Ilya Gringolts is a Russian violinist,
teacher, conductor, and composer born (in Leningrad) on July 2, 1982. He is known for being immersed in
period-instrument performance as well as contemporary playing styles. Ever since he won the 1998 Paganini
Competition at age 16, his virtuosity has become well-known. (The following year, Sayaka Shoji won the
competition – she also was 16 years old.)
As is customary with almost all contemporary violinists, Gringolts
participates in many music festivals around the world. (The production of music festivals seems to
have exploded after 1950 and festivals of one kind or another can now be found
in every corner of the planet.) Gringolts
began studying the violin at age five. I
do not know who his first teacher was. At
age 8, he began studying violin and composition in the St Petersburg (formerly
known as Leningrad) Special Music School with Tatiana Liberova and Jeanna
Metallidi, two teachers of whom I had never heard. In 1994, he made his debut with the Moscow
Symphony Orchestra. He was 12 years
old. I don’t know which piece he played
at that concert. In 1995, he made his
European orchestral debut in Finland, playing Bruch’s first concerto. After winning the Paganini competition, he
relocated to New York (in 1999) and studied at Juilliard with Dorothy Delay and Itzhak Perlman
for three years. During the latter part
of those same three years, he was spending a lot of time in London, studying
and giving concerts. Gringolts made his
Canadian debut (in Ottawa) in 1999 (one source says 2002) – Pinchas Zukerman
was on the podium. He was 17 years
old. He has been very busy ever since,
playing all over the world with every important conductor and in every prestigious
venue. In 2013, he recorded the 24
Paganini Caprices. A usually-reliable
source states that Gringolts now teaches at the Advanced School for the Arts (aka
Zurich Academy of the Arts) in Zurich, Switzerland. Another source says he teaches (or has
taught) at the Basel Hochschule. When I
checked, neither school would confirm his position as violin professor. Regarding his teaching, he has stated –
contrary to universally-accepted dogma - that being a motivator is not part of
his job. In his own words: “I think that
everyone is his or her own motivator.
You should know why you do something, otherwise you shouldn’t do
it.” In 2008, he founded the Gringolts
Quartet. He maintains a busy schedule
with the quartet. It also allows him to
spend more time with his wife, who is the quartet’s second violinist. His discography is not extensive by any
measure but the recordings he has under his belt have been highly praised and
have received awards. Among those
recordings are the Arensky and the Taneyev concertos, two works which are very
(very) seldom heard. You might want to
obtain his recording of the first Paganini concerto since it is pretty
outstanding – it was released in March of 1999.
It is not yet available on YouTube.
A current project in progress is his recording of all of Igor
Stravinsky’s works for violin. Among the
violins he has played are the Kiesewetter Stradivarius (1723), the Provigny
Stradivarius (1716), and a Guarneri Del Gesu dated 1742. Here is one of Gringolts’ YouTube videos – a
concerto by the mysterious and enigmatic violinist Pietro Antonio
Locatelli.
Vanya
Milanova is a Bulgarian violinist, teacher, painter, and author born on January
12, 1954. According to at least one
source, she was the first female violinist to record, in 1985, at age 31, the
complete (24) Caprices for solo violin by Nicolo Paganini. That sounds rather unusual but it just might
be true. (see comment below) I didn’t bother to confirm it
by checking further. Surprisingly, she is the first Bulgarian violinist about whom I have written and that is highly unusual too. Milanova is also
known for having a huge repertoire. Her
career has taken her around the world several times and she has performed with
most of the world’s great orchestras and with some of the leading conductors of
her generation in over fifty countries. Although
her discography is not extensive, there are quite a few YouTube files of her
live performances. Milanova took third
prize in the 1973 Paganini Violin Competition (in Genoa, Italy) and third prize
in the 1974 Tchaikovsky Competition (the same one where the late Eugene Fodor
took second prize.) She was known as a
child prodigy - her main teachers were Peter Arnaudov (State Music Academy) in
Bulgaria and Yfrah Neaman (Guildhall School of Music) in England. Her 2016 autobiography is titled Wit and
Wisdom of a Violinist but is presently out of print. Many of her abstract paintings can be seen on
her Facebook page. Milanova has taught
at Bilkent University in Turkey, among other schools. Here are two YouTube files of her
performances, including the complete recording of the Paganini Caprices.
Sayaka
Shoji is a Japanese violinist born (in Tokyo) on January 30, 1983. She gained considerable attention after
winning the Paganini Violin Competition at age 16 (in 1999), the youngest competitor
to ever do so and the first Japanese violinist to win the gold medal at that
competition as well. Although she spent
her very early childhood in Italy, she began her violin studies in Japan, at
age 5. Among her first teachers (in
Tokyo) were Kazuko Yatani and Reiko Kaminishi.
At 15, she moved to Germany for further study. At 21, she graduated from the Advanced School
for Music in Cologne where her main teacher was Zakhar Bron, although she also
studied with Uto Ughi and Shlomo Mintz, among others. (Bron’s other famous pupils have been Maxim
Vengerov, Daniel Hope, Mayuko Kamio, and Vadim Repin.) Needless to say, Shoji has performed with
every major orchestra and most of the world’s illustrious conductors. Her first appearance with the Berlin
Philharmonic was at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2002, playing Bruch’s first
concerto. Mariss Jansons was on the
podium. She first appeared with the New
York Philharmonic on October 7, 2004 playing the first Prokofiev concerto under
the baton of the late Lorin Maazel. She
was 21 years old. Her repertoire
includes three works seldom heard in concert: the Schumann, the Mendelssohn (in
d minor), and the Max Reger concertos. As
far as I know, Shoji has already recorded the Reger concerto but not yet the
Schumann or Mendelssohn’s first concerto.
Typical reviews from informed, respected, and experienced music critics read
as follows:”…virtuosity of the highest order, …infused with poetry, …passionate,
free, with an emotional intensity that many violinists will never achieve.” Her spectacular rendition of the Brahms
concerto can be seen and heard here. In my
opinion, the only performance which rivals it is the Heifetz rendition, and
that, for me, is saying a lot. Shoji
mostly records for the Deutsche Grammophon label. Volume 4 of her recording of all (10)
Beethoven violin sonatas will be released in 2015. Her violin is the Recamier Stradivarius from
1729. Shoji’s photo (used here, slightly
modified) is courtesy of Nikolaj Lund, well-known European photographer of
classical musicians and classical music subjects.
Gerard Poulet is a French violinist and teacher born (in
Bayonne) on August 12, 1938. His father
(Gaston Poulet), with whom he began his violin studies, was also a
violinist. His career has been mainly spent
in Europe though he has performed in almost every continent. He entered the Paris Conservatory at age 11
and graduated at age 12. His main
teacher there was Andre Asselin. As did
Bronislaw Huberman before him, he had many teachers: Zino Francescatti, Nathan
Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, and Henryk Szeryng were among them. Poulet made his debut at age 12 playing the
Mendelssohn concerto. He recorded the
third concerto of Mozart at age 14 with his father on the podium. At age 18, he won the Paganini Competition in
Genoa, Italy. As do all winners of that
competition, he got to play Paganini’s violin, the famous Cannone. He later dedicated a good deal of time to
teaching at the National Conservatory in Paris.
In 2007, he began teaching at the University of Arts in Tokyo. He might not be there any longer since I
could not locate his name on any faculty roster. Poulet played the 1720 Henri Marteau Guarnerius
from 1975 until about 1988 and that violin is supposedly now owned by Maxim
Vengerov, though I could not find a single public source to confirm that. His most famous pupils are most probably Renaud Capucon and Vineta Sareika.
Isabelle Faust is a German violinist and teacher born (in Esslingen, Germany – near
Stuttgart) on March 19, 1972. Faust is a
supremely gifted artist known for her thorough involvement in both, the early
music and contemporary styles of playing, possessed of a markedly identifiable
sound who nevertheless maintains an unorthodox view of marketing – she just
plays and lets the chips fall where they may.
As one writer puts it, she has an admirable and “refreshingly devil-may-care”
attitude. I do not usually exercise the privilege
of writing subjectively on this blog but there are exceptions. To quote further, Faust delights in “the pure
process of producing what I think the composer wants to hear.” She began her violin studies at age
five. By age 11, she was playing second
violin in a string quartet she helped organize.
She kept playing in this quartet until age 15. She had up to then been studying with
Christoph Poppen. During the summer she
would study with Denes Zsigmondy, a Hungarian pedagogue who helped her navigate
the (Bela) Bartok violin sonatas. However,
she gives most of the credit for her training to Poppen, with whom she studied between 1988 and 1994 at the Advanced School for Music in Detmold (Germany) (Musikhochschule Detmold.) Detmold is located about 120 miles north of Frankfurt. None other than Johannes Brahms spent time working there. As do also many other modern concert violinists, Faust plays
contemporary music – music which I consider sub-standard and (for the most part) intensely
dislike - as often as she can. Many contemporary composers have written works
for her or dedicated works to her – I won’t bother to list them since I don’t
care for their work. Faust’s technique
is truly fabulous and not over-stated – her considerable technical prowess is not
worn on her sleeve, so to speak. What intrigues me is her sound. It has been written that rather than “merely
mastering her instrument and its repertoire, experiencing and deeply exploring
music [is what] lies at the heart of her work.”
The New York Times wrote that "her sound has passion, grit and
electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the
music’s hidden strains of lyricism."
Faust won the Leopold Mozart violin competition (Augsburg, Austria) in
1987 (at age 15) and the Paganini competition (Genoa, Italy) in 1993. I have heard that the winner of the Paganini
competition has the right to play a recital on Paganini’s famed Cannone
Guarnerius violin but there is no mention of her doing that. The Dvorak concerto was one of the first major
concertos she recorded (2003.) Her
recording of the Beethoven concerto was released in 2007. Faust has also recorded the violin sonatas of
Bartok, Beethoven, Szymanowski, Janacek, and Bach. She performs extensively at chamber music
festivals around the world and, of course, has worked with almost all of the
major orchestras and conductors. She
made her U.S. debut in 1995 with the Utah Symphony. She was 23 years old. Her first appearance with the New York
Philharmonic did not take place until March 20, 2013 - she played both Bach
concertos on that occasion. Her current violin
is the Sleeping Beauty Stradivarius of 1704.
As far as I could ascertain, before Faust obtained it, this Stradivarius
had never been played by a concert violinist.
In fact, it is one of very few Stradivarius violins with its original
neck intact. Supposedly, it lay dormant in a bank vault, in its original violin case, for decades, and was named Sleeping Beauty for that very reason. The original label reads 1720 or 1729 but violin "experts" have decided that the year of construction is closer to 1704. Claude Lebet - an obscure luthier - found it in 1991. Faust has also played a JB
Guadagnini of 1761. She is shown here
playing the Beethoven Triple Concerto with two of her colleagues and the
Orchestra of the 18th Century (the Netherlands.) It is a magnificent live performance from
2010. This early music orchestra
(founded in 1981) is very rare in that it does not audition its members. Its conductor is Frans Bruggen. If you prefer hearing a much shorter piece,
she splendidly plays the Bach g minor concerto in this YouTube audio file.
