Description

CARL FLESCH (MOSON, HUNGARY, 9 OCTOBER, 1873 – LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND, 14 NOVEMBER, 1944)

 

 

 

 

His real name was Flesch Károly. He was born in Moson (now part of Mosonmagyaróvár) in Hungary in 1873. He began playing the violin at seven years of age. At 10 he was taken to Vienna to study with Jakob Grün. At 17 he left for Paris, and joined the Paris Conservatoire. He settled in Berlin, and in 1934 in London. He was known for his solo performances in a very wide range of repertoire (from Baroque music to contemporary), gaining fame as a chamber music performer. He also taught in Bucharest (1897-1902), Amsterdam (1903-08), Philadelphia (1924-28) and Berlin (Hochschule fuer Musik, 1929-34). He published a number of instructional books, including Die Kunst des Violin-Spiels (The Art of Violin Playing, 1923) in which he advocated for the violinist as artist rather than merely virtuoso. Among his pupils were Charles Barkel, Edwin Bélanger, Bronislaw Gimpel, Ivry Gitlis, Szymon Goldberg, Ida Haendel, Josef Hassid, Adolf Leschinski, Alma Moodie, Ginette Neveu, Yfrah Neaman, Ricardo Odnoposoff, Eric Rosenblith, Max Rostal, Henryk Szeryng, Henri Temianka, Roman Totenberg and Josef Wolfsthal, all of whom achieved considerable fame as both performers and pedagogues. He said his favorite pupil was the Australian Alma Moodie, who achieved great fame in the 1920s and 1930s but made no recordings and is little known today. One of Flesch’s few recordings is a highly distinguished interpretation of Bach’s great D minor Double Violin Concerto (Columbia) in which he played second violin to the great Joseph Szigeti, with Walter Goehr conducting an anonymous London string orchestra in the late 1930s. He was consulted (as was Oskar Adler) by Louis Krasner over technical difficulties in the Violin Concerto of Alban Berg, which Krasner was to premiere. Carl Flesch’s Scale System is a staple of violin pedagogy. He owned the Brancaccio Stradivarius, but had to sell it in 1928 after losing all his money on the New York Stock Exchange. Flesch lived in London during the 1930s, and was later arrested by the Gestapo in the Netherlands, was released, and died in Lucerne, Switzerland, in November 1944.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

 

1. Aus der Heimat (Smetana) Kurt Ruhrseitz (piano) Edison 80865 10821
2. Ave Maria (Schubert-Wilhelmj) Edison 82063 2946
3. Canzonetta (Tchaikovsky) Kurt Ruhrseitz (piano) Edison 80878 10842
4. Caprice (Fiorello) Waldemar Liachowsky (piano) Edison 82313 9357
5. Cavatina (Bohm) Kurt Ruhrseitz (piano) Edison 82348 10865
6. El Paño Moruno (de Falla) Raymond Bauman (piano) Edison 80894 18326
7. Elégie for Violin in C minor, Op. 10 Sur la mort d’un objet cheri” (Ernst) Kurt Ruhrseitz (Piano) Edison 82348 10867
8. Frasquita Serenade (Lehár) Raymond Bauman (piano) Edison 80902 18330
9. Gypsy dance Edison Test 2944
10. Jota (de Falla) Raymond Bauman (piano) Edison 80894 18327
11. Larghetto (Weber-Kreisler) Waldemar Liachowsky (piano) Edison 82311 9351
12. Légende, op. 17 (Wieniawski) Kurt Ruhrseitz (piano) Edison 82349 10820
13. Lied ohne Worte (Mendelssohn-Kreisler) Waldemar Liachowsky (piano) Edison 82321 9358
14. Marsch (Handel-Flesch) Edison 80889 18324
15. Mazurkas, Op. 19 No 2 in D major Le ménétrier” (Wieniawski) Homer Samuels (Piano) Edison 82072 04071914
16. Melody (Gates Dawes) Kurt Ruhrseitz (piano) Edison 82346 10844
17. Midnight bells (Heuberger-Kreisler) Harry Kaufman (piano) Edison 82330 9444
18. Nocturne Op. 9, #2 (Chopin) Edison 82094 2945