Description

AUGUST EMIL DANIEL FERDINAND WILHELMJ (USINGEN, DUCHY OF NASSAU, GERMAN CONFEDERATION, 21 SEPTEMBER 1845 – 22 JANUARY 1908, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 22 JANUARY 1908)

 

 

 

 

Wilhelmj was born in Usingen and was considered a child prodigy; when Henriette Sontag heard him in 1852 at seven years old, she said, “You will be the German Paganini”. In 1861, Franz Liszt heard him and sent him to Ferdinand David with a letter containing the words “Let me present you the future Paganini!”.[3] His teachers included: Ferdinand David, for the violin, Moritz Hauptmann, for music theory and composition, and Joachim Raff for composition.

A personal friend of Wagner, he led the violins at the première of Der Ring des Nibelungen in Bayreuth in 1876. He visited Australia in 1881, playing in the old Freemasons’ Hall in Sydney, but though appreciated by those who attended his concerts, their number was not sufficient to make the tour a financial success. It was not until introduced to London audiences by Jenny Lind in 1886 that Wilhelmj became a “household name”.

He has become famous for his late nineteenth century arrangement of the second movement of J. S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 for violin and piano, known as Air on the G String and for his re-orchestration of the 1st movement of Niccolò Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.1 in D major Op. 6 (1883/1884).

From 1894 on he was a professor of violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Among his pupils were Jessie and Harold Grimson, American violinist Nahan Franko, Canadian musician Donald Heins, and the Australian conductor Aylmer Buesst. Wilhelmj owned a Stradivari 1725 violin from 1866 until his retirement, which later came to be known by his name. Another known violin was made by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda 1843 (Ex Wilhelmj) His 1785 Guadagnini was later owned (as “ex-Wilhelmj”) by Jack Liebeck. He died in London.

Wilhelmj’s sister-in-law was composer and singer Maria Wilhelmj.

 

 

 

HUGO HEERMANN (3 MARCH 1844, IN HEILBRONN – 6 NOVEMBER 1935, IN MERAN, ITALY)

 

 

 

He studied the violin with Lambert Joseph Meerts at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels, and later with Joseph Joachim. From 1864 he lived in Frankfurt am Main, where he taught violin from 1878 to 1904 at the Hoch Conservatory. He played in the first performance of Dvořák’s second Piano Quartet. He played 1st violin with Hugo Becker, Fritz Bassermann and Adolf Rebner in the “Museums-Quartett” (also called the “Heermann-Quartett” and “Frankfurter Quartett”). Between 1906 and 1909 he taught at the Chicago Musical College, in 1911 at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin and 1912 at the Conservatoire de musique in Geneva. In 1909 and 1910 he briefly was a member of The Dutch Trio, which transposed into the Heermann-van Lier String Quartet. He served as concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for a period beginning in 1909; he was succeeded in that post by his son Emil. He has the distinction of having been the first to have played Brahms’ Violin Concerto in Paris, New York City and Australia. After his retirement in 1922 he lived mostly in Meran, Italy.

 

 

ALFRED WITTENBERG (BRESLAU, 14 JANUARY, 1880 – SHANGHAI, 18 JULY, 1952)

 

 

 

 

Born in Breslau, Wittenberg was born into a Jewish family. As a wunderkind, the ten-year-old performed in a concert with a violin concerto by Mendelssohn and a piano concerto by Chopin. He studied at the Berlin University of the Arts with Joseph Joachim. In 1901, he received the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize (with a scholarship) for violin. He played in the Staatskapelle Berlin of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin.

As a violinist, Wittenberg was a member of piano trios with Frederic Lamond and Joseph Malkin, with Anton Hekking and Artur Schnabel (later Clarence Adler) and with Heinrich Grünfeld and Moritz Mayer-Mahr. In 1921, John Fernström studied with him.

After the Machtergreifung by the Nazis, Wittenberg lived in Dresden, where the Jüdischer Kulturbund organised numerous musical activities. Wittenberg founded a piano trio there with Walter Goldmann and Paul Blumenfeld.

In 1939, Wittenberg managed to emigrate to Shanghai with his wife and mother-in-law. He was given the opportunity to organise a musical evening with two Jewish musicians, through which he became famous and got pupils. In 1941, before the outbreak of the Pacific War, a student offered him a life in the USA with good job opportunities, house and car, but Wittenberg wanted to stay in Shanghai. After the occupation of Shanghai by the Japanese he had to move with his family to a very limited accommodation in the “isolation zone” for Jews. After the war he taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music of the Central Conservatory of Music.

Wittenberg died of a heart attack after collapsing while playing the violin in Shanghai at the age of 72.

The film director Chen Yifei portrayed the Jewish colony in Shanghai and especially Alfred Wittenberg in his documentary Escape to Shanghai (1999), in which other main characters were Wittenberg’s students, the pianist Ming-Qiang Li and the Austrian violinist Heinz Grünberg.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

 

1. August Wilhelmj Le Streghe, Op. 8 ‘The Witches’ Dance’ (Paganini) Cylinder
2. August Wilhelmj Menuetto Pizzicato Cylinder
3. August Wilhelmj The Gypsies Cylinder
4. Hugo Heermann Nocturne in E Major (Ernst) Parlophone P511
5. Hugo Heermann Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006 I. Preludio (Bach) Parlophone P514
6. Alfred Wittenberg Wittenberg String Quartet Quartet in A Op. 18 No. 5 Andante cantabile (Beethoven) Anker E 9894 06724
7. Alfred Wittenberg Wittenberg String Quartet Quartet in G Major (Mozart) Allegro molto Anker E9845-II 06725
8. Alfred Wittenberg Wittenberg String Quartet Quartet Op. 18 No. 5 (Beethoven) Minuet Anker E9845-I 06723
9. Max Grot Hungarian Dances (Brahms) Favorite 1-14018 R
10. Max Grot Pizzicato Polka (Delibes) Favorite 1-14020R