that he wanted to embrace as large a repertory as possible and be immersed in all styles and musical ideas. An audio recording of his playing Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata is at YouTube. Luca's favored instrument was the Earl of Falmouth violin by Carlo Bergonzi (1733); however, he also owned a large collection of violins, including ones by Sanctus Seraphin (1733), Antonio Stradivari (1713 – the Wirth Stradivarius), Nicolaus Sawicki (1829 – Paganini considered Sawicki a genius), Stefano Scarampela (1909), and Isabelle Wilbaux (2008 – Canadian luthier.) He was quoted in The Houston Chronicle (by Tara Dooley-July, 2008) as saying, about violins, "They are sort of a human thing that is somewhere between something alive and something that is inanimate." Luca died on December 6, 2010, at age 67.
Yfrah Neaman was a British violinist and an eminent teacher born on this day (February 13) in 1923. Although he was born in Lebanon, he studied at the Paris Conservatory with Jacques Thibaud, from which he graduated at age 14, and then settled in London where he continued his studies with Carl Flesch and then Flesch’s pupil, Max Rostal. His unplanned debut was in 1944 in London with the London Symphony. He taught at the Guildhall School of Music from 1958 until 2003 and was artistic director of the Carl Flesch Competition. His influence and reputation as a teacher was spread far and wide. There are numerous recordings of his playing some modern violin concertos by seldom-heard composers. He died in January, 2003.
