Leopold Auer

Tchaikovsky and Oistrakh Pluck at Sturdy Heart Strings

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“Undoubtedly I should have gone mad but for music. Music is indeed the most beautiful of all Heaven’s gifts to humanity wandering in the darkness. Alone it calms, enlightens, and stills our souls. It is not the straw to which the drowning man clings; but a true friend, refuge, and comforter, for whose sake life is worth living.”  ~ Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Russian’s are in the house! Thankfully not malicious, vengeful spies, instead respected individuals of the intelligent, cultural and artistic kind – and they are playing heart-felt music. Classical music is an auditory nerve agent of a spiritual nature; it seeps into your cells and elicits various emotional reactions, ideas, memories, feelings and visual imagery.

Tchaikovksy’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 35 is one of the great romantic violin concertos ever written, and a staple of the concert violinist’s repertoire. It was the only violin concerto the Romantic era composer wrote, and I don’t think he could have followed it up with a better one somehow. It has many wonderful, subjective attributes which weren’t fully appreciated after it was first published and performed.

It is, in my humble opinion, melodic, lyrical, soulful, virtuosic and so very Russian in its expressive depths… Did I mention it’s also fiendishly difficult to play?

Where to start…

There are many tricky trills, finger-bending and eye-watering double-stopping, glissandi, frequent leaps and thrilling passages to for a soloist to negotiate. The opening movement is lengthy and physically demanding, with many notes in the stratosphere of what is possible for the violin.

It’s hard to maintain intonation and energy throughout these gruelling sections. A full body/brain workout for sure. It’s way over my playing ability for the most part, and even causes consternation for the professionals.

Tachikovsky originally dedicated the concerto to revered Russian virtuoso and teacher Leopold Auer, who rather embarrassingly declined to play its debut performance.

Relations between composer and artist cooled, and Tchaikovsky ruefully wrote in one of his letters that the episode ‘had the effect of casting this unfortunate child of my imagination into the limbo of the hopelessly forgotten’.

The front page of my own score for violin & piano with violin part edited by David Oistrakh

Thankfully it wasn’t forgotten, and rather paradoxically, it is Auer’s revised edition of the concerto that is most widely performed today.  Heifetz and Kreisler also made their own tweaks and some repeats were cut out. Leopold Auer gave his ‘official’ viewpoint in a 1912 interview, on what the press today might have dubbed ‘Dedication-Gate’:

“I had championed the symphonic works of the young composer (who was at that time not universally recognized), I could not feel the same enthusiasm for the Violin Concerto, with the exception of the first movement; still less could I place it on the same level as his purely orchestral compositions. I am still of the same opinion. My delay in bringing the concerto before the public was partly due to this doubt in my mind as to its intrinsic worth, and partly that I would have found it necessary, for purely technical reasons, to make some slight alterations in the passages of the solo part. This delicate and difficult task I subsequently undertook, and re-edited the violin solo part, and it is this edition which has been played by me, and also by my pupils, up to the present day.
It is incorrect to state that I had declared the concerto in its original form unplayable. What I did say was that some of the passages were not suited to the character of the instrument, and that, however perfectly rendered, they would not sound as well as the composer had imagined. From this purely aesthetic point of view only I found some of it impracticable, and for this reason I re-edited the solo part.”

There have been many wonderful performances over the years, but I especially love this 1954 recording of the late Russian virtuoso, David Oistrakh with Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Franz Konwitchny:

It seems to me that Oistrakh connected with the music on a soul level. In this sublime recording of his own version he conveys its musical essence through a beautiful and plaintive purity of tone, a restrained yet intense vibrato, and mind-blowing virtuosity without sacrificing accuracy. It is astounding!

He gives a performance full of pathos, passion and precision but does not slide into schmaltzy self-indulgence, or become sentimental to the point of being sickly.

Oistrakh takes us to dizzying heights in the first movement (Allegro Moderato) with stunning syncopated semi-quavers interspersed with soft, pianissimo passages of eloquent singing on his Stradivarius, only to forcefully proclaim his intermittent chords in conversation with the orchestra before the final ascending, chord-laden runs that build in volume and speed until they climax with the entry of the lush main theme from the orchestra.

Professor James Stern provides nuggets on the first movement for violin students at Juilliard:

The violin’s soaring passages of rhythmic complexity and melody in increasingly higher realms make my heart dance.

This movement seems entirely evocative of Spring: there is some leftover wintry grit and determination giving way to vivid, vibrant and powerful new shoots of life and energy.

It is like an epic ballet score (of which Tchaikovsky was a master), without any dancing. Come to think of it, maybe someone should choreograph a dance routine to the first movement?

Itzhak Perlman, one of my living idols on the violin, gives his take on the Tchaikovsky violin concerto:

I love to play the second movement (Andante), titled Canzonetta in the key of G minor, which expresses a mournful, song like interlude, a kind of reflective musing on suffering; perhaps a lamentation of Tchaikovsky’s soul.

Oistrakh’s dynamics are exquisitely soft and gentle, and the music is marked con sordino (use of a mute), to subdue the effect further.

I also enjoyed Arabella Steinbacher’s ‘uncut’ interpretation and performance of Oistrakh’s edition, which is played at a slightly slower tempo than Oistrakh himself.  I am in awe at how she makes such mastery look effortless. Here’s what she says about the Canzonetta:

“Then, when Tchaikovsky writes con anima, it’s like the sunshine comes through the clouds. It’s on the E string and this positive energy comes through.”

The third movement (Allegro vivacissimo), back to the D Major key, is a vivid tapestry of Slavic and Russian folk tunes woven together in a very bold, brisk and dynamic finale.

A masterpiece!

Tchaikvosky’s personal circumstances behind the Violin Concerto

Despite being written in the key of D Major, the concerto has an unmistakable melancholy feel. Tchaikovsky composed the work in spring 1878, after a period of personal strife and unhappiness. His disastrous six week marriage to Antonina Miliukova had failed and he was seeking solace from his misery with a tour of Switzerland, France and Italy.

It is widely thought that the inspiration for the work sprang from his infatuation for a violinist he had tutored in composition and music theory at the Moscow Conservatory, Josef Kotek.

It was Kotek who came to his rescue in Clarens, Switzerland, carrying many scores in his suitcase. Among them was Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, a concertante work for violin and orchestra which influenced Tchaikovsky greatly on his concerto. I can ‘hear’ similarities between Lalo’s finale and Tchaikovsky’s opening movement.

On the banks of lake Geneva they worked together on the solo sections and the sketching was completed in just eleven days, with the complete scoring finished in two weeks. He must have written it in some kind of creative frenzy.

Somewhat surprisingly, given his close collaboration with the composer, Kotek also refused to perform the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. Another early setback for the work.

However, Josef Kotek redeemed himself by instigating a life changing friendship for Tchaikovsky, as he enthusiastically edified his former tutor to his employer, Nadheza von Meck, a wealthy arts patron. Tchaikovsky began composing for her ‘in house’ string ensemble, (which Josef Kotek played in), resulting in a rewarding, if bizarre, fourteen year working relationship vital to Tchaikovsky’s composing career.

A later work by Tchaikovsky, the Valse-Scherzo for Violin and Orchestra was dedicated to Kotek.

Allegro Films have made a superb documentary about this period of his life:

Tchaikovsky rededicated his violin concerto to Adolph Brodsky, who premiered it in Vienna on 4th December 1881. The music critic Eduard Hanslick notoriously described it as “stinking music” — an insult which cut Tchaikovsky to the core.

A moving account of Tchaikovsky’s gratitude to Adolph Brodsky:

“In referring to this outstanding artist, I cannot help availing myself of this opportunity to express publicly the fervent gratitude which to my dying day I shall always feel for him because of the following incident. In 1877 I wrote a Violin Concerto and dedicated it to Mr L. Auer. I do not know whether Mr Auer felt himself flattered by my dedication, but the point is that, in spite of his genuine friendliness towards me, he never wanted to surmount the difficulties of this concerto and in fact pronounced it to be impossible to play—a verdict which, coming from such an authority as this Saint Petersburg-based virtuoso, plunged this unhappy child of my imagination into an abyss of what seemed to be irrevocable oblivion.
One day, some five years after my concerto had been written and published, when I was living in Rome, I went into a café and happened to pick up an issue of the Neue Freie Presse in whose feuilleton section there was an article by the famous critic Hanslick  about a recent concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Society which, amongst other things, had also featured that hapless violin creation of mine which L. S. Auer had condemned to non-existence a few years earlier. Herr Hanslick reproached the soloist (who was none other than A. D. Brodsky) for having made such a bad choice and lambasted my poor concerto, liberally strewing the pearls of his caustic humour and firing the most poisoned arrows of his irony.
“We know,” he wrote, “that in contemporary literature there have started to appear works whose authors love to reproduce in detail the most repulsive physiological phenomena, including foul smells. One might describe literature of that kind as stinking. Well, Herr Tschaikowsky has shown us that there can also be stinking music (stinkende Musik)”
Having read the above comment by this famous and highly influential critic, I could vividly picture to myself how much energy and effort it must have cost Mr Brodsky to get my “stinking concerto” performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, and how aggrieved and unpleasantly struck he must have been by this attitude of a critic towards a work by a fellow-countryman and friend. I of course hastened to convey my most heartfelt gratitude to Mr Brodsky, and from his reply I found out how many trials and tribulations he had had to get through in order to achieve his goal—and his goal was precisely to rescue my concerto from the abyss of oblivion. Mr Brodsky subsequently played the “stinking” concerto everywhere, and was everywhere attacked by critics similar to Hanslick in their approach and their exclusivity of tone, but still the deed was done—my concerto had been saved, and now it is quite frequently played in Western Europe, especially since another excellent violinist, the young Haliř, has come to the aid of Mr Brodsky (further down I shall have a lot to say about this young violinist).
It should now be understandable why I was so pleased to meet A. D. Brodsky in Leipzig, where I had never been before and otherwise had no friends amongst the locals, and to know that, throughout all the emotional agitation and even fears that were lying ahead of me on this tour, I could count on the moral support of his warm and firm friendship of many years’ standing.”

Musical influences on Tchaikovsky

An excerpt from his Autobiography in 1889 highlights how hearing Don Giovanni had affected him:

“Would play through my beloved Don Giovanni over and over again, or rehearse some shallow salon piece. From time to time, though, I would set about studying a Beethoven symphony. How strange! This music would cause me to feel sad each time and made me an unhappy person for weeks. From then on I was filled with a burning desire to write a symphony — a desire which would erupt afresh each time that I came into contact with Beethoven’s music. However, I would then feel all too keenly my ignorance, my complete inability to deal with the technique of composition, and this feeling brought me close to despair…”

From Wikipedia:
This declaration suggests that it was Beethoven’s symphonies in fact which kindled in the young Tchaikovsky the zeal to write music himself, rather than just escaping from everyday reality into the magical realm of Mozart’s opera. Moreover, the feeling of “sadness” which overcame him whenever he heard Beethoven’s music is one that would remain with him all his life, and, if around 1860 it was perhaps mainly due to his despair at the thought that he would never be able to write anything similar since he knew nothing of compositional technique, in later years it was certainly the “tragic struggle with Fate and striving after unattainable ideals” expressed in many of Beethoven’s works that struck a chord with Tchaikovsky. This affinity he felt with Beethoven and the element of ‘struggle’ in the latter’s life and music is perhaps most interestingly revealed in the additions he made to a compilation of biographical material on Beethoven which he started writing in 1873 but did not complete — ‘Beethoven and His Time’. These extra observations of his own suggest that Tchaikovsky clearly empathized with some important moments in Beethoven’s life: the early loss of his mother, the German composer’s struggle against adverse circumstances and against the failings of his own character. Thus, far from being merely a remote, awe-inspiring Old Testament God to him, Tchaikovsky recognized in Beethoven a kindred spirit, namely an artist who was deeply aware of the tragedy of human existence, and who sensed that the only true happiness he could find in life was in music. The comparison in his diary between Mozart and Beethoven, at first sight so ‘unfavourable’ for the latter, might therefore be interpreted, firstly, as a way of expressing how Mozart’s music acted like a balsam on his troubled soul as opposed to Beethoven’s, which reflected back his own suffering, and, secondly, as an implicit confession of how daunting it was to have to write music in the wake of Beethoven — a feeling that was shared by almost all the other great composers of the nineteenth century!

An insightful BBC documentary (sadly without subtitles for the Russian bits) on the life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893):

After an emotionally fraught birth and challenging early years, this musical ‘enfant terrible’ evolved through much struggle, and grew to walk and talk and eventually sing on the world stage, thanks to the magnificent potential Tchaikovsky suffused within its poignant notes, as well as the dedicated soloists throughout the decades who  underwent countless hours of bruised fingers, chafed necks, aching arms and mind-altering concentration, pouring out their heart and soul in bringing it to life.

In a comment about Beethoven’s masses Tchaikovsky observed that they were not strictly religious works but, similar to his symphonies, as ‘poetically intensive effusions of sentiment’, permeated by the same ‘spirit of despair and struggle’.

I definitely get the feeling that Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major could be described thus, originating from the ‘ideal realm’ that Beethoven inspired in him, both from the perspective of performing and listening.

Any creative individual whose work may not have received glowing reviews or achieved early success can take heart from this story – all it takes is a determined and influential champion to make history.

The Great Virtuoso Violinists/Composers of the 19th Century: Joachim

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“How often did the master Joachim himself perform the work, how often did he teach it to countless pupils, and yet nowadays what is passed off as the Brahms Concerto no longer bears any relation to that [work].” ~ Heinrich Schenker

The name Joseph Joachim has been familiar to me for a very long time. I was aware that he was a celebrated and hugely virtuosic soloist, for I saw his name on many violin scores of other composers over the years as I progressed with my violin studies.

Joseph Joachim by John Singer Sargent c. 1904

He had either arranged the piece for the violin and piano part, or written a cadenza. His musical pedigree shone from the pages of multifarious scores, but other than that I didn’t know anything else about him.

So here endeth much of my ignorance, as I attempt to shine the light of appreciation on Joseph Joachim’s life and achievements.

Whilst Joachim was much more famous for his playing career than his composing (as many of my revered candidates in this violin/composer series have been), this Austro-Hungarian maestro was an early trailblazer of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, and in a large measure responsible for its current popularity.

I love him for that alone!

His name is firmly established in the pantheon of violin greats; an exceptional talent on his instrument, and like many gifted musicians before him, he branched out into composing, conducting and teaching, where possibly his greatest legacy and influence still thrives.

Joseph Joachim: (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907)

Joseph Joachim was born the seventh of eight children to Julius (a wool merchant) and Fanny Joachim on 28th June 1831, in Köpcsény, Hungary (present-day Kittsee, Austria). As an infant he survived the European cholera pandemic, which claimed almost 400 lives in the Pressburg region.

When Joseph was two years old the Joachim family moved to Pest, then the capital of Hungary’s thriving wool industry.  His older sister had stimulated an early interest of music in him from her study of guitar and singing, and a toy violin given to Joseph by Julius seems to have been the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the violin.

Family of influence

Joachim’s cousin on his maternal side was Fanny (nee Figdor) Wittgenstein, who served as a surrogate mother to Joachim throughout much of his youth, mother of the industrialist Karl Wittgenstein, grandmother of the pianist Paul Wittgenstein and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Joseph’s sister Johanna married Lajos György Arányi, a prominent physician and university professor in Pest who, in 1844, founded one of the world’s first institutes of pathology.  Their granddaughters (Jospeh’s grand neices) were  the distinguished violinists Adila (Arányi) Fachiri (1886-1962) and Jelly d’Arányi (1893-1966). Both had studied under Joachim’s protégé, the eminent Jenö Hubay.

Jelly d’Arányi is the protagonist of Jessica Duchen’s novel, Ghost Variations, a fictional tale around the true story of Robert Schumann’s long lost violin concerto, composed for her great uncle Joseph. This book is next on my reading list!

Joseph’s brother Henry followed in the same trade as their father, and settled in England, where he married Ellen Margaret Smart, from a prominent British musical family. Their son Harold Joachim (nephew of Joseph) was educated at Harrow College and Balliol College Oxford. A  respected philosopher and scholar of Aristotle and Spinoza, his most well-known book was The Nature of Truth, (1906).

As an Oxford University professor he taught the American poet T.S. Eliot, who wrote: ‘to his criticism of my papers I owe an appreciation of the fact that good writing is impossible without clear and distinct ideas’ (letter in The Times, August 4, 1938).

He was also said to be a talented amateur violinist and married to one of Joseph’s daughters.

Harold’s sister Gertrude, (Joseph’s niece) married Francis Albert Rollo Russell, the son of British Prime Minister John Russell, and uncle of the philosopher Bertrand Russell.

Early Career 

Joseph received his first violin lessons from Gustav Ellinger, a competent violinist but not the best teacher for the young prodigy, so Joachim’s parents’ placed young Joseph under the tutelage of Stanisław Serwaczyński, the concertmaster and conductor of the opera in Pest, who gave him a thorough grounding in the modern French School, by Viotti’s successors: Rode, Baillot and Kreutzer.

An early debut in Pest brought Joachim to the attention of an important benefactor: Count Franz von Brunsvik, a liberal aristocrat and a pillar of Pest’s musical community, and also the affection of his sister Therese.

Beethoven had dedicated his Appassionata Sonata, Op. 57 to von Brunsvik, who was among the earliest performers of Beethoven’s string quartets. Beethoven was also fond of Franz’s sister, Therese, to whom he dedicated his Op. 78 sonata, and their sister Josephine von Brunsvik, who I believe to have been Beethoven’s mysterious “Immortal Beloved.”

Vienna

The next stage of his musical development was to be in Vienna, where Joseph’s wealthy grandfather Isaac lived, as did his uncles, Nathan and Wilhelm Figdor.

Joachim had a shaky start with teacher George Hellmesberger senior, who doubted Joachim’s future as a virtuoso due to what he considered weak and stiff bowing. At this point Joachim’s parents (who had been in Vienna for his concert), decided that they would return with him to Pest and seek a new profession for their son.

Luckily for Joachim, the celebrated violinist Heinrich Wilhem Ernst was also in Vienna giving a series of highly publicised concerts, and when Joachim’s parents sought his advice he referred them to his own teacher: Joseph Böhm.

Portrait of Joseph Bohm

Böhm proved to be the best mentor to further develop Joseph’s talent. He was well respected as the father of the Viennese School of violin playing.

Robert W Eshbach writes:
Joseph Böhm played in many historically significant concerts, including a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony under the composer’s direction. He became an early advocate for Schubert’s chamber music, and, on 26 March 1828, he gave the premiere of Schubert’s opus 100 trio.  Together with Holz, Weiss and Linke of the original Schuppanzigh Quartet, he performed Beethoven’s string quartets under the composer’s supervision. For Joachim, this direct personal and musical connection to Beethoven held a great and abiding significance.
Joachim’s training under Böhm was a true apprenticeship. In accepting him as a student, Böhm and his wife agreed to take him into their home just outside of Vienna’s first district, two blocks from the Schwarzspanierhaus where Beethoven had lived and died. For the next three years, for all but the Summer months, they would raise him in loco parentis, and train him in the practical skills of a professional violinist. Though not a violinist, Frau Böhm played a critical role in the Joseph’s musical upbringing, attending his lessons, and taking personal charge of his practicing.

I find it fascinating how the connections emanating from Beethoven’s life through his compositions, fellow musicians, friends, acolytes and protégé’s seemed to go full-circle in the life of Joseph Joachim!

Shortly before his own recital on 30th April 1843, Joseph had the benefit of seeing the Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps perform in Vienna’s Imperial and Royal Redoutensaal, no doubt an inspiring event.

At his own recital to a burgeoning audience in the same venue, of the Adagio religioso and Finale marziale movements of Vieuxtemps’s fourth concerto in D minor, he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Joachim left Vienna in the summer of 1843 to further his studies in Leipzig, where he was to audition for the composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Böhm relented, as his preference had been for his protégé to go to Paris instead.

In August that year Joachim appeared in a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert, with Pauline Viardot-García and Clara Schumann, playing an Adagio and Rondo by Charles-Auguste de Bériot.

London debut and critical acclaim 

Under the guidance and mentorship of composer Felix Mendelssohn, the thirteen year old Joseph wowed an enthusiastic audience in the Hanover Square Rooms on 27th May 1844, with his performance of the hitherto rather unfairly maligned Beethoven Violin Concerto.

Hanover Square Rooms – A Concert in 1843

Vieuxtemps’s Beethoven performance had taken place in Vienna in 1834, but in London there had been no well received recitals of Beethoven’s only violin concerto.

After what must have been a poor performance in London in April 1832 by Edward Eliason, came this scathing review in Hamonicon:

“Beethoven has put forth no strength in his violin concerto. It is a fiddling affair, and might have been written by any third or fourth rate composer. We cannot say that the performance of this concealed any of its weakness, or rendered it at all more palatable.”

Many great violinists, including Ludwig Spohr, had rejected the work outright. “That was all very fine,” Spohr later said to Joachim by way of congratulations after a performance in Hanover, “but now I’d like to hear you play a real violin piece.”

Ouch! Perhaps it is poetic justice that Spohr’s own violin concertos, which only were popular during his lifetime, never reached the current pinnacle of Beethoven’s much loved and enduring work.

Joseph Joachim’s Cadenza for the Beethoven Violin Concerto

I wonder if Joachim realised all that was riding on his debut. Had he not played Beethoven’s ‘fiddling affair’ in such an outstanding manner, his career may have faltered and Beethoven’s only violin concerto may have forever remained in the shadows. That’s quite a lot of pressure to sit, even on the mature shoulders, of a young teenager.

Joseph Joachim in London in 1844

Mendelssohn had put his own reputation on the line, having been invited over as the guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1843 and promptly suggesting the wunderkind Joseph Joachim to the society; who had a long-standing ban on child performers.

Eventually, after a few high level auditions, it was agreed that Joachim would play the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

A fabulous vintage recording of Beethoven’s VC played at a jaunty tempo, (Joachim Cadenzas) by fellow Hungarian, Joseph Szigeti, with the British Symphony Orchestra and Bruno Walter:

Joseph was paid the sum total of 5 guineas (with a guinea being equivalent to one pound, one shilling). Quite a disparity with today’s performers, (inflation not withstanding), but it was to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Felix Mendelssohn in his elation wrote:
“… The cheers of the audience accompanied every single part of the concerto throughout. When it was over and I took him down the stairs, I had to remind him that he should once more acknowledge the audience, and even then the thundering noise continued until long after he had again descended the steps, and was out of the hall. A better success the most celebrated and famous artist could neither hope for nor achieve.”
The reviewer for the Morning Post enthused:
“Joachim, the boy violinist, astounded every amateur. The concerto in D, op. 61… has been generally regarded by violin-players as not a proper and effective development of the powers of their instrument… But there arrives a boy of fourteen [sic] from Vienna, who, after astonishing everybody by his quartett-playing, is invited to perform at the Philharmonic, the standard law against the exhibition of precocities at these concerts being suspended on his account. As for his execution of this concerto, it is beyond all praise, and defies all description. This highly-gifted lad stands for half-an-hour without any music, and plays from memory without missing a note or making a single mistake in taking up the subject after the Tutti. He now and then bestows a furtive glance at the conductor, but the boy is steady, firm, and wonderfully true throughout.
In the slow movement in C — that elegant expanse of melody which glides so charmingly into the sportive rondo — the intensity of his expression and the breadth of his tone proved that it was not merely mechanical display, but that it was an emanation from the heart — that the mind and soul of the poet and musician were there, and it is just in these attributes that Joachim is distinguished from all former youthful prodigies… Joachim’s performance was altogether unprecedented, and elicited from amateurs and professors equal admiration.
Mendelssohn’s unequivocal expression of delight and Loder’s look of amazement, combined with the hearty cheering of the band as well as auditory, all testified to the effect young Joachim had produced.”

On June 4th 1844, as news of his successful debut had spread, Joseph was asked to play for none other than Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort at a state concert in Windsor, attended by Emperor Nicholas of Russia, Frederick Augustus II, King of Saxony, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel.

He performed Ernst’s Othello Fantasy, and de Bériot’s Andantino and Rondo Russe, (the second and third movements of his violin concerto No. 2 in B minor), accompanied by the Queen’s private band, and received a golden watch and chain from the Queen for his efforts.

 The Liszt years, Hanover and touring

Mendelssohn’s sudden death in 1847 deeply affected Joachim, who was teaching at the Conservatorium in Leipzig and playing on the first desk of the Gewandhaus Orchestra with Ferdinand David.

In 1848 the renowned pianist and composer Franz Liszt invited Joachim to Weimar (once home to Goethe and Schiller) to join his circle of avant-garde musicians, encouraging him to compose. Joachim served Liszt as his concertmaster and seemed to embrace the new “psychological music” as he put it.

It was during his time in Weimar that he wrote his Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 3, dedicated to his new mentor.

By 1852 Joachim had a change of heart and eschewed the direction of Liszt’s and particularly Wagner’s music of the ‘New German School’ and moved to Hanover. In 1857 he wrote to Liszt: “I am completely out of sympathy with your music; it contradicts everything which from early youth I have taken as mental nourishment from the spirit of our great masters.”

Under the generous patronage of King George V of Hanover Joachim was well paid and given the freedom to compose and undertake concert tours of Europe.

Performance repertoire and dedications

Joachim not only revived Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, but also championed Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin BWV 1001 – 1006 and the much loved ‘Chaconne’ from the Partita No. 2, BWV 1004. Bach is staple canon for any modern violinist both pro and amateur.

How marvellous that Joachim’s good taste still prevails upon modern repertoire…

“The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven’s. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart’s jewel, is Mendelssohn’s.” ~ Joseph Joachim

He studied the Mendelssohn violin concerto with the composer, and famously provided inspiration and composition feedback to Johannes Brahms, who wrote his Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 for Joachim.

A marvellous documentary with violinist Gil Shaham about Brahm’s violin concerto and Joachim’s role in its creation and performance:

Brahms’s Scherzo for Joachim, the third movement of the F-A-E Sonata, a passionate rendition from Vengerov and Papian:

He also performed his own version of Tartini’s Devil’s Trill and Robert Schumann’s dedication, Fantasy in C Major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 131, previously unknown to me.

A wonderful 1953 recording of the piece arranged by Joachim for violin and piano, with a rhapsodic performance by Russian virtuoso Leonid Kogan and pianist Andrei Mytnik :

Joachim and Clara Schumann undertook a recital tour in late 1857, performing in Dresden, Leipzig and Munich.  They were also well received in London’s St. James’s Hall. Joachim performed yearly in London from 1867 to 1904.

Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann in Concert by Adolph von Menzel c. 1854

“Then there was a violin solo by young Joachim, then as now the greatest violinist of his time; and a solo on the piano-forte by Madame Schumann, his only peeress! and these came as a wholesome check to the levity of those for whom all music is but an agreeable pastime, a mere emotional delight, in which the intellect has no part; and also as a well-deserved humiliation to all virtuosi who play so charmingly that they make their listeners forget the master who invented the music in the lesser master who interprets it! “~ Excerpt from Trilby, 1894, by George du Maurier

Friendship with Johannes Brahms and the Schumann’s

Through his friendship with Robert and Clara Schumann Joachim was able to introduce them to the twenty year old Johannes Brahms. They would all form a close and lifelong friendship, but not without their disagreements.

Johannes Brahms, German composer with Joseph Joachim.

After many years of friendship and close collaboration, Brahms sided with Joachim’s wife at the time of their divorce. Joseph had accused Amalie of having an affair, but Brahms apparently had thought more highly of her chastity!

Their rift lasted a year, and was mended, at least partially, when Brahms composed his Double Violin Concerto for Violin and Cello.

The King of Cadenzas

Joachim wrote the cadenza as the dedicatee for Brahms’s violin concerto. Joachim’s cadenzas:

  • Beethoven, Concerto in D major, Op. 61
  • Brahms, Concerto in D major, Op. 77
  • Kreutzer, Concerto No. 19 in D minor
  • Mozart, Aria from Il re pastore, K. 208, Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216, Concerto No. 4 in D major, K. 218, and Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219
  • Rode, Concerto No. 10 in B minor, and Concerto No. 11 in D major
  • Spohr, Concerto in A minor, Op. 47 (Gesangsszene)
  • Tartini, Sonata in G minor (Devil’s Trill)
  • Viotti, Concerto No. 22 in A minor

Recordings of his cadenzas of Brahms and Mozart:

Hilary Hahn playing Joachim’s cadenza for the Brahms VC:

Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major K.218 – 1st Movement – Allegro with Henryk Szeryng, New Philharmonia Orchestra w/Sir Alexander Gibson (Joachim Cadenza at 7.05):

The Joachim String Quartet 

Aside from his illustrious career as one of the most influential solo violinists of his era, Joachim also performed chamber works with his eponymous string quartet.

They gave recitals of Beethoven’s late quartets – high in difficulty and low in popularity, at least until revival by Joachim and his quartet members: Robert Hausmann (cello), Joseph Joachim (1st violin), Emanuel Wirth (viola) and Karel Halíř (2nd violin).

The Joachim Quartet performing in the Sing Akademie zu Berlin in 1903 – engraving based on a painting by Felix Possart

The Joachim Quartet was formed in Berlin in 1869 and quickly garnered a reputation as the finest quartet in Europe at the time. Joachim played in the quartet until his death in 1907.

Joachim’s former teacher, Joseph Böhm had been part of the quartet that had given the world premiere performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 12 in E-Flat Major, Op. 127, now in mainstream chamber repertoire:

The legendary music critic and theorist, Heinrich Schenker on his quartet in 1894:
“In the course of recent years, since Hellmesberger senior, the great quartet connoisseur and player, we found only one single quartet that could do complete justice to the demands of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schumann—that quartet was the Joachim Quartet from Berlin.”

Joseph Joachim’s vintage recordings

Please bear in mind that these recordings date back over a hundred and ten years and therefore sound scratchy and hissy by today’s standards, but they are just about clear enough to give you an idea of Joachim’s style.

It’s also worth noting that he was 72 years old at the time of these recordings, playing with swollen fingers and gout, so not in his prime!

Joachim’s Violin Concertos

Violin Concerto in One Movement in G minor, Op. 3 for Franz Liszt:

The so called ‘Hungarian’ violin concerto was composed in the summer of 1857, considered one of the great romantic violin concertos, written in the style of Hungarian folk music, which to Joachim, was inseparable to gypsy music.

Rarely performed, it has been described as “the Holy Grail of Romantic violin concertos” by music critic David Hurwitz.

The concerto premiered on 24th March 1860 in Hanover and was published in Leipzig by Breitkopf and Härtel in 1861.

“The critic Eduard Hanslick recorded Joachim as having been for some ten years the greatest living violinist. His review of the Concerto in the Hungarian Style was more guarded, describing it as too expansive, complicated and striking in its virtuosity to be evaluated at a first hearing.” ~ Keith Anderson

The performance I’m going to share is by Rachel Barton Pine, a musician I admire very much. She recorded the work on the Naxos label in 2003 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to high acclaim.

She was noted as saying that because the concerto is so challenging and lengthy (45 minutes+) practising and performing it was akin to “training to run a marathon”.

Excerpt from Grampohone Magazine:
In 1861, 17 years before Brahms produced his masterpiece in the genre, Joseph Joachim as a young virtuoso wrote his D minor Violin Concerto, In the Hungarian Style. He would later help to perfect the solo part of his friend’s work, but in his own concerto the solo part is if anything even more formidable, one reason – suggested in the New Grove Dictionary – that it has fallen out of the repertory.

Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, with Takako Nishizaki, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Meir Minsky:

Other Compositions

Hamlet Overture, Op. 4 with Meir Minsky and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra:

Overture in C major, performed by Maastricht Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Roland Bader:

The Overture in C major by Josef Joachim, was composed in 1896 for the imperial birthday of the Kaiser of Germany. It was first performed on 3 February 1896 in Berlin’s Royal Academy of Arts.

The delightful Hebrew Melodies, Op. 9 (after Impressions of Byron’s Songs) for viola and piano (1854–1855), with Hartmut Rohde and Masumi Arai:

Schubert’s Piano Sonata ‘Grand Duo in C Major, D 812’ arranged for orchestra by Joachim as Symphony in C:

Teaching Legacy

Probably Joachim’s most illustrious pupil was Leopold Auer, who himself went on teach some of the greatest violinists of the 20th century:  Mischa Elman, Konstanty Gorski, Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Toscha Seidel, Efrem Zimbalist, Georges Boulanger, Benno Rabinof, Kathleen Parlow, Julia Klumpke, Thelma Given, and Oscar Shumsky.

“Joachim was an inspiration to me, and opened before my eyes horizons of that greater art of which until then I had lived in ignorance. With him I worked not only with my hands, but with my head as well, studying the scores of the masters, and endeavouring to penetrate the very heart of their works…. I [also] played a great deal of chamber music with my fellow students.” ~ Leopold Auer

Other prominent virtuoso violinists who were tutored by Joseph Joachim included Jenő Hubay, Bronislaw Huberman, Karl Klingler (violinist of the Klingler Quartet and Joachim’s successor at the Berlin Hochschule), Klingler was the teacher of Shinichi Suzuki.

Franz von Vecsey, who studied with Hubay, then Joachim, became the dedicatee of the Sibelius violin concerto.

Andreas Moser (another of Joachim’s pupils), went on to become his assistant, helping to recover the original scores of J.S. Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, collaborating with Joachim on numerous editions. Moser wrote the first biography of Joachim in 1901.

Joachim’s Stradivarius Violins

From Wikipedia:
In March 1877, Joachim received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Cambridge University. For the occasion he presented his Overture in honor of Kleist, Op. 13. Near the 50th anniversary of Joachim’s debut recital, he was honored by “friends and admirers in England” on 16 April 1889 who presented him with “an exceptionally fine” violin made in 1715 by Antonio Stradivari, called “Il Cremonese”.

The provenance of the ‘Cremonese, Harold, Joachim’ is given in full detail on the intstrument’s listing in Tarisio. Currently housed at the museum in Cremona, here is a 2013 recital of Bach by Antonio de Lorenzi, and it sounds georgeous!

Joachim also played on the ‘Messiah’ 1716 Stradivarius which I have seen on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, on the list of the 12 most expensive violins in history.

He is no longer just a name on a score to me now – rather a fully fledged violin hero…

Hommage to Heifetz – One of the Greatest Violinists of all Time

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“An artist will never become great through imitation, and never will he be able to attain the best results only by methods adopted by others. He must have his own initiative.” ~ Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz needs no introduction to anyone familiar with classical music, or a fan of the violin; but out of respect to a great artist, here goes. There will be more than a hint of hero worship! As far as violin playing is concerned, he reached the peak of Mount Olympus. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. He was, quite simply, a legend in his own lifetime.

heifetz_as_a_young_boy

Jascha Heifetz (2 February 1901 – 10 December 1987)

There are shades of Mozart in his youth: as a child prodigy he began playing the violin aged three, gave his first public performance aged five, and was accepted into the St. Petersburg Conservatory aged nine. He was first influenced musically by his father, played for royalty, took Europe by storm as a teenager, thrilled American audiences in Carnegie Hall at the age of sixteen and embarked on his first world tour aged nineteen. The rest, as they say, is history…

Many believe he has done more than any other 20th century violinist to elevate the standard of modern violin playing. But, paradoxically, he wasn’t all about technique. He was that rare breed of musician that transcended the physical boundaries of his instrument and became a true artist. Artistry for me, more so than technique is what sets him apart from other violinists. He took all the skills that were available to him, boundless natural talent, hours of practice, his almost flawless technical skill, emotional and mental mastery, and molded them into his individual, personal style, his unique artistry.

heifetz-quote

He was blessed with divine ability on the violin, which was brought about in a most heart-warming way. As a baby he would cry while his father was looking after him and he did not know how to calm him. Being a professional violinist and concert master of the Vilnius orchestra, (now in Lithuania), Rubin Heifetz would play his violin to baby Jascha, and it stopped him crying!

We should never underestimate the impact of early exposure to music on a human being. Whether they grow up to be one of the greatest musicians the world has ever seen or not, its benefits are immeasurable.

Probably the most well-known superlative that has been heaped on him was the sobriquet and documentary film title: ‘God’s Fiddler’. Even his teacher at the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, the revered Leopold Auer, when asked why he had not mentioned Jascha Heifetz in his list of top students retorted, “He’s not my student, he’s a student of God.”

The celebrated violinist Fritz Kreisler commented after hearing Heifetz’s debut in Berlin, “The rest of us might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees!” From Kreisler!

heifetz-quote2

In a letter from his father to his uncle, when Jascha was just 10 years old, his father talked of the praise that had been showered on his son, not just by his teachers, but by the St. Petersburg press and musical community, who had been gushing over him after his first professional recital, saying that he was unique, not just in Russia, but in the whole world. The weight of expectation was firmly on his young shoulders.

His name has become synonymous with excellence. Many musicians, regardless of their instrument, have heard the scathing phrase: “He’s no Heifetz!”  The great cellist, Pablo Casals was dubbed the ‘Heifetz of the cello’. Pretty much every performance of Heifetz’s is a masterclass in violin mastery and perfection.

Performances

Jascha Heifetz’s performing career spanned over sixty years, during which time he played in a total of 2,368 performance events. The bulk of his performance was naturally given in recitals, both solo and with orchestras. He made 197 recordings and 82 radio broadcasts. His chamber work was the rarest of his performance appearances, with only 28 concerts under his belt.

By the time he gave his London debut in 1920 he had already sold 20,000 copies of his early recordings.

Jascha Heifetz was a crowd pleaser, an audience wower, he was born to perform.

But all the talent in the world would not have served him without the relentless work ethic and self-discipline that he exhibited throughout his life. The one time he allowed his practice schedule to lapse for a little too long served as a painful, but essential lesson in his blossoming career.

Let’s have a break and listen to some early, vintage recordings of the wunderkind!

Soon after his debut Heifetz performed a devilishly difficult programme piece by Beethoven, the Chorus of Dervishes from The Ruins of Athens.

heifetz-ruins-of-athens

It has triplet fingered octaves, a previously unknown piece to me, but very evocative:

The Russian Revolution ensured that Heifetz remained in America and he became a citizen of his adopted homeland in 1925, where he lived for the rest of his life. At first he settled in New York and moved to California in the late thirties. During the Second World War he toured camps across Europe with the USO, playing to soldiers to lift morale and give some cultural interlude from the horrors of war.

“The performer must create an illusion for the audience.” ~ Jascha Heiftez

One of his students, professional violinist and pianist, Ayke Agus who later became his accompanist, assistant and confidante, tells of a story that Heifetz had impressed upon her about one such wartime recital:

“He had arranged to play to the troops in the open air, but the weather had taken a turn for the worse and on the day of the concert it was raining. Heifetz was offered the chance to pull out of his obligation, but he replied that as long as he could breath, move and walk he would perform.  Only one soldier stood in the deserted, muddy, wet field to listen that day.”

Ayke insists that Heifetz told her he thought it was one of his best ever performances.

In his later life as his performance career diminished Heifetz would often reminisce to her about his soloist days. She relays the story of when Heifetz played a private concert for Hellen Keller, who very touchingly could feel the music vibrations through her fingertips as she held on the scroll of his violin. She had impressed Heifetz greatly.

Shock, horror, a bad review!

For most of his early life Jascha Heiftez had received nothing but praise. And rightly so, he was one of the most outstanding violinists of his time, and indeed of all time. But his popularity in America, which furnished him with success and freedom, enabled him to let his hair down a little and enjoy the good life. In his own words, Heifetz admitted that it was not until he had reach adulthood that he could behave like a child.

In his childhood he had endured a strict regime of musical studies. It’s certainly understandable that he would want to relax and enjoy the fruits of his success for a while. But the lack of practise during his first four years in America had begun to show in his performance.

Nothing had prepared Heifetz emotionally for a bad review, and when scathing criticism came his way after one fateful New York concert, it wounded him deeply and jolted him out of complacency.  Although his pride was hurt, Heifetz actually agreed with the reviewer that he owed it to himself and music never to be content. It seems he became his own biggest critic from that day on.

After his ego recovered Heifetz applied himself to rigorous preparation and practice schedules before his concerts. He had set the bar impossibly high, and now the challenge was always to live up to an incredibly high standard.

“The discipline of practice every day is essential. When I skip a day, I notice a difference in my playing. After two days, the critics notice, and after three days, so does the audience.” ~ Jascha Heifetz

What really blows my mind was the speed, accuracy and co-ordination of his hands and bow. Heifetz’s hands in slow motion:

Philosophy

Jascha Heifetz believed that the audience should never feel like the artist is struggling to achieve anything. And in all his clips, no matter how fast and furious the piece, or even slow and legato, he has perfect control and makes it look effortless. He likened performance to making the perfect pitch in baseball. No-one would see, or even understand the effort that had gone into it.

His positive mind set comes across brilliantly in a great interview about violin mastery on David Jacobson’s blog.

When once asked by a student, “What are the most important attributes for an artist?” Heifetz responded candidly: “Self-respect musically speaking, integrity and enthusiasm.”

His personal philosophy was drawn from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, which he carried a copy of at all times. He said of particular relevance to him was the idea of treating the imposters of triumph and disaster just the same. He understood that an artist’s life meant treading that path between the two. Let’s face it; most of what he achieved was a total triumph, even to the extent that his unrivalled standard of perfection made him a target.

He was labelled as ‘cold’ and unemotional. It’s true that he didn’t show feelings so much on his face as is more common now-a-days. How silly for his critics to get their nickers in a twist over a lack of facial expression, when he clearly made the music his mode of expression. This video makes the point perfectly:

Jim Hoyl

At the height of his fame Jascha Heifetz wrote some popular songs under the pseudonym Jim Hoyl, which was easy to use with the same initials.

Here is Heifetz playing the piano to his own song, When You Make Love, which had been sung by none other than Bing Crosby :

He would also travel under this alias so as not to be easily recognised and identified. It struck me that he was humble and modest despite his international fame.

Teaching

After 1974 Heifetz dedicated himself to continuing the teaching legacy of his beloved tutor in St. Petersburg, Leopold Auer. In his own words Heifetz had said about Auer: “The professor was stern and very exacting, but a sympathetic teacher.” I feel these words describe his own pupils’ experiences. Ayke Agus had expressed what seemed close to terror, “It felt like we were victims.” She related how he would cover the technical aspects, the musical aspects as well as make them play on out of tune violins to prepare them for any eventuality they might face as professional musicians.

He held twice weekly lessons structured in the same way as Leopold Auer. My living hero on the violin, Itzhak Perlman, tells of his Masterclass experience as a 14 year old with Heiftez:

There is a great clip of Heifetz himself warming up for practice with scales, left handed pizzicatos and he even plays sections of the first movement of Beethoven’s violin concerto, which consists of beautiful melodic scales!

Ayke tells of how Heifetz would teach them the importance of bowing technique, and how Heifetz impressed on them that the colour of the tone came from the bow arm. He likened it to a painter with a brush never having the same evenness of colour and shade on the canvas, it wasn’t uniform.  He taught them to reach out to people’s hearts.

heifetz-beethoven

Heifetz himself found staccato bowing the most difficult thing to learn and tried to in-still in his students what Ayke Agus refers to as an ‘honest staccato’, which can only be achieved by having a stiff arm, lifting the bow on and off the string slowly and accurately before attempting a fast tempo.

Hora Staccato:

Heifetz did a series of televised Masterclass sessions in the sixties. I have chosen the one dedicated to Bach’s ‘Chaconne’. If you have read this earlier post on one of my favourite pieces of solo violin music, then you will know that Heifetz’s interpretation is untouchable.

Interests and idosyncracies

Jascha became known for deliberately playing badly, in order to demonstrate how not to do it. It was something of a party trick. He was also a keen photographer, ping pong player and motorist. Years before Elon Musk was born, Jascha Heifetz spent a significant amount of his money building his own electric car in 1965.  He didn’t like the smoke and pollution and decided he would do his bit for the environment.

Transcriptions for the violin

Heifetz also adapted other composer’s works for the violin. He met and admired George Gershwin, arranging his songs from Porgy and Bess for the violin.

Being a true patriot he also arranged the Star Spangled Banner:

The story behind one of his most beloved encore arrangements – Estrellita:

Heifetz’s Violins

Jascha Heifetz owned several high value violins, his preferred performance violin being the 1742 ‘ex-David’ Guarneri del Gesù, closely followed by his 1731 Stradivarius.

A touching interview with luthier Hans Benning, who Heifetz chose to maintain his violins:

Violin Concerto Recordings:

There are no words to describe the pure magic of these vintage recordings!

“You can ‘just listen’ to the Brahms violin concerto and enjoy it keenly. But if you read about Brahms’ life, you appreciate it more. And, if you’ve listened to recordings of it, you will appreciate it ten times as much.” ~ Jascha Heifetz

Heifetz’s sound was, and still is distinctive, original and silky, his tonal quality unsurpassed. His sublime phrasing, his unique musical language just send me to another realm and inspire me to practice. I love that you never get sentimentality from Heifetz, but you always get his enthralling blend of power and emotion.

If there was any downside to his stellar success I think it showed-up in his private life. He was married and divorced twice, and by some accounts wasn’t particularly close to his three children. He had to balance his career with his family, and I don’t think his relationship with his own father was a warm one. Heifetz was quite introverted and said in interviews that he had felt lonely at the top. His fame had come at a price.

I hope you’ve enjoyed his music as much as I have, and please share the post if you think the world needs more Heifetzes!

It feels fitting to bow out, (if you’ll pardon the pun!) with Heifetz’s final recital:

Oscar Shumsky Playing the 24 Rode Violin Caprices on Pierre Rode’s Stradivarius

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Every now and then I make a wonderful musical discovery. Lady luck was with me when I stumbled upon Monsieur Rode’s 24 Caprices for solo violin. How could I have not known about these violin gems?!

I guess Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin are just so famous that they have overshadowed other worthy compositions of the same genre. Rode’s amazing caprices (which were composed between 1814 – 1819 when Rode lived in Berlin), came before Paganini’s and deserve be as famous and popular. They may not have quite the fiery wow factor, but they are nonetheless vital for developing skill in training soloists.

Rode Caprice score

The performances I’m going to share with you are performed by Oscar Shumsky (a hugely underrated virtuoso violinist), playing on a golden period Stradivarius that was once owned and played on by the violinist and composer, Pierre Rode.

What strikes me about these recordings is his purity of tone, the romantic colours, intonation, accuracy, incredible double-stopping, smoothness, flowing style, flair and downright virtuosity!

As the uploader (Rare violin treasures) states:

This is a rare world-premiere recording of the Rode Caprices revealing Mr Oscar Shumsky as one of the best soloists the world has ever known: deadly accurate intonation, effortless technique, a warm lush tone, expressive vibrato, and ultimately the ability to create musical drama. I can say he was easily my favourite of all Auer pupils and when you hear a recording like this it makes you wonder how many more incredible performances he has made that should have been captured but never were! Without a doubt he was one of the true greats of the 20th Century!

Oscar and Pierre rode into my heart with these! I hope they leave you as flabbergasted as they did me…

Helpful notes on how to play the Rode Caprices from Axel Strauss/Naxos

Oscar Shumsky

You can read about this superlative musician in his obituary in The Guardian.

David Oistrakh referred to him as “one of the world’s greatest violinists” and the New Grove dictionary says of him: ‘He was a player of virtuoso technique, pure style and refined taste; yet never sought recognition as a soloist, preferring to concentrate on teaching, chamber music playing and conducting.’

Duke of Cambridge/ex-Pierre Rode 1715 Stradivarius

Rather fittingly, this was the violin used by Oscar Shumsky to record the complete 24 Caprices by Rode.

Oscar Shumksy

Mr Shumsky tells how he came to acquire the instrument:

“It was a case of ‘love at first sound’. During the period of readjustment after the ‘war to end all wars’ we were trying to pick up our lives where we had left them, and I was in the throes of trying to better my instrument. I realized that if I were to pursue a concert career I needed something considerably more outstanding than the Camillo Camilli (an excellent violin in its class) on which I was performing. In the process I had been through many Guadagninis and some lesser Strads, but always came away disappointed.

Then on one of my innumerable visits to the atelier of Emil Herrmann, I spotted a violin lying on the long felt-covered table. A quick glance told me that the violin was not only a Stradivarius but one of the finest examples I had seen. Thrilled and discouraged at the same time (I knew that such an instrument was out of my financial range) I nevertheless had a strong curiosity to examine and try it. Permission was granted, and after a few passages from different fragments of the repertory I just knew I had to have it! I won’t flood readers with all the information about my huge bank loan, but I have never had a moment’s cause for regret. The fact that it somehow came by way of my old teacher Leopold Auer is a fascinating bit of mysticism.” ~ Oscar Shumsky (The Strad, April 1985)

Pierre Rode (16 February 1774 – 25 November 1830)

Born in Bordeaux and hugely talented, he travelled to Paris at the tender age of 13 where he became a favourite student of Viotti; whose tutelage helped him become an accomplished violinist and composer. Alongside Baillot and Kreutzer he worked on the Violin method of the Conservatoire de Paris published in 1802.

As well as the 24 Caprices he composed 13 violin concertos, 12 Etudes, string quartets and a trio, 6 duos for violin and a polonaise for guitar, flute or violin.

Pierre Rode black and white

The Viotti violin concertos and chamber music formed the backbone of his performance repertoire.

In 1794 he toured the Netherlands, Germany, England and Spain (meeting and becoming friends with Luigi Boccherini). He became the personal violinist to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 and he greatly captivated and influenced the German maestro Louis Spohr, who heard him perform in 1803.

From 1804 to 1808 Rode was solo violinist to the Tsar in Saint Petersburg (just at the time Tolstoy set War and Peace) and enjoyed extraordinary popularity. Whilst in Saint Petersburg he stayed with his countryman François-Adrien Boieldieu.

Jacques Antoine Vallin - Portrait of young man with a violin - possibly Pierre Rode

Jacques Antoine Vallin – Portrait of young man with a violin – possibly Pierre Rode

Beethoven wrote his Violin Sonata No. 10, Op. 96 in G Major for Rode, dedicated to the violinist alongside Archduke Rudolph, when he was visiting Vienna.

Because I can’t resist a Beethoven composition here is a fabulous vintage performance of the above sonata with Isaac Stern and Dame Myra Hess from 1960:

The final movement was written with Pierre Rode’s style in mind. Shortly before completing the work, Beethoven wrote to the Archduke Rudolph:

“… I did not make great haste in the last movement for the sake of mere punctuality, the more because, in writing it, I had to consider the playing of Rode. In our finales we like rushing and resounding passages, but this does not please R and — this hinders me somewhat.”

Whilst in Vienna in 1812, Rode gave the first performance of Beethoven’s Opus 96, accompanied by Archduke Rudolph at the piano.

All that remains is for me to get hold of the music scores and start practising!

The Great Virtuoso Violinists/Composers of the 18th Century: Tartini (Part 2)

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“Beyond doubt, Tartini strove for the truest possible expression in violin playing, he wished to give his epoch the best possible example of style, in the broadest sense of the word.” ~ Leopold Auer.

In this second installment on Tartini I’ll be covering his formative years, Slavonic and folk music influences, career highlights, as well as his musical ethos, developments on bowing, Treatise on Ornaments and his teaching legacy.  Plenty to write home about and to listen to!

Tartini’s philosophy

Giuseppe Tartini portraitTartini’s principles in performing and teaching, like his principles in composing, were based on an experience of the humanism of art, its need for context and on his desire to be as close as possible to nature without artificiality.

According to Tartini good musical taste should be displayed in both composing music and performing it, as a product of human nature and should therefore be guided by one’s “sommo giudicio” (highest judgement).

I feel that the undisputed heavy weight champion of classical music, Ludwig van Beethoven, who was also faithful to his life experiences in terms of musical expression shared this musical ideology with Tartini.

Tartini attached great importance to the ‘singing quality’ of the violin. In his ‘Regole per ben suonare il Violino’ (Rules for Playing the Violin Well), he differentiates two ways of playing: cantabile (singing style) and sonabile (resonant). According to Tartini the singing manner of playing cantabile required slurring (same bow for multiple notes) and coherence, as distinct from sonabile.

Tartini’s motto: “Strength without convulsiveness; flexibility without laxity.”

‘Theory of Affects’

In his aesthetic views Tartini belonged to a group of 18th century composers who were the trend setters of his day, namely, Francois Couperin, Johann Mattheson, Francesco Geminiani, CPE Bach, Leopold Mozart and Luigi Boccherini. Their collective views were incorporated into a doctrine known as the ‘theory of affects’, which can be traced back to ancient times.

Their ideology can be summed up by Geminiani, who believed that music was good if it expressed “movements of the soul” and bad if it “expressed nothing”.

My score of the G minor violin sonata 'Didone Abbandonata'

My score of the G minor violin sonata ‘Didone Abbandonata’

Tartini certainly was a master of music with a descriptive force that could arouse emotional states in the listener. Truthfulness of expression was everything. According to his contemporaries, Tartini often drew inspiration from the poems of Petrarch and the romantic writings of Metastasio.

The Cipher

Tartini modestly put his verses into cipher, so that his feelings were expressed in the music alone. He wrote his mottoes in a cipher that he invented which remained a mystery to investigators for two hundred years, adding to the mystical aura that surrounded his life and work. Just over thirty years ago the Greek violinist and musicologist Minos Dounias (who cataloged his violin concertos according to tonality), cleverly decoded Tartini’s cipher.

Folk music and Slavonic influences

Tartini had a keen interest in Italian and Slavonic folk songs and dances, hence much of his music reflected their simple, lively tunes and enchanting rhythms.

Lorenzetti_Italian folk dance

There is a story that tells of how the impressionable composer once heard some Venetian Gondoliers singing a song with words by the 16th century Italian poet, Torquato Tasso. Tartini put down the song and allegedly used it in a movement of a solo violin sonata and wrote the Tasso text under the notes.

Violinist and scholar Peter Sheppard Skærved performing the so called ‘Aria del Tasso’:

Tartini dedicated considerable attention to folk songs in his Treatise on Music, written in 1750:

“Each nation has its own songs, many of which arose from old tradition, though many are created afresh in harmony with the prevailing spirit. As  a rule they are extremely simple; one might even remark that the simpler and more natural they are, the better they are assimilated.”

In his youth Tartini listened to and absorbed the songs of Croats and Slovenes. The final movement of his violin concerto D. 115 is a fine example of his affection for Slavonic folk tunes.

Violin Concerto in A Minor, D.115 ‘A Lunardo Venier’ Presto with Nicola Beneditti and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a sweet rendition:

Formative Years

Born the fourth of six children to Florentine merchant, Giovanni Antonio Tartini and a girl from a family in Pirano dating back to the 15th century, Caterina Zangrando; little Giuseppe grew up with his siblings in Pirano, a small, pretty town on the Adriatic coast now part of Slovenia.

Tartini_statue

Statue of Tartini in the square of his home town Pirano

He was influenced by both Italian and Slavonic culture of the baroque period. One of his early musical influences may well have been attending the famous ‘Dei Virtuosi’ Academy in Pirano with his father. Giovanni actually intended for Giuseppe to become a priest and prepared him for an ecclesiastical career.  However, after his initial education Tartini rebelled against his father and moved to Padua in 1708 (which at that time was part of the Republic of Venice) and a year later he enrolled to study law in Padua’s ancient university, (said to have been founded in 1222).

It seems that Tartini quickly began to out-perform his first music teacher, Julio di Terni, and developed mastery of the violin largely through his own efforts and the study of other prominent violinists of his time. He studied Corelli and listened attentively to the likes of Veracini, and divided his time between law and music studies as well as a penchant for fencing.

Love and marriage

According to some sources Tartini developed a passion for the cardinal’s niece, Elisabetta Premazone, and married her secretly in 1710. This did not go down well with her influential family and Tartini fled to Assisi, having also incurred the wrath of his own family, who cut off all financial support.  He spent two years studying assiduously in a monastery and worked on perfecting his musical skills, and where he created his early compositions (and most likely his famous Devil’s Trill Sonata).

There are also claims that whilst in seclusion in Assisi Tartini took musical instruction from Bohuslav Cernohorsky (1684 – 1743 nicknamed Padre Boemo), a noted Czech composer, theorist and head of the 18th century Czech school of composition, who had also tutored Christoph Willibald Gluck.

Prague and Padua

Tartini returned to Padua in 1721 as a mature artist and versatile musician. He  spent most of his life there, but also performed and taught in Venice, as well as undertaking visits to Milan, Bologna, Livorno, Palermo and Naples. By this time he was well known throughout Europe and was invited to perform in Prague by an influential member of the Hapsburg dynasty and a big supporter of the arts, Count Kinsky.

The Kinsky family's coat of arms in Prague

The Kinsky family’s coat of arms in Prague

After the coronation of Emperor Charles VI they worked as chamber musicians in Count Kinsky’s chapel until 1726.  Tartini also played in Prague’s musical academies.

The success of his countrymen Scarlatti and Geminiani in foreign courts may have hastened his decision to go to Prague, but because of his early exposure to Slavonic folk tunes the trip most likely excited him and represented an opportunity to further study Slavic music.

He travelled with his friend and first cellist at Padua, Antonio Vandini. The role of cello accompaniment was quite important in the absence of a harpsichord or keyboard instrument. Tartini and Vandini were close friends for over fifty years, and Tartini wrote several cello concertos for him.

Here’s my favourite of them, in D major, performed by Russian virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich:

After he returned to Padua in 1726 he rarely left, and besides his performances in Venice his last major concert tour was a trip to Rome in 1740 after an invitation from the cardinal to play in the presence of Pope Clement XII.

Performer and teacher

Tartini founded the Paduan Violin School a year or so after his return from Prague, which he directed for more than forty years. Violinists from all over the world came to learn from Tartini and perfect their craft, and he earned the nickname “maestro delle nazione” (teacher of nations). Antonio Capri, who was his biographer states that over seventy of his pupils became violinists of note in the history of violin playing.

“One cannot speak of music at Padua without mentioning the famous Giuseppe tartini, who has long been the first violin of Europe. His modesty, moral standards and considerateness evoke as much respect as his talent; in Italy he is referred to as ‘il Maestro delle Nazioni’ both in regard to the violin and to his compositions… No one has impressed me more with his inspiration and the fire of his compositions than Tartini. ~ Jérôme Lalande

Tartini’s methods were also passed on by his students, namely Pietro Nardini, of whom Leopold Mozart said, “I have heard the famous Nardini… It is impossible to hear anything of greater beauty, purity, evenness of tone and melodiousness. And with all of this he has nothing heavy in his playing.” Other students worthy of mention were Maddalena Lombardini, Domenico Ferrari, Pierre Lahoussaye, Filippo Manfredi and Domenico Dall’Oglio.

From reading about his legacy I have assumed that he was equally as good at teaching as he was at performing and composing! His respected writings qualified him as the eminent music scholar of 18th century Italian violin music; so you could say he had many strings to his bow!

Development of bowing techniques

“The bow should be held firmly between the thumb and forefinger and lightly by the other three fingers, in order to produce a strong, sustained tone. To increase the tone, press harder on the bow with the fingers and also press down the strings more firmly with the fingers of the other hand.” ~ Giuseppe Tartini

The authors of Methods of the Paris Conservatoire (Paris 1802), Baillot, Rode and Kreutzer wrote that under Tartini’s bow the violin becomes a “harmonious, sweet instrument, full of grace.”

He attached great importance to the “correct distribution of the bow.” A story from a contemporary relates that sometimes Tartini used two bows while teaching: one of them had its stick divided into four parts, and the other into three.

Tartini also fluted the wood of the bow. It’s also easy to forget that during Tartini’s musical era the bow was held not at the heel as it is today, but gripped at a certain distance from it. Tartini discovered that in order to enrich the tone it was necessary to lengthen the bow which increased its flexibility and enabled a broader range of expression in bowing technique. He developed a broader palette of bow strokes than Corelli (who used mostly detache and legato), by also using both staccato and bouncing strokes.

It’s quite a skill to amplify the sound without compromising the quality of the note, so bowing technique is crucial in applying the dynamics of a piece. Crescendo’s aren’t my Forte!!!

Minos Dounias observed that Tartini’s slurring of strokes coincides with that of musical phrases.

L’Arte del Arco (The Art of Bowing)

To assist his teaching methods Tartini wrote The Art of Bowing which consists of fifty variations on a Gavotte from Corelli’s Violin Sonata in F Major, (Opus 6, No. 10). Despite its title the variations also challenge left hand activity and require perfect coordination of movement from both hands!

It highlights his exhaustive knowledge of the many modes of expression of the violin and serves as a kind of compendium of violin technique in the 18th century. The work isn’t just a manual in technical ability but combines a certain artistry that frees it from the usual monotony of studies and exercises.

The Art of Bowing was adopted by many prominent 18th and 19th century violinists (such as Joseph Szigeti and Fritz Kreisler) who made arrangements for their own performance.

A gorgeous performance by Oscar Shumsky of Kreisler’s shortened arrangement of Tartini’s Variations on a Theme by Corelli:

Treatise on Ornaments

Tartini was against ornamentation/embellishment as a purely decorative device unconnected with the inner nature of the music itself. The choice of ornaments and the way they were played had to be underpinned by an understanding of the music  and performed to reflect the feeling, idea or, as was the basis for his philosophy, the affect that it expressed.

Tartini’s writings pertaining to technical and aesthetic performance started out as instruction manuals for his pupils that he refined over the years. His Treatise on Ornaments was thought to have been written between 1735 and 1750 when he was highly active both as a performer and teacher.

It contains his ideas on different kinds of grace notes, trills, tremolos and mordents and various ways of using them.  Regarding mastering the trill at different speeds he wrote:

“The same shake will not serve with equal propriety for a slow movement as for a quick one.”

He suggests starting the trill slowly and gradually making it faster.

Tartini’s art was progressive, meaningful, and full of humanity. It’s no surprise then that through generations of violinists many of his principles in methods of teaching are used to this day, and his best compositions still thrive in modern repertoire.

I’ll leave you to listen to a small selection from his massive output of violin concertos, sonatas, trios etc. Happy listening!

Violin Sonata in G minor Op. 1 No. 10 ‘Didone Abbandonata’ David Oistrakh and Frida Bauer:

My favourite violin concerto in D minor ‘Ombra diletta…’ D. 44 Performed by Wolfgang Schneiderhan and the Festival Strings Lucerne conducted by Rudolf Baumgartner:

Violin Concerto D. 22 Concerto Bucolico for violin, strings & b.c. by L’Arte dell’Arco:

Violin Concerto in A Major, D. 96, Accademia Bizantina, on period instruments:

Violin Concerto in G Major, D.  82 Pierre Amoyal, Claudio Scimone & I Solisti Veneti:

Trio Sonata in F Major for 2 Violins and Harpsichord, David and Igor Oistrakh with Hans Pischner:

Sonata ‘Staggion bella’ for Violin & basso continuo in B flat major, Op.Posth (Brainnard Bb.3):

Violin Sonata No. 12 Op. 2 in G Major, vintage recording of Joseph Szigeti:

Trio Sonata in D major, B. D2 (Op.3 No.6) La Magnifica Comunità :

Violin Concerto in E minor, D. 55 by the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble & Nils-Erik Sparf:

Violin Concerto in G minor, D. 85 by the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble & Nils-Erik Sparf:

Tartini Violin Concertos D70, 42, 109, 123, 54, 45, 115, 13, 125, 110:

Tartini Solo Violin Music performed sympathetically and soulfully by Andrew Manze:

“Tartini has always been to me a source of achievements with the violin.” ~ Joseph Szigeti