Mari Samuelsen (Mari Silje Samuelsen) is a Norwegian violinist born (in
Hamar, Norway) on December 21, 1984. She
is well-known for having the most views for one of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
concertos on YouTube – more than 31,729,000.* (Please see updates below.) That is probably a record for a classical musician on YouTube. It is a really superb performance. The video is posted on Samuelsen's own channel on YouTube which has 97 thousand subscribers. However, although she is a supremely gifted
artist and technically brilliant, her discography is truly tiny – the reasons for
that, as far as I know, are a mystery. She
began violin lessons at age 3 then began studying with Norwegian violinist and
teacher Arve Tellefsen from age four.
After about ten years, she began studying with Stephan Barratt Due in Oslo. She also later studied with well-known
pedagogue Zakhar Bron in Switzerland. In
addition, she attended masterclasses with Ivry Gitlis, Ana Chumachenco, Midori,
Donald Weilerstein, Pamela Frank, and Robert Mann. Samuelsen’s career is well-established in
Europe although she has performed in several venues in the US as well. She has also played with several major
orchestras led by high profile conductors in some of the world’s great concert
halls. As far as I know, she has never entered any violin competitions. On August 25, 2016, Samuelsen and
her cellist brother (with whom she frequently performs as a duo) gave the
American premiere (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic) of a work for violin and
cello by the late film composer James Horner.
Samuelsen plays a 1773 Guadagnini violin on loan from a Norwegian
foundation. Here is one YouTube video of
hers (Vivaldi) and here is another (variations on the theme God Save the King
by Adrien Servais and Joseph Ghys.)
Johan Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist, conductor, teacher, and
composer born (in Drammen, Norway) on March 15, 1864. He was the kind of violinist we do not
encounter anymore. We have lots of
violinists who are also conductors and teachers – Joshua Bell, Pinchas
Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Jaime Laredo, Maxim Vengerov, and Leonidas Kavakos
quickly come to mind – but no violinist-composers. Although he composed many other works, Halvorsen
will probably remain immortal due to his having composed one of the staples of
the cello-violin (or viola-violin) repertoire – the famous variations on a
theme by Handel. After having studied in
Oslo and Stockholm, he began his career as a concertmaster in Norway (1885) and
Scotland (1888.) He began his studies at
age seven. Later on, his teachers were
Jakob Lindberg (in Stockholm), Adolph Brodsky (in Russia), Adolf Becker (in
Berlin), and Cesar Thomson (in Switzerland.)
In 1889, he was appointed professor of violin at the Helsinki Music
Institute. In 1893, he was appointed
conductor of the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic.
He was 29 year old. In 1899, he
was appointed conductor of the National Theater in Oslo. By this time, he had established himself as
one of the top musicians in Norway. He
remained at the National Theater until 1929, the year he retired. During this
period, he composed a lot of incidental music for plays as well as concert music. The famous Passacaglia was composed in 1897
although he later revised it several times.
In 1909, he wrote a violin concerto (Opus 28) which he dedicated to Canadian
violinist Kathleen Parlow. After she
premiered it (in the Netherlands) and played it a couple of times in
Norway, the concerto was lost. After
that, it was believed to have been destroyed by Halvorsen although that was not
the case. In January of 2016, it was
announced that the score had been discovered (by James Mason) among sheet music
which had been donated to the University of Toronto many years before. It had been misfiled. The concerto will receive its 21st
century premiere in July of this year – in Norway. The soloist will be Henning Kraggerud. Johan Halvorsen died on December 4, 1935, at
age 71. Here is a video of the Passacaglia.
Vilde Frang (Vilde Frang Bjaerke) is a Norwegian violinist and teacher
born (in Oslo) on August 19, 1986. She
is known for having successfully made the jump from child prodigy to mature
violin superstar. That transition does
not always prove successful for artists.
In addition to being technically brilliant, her playing has been
described as being fresh, seductive, sinewy, inspired, voluptuous, and
possessed of startling emotional sincerity. A highly regarded music critic went so far as to say that he had never heard such a great violinist since the late Jascha Heifetz. Her playing is rhythmically and tonally flexible, not straight-laced,
predictable, and pedantic. She began her
violin studies at age four, on a violin built by her father, a professional
bass player. By 1993, she was a student
at the Barratt Due Institute of Music (founded in 1927) in Oslo. She was 7 years old. Her teachers there were Stephan Barratt Due,
Alf Kraggerud, and Henning Kraggerud. Frang
made her public debut at age ten with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (some
sources say Norwegian Chamber Orchestra.)
She graduated from the Barratt Due Institute in 2002. In 1999, aged 12 (or 13), she debuted with
the Oslo Philharmonic, playing Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy. Mariss Jansons was on the podium. The concert was a great success and her career
took off after that. However, from 2003
to 2009, Frang studied further with Kolja Blacher at the Advanced School for
Music and Theatre in Hamburg and with Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy
in Kronberg (about ten miles from Frankfurt, Germany.) She debuted with the London Philharmonic in
2007. Her first album was released in
2009. She records exclusively for
EMI/Warner Classics and has received numerous awards for her recordings,
including the Diapason d’Or, Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Classical BRIT, and
the ECHO Klassik Award. As far as I
know, Frang has never entered any violin competitions. In 2010, Frang received an award of 1 million
NOK (Norwegian Krone – about 175,000 U.S. dollars) from a large Norwegian
business enterprise. She also received
an award of 75,000 Swiss francs (approximately 79,000 U.S. dollars) from Credit
Suisse (international bank) in 2012. The
award included a performance with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Lucerne
Festival. She made her BBC London Proms
debut in August, 2013, playing Bruch’s first concerto. She was 26 years old. By now, Frang has played with virtually every
major orchestra in the world and been accompanied by most major
conductors. She has also played recitals
or made solo appearances in all of the world’s important venues, including
those in China, Japan, Korea, Austria, Belgium, England, France, Germany,
Holland, Switzerland, Russia, and the U.S.
Frang now teaches at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. One of her violins is one constructed in 1864
by J.B. Vuillaume, a maker not considered to have the status of a Guarneri, a
Stradivari, or even a Guadagnini. She
has also played (since the summer of 2013) the 1709 Stradivarius known as the Engleman Strad. Frang has made the following interesting
comment regarding her artistic perspectives: “I need things to worry
about. I need some resistance and
struggle. That’s part of my music
making. I think talent has a lot to do
with knowing how to be inspired. Inspiration
is really the most important thing. ” On April 1 and 2, 2015 (last week) Frang was
to have played the Korngold concerto with the Toronto Symphony (and James
Conlon) but had to cancel due to “scheduling difficulties.” What that really means is anyone’s guess
since concerts are scheduled (and contracts are signed) very far in advance
(sometimes three years in advance) in order to avoid this sort of
difficulty. Perhaps all it means is that
her concert managers are disorganized, although that is extremely unlikely. Here is a YouTube video of one of her
performances. Photo is courtesy of Marco
Borggreve, photographer of (mostly European) musicians.
Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian violinist and composer born on January 11, 1856 (Brahms was 23 years old.) The love of art and culture ran in his family and he was immensely popular before the Second World War. He first studied music in Oslo before going to Leipzig, Germany, where he studied at the conservatory under Salomon Jadassohn. One of his other violin teachers was Henry Schradieck. In 1920, he came to the U.S. to teach at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He wrote a large number of short piano pieces and songs, one of which he is best remembered for (Rustles of Spring, 1896.) Sinding later spent much of his life in Germany. He also wrote a suite for violin which Heifetz used to play very often. A recording of it is posted on YouTube. Among his larger works are three symphonies, three violin concertos, a piano concerto, choral works, and an opera (The Holy Mountain, 1914.) For political reasons, his music is seldom heard today, not even in Norway. You can read the complex story about that situation (his black listing) at other sites if you care to. Sinding died on December 3, 1941, at age 84.
Camilla Wicks is a Norwegian (some would say American) violinist born on August 8, 1928 (Heifetz was 27 years old.) She is well-known for her exceptionally thoughtful and insightful interpretations, her inspired phrasing, and the extremely wide range of her repertoire. Most of her recordings are now collectors' items - her recordings of many rare Twentieth Century works (many of them Scandinavian) are significant, illuminating, and incandescent (some would say stunning.) She began her violin studies with her father at age 3. At age 7, she made her debut with orchestra in Long Beach, California, playing Mozart's D major concerto. She learned Bruch's g minor concerto at age 8 and the Paganini D major concerto at age 9. A year later, her family moved to New York where she began studying with Louis Persinger at Juilliard. With Persinger as her piano accompanist, she made her debut at New York's Town Hall in February of 1942. Two years later, she made her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic with the third concerto of Saint Saens. Her Carnegie Hall debut came in April of 1946 with the New York Philharmonic - she played the Sibelius concerto on that occasion - Artur Rodzinski, the notorious conductor, was on the podium. Wicks continued to concertize extensively in the U.S. and in Europe until about 1958. She then stopped playing altogether and even sold her "Duke of Cambridge" Stradivarius. After devoting much time to her five children, she returned to her career in 1966, though she only played sporadically. Among other schools, Wicks has taught at the University of Michigan, Rice University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She retired from teaching in 2005.
Johan Svendsen (Johan Severin Svendsen) was a Norwegian violinist, conductor, and composer, born on September 30, 1840 (Brahms was 7 years old.) He was very popular and successful in his day. Svendsen first studied with his father (what else is new?) and was working as an orchestral musician by the time he finished his secondary school education. At that time, he also undertook occasional tours as a violinist. A wealthy patron who heard him on one of these tours, financed further study for him at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1863 until 1867. There, he studied with the famous violinist Ferdinand David and the composer Reinecke. After turning his almost undivided attention to conducting, he worked in England, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Norway. Eventually, he was engaged as the Theatre conductor in Copenhagen, Denmark, on or about the year 1871. He was barely 31 years old. There he stayed until his death. His most famous composition (which is seldom heard nowadays) is his Romance for Violin from 1881. He was popular as a composer almost from the start, having achieved recognition with his very first composition - the string quartet from 1865. He composed three symphonies, a violin concerto, a ballet, and an assortment of chamber music. It is said that the original score to his third symphony was destroyed in a fire before having been published. It has therefore never been heard by anyone other than Svendsen. I have never heard anything of his aside from the Romance for Violin. Svendsen died on June 14, 1911, at age 70 (Richard Strauss was 47 years old, Igor Stravinsky was 29, and Jascha Heifetz was 10.)
Ole Bull (Ole Bornemann Bull) was a Norwegian violinist and composer born on this day (February 5) in 1810 (Beethoven was 40 years old). At the early age of 9, he was a soloist with the Bergen Music Society. He studied briefly with Louis Spohr, although he disliked him. Ole Bull was not one to do things formally or by the book but he became a very successful performer and knew many of the outstanding musicians of his day, some of whom admired him greatly. Perhaps he was a lot like Franz Clement, the violinist who commissioned Beethoven's violin concerto. In 1829, Bull played in Copenhagen and Kassel and in 1831 he travelled to Paris. He was 21 years old. He is said to have killed a man in a duel. He concertized a great deal in England, Ireland, and America, making quite a bit of money. The great fortune he made was badly invested several times but he always recovered by taking up the violin and touring again. His second wife was young enough to be his granddaughter, but the marriage was a happy one. Eugene Ysaye was like Ole Bull in this respect - in his old age, he married a woman 44 years younger than he was. Bull's first concert in America took place on November 25, 1843. He was 33 years old. His first violin seems to have been a 1734 Guarnerius. He later acquired a 1690 Stradivarius and a 1687 Stradivarius which now bears his name. That violin was later played by Paul Kochanski then still later by Iso Briselli. A 1647 Amati and a 1610 Gasparo Bertolotti may have been Ole Bull's last instruments. Bertolotti (aka Da Salo) was one of the earliest known violin makers. It appears Ole Bull went backwards in the age of his violins - the older he got, the older his violins, too. Bull died on August 18, 1880, at age 71. One of his violin concertos can be heard here. It is surely one of the most bombastic works for violin ever written and gives an indication to his performing style.
Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian violinist and composer born in 1856. He first studied music in Oslo then went to Leipzig, Germany, where he studied at the conservatory. In 1920 he came to the U.S. to teach composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (New York.) He wrote a large number of short piano pieces and songs, one of which he is best remembered for (Rustles of Spring, 1896.) Sinding later spent much of his life in Germany. He also wrote a suite for violin which Heifetz used to play often. Among his larger works are three symphonies, three violin concertos, a piano concerto, choral works, and an opera (The Holy Mountain, 1914). For political reasons, his music is seldom heard today, even in his native Norway. Sinding died in 1941.
