Ossy
Renardy (Oskar Reiss) was an Austrian violinist born (in Vienna) on April 26,
1920. He had the unenviable distinction
of having died at a very young age. Many
critics (and writers) have said he had a very brilliant career ahead of him –
one to rival Bronislaw Huberman, Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Ruggiero
Ricci, Mischa Elman, and other top violinists of that time. I don’t know if Paganini ever played his
Caprices in public or whether, if he did, he ever played all 24 in a single
concert. Renardy did. He may have been the very first to do
it. On January 8, 1938, at his Town Hall
debut in New York, he played Dvorak’s Sonatina, Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnol, and
Pietro Nardini’s e minor concerto (a very popular work at the time – Pinchas
Zukerman has recorded it) in the first half of the program. He then played all 24 Paganini Caprices on
the second half. He was 19 years
old. The following year, he recorded the
Caprices (the version with piano accompaniment), becoming the first violinist
to record all 24 Caprices on a single disc (actually, they were issued on two
discs.) Seven years later, Ricci put out
his first version of all 24 Caprices – without the piano accompaniment – and he
later went on to record the Caprices a total of four times – the last version
in 1988. Renardy re-recorded the
Caprices which again included the piano accompaniment (with a different
accompanist) the year he died. Renardy
studied with a now-forgotten Russian violin teacher, Theodore Pashkus
(1905-1970), but at what age he began is something I don’t know. Pashkus and his wife were successful
pedagogues until about 1970. I don’t
know if they ever taught at a conservatory or university. Their pupils included Yehudi Menuhin and Ivry
Gitlis and their instructional books are still in print. In any case, Renardy is said to have been
entirely self-taught (which is possible but hard to believe) prior to meeting
Pashkus and made sufficient progress to make his first public appearance at age
11. In October of 1933, he joined a
variety show in Merano, Italy. (Merano
is about 120 miles southwest of Salzburg, Austria, or about 250 miles from
Vienna.) It was then that he changed his
name. Another well-known violinist who
changed his name was Mischa Mischakoff – three times. In Merano, Renardy played Paganini’s first
concerto at the Merano Casino and then took off to tour Italy. He was still only 13 years old. After that, he played in his native Vienna
and toured France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Italy. Interestingly, no mention is made in any
source I checked about his having toured Germany or Austria. He left the European mainland for England in
1937. He came to the U.S. the same year. He was 17 years old. First, he embarked on a tour of a few
central states and then made his New York debut, described above, in 1938. As did many other violinists, Renardy played
hundreds of concerts for the U.S. armed services during the Second World War
(1941-1945.) As far as I know, he never
played in an orchestra. In 1947, he
began touring once again, playing with most major orchestras in the U.S., Europe,
and Israel. He was 27 years old. In June of 1948, he recorded the Brahms
concerto with the Royal Concertgebouw and Charles Munch. Although he recorded about 35 works
altogether, he did not record another concerto after this. Here is an audio file of Renardy playing a
very familiar work by Wieniawski. His
Guarnerius violin - the Carrodus Guarnerius del Gesu of 1743 – is now being
played by Richard Tognetti, concertmaster of the Australian Chamber
Orchestra. This violin is not to be
confused with other Guarnerius violins bearing the same or a very similar name. It is said to be one of the best four or five
violins (by any maker) in the world. I
do not know how Renardy acquired the violin (in 1949.) Supposedly, it remained un-played for 54 years
- between December, 1953 and January, 2007.
On December 3, 1953, in the afternoon, Renardy died in an automobile
accident while traveling with his accompanist, George Robert, to give a concert
in Colorado (USA.) He was 33 years
old. George Robert and the Guarnerius survived. Hermilo Novelo (pupil of Louis Persinger and
concertmaster of the National Symphony of Mexico) also died in an automobile
accident and his accompanist (Violina Stoyanova) was with him at the time as
well. His violin survived but went
missing after the accident. Stoyanova
did not survive.
