Jean Laurent

Jean Laurent (born  June 7, 1909 in Neerpelt / Belgium ; †  October 15, 2001 in Munich ) was a Belgian violinist and music teacher .

Life

Jean Laurent's father, Jules Laurent, was a Walloon civil servant; his mother, Pauline, nee. Claessens, was of Flemish descent. As a result, the sons Jean and Victor (1907–1978, pharmacist) were raised bilingually, French and Dutch , from an early age . The contact to music arose early in the parental home, Jules Laurent played the violin, Pauline the piano. From 1912 the family lived in Antwerp . There Jean Laurent studied, after graduating from a humanistic grammar school, from 1927 at the Royal Conservatory. In order to perfect his skills on the violin, he went to Brussels in 1929 , where he studied with Alfred Dubois, and in 1931 to Paris to study with Professor Firmin Touche. Further studies took place from 1936 to 1939 with Carl Flesch in London . At the same time, Laurent was a member of the Brussels Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1934/35.

Upon his return to Belgium in 1940, Jean Laurent was called up as a lieutenant in the infantry reserve. After the Belgian surrender on May 28, 1940, he fell into German captivity, which he spent in a prison camp near Opole in occupied Poland . In the summer of 1940 he returned to Belgium. In 1943 he became professor of violin at the Ghent Conservatory . Six years later he was appointed to the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp. He was to teach there from 1949 to 1958. In addition to his teaching activities, Jean Laurent performed with the pianists Jenny Solheid and Eugène Traey, who later became director of the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp.

During this time Jean Laurent was also a soloist in several violin concertos. His repertoire included works by Mozart , Beethoven , Bruch , Saint-Saëns , two unpublished concerts by Pergolesi and Jean-Marie Leclair . Jean Laurent also gave the world premieres of contemporary concerts: the Violin Concerto by Jef Maes (1951) and the 3rd Concerto for Violin by Henk Badings (1958).

During stays in Lugano , Jean Laurent met the harpsichordist Luciano Sgrizzi, with whom he made recordings for the Ticino radio from 1954 to 1957 . In 1958, Jean Laurent was appointed to the State University of Music in Munich as a representative of the Belgian and Carl Flesch violin schools . The Belgian violin school follows the tradition of Charles-Auguste de Bériot (180221881), Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–1881) and Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931) and is characterized by a certain ease of bowing and tone-giving features such as wrist vibrato .

At the same time, Laurent began working with the pianists Hugo Steurer, Hellmut Hideghéti and finally with the pianist Magda Rusy. With the latter he founded, first with the cellist Wilfried Rehm, then with Viktor Weywara, the Orlando Trio, in memory of the Belgian composer Orlando di Lasso (approx. 1530–1594) and his activity at the ducal court orchestra in Munich.

In 1961 the Bayerischer Rundfunk recorded the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra op. 35 by Walter Abendroth , with Jean Laurent as soloist and the Munich Philharmonic under the direction of Rudolph Alberth. In 1977 Jean Laurent retired as a professor at the Munich University of Music, and in the same year he accepted the call to Tokyo as a “visiting professor” and taught for a year at the State University of Fine Arts and Music “Geidai”.

In 1978 Jean Laurent returned to Munich from Japan and from then on devoted himself to private musical activity in a string quartet, and he continued to give lessons. He used his time for travel and his cultural interests, which were particularly focused on art and ancient Greece. Jean Laurent was married twice, his first marriage to Lily, b. Reinemund, and from 1965 until his death with Marianne, b. Fox. Both marriages remained childless. Jean Laurent is buried in the Munich forest cemetery, old part, 45W16.

Web links

• Website with photos by Jean Laurent and music samples