At the turn of the 20th Century in America, appreciation of classical music, particularly violin soloists, was in its infancy. With only five professional orchestras and limited opportunities for solo engagements, it was especially difficult for female artists since all orchestra players were male and a professional career in music for women was frowned upon. With the arrival of Maud Powell, followed by a group of pioneers, a way was paved allowing all future women violinists to flourish.
MAUD POWELL was born in 1867 in Peru, Illinois in the western frontier of the American heartland. She inherited the pioneering passion of her ancestors who were involved as missionaries, in innovative education, exploration of the Grand Canyon and scientific research. She was a prodigy who began violin and piano study at age 7. When she was 13, her parents sold their home to raise funds for her future study in Europe in conservatories in Leipzig and Paris, and with Joseph Joachim, the great violinist and friend of Brahms.
After returning to America in 1885, knowing that “girl violinists were looked upon with suspicion”, Powell boldly walked into a rehearsal of the all-male NY Philharmonic and demanded a hearing by Theodore Thomas, then America’s foremost conductor. He was impressed and engaged her on the spot to play the Bruch Concerto with his orchestra.
Maud Powell blazed new concert circuits throughout the country, even for the Far West, braving primitive touring conditions to reach people who had never before heard a concert.
She never played down to her audiences and included folk songs as well as sonatas and concertos in recital She also wrote her own program notes and many music journal articles in an attempt to elevate her audiences’ appreciation of music. Maud Powell toured Europe, North America and South America to wide acclaim. She also introduced 15 famous violin concertos to the American Public, as well as music by Black Composers.
Maud Powell died in 1920 from a second heart attack. 94 years later, in 2014, she was posthumously awarded a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
She was among the first instrumentalists to make Red Seal recordings for the RCA Victor Talking Machine Company starting in 1904 until 1919. With these recordings she set an enduring standard for violin performance. Before Heifetz and Kreisler, Maud Powell sold more violin recordings then any other person on earth. One of her earliest recordings is Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Melodies) by Pablo Sarasate.
ERICA MORINI was a Jewish Austrian violinist born in Vienna in 1904. Erica had six siblings, all of who were involved in the arts either as musicians, dancers or impressarios. Her first teacher was her father, Oscar Morini – then she completed her studies at the Vienna Conservatory under Otabar Sevcik, composer of many violin etudes & exercises.
Erica Morini made her professional debut in 1916 with the Berlin Philharmonic under famed conductor Arthur Nikish who spoke of her as an equal of the most famous of the younger generation of violinists. Her American debut was in NY in 1921 at age 17 – critics called it one of the musical sensations of the year. Shortly after her debut, Erica was presented with the Guadagnini Violin which was owned by Maud Powell who had passed away the year before.
In that same year, Morini made her first recording for the RCA Victor Company.
Erica Morini resided in Austria until 1938 when she relocated to New York City where she made regular concert appearances and taught at the Mannes College of Music where she influenced and trained a generation of young violinists, female and male.
Harold Schonberg, music critic of the NY Times once described her as “probably the greatest woman violinist who ever lived”. She was not pleased with that notion and said, “A violinist is a violinist and I am to be judged as one, not as a female musician”.
Morini was honored with numerous awards and prizes, including: honorary doctorates from Smith College, the New England Conservatory, and NYC honored her Lifetime Achievement with a Gold Medal.
After a ten-year break from concertizing, Erica Morini returned in 1976 to give a final recital at Hunter College. The New York Times wrote: “ This concert was one of the most musically satisfying of the season”. Following that concert, she retired from the stage and reportedly never played the violin again.
Morini’s valuable Davidov Stradivarius as well as paintings, letters, music scores and other valuables were stolen from her NYC apartment shortly before her death in 1995. She had been hospitalized with heart disease and was never told of the theft. That crime remains unsolved.
Born in 1919, French violinist Ginette Neveu was considered by many leading musicians in France to be a “once in a lifetime” kind of talent. She made her solo debut at the age of seven and at nine, she won first prize at the City of Paris Prix d’Honneur Competition. Neveu then studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Nadia Boulanger, Carl Flesch, and George Enescu who taught Yehudi Menuhin.
In 1935 at age 15 Ginette Neveu achieved worldwide celebrity status when she won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition finishing first (out of 180 contestants) placing 26 points ahead of future great violinist, David Oistrakh. Neveu was immediately signed to an extensive touring contract allowing her to perform internationally over the next two years. After WW II, which interrupted her career, she resumed worldwide performing to rave reviews.
Ginette Neveu gave her last concert in 1949, in Paris. A week later she was on board an Air France flight from Paris to New York when it crashed on a mountain after attempting to land in the Azores. All 48 people on board perished, including Ginette, her brother accompanist and the French former boxing champion, Marcel Cerdan.
After Neveu’s death, tributes poured in from admirers including: the Queen of Belgium, composer Francis Poulenc, Charles Munch, the recently appointed Boston Symphony conductor, and Jacques Thibaud , the great French violinist. Pablo Casals wrote: ” Her playing was one of the greatest revelations, both instrumentally and musically.” France posthumously awarded Neveu the Cross of the Legion d’Honneur. A street is named in her memory in the Montmartre region of Paris.
Ginette Neveu made few commercial recordings but all of them are still available. Unfortunately, there are no videos. In her recording of Ravel’s Tzigane, the brilliance and intensity of her playing as well as the beauty of her tone are very evident.
IDA HAENDEL was a Polish-British-Canadian violinist. Born in 1928 to a Jewish family in Poland. Haendel was a child prodigy whose career spanned over seven decades. She also became an influential teacher and competition adjudicator.
Major competitions paved the way for much of her early success. Haendel won the Warsaw Conservatory Gold Medal at age 5 and she competed in the first Wieniawski International Competition with David Oistrakh and Ginette Neveu when she was 7. These honors enabled her to study with esteemed pedagogues Carl Flesch and George Enescu in Paris.
In 1937, her London debut at the Proms brought her worldwide acclaim and a lifelong association resulting in 68 performances there. During WW II Ida Haendel played in factories and for British and American troops, and performed in Myra Hess’s National Gallery Concerts.
Living in Montreal, Canada from 1952-1985, her work with Canadian Orchestras made her a celebrity of Canadian musical life. In 1973, Ida was the first Western soloist invited to China following the Cultural Revolution. Ida Haendel has made annual tours of Europe and also appeared regularly in South America and Asia. Haendel’s recordings have earned critical praise and include all of the major concertos, including a number of 20th-century works by Bela Bartok, Benjamin Britten and William Walton.
As a noted teacher, she has inspired a generation of new violinists such as Anne Sophie Mutter. Haendal was a much sought-after adjudicator for violin competitions including the Sibelius, Benjamin Britten and Henryk Wieniawski International Competitions.
In 1991, Ida Haendel was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She received Honorary Doctorates from The Royal College Of Music, London and McGill University. After performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto in Helsinki in 1949, Ida Haendel received a letter from the composer in which he wrote: “You played masterfully in every respect. I congratulate myself that my concerto has found an interpreter of your rare standard.”
Ida Haendel died at a nursing home in Pembroke Park, Florida in 2020 at age 91.
CAMILLA WICKS, born in Long Beach, California in 1928, was an American violinist and one of the first female violinists to establish a major international career. Both of her parents were distinguished Norwegian musicians and they helped launch her career as a child prodigy at age 7. She then studied at the Juilliard School in NYC with legendary teacher, Louis Persinger. In 1942 Camilla made her solo debut at age 13 with the New York Philharmonic and her Hollywood Bowl performance, at age 17, with conductor Leopold Stokowski, in Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto #2 was a great success.
Over the next decade, Camilla Wicks performed regularly with the world’s finest conductors and orchestras, and went on extensive European tours, particularly in Scandinavian countries. Though her repertoire included a wide range of classic masterpieces, she promoted many lesser-known works, in particular, by Scandinavian composers who wrote many works for her.
Though there are several recordings of Camilla Wicks available, only one video of her playing exists: a concerto by Norwegian Composer Fartein Valen.
At the height of her popularity, Camilla Wicks halted her playing career during the 1950s to raise her five children. However, she taught on the faculty of several American universities, including the University of Michigan and Rice University. In the early 1970s, Wicks was invited to head the String Department at the Oslo Royal Academy, where she developed many of the violinists who became members of leading Norwegian orchestras. In 1999, Camilla Wicks was made Knight First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit. Wicks also held the Isaac Stern Chair at the San Francisco Conservatory before she retired in 2005. Camilla Wicks died in 2020 at age 92.
KYUNG WHA CHUNG, born in 1948, is a South Korean violinist. She is also among the first of the women violinists, born after WW II, who have reaped benefit from the efforts of the pioneering women we have already discussed.
Chung began violin lessons at age 7 and within two years became recognized as a prodigy after playing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Seoul Philharmonic. As she and her talented siblings, who all played instruments, became well-known in Korea, Chung’s mother decided to move to the United States to further their musical education and careers. At age 13, Chung arrived in the United States and was enrolled in the Juilliard School where she studied with the eminent violin pedagogue, Ivan Galamian.
In 1967, Chung and Pinchas Zuckerman were joint winners of the prestigious Leventritt Competition. This prize opened the door to several engagements with the Chicago Symphony and The New York Philharmonic and a 1967 television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show one week before her appearance with the NY Philharmonic. In 1970, Chung substituted for Nathan Milstein at a White House performance, and later for Itzhak Perlman with the London Symphony Orchestra. These successes led to many other engagements and recording contracts. While in Europe, Chung continued music studies with the great Joseph Szigetti.
In 2007, Chung joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in both the Music and Pre-College Divisions where she continues to develop and train future violinists. Illness and injury halted her performing career in 2008 but she continued teaching. Her most recent live performance was in London at the Royal Festival Hall in December 2014.
VIKTORIA MULLOVA, a Russian-British violinist, was born on November 27, 1959 in Zhukovsky, near Moscow, in Soviet Russia. At the age of four, her father, a physicist and engineer, encouraged Viktoria to begin violin lessons. After studying at the Central Music School of Moscow and the Moscow Conservatory under master violinist, Leonod Kogan, she won First Prize at the 1980 International Sibelius Competition and the Gold Medal at the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition.
Describing her experiences with the Soviet state-sponsored musical education as “a stressful nightmare” Mullova and her lover/accompanist plotted a defection during a concert tour of Finland in 1983. Feigning illness after a concert, they escaped in a rented car – crossed the border into Sweden and then flew to Stockholm. After spending two days in a safe house under pseudonyms, they applied for political asylum at the American Embassy and shortly after arrived in Washington DC with American visas.
Mullova has made many recordings and with her Mullova Chamber Ensemble has toured throughout Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1995, Mullova was nominated for an Emmy for several of her chamber music recordings. Her international career as soloist has included performances with many major orchestras, including, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Mullova currently lives in London with her cellist husband and three children and continues to tour and record.
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a German Violinist who music critics have described as a “master of the violin” and “musician of near peerless virtuosity and unimpeachable integrity.” She was born in 1963 in Rheinfelden, Baden Wurttemberg and started playing violin at age five. Early in her career, she was supported by Herbert von Karajan and made her orchestral debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1977. Mutter gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s recording over 50 albums and performing as soloist with leading orchestras worldwide, and in recitals. By the 1990s, Mutter had established herself as an international star, transitioning from child prodigy to mature artist.
Anne-Sophie Mutter’s repertoire includes works from the Baroque period to the 20th century but she is also an advocate of new music and has had several works composed for her by present-day composers. In the 2000s, Mutter began collaborating with her then-husband, composer and conductor Andre Previn and with other contemporary composers premiering their new works for violin.
Throughout her career, Mutter has presented many benefit concerts for needy children and other humanitarian causes. In 2018, Mutter gave a benefit concert commemorating a liberation concert in May 1945 for Holocaust survivors by Jewish musicians. Since 2022, Mutter has been offering benefit concerts for Ukrainians.
In 2008, Mutter founded The Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation supporting young string players by providing scholarships for talented individuals.
Mutter herself has received numerous awards and prizes, including: four Grammys and Honor Awards from Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Poland, Romania and Japan. She also holds honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
MIDORI GOTO, a Japanese/American violinist known simply as Midori, was born in Osaka, Japan in 1971. Her lessons on violin began at age 3 with her mother who was a professional violinist. By the age of six, Midori attracted attention by publically performing one of Paganini’s Caprices. Shortly thereafter, Midori and her Mother moved to New York City and she was enrolled in the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School of Music and began studies with the noted teacher, Dorothy Delay, who taught Itzhak Perlman. In 1982, at age 11, Midori made a surprise debut at a New Year’s Eve Gala with the New York Philharmonic, and in 1986 came her legendary Tanglewood performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade – an event that made front-page headlines in the New York Times.
In 1987, after four years of study, Midori left Juilliard and embarked on a full-time career as a professional artist. As an adult, she is considered as one of the world’s preeminent violinists and has been honored as an educator for her community endeavors.
When she was 21, she established her foundation “Midori and Friends” to bring music education to young people in underserved communities in New York City and Japan, which has evolved into an organization with worldwide impact. In 2007, Midori was appointed as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In that role, she performed in recitals & as soloist with major orchestras internationally. In 2018, Midori joined the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and she also is holder of the Jascha Heifetz Chair as a professor at the University of Southern California.
Midori has received many accolades & Awards including: the John D. Rockefeller III Award by the Asian Cultural Council, The Avery Fischer Prize, the Kennedy Center Gold Medal in the Arts, and she was an honoree at the Kennedy Center.