Leopold von Auer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leopold Auer

Leopold von Auer (born June 7, 1845 in Veszprém , Hungary , † July 15, 1930 in Dresden ) was a violinist , violin teacher and conductor .

Life

Leopold Auer began playing the violin at the age of five and was accepted into the Budapest Conservatory when he was eight, where he stayed for three years. In 1855 he made his first public appearance with the Mendelssohn Concerto . In the following year Auer was sent to Vienna , where he studied with Jakob Dont at the conservatory , as well as chamber music with Joseph Hellmesberger senior . As a laureate of the Conservatory he went to Paris in 1861 , where he was accepted into the class of Jean-Delphin Alard . But it was only through his two-year studies with Joseph Joachim in Hanover that a new world opened up to him. At the age of 19 Auer became principal violinist with the orchestra in Düsseldorf (1864–65), and then in Hamburg (1866–67). In 1868 he played in London with Anton Rubinstein and the cellist Alfredo Piatti Beethoven's Trio for Piano and Strings No. 7 in B flat major Op. 97 “The Archduke”.

Recommended by Rubinstein, he succeeded Henryk Wieniawski at the St. Petersburg Conservatory , where he was a teacher from 1868 to 1917. His students include Mischa Elman , Jascha Heifetz , Nathan Milstein , Emil Młynarski , Toscha Seidel and Efrem Zimbalist . Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky dedicated his violin concerto , which Auer initially considered unplayable, and his Serenade melancholique op. 26 in B flat minor from 1875 to him. As a violinist at the court of the tsars , he also had a significant influence on Russian musical life at the end of the 19th century it as a soloist or orchestra conductor. In 1895 Auer was ennobled as the tsar's solo violinist and in 1903 was appointed a real Russian State Councilor. From 1906 Auer also taught in London, then in Dresden and in Norway .

Auer also had a residence in Dresden-Loschwitz. Here he taught among others from 1908 to 1910 Georges Boulanger .

The Petersburg bow grip propagated by Auer is relevant for the development of the arch technique , in which the index finger is positioned on the arch bar in the proximal interphalangeal joint (originally even near the carpal joint).

In May 1917, on the eve of the October Revolution , he left Russia and in February 1918 he emigrated to the USA. At the age of 73 he built a new life for himself. Here he met his former students Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Elman and Jascha Heifetz, who had emigrated before him. Auer gave his first concert in New York in May 1918 . He first taught at the Institute of Musical Art in New York (now the Juilliard School ) and from 1928 at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he succeeds Carl Flesch . In 1926 he received American citizenship. He was an extremely successful concert virtuoso and conductor.

He wrote only a few works for the violin, the best known being his Hungarian Rhapsody for violin and piano, and his cadenzas for the violin concertos by Beethoven and Brahms . He left a legacy of violin pedagogy that is not only historically but also practically valuable today, along with autobiographical notes in the booklet Violin playing as I teach it .

Mostly unknown, but educationally very valuable, is his eight-volume Graded Course of Violin Playing violin school . The school is unique in its scope and in its claim to complete coverage of all aspects of the violin, from the beginner level to the virtuoso stage of a budding concert violinist.

Auer died in the Loschwitz district of Dresden , but was buried in New York.

He owned a violin from 1691 attributed to Stradivarius, the "Auer" named after him, as well as other instruments attributed to the Cremonese, such as the (1690) "Hill", (1694) the "Bang" and the (1700) "Russe".

Compositions

  • Hungarian Rhapsody (op.2)

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Auer, Leopold von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Violinist, violin teacher and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Veszprém , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1930
Place of death Dresden