Ervin Lukács season ticket 2
Vadim Gluzman, (1973) the Israeli violinist born in Ukraine, plays a 1690 Stradivarius known as the ‘ex-Leopold Auer’. The violin’s former owner, Leopold Auer (1845-1930), was a violinist and teacher of Hungarian origin, the creator of a school of violin teaching still in use today, and a conductor and composer. In 1879, several musicians rejected the chance to perform the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, including Leopold Auer, who even banned his students from learning the work. Tchaikovsky was hurt that even his friends declined to take on the technical and musical challenges of his new piece. Finally, the superb Russian violinist Adolf Brodsky agreed to take on the premiere (Tchaikovsky had later recommended him the piece), first in New York, then in Vienna. After these successful performances, Auer realised his error and later played the piece many times in concert, and in fact also published one popular version of the piece himself. It would be interesting to know if the 328-year-old violin has preserved some remnants of Auer’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s music in the hands of Gluzman.