The ongoing controversy about Isaac Stern has sparked a fascinating conversation about great violinists who, for one reason or other, never became world famous. The name that shot to the top of the pile was the Latvian violinist, Philippe Hirschhorn. Philippe who?

Ljubisa Jovanovic explains.

Philippe Hirschhorn (Violin)
Born: 1946 – Riga, Latvia (former USSR)
Died: November 26, 1996 – Brussels, Belgium

The Latvian violinist, Philippe Hirschhorn, first studied at the conservatory of Riga with Professor Waldemar Sturestep; later he studied with Professor Michael Waiman at the Conservatoire of St. Petersburg. He won the First Prize at the International Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in 1967, where the Jury included some of the formost names of the 20th century violinists: David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin, Zino Francescatti, Arthur Grumiaux, Joseph Szigeti, Josef Gingold, Théo Olof, André Gertler, and Max Rostal (the year in which Gidon Kremer won the third prize). We can find his legendary interpretations of Paganini 1st Concerto and Geminiani Sonata from this competition. ‘I had the impressions that I cheated the jury,’ he said. ‘I was a successful liar.’

The playing of Philippe Hirschhorn was ultra-sensitive, with deep understanding of artistic aspects and knowledge about music, looking for emotional and spiritual points and sharing idealistic sense for instrument. Always afraid to lose part of  his art while working on it, he wondered if his playing was “pure” enough? After he won the First Prize at the International Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, he thought was “somehow cheating and lie the jury” during his perform of Paganini?! He was sure that for making a good carrier, is more important to be clever, focused on wright things, hard worker with lucky, then to be original figure in music. Somehow he stayed “unadopted” in world of artistic commercialism. For many musicians he is one of most important personalities of XX century…

“The most unbelievable musician I ever met… He possessed mystical hypnotic power” – Mischa Maisky

Philippe Hirschhorn settled in Belgium in 1973. He played concerts all over the world (Europe, America and Japan) with the most prestigious orchestras conducted by amongst others Herbert von Karajan, Ferdinand Leitner, Frübeck de Burgos, Jesús López-Cobos and Lawrence Foster. He played chamber music with partners who were also friends such as Elisabeth Leonskaya, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Brigitte Engerer, David Geringas, etc.

Despite being one of the most gifted violinists ever, he did not gain worldwide attention. The rare recordings that exist of him playing are examples of his technical and musical abilities. Sadly, his career was cut short because of poor health (some attributing to unspecified illnesses, acute nerves and burnout), or maybe because his priority was to have the most perfectly playing, technically and musicaly, never being happy about it. Once, after concert, he began to play the 1st caprice by Paganini, everybody in the hall was so impressed by his perfectly technique but after one minute of playing, he suddently stopped and went out because he thought he was playing too bad!

Philippe Hirschhorn was the teacher of many excellent violinists who dedicated their working life to performing and teaching, among others Philippe Graffin, Cornelia Angerhofer, Evert Sillem, Janine Jansen, Yoris Jarzynski, Marie-Pierre Vendôme and many others. He died in 1996 in Brussels at the age of 50, from a brain tumor.

Janine Jansen said in an interview to Strings Magazine that ”it was her lessons at the Utrecht Conservatory with Philippe Hirshhorn, that took her playing to a new level. Their time together, so formative for Jansen, was tragically short: Jansen was 16 when she began studying with him and Hirshchorn was already suffering the brain tumor that would kill him two years later. In the Janine film, composer Victor Kissine talks about receiving a phone call from Hirshchorn, who had just heard Jansen play for the first time. “He wanted to share his amazement,” Kissine recalls. The admiration seems to have been mutual between teacher and pupil. “The lessons were so exciting and so inspiring for me,” Jansen says. “To play for such an electrifying musician, you always wanted to give your best.”

Ljubisa Jovanovic
Flute Professor, Faculty of Music, Belgrade

Another priceless new video from a lunch to remember. Plenty of singing and a personal memory of Chaliapin in the nude.

Click on ‘Post’ if video fails to pop up.

Post by Meloclassic.

The composer Bernd Redmann has been announced this weekend as the new chief of Munich’s Hochschule für Musik und Theater. He’ll have to start getting used to wearing a tie.

Redmann succeeds Siegfried Mauser who, after 11 years, has taken an upgrade to become Rektor of the Mozart University in Salzburg.

A School of Music that has lagged in recent years behind the best now has a feather to put in its cap.

Hilda Huang, 18, an American scholarship student at Yale, took first prize at the prestigious Leipzig contest.

Second was Schaghajegh Nosrati, 25 (Germany/Iran). Third was a Latvian, Georg Kjurdian, 20.

A statement from the musicians union president Tino Gagliardi has been sent our way. Published in an old-school workers’ journal, it amounts to an attack on Peter Gelb’s policy of promoting new operas – which Mr Gagliardi considers avant-garde – and which he claims have been box-office failures.

Quote: He also notes the avant-garde operas Gelb champions to draw younger customers have not done as well at the box office as classic operas have. Gagliardi calls the avant-garde revivals failed experiments.

This statement is the first misstep by the musicians’ union, whose campaign has been managed brilliantly so far from within the Met orchestra.

The job of a union president is to fight for his members’ pay and conditions. He has no voice in the choice or casting of operas. The moment he criticises Peter Gelb for artistic selection, he exposes a weakness in the union’s flank. Mr Tino Gagliardi may be a frustrated music critic, but so long as he’s president of the musicians union he should stick to pay and conditions and leave repertoire to competent directors.

Photo: Metropolitan Opera musicians pass out leaflets to concertgoers at New York’s Lincoln Center. Courtesy IATSE New York locals.

I came across a lovely piece in a rural newspaper about a conductor, Vartan Melkonian, who works with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Vartan grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, as a street kid, the orphaned child of refugees who escaped genocide – the planned destruction of their race by a ruthless empire. He spent the first eight years of his life in a refugee camp, the next few years on the streets.

‘I had never sat on a chair, I had never been into someone’s house. I didn’t know how to tie shoe laces,’ he relates. ‘People take moments of pleasure by looking at the sunset. For us, for me, it was the worst time of the day, there was nowhere to go. I had to find any alcove to sleep in.’

Vartan somehow hauled himself out of destitution, found a place to live, studied music, became a conductor and now gives lectures for the United Nations on the lives of street children.

That Vartan is alive at all is a minor miracle. His family fled their homes in Armenia in 1915 after Turkey launched a calculated massacre of its Armenian citizens. To this day, no-one knows how many died. Turkey, to this day, denies the holocaust took place.

Yet its present prime minister has the Islamist effrontery of accusing Israel of committing crimes ‘worse than Hitler.’

Forget about Erdogan, he’s not worth a wasted brain cell. Forget the other Islamist anti-semites. Think about the Armenians.

Next year, 2015, is the centenary of their genocide. Time to make sure the world knows what happened. Read Franz Werfel, The 40 Days of Musa Dagh’.  Do what you can to bring Turkey to justice before the court of world opinion.

I’m thinking of changing my surname for the year to Lebrechtian in solidarity with the oppressed Armenians. Anyone care to join?

Read Vartan’s interview here.