Felix Galimir

Last updated

Felix Galimir (May 20,1910, Vienna – November 10, 1999, New York) was an Austrian-born American-Jewish violinist and music teacher.

Born in a Sephardic Jewish family Vienna; his first language was Ladino. [1] He studied with Adolf Bak and Simon Pullman at the Vienna Conservatory from the age of twelve and graduated in 1928. With his three sisters he founded the Galimir Quartet in 1927 to commemorate the centenary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven. During the early 1930s Galimir studied with Carl Flesch in Berlin. In 1936, the Galimir Quartet recorded the Lyric Suite of Alban Berg and the String Quartet of Maurice Ravel under the supervision of the composers, who were present during the rehearsals and recording sessions. [2] In 1936, he joined the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He was harassed because of his Jewish ethnicity – at one performance, writes Allan Kozinn, "just as the lights went down, the principal clarinetist called out, in a voice audible throughout the theater, 'Galimir – have you eaten your matzos today?'" [3] The next season, the orchestra expelled him because he was Jewish. He then emigrated to Palestine to join the newly founded Palestine Symphony Orchestra.[ citation needed ]

"My mother was Austrian, but as my father was Romanian, we were considered enemy aliens and lived in fear of internment", he said of his family's plight in World War I. [4]

In 1938, Galimir moved to New York, [5] where he founded another quartet and served as member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra from 1939 to 1956.(later, when the NBC ensemble was disbanded, Galimir was concertmaster of the Symphony of the Air.) In the 1950s he began acquiring a reputation as a music teacher and began teaching at The Juilliard School in New York in 1962 and from 1972 at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1976 he began teaching at Mannes College of Music in New York. [6]

In 1952, after the death of Adolf Busch, pianist Rudolf Serkin asked Galimir to join the faculty of the Marlboro Music Festival, where he was in residence every year from 1954 until his death in 1999.[ citation needed ]

Galimir died on November 10, 1999 of natural causes and has since been honoured with memorial concerts and competitions in his name. [7]

Related Research Articles

Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Osvaldo Noé Golijov is an Argentine composer of classical music and music professor, known for his vocal and orchestral work.

Mischa Elman

Mischa Elman was a Russian-born Jewish-American violinist, famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality.

Dorothy DeLay American violin instructor

Dorothy DeLay was an American violin instructor, primarily at the Juilliard School, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Cincinnati.

Mieczysław Horszowski

Mieczysław Horszowski was a Polish-American pianist who had one of the longest careers in the history of the performing arts.

Robert Mann American musician, composer and conductor

Robert Nathaniel Mann was a violinist, composer, conductor, and founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet, as well as a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music. Mann, the first violinist at Juilliard, served on the school's string quartet for over fifty years until his retirement in 1997.

Simon Pullman Musical artist

Simon Pullman was a violinist, conductor, music teacher and founder and Director of the Pullman Ensemble and Orchestra, and a seminal figure in the evolution of chamber music performance.

Eleanor Aller (Slatkin) was an American cellist and founding member, with her husband, Felix Slatkin, of the Hollywood String Quartet.

Richard Aberman Nanes was an American businessman, and amateur composer and pianist.

Franz Kneisel

Franz Kneisel was an American violinist and teacher of Romanian birth.

Alexander Schneider

Abraham Alexander Schneider was a violinist, conductor and educator. Born to a Lithuanian Jewish family in Vilnius, Lithuania, he later moved to the United States as a member of the Budapest String Quartet.

Erich Gruenberg was an Austrian-born British violinist and teacher. Following studies in Israel, he was a principal violinist of major orchestras, including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He was an international soloist, playing the first performance of Britten's Violin Concerto in Moscow. As a chamber musician, he was leader of the London String Quartet and recorded all Beethoven violin sonatas with pianist David Wilde. He was the lead violinist for The Beatles' album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Gruenberg taught at the Royal Academy of Music until age 95, influencing generations of violinists.

Stephen Clapp

Stephen Clapp was a violinist and Dean Emeritus of the Juilliard School.

Raphael Hillyer was an American viola soloist, teacher. Born Raphael Silverman in Ithaca, New York, his career included playing in the Boston Symphony Orchestra and co-founding the Juilliard String Quartet. Hillyer was still lecturing and teaching viola at Boston University during the final month of his life.

Samuel Gardner

Samuel Gardner was an American composer and violinist of Russian Jewish origin. He won a Pulitzer prize with a string quartet in 1918. He was a student of Franz Kneisel and Percy Goetschius, and began his career as a concert violinist; among his compositions is a violin concerto. He wrote a number of other chamber works, and a handful of things for orchestra, including Broadway, which was performed by the Boston Symphony in the 1929-30 season.

Edgar Ortenberg

Edgar Ortenberg was a violinist in the Budapest String Quartet and taught violin at the Settlement Music School and Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Michael Guttman is a violinist, chamber musician, conductor and festival director. He is the brother of actor Ronald Guttman. He plays a 1735 Guarneri violin.

Thomas Daniel Nyfenger was an American flutist and teacher known for his "intense and caring emotion for the flute" and described as “a thorough professional who programs interesting music and is not above having a good time while playing it.” He taught at the Yale School of Music, played piccolo for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and held many part-time playing and teaching positions throughout his career.

Hugo Gottesmann

Hugo Gottesmann was an Austrian violinist, violist, conductor, and chamber musician and a highly decorated soldier in World War I. His career in Vienna as a conductor and violinist was cut short when Hitler took office in Germany in 1933. He was fired from his positions at Radio Wien, the Vienna Symphony, and the Academie für Musik and forced to seek work elsewhere in Europe and emigrate to the United States.

Ken Noda is an American concert pianist, accompanist, vocal coach, and composer. He began composing music and performing as a concert pianist before the age of 11. He has performed with symphony orchestras throughout the world, and has composed numerous art songs and five operas. He worked as a vocal coach at the Metropolitan Opera from 1991 until retiring from his full time position in July 2019.

References

  1. ↑ Allan Kozinn, "Felix Galimir, 89, a Violinist Who Taught Generations, Dies," November 12, 1999, New York Times, URL=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/12/arts/felix-galimir-89-a-violinist-who-taught-generations-dies.html
  2. ↑ Allan Kozinn, "Felix Galimir, 89, a Violinist Who Taught Generations, Dies," November 12, 1999, New York Times, URL=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/12/arts/felix-galimir-89-a-violinist-who-taught-generations-dies.html
  3. ↑ Allan Kozinn, "Felix Galimir, 89, a Violinist Who Taught Generations, Dies," November 12, 1999, New York Times, URL=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/12/arts/felix-galimir-89-a-violinist-who-taught-generations-dies.html
  4. ↑ David Blum (November 3, 1996). "A Violinist Already a Legend But Still a Dynamo". The New York Times . Retrieved March 24, 2008.
  5. ↑ Allan Kozinn, "Felix Galimir, 89, a Violinist Who Taught Generations, Dies," November 12, 1999, New York Times, URL=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/12/arts/felix-galimir-89-a-violinist-who-taught-generations-dies.html
  6. ↑ Kozinn, Allan (November 12, 1999). "Felix Galimir, 89, a Violinist Who Taught Generations, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 29, 2020.
  7. ↑ "Obituary: Felix Galimir". The Independent. November 15, 1999. Retrieved July 29, 2020.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.