Sol Babitz (October 11, 1911 – 1982) was an American violinist, musicologist, teacher, writer, and pioneer of

historically informed performance Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of Western classical music, classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of ...

. He married artist Mae Babitz in 1942 and had two daughters, artist and writer

Eve Babitz Eve Babitz (May 13, 1943 – December 17, 2021) was an American visual artist and author best known for her semi-fictionalized memoirs and her relationship to the cultural milieu of Los Angeles. Early life and education Babitz was born in Holly ...

born in 1943 and designer Mirandi Babitz born in 1946. He lived in Hollywood across the street from the family of acting coach Jeff and Hope Corey. His family home was a musical and artistic salon with musicians

Bernard Herrmann Bernard Herrmann (born Maximillian Herman; June 29, 1911December 24, 1975) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely re ...

Ingolf Dahl Ingolf Dahl (June 9, 1912 – August 6, 1970) was a German-born American composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Biography Dahl was born Walter Ingolf Marcus in Hamburg, Germany, to a German Jewish father, attorney Paul Marcus, and his Swed ...

Harry Lubin Harry Lubin (March 5, 1906 – July 21, 1977) was an American composer, arranger, and pianist. He is known for composing the theme and much of the music for the second season of the television series '' The Outer Limits'' and ''One Step Beyond'' ...

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

and poets

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider h ...

, Kenneth Pagent, and Peter Yates and artists Eugene Berman and Vera Stravinsky. It was also where the Committee for

Simon Rodia The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...

's Towers in Watts met to save the

Watts Towers The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...

from being torn down.

Career

He was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. His education began in New York where at the age of sixteen he received the

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

Gold Medal for violin. His later violin education included studies with Alexander Roman and Carl Flesch at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

and with Marcel Chailley in Paris. Babitz was a violinist with the

Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic, commonly referred to as the LA Phil, is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at th ...

from 1933–37 under the conductor

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 concer ...

, and then played with the Twentieth Century Fox studio orchestra from 1946-60. His education was also formed by jamming with

Stuff Smith Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith (August 14, 1909 – September 25, 1967), better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist. He is well known for the song "If You're a Viper" (the original title was "You'se a Viper"). Smith was, alo ...

and

Jelly Roll Morton Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (later Morton; c. September 20, 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a gen ...

in the clubs on Central Avenue in the 1940s. In the early 1950s he collaborated with the poet Peter Yates and the architect Rudolf Shindler to create a concert space on top of Yates's home where the concert series "Evenings on the Roof" introduced works by

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, and Igor Stravinsky. He worked with Stravinsky as concertmaster of the Ojai Festivals in the 1950s, and collaborated with him on an arrangement of ''

Circus Polka ''Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant'' was written by Igor Stravinsky in 1942. He composed it for a ballet production that the choreographer George Balanchine did for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The ballet was performed by fifty ...

''. He played the violin part on a

Columbia Broadcasting System CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

's performance of ''

l'Histoire du Soldat ' (''The Soldier's Tale'') is a theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" () by three actors and one or several dancers, accompanied by a septet of instruments. Conceived by Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer C. F. Ramuz, the piece was bas ...

''. He also created fingering for Schoenberg. In 1965 he was a co-founder of the "Early Music Laboratory" (EML) in Los Angeles, investing considerable time in research into historical performance practice, especially the music of the 17th and 18th century. He also conducted research into historical instrumental techniques, e.g. for violin and harpsichord. He received several research grants in the early 1960s from the

Fulbright Foundation The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

to travel in Europe and study early music. He released an album and a pamphlet summarizing his views on the playing of Bach called "The Great Baroque Hoax." He died in Los Angeles in 1982.

Recordings

: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, movements ii–iii (Sol Babitz nand Ingolf Dahl f for Alco label, issued c1947)Ives - Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano
- First recording by Babitz and Dahl

References

External links

Biography

Brief biography
(UCLA library)
Brief Biography
(Music And Dance In California And The West (1948) by Richard Drake Sauners)

Writing/Research

Works (@ openlibrary.org)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Babitz, Sol American performers of early music 1911 births 1982 deaths American male violinists 20th-century American violinists 20th-century American male musicians