Arthur Grumiaux

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Arthur Grumiaux (1965)

Arthur Grumiaux [ aʁtyʁ gʁy'mjo ] (born March 21, 1921 in Villers-Perwin , Belgium ; † October 16, 1986 in Brussels ) was a Belgian violinist and conductor.

Life

Arthur Grumiaux was one of the last important representatives of the Franco-Belgian violin school. As the son of a working-class family, he received his first piano and violin lessons from his grandfather at the age of four. At the age of six he attended the Charleroi Conservatory and at the age of eleven he won first prizes for violin and piano. He then studied at the Brussels Conservatory in the master class of Ysaÿe student Alfred Dubois . From 1936 he completed his studies with George Enescu in Paris.

In 1939 he won the Vieuxtemps and Prume awards. During the Second World War he interrupted his solo career and devoted himself mainly to chamber music. After the end of the war his steep career began in Western Europe, in 1951 he toured the USA. In 1949 he succeeded his teacher Dubois at the Brussels Conservatory. As a violin teacher, he placed particular emphasis on the phrasing and sound quality of his students' playing. He expected the highest technical standard from his students and tried together with them to find the best possible solution that was adapted to the student's personal style.

Grumiaux found his musical partnership with the Romanian pianist Clara Haskil to be one of the greatest strokes of luck in his life; further reference recordings of chamber music works were made in collaboration with the pianist Dinorah Varsi and the pianists Paul Crossley and György Sebők .

His repertoire included all major concerts of classical violin literature, right up to the concerts of classical modernism. He made numerous recordings under the Philips record label . The complete Beethoven and Mozart sonatas with Clara Haskil are legendary, as are the sonatas and partitas for solo violin by Bach and recordings of the Beethoven concerto with various orchestras, the Mozart concerts and the Berg violin concerto . With the Grumiaux Trio (Arthur Grumiaux, Georges Janzer, Eva Czako) he recorded all of the Beethoven and Mozart trios.

A technical one-off is the recording of a sonata for violin and piano by Mozart, in which he played both instruments in 1959 using the playback method .

Grumiaux owned the Titian from Antonio Stradivari , but mostly gave concerts on his Guarneri del Gesù .

In 1973 the Belgian royal family awarded him the honorary title of baron .

Suffering from diabetes and due to his fear of flying , Grumiaux performed mainly in Western Europe in his last years and concentrated on recordings.

On June 29, 1986, the last concert took place in Kiel Castle with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of Kiel under the direction of General Music Director Hans Zanotelli . Grumiaux played the solo part of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in a concert program that mainly contained works by Slavic composers: the symphonic poem Taras Bulba by Leoš Janáček based on a novella by Nikolaj Gogol and two of six dances by Antonín Dvořák , op.46 and op.72.

Arthur Grumiaux was a co-founder of the Stavelot Festival in 1962 and he maintained this contact until shortly before his death.

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personal data
SURNAME Grumiaux, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian violinist
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Villers-Pewin Belgium
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1986
Place of death Brussels