Nathan Milstein

Nathan Milstein (* December 31, 1903 ^{. Jul} / 13. January  1904 ^greg. In Odessa , Russian Empire ; † 21st December 1992 in London ) was an American violinist of Ukrainian origin. He is considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.

Life

Milstein was one of seven children and the cousin of US filmmaker Lewis Milestone . At the age of four, because his mother wanted to appease the rebellious child, he received his first violin lessons from Pyotr S. Stoljarski . He made his debut at the age of eleven with Glasunov's Violin Concerto conducted by the composer. In 1916 Milstein switched to Leopold Auer , the master of the Russian violin school at the St. Petersburg Conservatory .

From 1923 he went on concert tours through the Soviet Union with his friend, the pianist Vladimir Horowitz . In 1925 they both had celebrated appearances in Western Europe (including Paris and Berlin ). His next stop was Brussels , where he studied with Eugène Ysaÿe , who encouraged him. In 1929 he went on a tour through the USA with Horowitz and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky , known as "the three musketeers". He played on the “Ex-Goldmann” Stradivarius , which he called “Marie-Therèse” from then on. Since the 1960s, he and his piano accompanist Georges Pludermacher have enjoyed worldwide success. He also often caused a sensation with soloists and orchestras by constantly changing fingerings even during concerts and rehearsals , because in his opinion a constant fingering restricts the possibilities of interpretation.

Milstein worked as a soloist well into old age, until he had to end his career because of a complicated broken hand.

Works

Milstein became famous for his recording of the sonatas and partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach , with which he created a standard of the highest art that is still valid today.

The Paganiniana Variations (for violin solo over the caprices and concertos by Paganini) come from his pen as well as numerous transcriptions and piano accompaniments for the 24 Caprices Op. 1 from Paganini. His cadences to and recordings of the romantic violin concertos by Beethoven , Saint-Saëns , Brahms , Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky also became famous .

Awards

• 1980: Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art

literature

• Nathan Milstein and Solomon Volkov: Let him learn the violin. Memories. Munich 1993 - autobiography
• Henry Roth, Nathan Milstein , in Violin Virtuosos, From Paganini to the 21st Century , Los Angeles, California Classics Books, 1997, pp. 130-138
• Paolo Cecchinelli, Nathan Milstein. Paganiniana. Variations for violin solo , in Quaderni dell'Istituto di Studi Paganiniani , n.12 (2000), pp. 25-36.

Web links

• Website about life and work, with an extensive discography ( Memento from June 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )