Elizabeth
Wallfisch (Elizabeth Coates Hunt Wallfisch) is an Australian violinist,
teacher, author, and conductor born (in Melbourne, Australia) on January 28,
1952. The greater part of her career has
been spent outside of Australia. Together
with Simon Standage, Fabio Biondi, Andrew Manze, Giuliano Carmignola, Rachel Podger,
and Enrico Onofri, she is one of the better-known proponents of historical
baroque performance practice, a movement which started in the mid-1970s. Nevertheless, besides playing on baroque (period)
violins, Wallfisch also gives concerts on modern instruments. (The photo shows her holding a baroque
violin.) One of her many recordings is
the one featuring the rarely-heard Rosary Sonatas by Heinrich Biber. Another is the Opus 3 concertos (published in
1733) by Pietro Locatelli. Although she began studying piano at age 4, she did
not begin violin lessons until age 10, a rather late age at which to start by
traditional standards. I do not know who
her first violin teachers were. At 18,
she moved to Germany then proceeded to London where she studied at the Royal Academy
of Music with Frederick Grinke. At about
age 23, her professional career began in England with the London Mozart Players
and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Up
to about her mid-twenties, her education had been entirely founded on
traditional modern performance techniques on modern violins. Her switch to baroque (historical) approaches
took place almost by accident. Among the
many ensembles she has led and performed with are the Hanover Band, the
Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Les
Musiciens Du Louvre, the Raglan Baroque Players, the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment, Tafelmusik, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and the St Paul
Chamber Orchestra. In 1989, she
co-founded the Locatelli Trio. In 2008,
she founded the Wallfisch Band, a baroque ensemble that allows for
apprenticeships for young players alongside the core orchestra members –
personnel changes are made on an on-going basis. Wallfisch has held teaching positions at the
Royal Academy of Music (London), the Royal Conservatory at The Hague, and at
the University of Melbourne. She has
been concertmaster at the Carmel Bach Festival (California, U.S.) for over
twenty years. Among the recording labels
featuring her are Virgin Classics, Hyperion, and Chandos - they are easy to find on the internet. As far as I could determine, Wallfisch plays
a violin by Petrus Paulus (Pietro Paolo) de Vitor (of Brescia) from about 1750. Here is one YouTube audio file of Wallfisch
playing several Bach concertos. Here is
a short video by the Wallfisch Band playing Telemann.
Fabio Biondi is an Italian (Sicilian) violinist and conductor born (in Palermo) on March 15, 1961 (Heifetz was 60 years old and would live another 26 years.) He is known for leading the Italian baroque ensemble which he founded (in 1989 – some sources say 1990), Europa Galante, one of the many original (authentic or period) instrument groups in Europe, with which he has toured the world. Biondi is to Europa Galante what Simon Standage is to the English Concert except much more. (Biondi has in fact recently conducted the English Concert ensemble.) He began violin lessons at age five with Salvatore Cicero (concertmaster of the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra) in Palermo. He made his public debut with the well-known Italian Radio Symphony (RAI) at age 12. Interestingly, and perhaps foretelling the huge celebrity he would later attain, on this occasion, Biondi played Vivaldi's Concerto number 9 out of his Opus 8. (Vivaldi's Opus 8 also contains the Four Seasons, the best known baroque work for violin - they are the first four concertos in the set of 12 concertos in Opus 8.) Later on, he studied at the Conservatory of Rome with Mauro Lo Guercio (pupil of Salvatore Accardo and violinist with the Trio Modigliani), where he won a first prize in violin in 1981. He was 20 years old; however, by age 16, he had already played a recital comprised of Bach violin concertos at the Musikverein (concert hall) in Vienna. After that, he decided to concentrate on authentic baroque performance practice and subsequently played with a number of chamber music ensembles for a number of years, including the Musicians of the Louvre (Les Musiciens du Louvre), Seminario Musicale, and Vienna’s Musica Antiqua. (Sergiu Luca was one of the first to delve into this area of performance but never became a specialist.) In addition to the music of the typical baroque composers - Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Corelli, Locatelli, Scarlatti, and Tartini – Biondi has also recorded the works of Mozart, Franz Schubert, and Robert Schumann. However, Biondi still performs as a soloist with other orchestras and ensembles, including the Mozarteum Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of Norway. It has been said of him that he “pursues style, free from dogmatism, in a quest for the original language.” There are many videos of his on YouTube. The one I have linked here is not Vivaldi or Corelli but it displays his fluid virtuosity quite well. He plays a Gofredo Cappa violin (1690), a Carlo Gagliano (1766), and an Andrea Guarneri (1686.) In 2005 Biondi was appointed artistic director for baroque music of the Stavenger Symphony (Norway.)
Simon Standage (Simon Andrew Thomas Standage) is an English violinist, conductor, and teacher born on November 8, 1941 (Heifetz was 40 years old.) He is easily the most-recorded period instrument violinist in the world. His career has not been spent on the Romantic repertoire of Paganini, Wieniawski, Vieuxtemps, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Lalo, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Bruch, and the rest. He studied at Cambridge University and graduated in 1963. He then spent four years in the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. After winning a fellowship, he went to New York where he studied with Ivan Galamian (1967-1969.) His debut was at Wigmore Hall in 1972, the same year he became a founding member of The English Concert. He has been a member, soloist, concertmaster, or director of various ensembles during overlapping years, including: The English Concert (1972-1991); English Chamber Orchestra (1974-1978); City of London Sinfonia (1980-1989); Salomon Quartet (1981-2009); Academy of Ancient Music (1980-1995); and the Collegium Musicum 90 (1990-2009.) His discography is very extensive and his recordings of much of the music of Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Mozart, and Haydn are especially well-known. He has also taught baroque violin at the Royal Academy of Music since 1983. You will find an abundance of his recordings (though no videos) available on YouTube.
Iona Brown (Elizabeth Iona Brown) was an English violinist and conductor born on January 7, 1941 (Heifetz was 40 years old and would live another 46 years.) Her early studies were in London with Hugh Maguire. She later studied with Henryk Szeryng as well. From 1963 to 1966, Brown was a member of the Philharmonia Orchestra and played in the Cremona String Quartet. In 1964, she joined the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and became a soloist and director in 1974. There are many recordings of her playing with this orchestra. She left the Academy in 1980. In 1981, Brown was appointed artistic director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. She also served as music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1987 to 1992. In 1998, Brown gave up the violin entirely (due to problems with arthritis) and dedicated herself to conducting. She died on June 5, 2004 at age 63.
S-Z: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Emanuel Salvador, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Toscha Seidel, Gil Shaham, Oscar Shumsky, Joseph Silverstein, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Tamara Smirnova, Felix Slatkin, Denise Soriano, Vladimir Spivakov, Mark Steinberg, Simon Standage, Arnold Steinhardt, Malcolm Stewart, Lara St John, Emmy Storms, Joseph Suk, Joseph Swensen, Joseph Szigeti, Kyoko Takezawa, David Taylor, Christian Tetzlaff, Roman Totenberg, Eleonora Turovsky, Eugene Ugorski, Adrian Varela, Maxim Vengerov, Olena Vrublevska, Elizabeth Wallfisch, Reiko Watanabe, Janusz Wawrowski, Eric Wyrick, Eugene Ysaye, Thomas Zehetmair, Wang Zhijiong, Yulia Ziskel, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Nicolaj Znaider, Pinchas Zukerman, Jaap van Zweden.
