Scan 16
Musical Courier 1906-09-05: Vol 53 Iss 1380, 1906
20 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1HEGEDUS, THE HUNGARIAN VIOLINIST, AND HIS DISTINGUISHED TEACHERS.
3Hungary, which has produced such eminent violinists as Joachim, Ernst, Singer, Auer, Hauser, Remenyi and Hubay, claims another genius, who promises to reach as high an artistic altitude as was attained by these masters. The name of this novus homo is Ferencz Hegedus. Although still a young man, he has achieved unusual distinction, and in all the musical centers of the Old World enjoys a high reputation.
5Ferencz Hegedus (or, as the name runs in his own country, Hegedus Ferencz) is of mingled Hungarian and Spanish descent. He was born February 26, 1881, in Fünfkirchen, a town nearly 200 miles removed from Budapest. An odd verbal coincidence is that the literal meaning of the word Hegedus is "violinist."
7The grandfather of the violinist on his father's side was Magyar, and his father, though of rather German appearance, is purely Hungarian in character and feeling, a 'cellist of considerable talent. His mother is Spanish, with a strain of Gypsy blood, but has lived in Hungary since she was six years old. In her youth she was a fine singer, but gave up the profession on marrying. There were five children, but one, a son, died in infancy. Hegedus' two surviving brothers are barely recognizable as being of kin to him, being, like their father, fair and rather German in appearance. The younger is a musician of brilliant and versatile gifts, and master of several instruments. The Spanish strain shows itself plainly in the sister—a true type of her mother's people, and the very incarnation of the spirit of the dance. But for a strongly rooted prejudice against the life on the part of the mother, the girl would long ago have adopted dancing as a profession, and the world is the loser that such a genius as hers for the "poetry of motion" should have been denied full scope.
9The fifth child, Ferencz, is a type apart. Notwithstanding the strength and marked individuality of head and features, it would be difficult at first sight to assign him to any particular nationality. Portraits and photographs seem also strangely at variance, seeming to indicate a sitter of many moods and phases. Thick black hair, broad, strongly marked brows, a profile of refined outline, and a certain gray toned pallor, form, with a singularly reposeful dignity of expression and bearing, an "outer man" whose presence seldom passes unremarked—the embodiment of a powerful personality which never fails to make itself felt.
11At the time of our hero's advent his parents were in straitened circumstances, his father earning rather a meager support by playing the violoncello in an orchestra and a string quartet. Music being an indispensable adjunct of daily life to Hungarians, the child, with his 'cellist father and violinist brothers, was steeped in it from his cradle days. In a place like Fünfkirchen it would be unusual for any family, being sufficient in number, not to be able to provide its own self contained quartet or trio; and in the restaurant life so much affected by the people, a meal unaccompanied by music of strings and cembalo would be bereft of all savor, under these circumstances it was little matter for wonder that at four years old Ferencz was accustomed to wield the bow of his brother's violin. In this way he acquired a feeling for rhythm and phrasing, while others formed for him the notes which his own little fingers were still too small and weak to find and hold. His father and brother were his only teachers until he was eight years old.
13Before he was nine years old the boy had entered the violin department of the Fünfkirchen Academy. Here he pursued his studies with industry and success for three years, and then made his first tour, visiting Monte Carlo and other places, and playing Lipinski's "Military Concerto" so brilliantly as to astonish and charm his audiences. Young Hegedus, when twelve, entered the famous Budapest Conservatoire and became a pupil of Gobbi, the teacher of Hubay. Of this master Hegedus speaks with unbounded gratitude and veneration. Disciple himself of the soundest of classical schools, Professor Gobbi kept the strictest hand over his most distinguished pupil. Not only in school hours did he give him of his best, but when, after two years' study with him, Hegedus obtained a double remove which took him out of the "Conservatoire" into the Academy, and consequently out of Professor Gobbi's sphere of action, the latter took the boy to live in his own house, that he might supervise his practice unprofessionally and be sure that his genius led him into no unsound extravagances before it was ripe. Hegedus used to practice in a room adjoining his master's private study, and describes with a chuckle still tempered with awe, how an academy wherewith to go to Paris for further study. But neither of these alternatives would have afforded him the freedom necessary for the realization of his great desire, to pursue the career of an artist and virtuoso, to study independently, travel throughout Europe, and finally return to play in Budapest when he should have made a name such as would bring honor to his native country.
15In 1901 he started a Continental tour, meeting everywhere with warm receptions, and receiving at Wiesbaden, in particular, a regular ovation. At Spa he played before the late Queen of the Belgians, sister of the Archduke Josef of Hungary. It was evident that the latter must, at some time, have spoken warmly of Hegedus to the Queen, for after applauding his playing with enthusiasm and personally presenting him with a token of remembrance, she conversed with him for some time in Hungarian, begged him to play a Hungarian piece, and commented, in a friendly manner, on the interest her brother had shown in him. Since Hegedus began his career as a concert violinist he has been conspicuously in the public eye. Year after year his artistic stature has grown, his powers have ripened, until now he is the completely developed artist. There is nothing prosaic or commonplace about this son of Hungary; he is poetic and picturesque in every phase of his art.
17Discriminating music critics of London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and other cities in which Hegedus has made frequent appearances have accorded him an enviable position among contemporary violinists.
19"When I first heard Hegedus," said Rudolph Aronson, under whose direction the Hungarian will make his first American tour, "I was captivated. Then and there I determined to bring him to the United States, and at once opened negotiations, which soon culminated in a contract for a series of concerts in this country next season. With regard to the success of this forthcoming tournée I have no misgivings whatever. All that Hegedus has to do is to repeat in this country his transatlantic successes. He is just the kind of violinist that will sweep all before him in the United States. Hubay, his illustrious teacher, has expressed the opinion that he is the real successor of Wieniawski, being more like him than any of his contemporaries or successors. Not satisfied with possessing at nineteen a technic which earned for him both here and on the Continent the title of 'Paganini Redivivus,' Hegedus has never relaxed the struggle after perfection, with the result that each appearance has marked a conspicuous stride in advance. The consensus of critical opinion testifies that his interpretations of the classics—always strong and interesting—have acquired, with his growing experience, a wholly satisfying breadth and dignity, while he has lost nothing of the poetry and passion with which he has always invested the music of the 'romantic' school; that his warm tone, largely aided by the acquisition of superior violins, has grown yet richer, clearer and sweeter; that the intonation is as pure as ever; and that the graceful and masterly bowing—with its broad handling and cantabile passages, its brilliant natural staccato, finely perfected spiccato and other devices—produces in combination with a finished
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