Karl Halir

Karl Halir (Carl Halir) was a Czech violinist, teacher, and composer born on February 1, 1859.  In his day, he was famous for his interpretation of the Beethoven concerto.  However, he is also remembered for having played the first performance of the revised version – the version now commonly heard today – of the Sibelius concerto.  He was also a very tall man with an imposing presence, as were August Wilhelmj and Erick Friedman (and is Arnold Steinhardt.)  It has been said that in his hands, the violin looked like a toy.  His father was his first violin teacher.  At the Prague Conservatory he studied under Antonin Bennewitz (teacher also of Josef Suk and Otakar Sevcik) and later (from age 15) with Joseph Joachim in Berlin, at the Advanced School for Music.  Upon graduation, Halir joined Benjamin Bilse’s Band in Berlin, the precursor of the Berlin Philharmonic.  He was either the concertmaster of this band or played among the first violins.  I do not know for sure.  He was concertmaster also of the orchestra at Konigsberg in 1879.  He was 20 years old.  Two years later, he became concertmaster in Mannheim and remained for 3 years.  One source states that after Konigsberg, he spent two seasons in Italy as part of the private orchestra of a Russian nobleman.  In 1884, he was appointed concertmaster of the orchestra in Weimar (Grand Ducal Court Orchestra) and was there for 10 years (1884-1894.)  That same year, as part of the Bach Festival, he and Joachim played the Bach concerto for two violins in Eisenach to great acclaim.  He was 25 years old.  Joachim was more than twice his age.  Halir much later (in 1897) joined Joachim’s string quartet as second violinist – the quartet had originally been formed in 1869.  After Joachim’s death, Halir formed his own quartet.  After leaving the Weimar orchestra in 1894, he became concertmaster of the Berlin Court Opera orchestra and teacher at the school from which he had graduated (the Hochschule fur Musik) – he taught there until the day he died.  In Berlin, he also formed a piano trio which included pianist George Schumann and cellist Hugo Dechert.  All the while, he continued his solo concerts and recitals.  In 1888, Halir played the Tchaikovsky concerto in Leipzig.  Tchaikovsky was at the performance and was so impressed with the concert he later described it as a memorable day.  In 1896, Halir toured the U.S.  He arrived on November 4, 1896, for a 25-concert tour.  For the tour, Joachim lent Halir his Red Stradivarius of 1715 (now called the Joachim Strad – not to be confused with the Red Mendelssohn), said to be worth $12,000 at the time.  That violin was a gift to Joachim from the City of London in 1889.  It went to Joachim’s nephew, Harold Joachim, upon Joseph Joachim’s death.  Today, it is in Cremona, Italy and is worth more than $12,000.  Joachim’s generosity was a further sign of the affection and respect he had for Halir.  Halir’s itinerary included the cities of Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Cambridge, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, among other places.  On November 13, 1896, in New York, he made his U.S. debut with the Beethoven concerto.  On December 4, he gave the U.S. premiere of Spohr’s eighth concerto.  On October 19, 1905, in Berlin, with Richard Strauss conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, Halir gave the famous performance of the final version of the Sibelius concerto.  He also played one of Charles Loeffler's violin works at that same concert.  In Berlin, most of his students were American violinists.  Among other things, Halir wrote violin etudes and scale studies and a cadenza for the Brahms concerto, works which are not well-known today.  Halir died (in Berlin) on December 21, 1909, at age 50. 

Nathan Milstein

Nathan Milstein (Nathan Mironovich Milstein) was a Russian violinist born on December 31, 1903 - some sources say December 31, 1904 and others say January 13, 1904 (Heifetz was 2 years old.) He was often called the "prince of the violin." He started studying the violin at age 4 (some say age 7) with Peter Stolyarsky, a popular teacher in Odessa (Russia) who also taught David Oistrakh around the same time. At age 10 (1914), he left studying with Stolyarsky and entered the Odessa Conservatory. By age 12, he had entered the St Petersburg Conservatory where Leopold Auer was teaching. His fellow students were Elman, Heifetz, Seidel, and Zimbalist, among many others. He studied with Auer until the summer of 1917 and had no additional instruction thereafter. He is said to have premiered the first concerto by Prokofiev in 1923 in Russia.  The concerto had already been played for the first time in Paris that same year.  In 1925, he left Russia to play a few concerts in Europe and never returned. In 1926, he studied with Eugene Ysaye (in Belgium) for a few weeks but later said he learned nothing from him - it was actually Ysaye who told him he had no need of any further lessons. In that same year, Milstein made his Paris debut. On October 17, 1929 (some sources say November 29, 1929) he made his American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Glazunov's concerto and thereafter concertized non-stop until July, 1986. He is remembered for a very clean and precise technique and very appealing tone. He is also remembered for his Paganiniana - a dazzling arrangement of different tunes written by Nicolo Paganini. Between 1930 and 1986, he recorded most of the violin repertory. Of the Brahms concerto alone there are no fewer than five studio recordings available - each with a different orchestra. Although he made seven (studio) recordings of the Mendelssohn concerto, he didn't record the Sibelius or the Stravinsky concertos even once. Those works were probably not in his repertoire. There are also many superb videos of his playing on YouTube - all of them professionally produced. Milstein died in London on December 21, 1992, at age 88. (Of that era, only Ruggiero Ricci, Albert Markov, Zvi Zeitlin, David Nadien, Camilla Wicks, Ida Haendel, and Ivry Gitlis remain.)