SYMPOSIUM RECORDS CD 1328

The Great Violinists- Volume – 16

The history of modern violin playing cannot be imagined without him

– Carl Flesch

PABLO MARTIN MELITON de SARASATE y NAVASCUÉS (Pamplona 1844-Villa Navara, Biarritz 1908) was taught from the age of five by his father, Don Miguel de Sarasate, a military bandmaster. His first appearance was at the age of eight at Coruña, and he was soon performing before audiences in his native Spain. In 1854, with the help of the Countess of Espoz y Mina, he was able to go to Madrid to study with Manuel Rodríguez, leader of the Teatro de la Zarzuela. In 1856 he gave his first concert at the Royal Opera House and played by command at the court of Queen Isabella II. With grants from Queen Isabella, the Countess of Espoz and the Diputación de Navarra, he set out with his mother for Paris, but she died suddenly at Bayonne on the way. He was adopted by Don Ignacio García Echevarría, Spanish Consul and banker, also from Pamplona. Thus on 1st January 1856 he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire. He was cared for, and his general education arranged, by a couple named de Lasabathié. By 1857 he was a favourite pupil of Delphin Alard and that year he won first prizes for solfège and violin. In 1859 in Reber’s harmony class he was premier accessit, but soon he abandoned composition in favour of becoming a concert player. In 1861 he returned to play in Spain and made the first of many visits to London. It is reported that for a while he also played in salons in Paris and spa towns, sometimes opening a programme, sometimes providing an obbligato for a celebrity. Possibly his lack of interest in ‘serious’ music reflected that the great works of Beethoven were still little known in the Spain of his childhood. It is said that he turned to the great ‘classical’ works only after a disapointment in love in 1867. (Sarasate kept his personal life very private. It is widely believed that there was never another relationship in his life, but it is claimed that he had a daughter. His emotions must also have been affected by the early and sudden loss of his mother.) Whatever the reason, the success which greeted his début in Vienna in 1876 made him a celebrity, a status in which he continued for a third of a century, and which took him throughout Europe, both Americas and the East; as Hanslick remarked, “He is distinguished not for playing great difficulties, but for playing with them.” He rarely played the great concerti of Beethoven and Brahms, perhaps he felt his tone was on the small side for the competition of a big orchestra. He also disliked works in which the soloist stood around; of the Brahms concerto, he

complained, “the oboe plays the only melody in the adagio.” However, he was very happy to play chamber music by Beethoven and Brahms; and works by Bruch (second concerto and Scottish Fantasia), Dvorak, Joachim, Lalo (first concerto and Symphonie Espagnole), Saint-Saëns (second concerto and Scottish Fantasy) and Wieniawski are dedicated to him, many of concerto status. His technique certainly qualified him to play Paganini, but he did not much like the music and his hands were on the small side for the stretches involved. Bach’s unaccompanied works entered his repertoire only late in his career. His reception in England in 1861 and in 1874 was cool, but from 1879 he was wildly acclaimed. For Henschel his performance of Mendelssohn's concerto “came to German ears like something of a revelation creating a veritable furore”, but Shaw would have “as lief heard him play ‘Pop goes the weasel’... He never interprets... he plays beautifully, and that is all.” His colleagues generally admired his superb technique and tone, but tend to confirm that volume was not his forte. Nothing was forced, the bow was always perpendicular to the strings and seldom moved nearer to the bridge than half way from the fingerboard. Flesch, who measured praise carefully, even regarded him as the founder of the modern desire for technical perfection; for Ysaÿe, “C’est lui qui nous a appris à jouer juste” [It was he who taught us to play exactly]. This admiration seems justified by the records. The tone is utterly sweet, though in imitators preoccupation with this led to boredom in the listener. He was born almost mid-way between Joachim (1831) and Ysaÿe (1858) and his slow and unpronounced vibrato accords with that position. He taught little, if at all, but violinists were deeply impressed by his playing. Shaw may have been right, that Sarasate did not reach the emotional and intellectual depths of the great works of the repertoire. However, he composed a considerable amount of mainly short pieces which, whilst they can by no means be considered great music, have elegance and charm possible only from one possessing those qualities in abundance, and in addition exquisite feeling for the sound of the instrument. Incidentally, of the morceau de genre of the age only those of Sarasate and Kreisler are still widely known today. For Albert Spalding Sarasate, “was a bewitching violinist... a player who made trivial music sound important and deep music sound trivial... (but in) his own Spanish dances he was completely in his element. The violin sang like a thrush.” The records, made in his sixtieth year, demonstrate astonishing fleetness and accuracy in both hands, though, it must be admitted, they bear out reports that by this time his intonation was no longer faultless. Sarasate amassed a considerable fortune from which he gave generously to good causes. The list of honours he received in the course of his career would fill a paragraph. “Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?”

JOAN MANÉN (Barcelona 1883-Barcelona 1971) was taught piano and rudiments of music starting from the age of three, by his father, a strong amateur musician, but also very authoritarian, who noticed that he had absolute pitch. At five several local violinists gave him violin lessons. He regarded the violin as a chore, but at his début at the age of seven at Castellón he played both instruments. By then he was having lessons from Clemente Ibarguren of Barcelona, a pupil of Sarasate’s teacher, Delphin Alard, but how long these lessons continued is unclear. He was soon touring Spain as a pianist, but at Court he played piano and violin. Next came a tour of Argentina with both instruments. This tour also included his conducting début; he was then ten. On returning to Barcelona he commenced serious studies of the Beethoven and Mendelssohn violin concerti. His début in the United States was in 1897 with his father as accompanist. Next year he played Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole in Carnegie Hall under Walter Damrosch. At this time Manén gave the première of Concierto Español, one of his first compositions, and dedicated to Kreisler. He went on to write the operas Nerón y Acté, performed in various German towns, and Camino del Sol, a piano quartet, caprices, a symphony and many works for violin. In addition, he edited the complete works of Paganini and transcribed various pieces for his instrument. In 1898 he began a tour of Europe. He heard de Sarasate in Berlin, each complimented the other, and he played the Beethoven concerto with his own cadenzas in Paris at a Concert Colonne. In Warsaw he was wildly acclaimed for playing Wieniawski’s Souvenir de Moscou, at a time when Polish works were forbidden. Bruch accompanied him in his Scottish Fantasy in Friedenau, and in Cologne his accompanist was Richard Strauss. In the decade from 1904 to the commencement of the first world war Manén was certainly in the leading échelon of the world’s violinists. This period included playing again for the Spanish Court, a tour of Russia, having pieces dedicated to him by Jenö Hubay, and the première of his Concerto Grosso at Wiesbaden, the other soloists being Hugo Heermann and Joaquín Nin. For Henry Wood in London in 1910 Manén “rivalled even the great Sarasate... with an aesthetic expression... he would have been an ideal sitter for... Velasquez. He had a marvellous technique and was a composer of considerable distinction.” After the war Manén’s career rather declined; as for many another player, styles were changing and Heifetz had arrived. (Of the older generation, probably only Kreisler survived unharmed.) Nevertheless, Manén continued to play until at least 1957. During these years he founded the Filharmonica de Barcelona; for, like Casals, Manén was much concerned to encourage music in his native land. In the early ‘30s he frequently conducted, but at the outset of the Spanish Civil War he went into retirement until 1942. Manén’s first violin was a ¾-size Vuillaume selected for him by Sarasate. As he grew he played a copy of an Andrea Guarneri, but at the end of the first world war he obtained a Peter Guarneri from the Mendelssohn family. Later he encouraged his compatriots by purchasing an instrument by the Catalan maker, Etienne Maire.

Track 1 Sarasate, like Joachim and Thibaud, plays without the then often added piano accompaniment. Track 6 Attitudes to recording were much more relaxed in 1904 than a century later. Presumably the first side of Zigeunerweisen was allocated to the first section of the piece; the second side to the second and third sections. However, at the end of the first side Sarasate calls out something to his accompanist, who plays the first chords of the second section and then stops abruptly. Alas, there seems to have been a memory lapse, for only the third section appears on the second side. Tracks 10-16 The complete issued Parlophon recordings of 1915; 2-2050 being unknown. Tracks 17-18 Until about 1920 it was common for two distinguished artists to appear in one concert or to tour together. Hedwig Francillo-Kaufmann (Vienna 1878-Rio de Janeiro 1948) studied initially with Franzi Müller and Emilie Dorr in Vienna, then in Dresden with Aglaja von Orgeni, and lastly with Rosario in Milan. After her début in Stettin in 1898 she rose through provincial German houses to reach Berlin in 1903 and Vienna in 1908. From 1912 to 1917 she was in Hamburg. Her career continued, in Europe and South America, mainly in coloratura roles, later in concerts, until 1927. In retirement she taught in Berlin and then in Vienna. After the second World War she lived with her husband, a Brazilian diplomat, in South America. Acknowledgements: Symposium Records is most grateful to Raymond Glaspole for lending the records for tracks 2, 8, 10-12 and 14-16 and to Michael Plant for track 9. The portrait of Manén is from the Tully Potter Collection. Thanks are due to Paul Lewis and Adrian Tuddenham for assistance with the production.. Copyright Notice: This digitally transferred compilation with its notes is copyright, it may not be broadcast, copied, hired out, publicly performed or stored in a retrieval system without written permission.