Sascha Jacobsen (11 December .S. 29 November1895 - 19 March 1972) was an American

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

ist and teacher born in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

, now

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

.In his book "Great Masters of the Violin", Boris Schwarz claims that Jacobsen was born in New York in 1897 and that his manager tried to turn him into a "Russian fiddler" for publicity purposes He grew up in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, then moved with his family to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

as a boy.

Biography

He was born on 11 December 1895 in Helsinki, Finland. He graduated from the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...

in New York in 1915 as a pupil of

Franz Kneisel Franz Kneisel (born January 26, 1865, Bucharest - died March 26, 1926, New York) was a violinist and music teacher. He completed early musical training at the Bucharest Conservatory and moved to Vienna in 1879, where he studied under Jakob Grün. ...

, and on graduation received the Morris Loeb Memorial Award. He founded the Musical Art Quartet, which was active from 1927 to 1933 and made a distinguished early-electric Columbia 78-rpm recording of Haydn's great Quartet in C major, Op. 54, No. 2, which may have been the first complete recording of any Haydn quartet. Later he taught at Juilliard; among his pupils were Julius Hegyi

Lynn Blakeslee Lynn may refer to: People and fictional characters * Lynn (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Lynn (surname) * The Lynns, a 1990s American country music duo consisting of twin sisters Peggy and Patsy Lynn * Lynn ...

and

Zvi Zeitlin Zvi Zeitlin (21 February 19222 May 2012) was a Russian-born American classical violinist and teacher. Born in Dubroŭna (now in Belarus), the son of Jewish parents: a doctor and amateur violinist, Zeitlin won a scholarship at the age of 11 to th ...

. In the 1950s Jacobsen served as concertmaster in the Los Angeles Philharmonic under

Alfred Wallenstein Alfred Wallenstein (October 7, 1898 – February 8, 1983) was an American cellist and conductor. A successful solo and orchestral cellist in his early life, Wallenstein took up conducting in the 1930s and served as music director of the Los ...

. He played the Red Diamond

Stradivarius A Stradivarius is one of the violins, violas, cellos and other string instruments built by members of the Italian family Stradivari, particularly Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Antonius Stradivarius), during the 17th and 18th centuries. They are c ...

violin (see the story about its loss and restoration a

. He died on 19 March 1972 in Costa Mesa, California.

Legacy

Jacobsen is one of the subjects of

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

's 1922 song "Mischa, Jascha, Toscha, Sascha". Sascha also gave violin lessons to his dear friend Albert Einstein, and recorded on RCA Victor 78s the Chausson Concerto in D major for Violin, Piano and String Quartet with Jascha Heifetz, Jesus Maria Sanroma, and the Musical Art Quartet of which he was the leader.

External links

Sascha Jacobsen recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

References

American male violinists Jewish violinists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Russian Jews American people of Russian-Jewish descent 1895 births 1972 deaths 20th-century American violinists 20th-century American male musicians {{US-violinist-stub