Scan 31
Celebrated violinists, past and present; ("The Strad" library), 1897
10 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. Printed page 19. See the scan on archive.org.
1Germany played with so much success at a Gewandhaus concert as to be offered the post of first professor of the violin in the Conservatorium at Leipzig, Schradieck having vacated the office when he went to the United States. Once settled in the famous old musical town, Brodsky lost no time in founding a string quartet, and with Hans Becker (a brother of the distinguished violoncellist and a son of the still more distinguished violinist, Jean Becker), Hans Sitt and Julius Klengel, perhaps the cleverest violoncellist of the day, a quartet was established which had no superior in Europe and perhaps not more than one equal—the Joachim quartet in Berlin, which received so severe a blow in the death of De Ahna, in 1892. On the retirement of Sitt, Nowacek, a former pupil of Brodsky's, took his place and the quartet continued until Brodsky was summoned to go to America.
3Walter Damrosch, a son of the founder of the New York Oratorio Society, and of the Symphony Society, visited Germany in 1891 to seek out the best performers for his musical undertakings in New York; and one of the first to be approached was Brodsky, with the offer of the post of leader. This being accepted, Brodsky resigned his Leipzig appointments, went to America, and in New York gave a series of eight chamber concerts the equal of which had never been heard in America before.
5Brodsky is a very fine player in every class of music, and is an artist to the tips of his fingers, as the phrase goes. He owns a beautiful Joseph Guarneri violin which was once in a famous English collection, and before that in the possession of the violinist Lafont.
7As a composer—I am not aware that Brodsky ever was guilty of the indiscretion of composing.
9In 1893 Brodsky left America (primarily owing, it is said, to an unfortunate difference between Mr. Damrosch and the "Musical Trades Union") and, after a brief sojourn in Berlin, came to England as already stated, where he still (1897) resides.
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