Walter Levin
   HOME
*





Walter Levin
Walter Levin (December 6, 1924 – August 4, 2017) was the founder, first violinist, and guiding spirit of the LaSalle Quartet (active 1947–1987), which was known for its championing of contemporary composers, for its recordings of the Second Viennese School ( Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern), as well as for its intellectually penetrating interpretations of the classical and romantic quartet repertory, in particular the late quartets of Beethoven. Levin was also an important pedagogue, having taught many of the world's leading string quartets, among them the Alban Berg Quartet and the Arditti Quartet; other prominent students include the conductor James Levine, the violinist Christian Tetzlaff and the pianist Stefan Litwin. Levin was Professor of Music for 33 years at the College Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati, where the LaSalle Quartet was quartet in residence, and subsequently taught chamber music at the Steans Institute of the R ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


LaSalle Quartet
The LaSalle Quartet was a string quartet active from 1946 to 1987. It was founded by first violinist Walter Levin. The LaSalle's name is attributed to an apartment on LaSalle Street in Manhattan, where some of its members lived during the quartet's inception. The quartet played on a donated set of Amati instruments. The LaSalle Quartet was best known for its espousal of the '' Second Viennese School'' of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, and of the European modernists who derived from that tradition, though they also performed standard classical and romantic literature. The Quartet gave the premiere of Witold Lutosławski's String Quartet in Stockholm in 1965. György Ligeti dedicated his Second String Quartet to the group, and they premiered it in Baden-Baden on December 14, 1969. The quartet has been credited with the " Zemlinsky Renaissance," as Zemlinsky remained largely unknown until they performed his works. The quartet won the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis for their recording ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Carl Flesch
Carl Flesch (born Károly Flesch, 9 October 1873 – 14 November 1944) was a Hungarian violinist and teacher. Flesch’s compendium ''Scale System'' is a staple of violin pedagogy. Life and career Flesch 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 Conservatoire de Paris, studying with Martin Pierre Marsick. He settled in 1903 in Amsterdam, in 1908 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 a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Otto Klemperer
Otto Nossan Klemperer (14 May 18856 July 1973) was a 20th-century conductor and composer, originally based in Germany, and then the US, Hungary and finally Britain. His early career was in opera houses, but he was later better known as a concert-hall conductor. A protégé of the composer Gustav Mahler, Klemperer was appointed to a succession of increasingly senior conductorships in opera houses in and around Germany. From 1929 to 1931 he was director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin, where he presented new works and avant-garde productions of classics. The rise of the Nazis caused him to leave Germany in 1933, and shortly afterwards he was appointed chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and guest-conducted other American orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and later the Pittsburgh Symphony, which he reorganised as a permanent ensemble. In the late 1930s Klemperer became ill with a brain tumour. An operation to remove it was succ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Leo Blech
Leo Blech (21 April 1871 – 25 August 1958) was a German opera composer and conductor who is perhaps most famous for his work at the Königliches Opernhaus (later the Berlin State Opera / Staatsoper Unter den Linden) from 1906 to 1937, and later as the conductor of Berlin's Städtische Oper from 1949 to 1953. Blech was known for his reliable, clear, and elegant performances, especially of works by Wagner, Verdi, and Bizet's ''Carmen'' (which he conducted over 600 times), and for his sensitivity as an accompanist. Early life and education Blech was born to a Jewish family in Aachen, Rhenish Prussia. After attending the Hochschule in Berlin where he studied piano with Ernst Rudorff and composition from Woldemar Bargiel, he studied privately with Engelbert Humperdinck. Career After working briefly in sales, he landed a position conducting at the Stadttheater Aachen in 1893. From 1899 to 1906, he conducted at the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague before moving to the Köni ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kroll Oper
The Kroll Opera House (german: Krolloper, Kroll-Oper) in Berlin, Germany, was in the Tiergarten district on the western edge of the '' Königsplatz'' square (today ''Platz der Republik''), facing the Reichstag building. It was built in 1844 as an entertainment venue for the restaurant owner Joseph Kroll, and redeveloped as an opera house in 1851. It also served as the assembly hall of the Reichstag from 1933 to 1942. Severely damaged by the bombing of Berlin in World War II and the Battle of Berlin, it was demolished in 1951. History 1842–1848: Early years The Kroll story began in the Silesian capital Breslau, where the entrepreneur Joseph Kroll (1797–1848) had opened the "Kroll Winter Garden" in 1837. The Breslau authorities chose this reputable establishment to entertain the new Prussian King Frederick William IV when he visited the city in 1841. The King was impressed by the splendid, flower-decorated rooms and suggested that something similar should be initiated in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Berlin State Opera
The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from 1741 to 1743 according to plans by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in the Palladian style. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, the former Royal Prussian Opera House was rebuilt from 1951 to 1955 as part of the Forum Fridericianum square. Nicknamed ''Lindenoper'' in Berlin, it is "the first theater anywhere to be, by itself, a prominent, freestanding monumental building in a city." History Names Originally called the ''Königliche Oper'' (Royal Opera) from 1743, it was renamed as the ''Preußische Staatsoper'' (Prussian State Opera) in 1919, then as the ''Deutsche Staatsoper '' in 1955. Until 1990, it housed the state opera of East Germany. Since 1990, it is officially called the ''Staatsoper Unter den Linden'' (State Op ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Berlin Philharmonic
The Berlin Philharmonic (german: Berliner Philharmoniker, links=no, italic=no) is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. History The Berlin Philharmonic was founded in Berlin in 1882 by 54 musicians under the name Frühere Bilsesche Kapelle (literally, "Former Bilse's Band"); the group broke away from their previous conductor Benjamin Bilse after he announced his intention of taking the band on a fourth-class train to Warsaw for a concert. The orchestra was renamed and reorganized under the financial management of Hermann Wolff in 1882. Their new conductor was Ludwig von Brenner; in 1887 Hans von Bülow, the conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra and one of the most famous piano virtuosos of the time, took over the post. This helped to establish the orchestra's international reputation, and guests Hans Richter, Felix von Weingartner, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms and Ed ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Erna Berger
Erna Berger (19 October 1900 – 14 June 1990) was a German lyric coloratura soprano. She was best known for her Queen of the Night and her Konstanze. Career Born in Dresden, Germany, Berger spent some years as a child in India and South America. She lived there later on as well, working as a clerk and a piano teacher, before borrowing enough money for the trip back to Germany. At age 26, she secured a position as a soubrette soprano at the Semperoper in Dresden and had her first success as Hannele in Paul Graener's opera '' Hanneles Himmelfahrt'', based on Gerhart Hauptmann's play ''The Assumption of Hannele''. She later held leading positions at the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She gave concerts in Japan, the United States, and Australia. Her discography features complete recordings of ''Die Zauberflöte'' (as the Queen of Night, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, 1937–38, for EMI), and ''Rigoletto'', with Jan Peerce and Leonar ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Alexander Kipnis
Alexander Kipnis ( – May 14, 1978) was a Ukrainian-born operatic bass. Having initially established his artistic reputation in Europe, Kipnis became an American citizen in 1931, following his marriage to an American. He appeared often at the Chicago Opera before making his belated début at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1940. Early life Aleksandr Kipnis was born in Zhytomyr, the capital of the Volhynian Governorate, in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). His impoverished family of seven lived in a Jewish ghetto. After his father died, when he was aged 12, he helped support the family as a carpenter's apprentice and by singing soprano in local synagogues and in Bessarabia (now Moldova) until his voice changed. As a teenager he took part in a Yiddish theatrical group, until he entered the Warsaw Conservatory at age 19. The conservatory did not require a high-school diploma. His education included the study of the trombone, double bass and conducting. All the while he c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Edwin Fischer
Edwin Fischer (6 October 1886 – 24 January 1960) was a Swiss classical pianist and conductor. He is regarded as one of the great interpreters of J.S. Bach and Mozart in the twentieth century. Biography Fischer was born in Basel and studied music first there, and later in Berlin at the Stern conservatory under Martin Krause. He first came to prominence as a pianist following World War I. In 1926, he became conductor of the Lübeck Musikverein and later conducted in Munich. In 1932 he formed his own chamber orchestra, and was one of the first to be interested in presenting music of the Baroque and Classical periods in a historically accurate way. Although his performances were not historically accurate by present-day standards, they were for his time; e.g., he did conduct Bach and Mozart concertos from the keyboard, an unusual practice at that time. In 1932 he returned once again to Berlin, succeeding his great contemporary Artur Schnabel in a teaching role at the Berlin H ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel (17 April 1882 – 15 August 1951) was an Austrian-American classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th century's most respected and important pianists, his playing displayed marked vitality, profundity and spirituality in the Austro-German classics, particularly the works of Beethoven and Schubert. Music critic Harold C. Schonberg described Schnabel as "the man who invented Beethoven". Between 1932 and 1935, he produced the first recording of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. In 2018, the Library of Congress selected this recording to be placed in the National Recording Registry for its historical significance. Life and work Early years Born Aaron Schnabel in Lipnik (Kunzendorf) near Bielsko-Biała, Austro-Hungarian Empire (today a part of Poland), he was the youngest of three children born to Isidor Schnabel, a textile merchant, and hi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi or Jehudi (Hebrew: יהודי, endonym for Jew) is a common Hebrew name: * Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999), violinist and conductor ** Yehudi Menuhin School, a music school in Surrey, England ** Who's Yehoodi?, a catchphrase referring to the violinist * Yehudi Wyner (born 1929), composer and pianist * Jehudi Ashmun (1794–1828), religious leader and social reformer Other uses * Yehudi lights See also * Yahud (other) * Yehuda (other) * Yuda (other), / Juda (other) / Judah (other) * Jew (word) {{disambiguation, given names ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]