Carl Flesch

Renowned violinist and music educator (9 October 1873, Moson, now Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary — 14 November 1944, Lucerne, Switzerland), who revolutionized many fundamentals in training methodology and firmly re-established the role of violinists as full-range artists (rather than merely technical virtuosi) in classical music. One of the most coveted tutors during his lifetime, Carl Flesch authored several valuable manuals, such as Die Kunst desseveralels (The Art of Violin Playing, 1923) and Das Skalensystem (Scale System, 1926). Carl Flesch began playing violin when he was six, formally trained at Vienna Conservatory (1886–89) under Jakob Grün and Conservatoire de Paris (1890–94) with Eugène Sauzay and Martin Pierre Marsick. In 1897, Flesch got his first academic position at Conservatorul de Muzică in Bucharest. During his five-year tenure as violin professor, Queen Elisabeth appointed Carl as a court musician of Romania. In 1903, Carl Flesch relocated to the Netherlands to teach at Conservatorium van Amsterdam, closely befriending one of his colleagues, Julius Röntgen, and forming a string quartet with a few other faculty members. Following a critically-acclaimed 1905 series of Berlin recitals, where he performed the best historical violin masterpieces, Carl permanently moved to Germany in 1908, preferring the country's less suppressive cultural climate. Flesch remained focused on teaching, mostly giving private classes, but continued regularly performing on-stage. Carl toured as a solo recitalist all across Europe, as well as in Russia (1908) and the USA in 1914, where he made a few "diamond disc" recordings for Edison Records. He also played in a highly-successful trio with the pianist Artur Schnabel and cellist Jean Gérardy (replaced by Hugo Becker in 1914), gaining prominence in the 1920s as one of the leading European chamber ensembles. Between 1924 and '28, Carl Flesch lived in the United States, employed as head of violin studies at a newly-established Curtis Institute Of Music in Philadelphia. Carl co-founded the Curtis Quartet, playing 1st violin with his colleagues Emanuel Zetlin (2nd violin), Louis Bailly (viola), and Felix Salmond (cello). In 1928, Carl Flesch returned to Germany, working as an associate professor at Berlin's Hochschule für Musik and hosting summer violin courses at his villa in Baden-Baden. Carl, a Hungarian Jewish, received his German citizenship in 1930. As the Nazi regime rose to power, Flesch was fired from the Berlin Conservatory in the Fall of 1934. One of Carl's closest German friends, distinguished conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler repeatedly wrote to Adolf Hitler, claiming that expelling Flesch only increased Germany's already catastrophic cultural isolation. Despite this, Reich revoked Carl's German citizenship in June 1935, forcing him to escape from Baden-Baden to London. In 1939, Carl Flesch made some concert arrangements in Hague and temporarily settled in the Netherlands. When Nazi troops occupied Dutch territory in May 1940, Carl Flesch unsuccessfully tried to return to the USA but couldn't acquire visas. By 1942, as he lost Hungarian citizenship, Gestapo arrested Carl and his wife; he had to wear the "Judenstern" yellow badge, banned from performing or teaching anywhere. Furtwängler, who never gave up on Carl, kept bombarding Hitler's apparatus with letters, so Flesch was released from prison. Thanks to Géza de Kresz and Ernst von Dohnányi's pledges, Hungarian authorities reinstated Carl's passport, and he finally left Germany in December 1942. Carl Flesch spent the rest of his life in Switzerland, leading master classes at Lucerne Conservatory on Ernest Ansermet's invitation, and passed away at 71. Flesch played and owned at least a dozen antique violins over his career, including the 1757 "Pietro Guarneri" and 1745 "Lorenzo Guadagnini." In 1906, Carl acquired Antonio Stradivari's 1725 "Brancaccio" for his 33ʳᵈ birthday, which he had to sell in 1931, in the aftermath of the infamous N.Y. Stock Exchange crash, to Franz von Mendelssohn, wealthy German art collector and amateur musician. The priceless instrument was destroyed in the World War II bombings of Berlin. Prominent students Charles Barkel, Edwin Bélanger, Bronislaw Gimpel, Ivry Gitlis, Szymon Goldberg, Ida Haendel, Josef Hassid, Ginette Neveu, Yfrah Neaman, Ricardo Odnoposoff, Eric Rosenblith, Max Rostal, Henryk Szeryng, Roman Totenberg, Josef Wolfsthal, Janine Andrade, Josef Gingold, Corrado Romano, Tibor Varga, Nicolae Buică, Jan Dahmen, Norbert Brainin, Stefan Frenkel, Bruno Straumann, Aida Stucki, Louis Krasner (who also reached out to Flesch over technical difficulties before premiering Alban Berg's 1935 '[I]Violin Concerto'), Henri Temianka (one of Flesch's favorite pupils; he later wrote, "there was above all Temianka, who did great credit to Curtis Institute: both musically and technically, he possessed a model collection of talents.")