Look up kol or köl in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Kol may refer to:

• Kol people, tribes of eastern India
• Kol language (disambiguation)
• Kol, an earlier name of the city Aligarh
• Kol, Nepal, geographic & administrative subdivision
• Kol (dinosaur), a dinosaur from Mongolia

See also[link]

• KOL

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Pau Casals

Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈpaw kəˈzaɫs]; December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973), known during his professional career as Pablo Casals,^[1][2][3] was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time. He made many recordings throughout his career, of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, also as conductor, but he is perhaps best remembered for the recordings of the Bach Cello Suites he made from 1936 to 1939.

Biography[link]

Childhood and early years[link]

Casals was born in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain. His father, Carlos Casals i Ribes (1852–1908), was a parish organist and choirmaster. He gave Casals instruction in piano, song, violin, and organ. He was also a very strict disciplinarian. When Casals was young his father would pull the piano out from the wall and have him and his brother, Arturo, stand behind it and name the notes and the scales that his father was playing. At age four Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at the age of six he played the violin well enough to perform a solo in public. His first encounter with a cello-like instrument was from witnessing a local traveling Catalan musician, who played a cello-strung broom handle. Upon request, his father built him a crude cello, using a gourd as a sound-box. When Casals was eleven, he first heard the real cello performed by a group of traveling musicians, and decided to dedicate himself to the instrument.^{[citation needed]}

In 1888 his mother, Pilar Defilló de Casals, who was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico of Catalonian ancestry, took him to Barcelona, where he enrolled in the Escola Municipal de Música.^[4] There he studied cello, theory, and piano. In 1890, when he was 13, he discovered in a second-hand sheet music store in Barcelona a tattered copy of Bach's six cello suites. He spent the next 13 years practicing them every day before he would perform them in public for the first time.^[5] Casals would later make his own personal version of the six suites.^[6] He made prodigious progress as a cellist; on February 23, 1891 he gave a solo recital in Barcelona at the age of fourteen. He graduated from the Escola with honours five years later.

Youth and studies[link]

In 1893, another Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz heard him playing in a trio in a café and gave him a letter of introduction to the private secretary to María Cristina, the Queen Regent. Casals was asked to play at informal concerts in the palace, and was granted a royal stipend to study composition at the Conservatorio de Música y Declamación in Madrid with Víctor Mirecki. He also played in the newly organized Quartet Society.

In 1895 he went to Paris, where, having lost his stipend from Catalonia, he earned a living by playing second cello in the theater orchestra of the Folies Marigny. In 1896, he returned to Catalonia and received an appointment to the faculty of the Escola Municipal de Música in Barcelona. He was also appointed principal cellist in the orchestra of Barcelona's opera house, the Liceu. In 1897 he appeared as soloist with the Madrid Symphony Orchestra, and was awarded the Order of Carlos III from the Queen.^{[citation needed]}

International career[link]

In 1899, Casals played at The Crystal Palace in London, and later for Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her summer residence, accompanied by Ernest Walker. On November 12, and December 17, 1899, he appeared as a soloist at Lamoureux Concerts in Paris, to great public and critical acclaim. He toured Spain and the Netherlands with the pianist Harold Bauer in 1900–1901; in 1901–1902 he made his first tour of the United States; and in 1903 toured South America.

On January 15, 1904, Casals was invited to play at the White House for President Theodore Roosevelt. On March 9, of that year he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in New York, playing Richard Strauss's Don Quixote under the baton of the composer. In 1906 he became associated with the talented young Portuguese cellist Guilhermina Suggia,^[7] who studied with him and began to appear in concerts as Mme. P. Casals-Suggia, although they were not legally married. Their relationship ended in 1912.

The New York Times of April 9, 1911 announced that Pablo Casals would perform at the London Musical Festival to be held at the Queen's Hall on the second day of the Festival (May 23,). The piece chosen was Haydn's Cello Concerto in D and Casals would later join Fritz Kreisler for Brahms's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello.^[2]

In 1914 Casals married the American socialite and singer Susan Metcalfe; they were separated in 1928, but did not divorce until 1957.

Although Casals made his first recordings in 1915 (a series for Columbia), it would not be until 1926 that he again released a recording (on the Victor label).^[3]

Back in Paris, Casals organized a trio with the pianist Alfred Cortot and the violinist Jacques Thibaud; they played concerts and made recordings until 1937. Casals also became interested in conducting, and in 1919 he organized, in Barcelona, the Orquesta Pau Casals and led its first concert on October 13, 1920. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the Orquesta Pau Casals ceased its activities.

Casals was an ardent supporter of the Spanish Republican government, and after its defeat vowed not to return to Spain until democracy was restored. Casals performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on October 19, 1938, possibly his last performance in Catalonia before his exile.^[8]

He settled in the French village of Prada de Conflent, on the Spanish frontier; between 1939 and 1942 he made sporadic appearances as a cellist in the unoccupied zone of southern France and in Switzerland. So fierce was his opposition to the dictatorial regime of Francisco Franco in Spain that he refused to appear in countries that recognized the authoritarian Spanish government. He made a notable exception when he took part in a concert of chamber music in the White House on November 13, 1961, at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy, whom he admired. On December 6, 1963, Casals was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[9]

Presidential Medal of Freedom

Throughout most of his professional career, he played on a cello that was labeled and attributed to "Carlo Tononi ... 1733" but after playing it for 50 years it was discovered to have been created by the Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller around 1700. It was acquired by Casals in 1913.^[10] He also played another cello by Goffriller dated 1710, and a Tononi from 1730.

Prades Festivals[link]

In 1950 he resumed his career as conductor and cellist at the Prades Festival in Conflent, organized in commemoration of the bicentenary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach; Casals agreed to participate on condition that all proceeds were to go to a refugee hospital in nearby Perpignan.^[3]

In 1952, Casals met Marta Angélica Montañez y Martinez, a 17-year-old Puerto Rican student who had gone to Spain to participate in the Festival. Casals was very impressed with her and encouraged her to return to Mannes College of Music in New York to continue her studies. He continued leading the Prades Festivals until 1966.^{[citation needed]}

Puerto Rico[link]

Casals first traveled to Puerto Rico in 1955, inaugurating the annual Casals Festival the next year. In 1955 Casals married as his second wife long-time associate Francesca Vidal de Capdevila, who died that same year. On April 3, 1957 (or August 3), at 80, Casals married 20-year-old Marta Montañez y Martinez.^[11] They made their permanent residence in the town of Ceiba, and lived in a house called "El Pesebre" (The Manger).^[12] He made an impact in the Puerto Rican music scene, by founding the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 1958, and the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico in 1959.

Later years[link]

In the 1960s, Casals gave many master classes throughout the world in places such as Gstaad, Zermatt, Tuscany, Berkeley, and Marlboro (where he also conducted and recorded unique versions of the six Brandenburg Concerti)^{[citation needed]}. Several of these master classes were televised.

In 1961, he performed at the White House by invitation of President Kennedy. This performance was recorded and released as an album.

Casals was also a composer. Perhaps his most effective work is La Sardana, for an ensemble of cellos, which he composed in 1926. His oratorio El Pessebre was performed for the first time in Acapulco, Mexico, on December 17, 1960. He also presented it to the United Nations during their anniversary in 1963. He was initiated as an honorary member of the Epsilon Iota Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity at The Florida State University in 1963.^[13] He was later awarded the fraternity's Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award in 1973.

One of his last compositions was the "Hymn of the United Nations".^[14] He conducted its first performance in a special concert at the United Nations on October 24, 1971, two months before his 95th birthday. On that day, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, awarded Pau Casals the U.N. Peace Medal in recognition of his stance for peace, justice and freedom.^[15] Casals accepted the medal and made his famous "I am a Catalan" speech,^[16] where he stated that Catalonia had the first democratic parliament, long before England did. (In fact, both Iceland and the Isle of Man had parliaments before Catalonia.]

Casals' memoirs were taken down by Albert E. Kahn, and published as Joys and Sorrows: Pablo Casals, His Own Story (1970).

Death[link]

Casals died in 1973 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the age of 96 and was buried at the Puerto Rico National Cemetery. He did not live to see the end of the Franco dictatorial regime, but he was posthumously honoured by the Spanish government under King Juan Carlos I which, in 1976, issued a commemorative postage stamp to Pau Casals in honour of the centenary of his birth.^[17] In 1979 his remains were laid to rest in his hometown of El Vendrell, Catalonia. In 1989, Casals was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[18]

Legacy[link]

Centenary statue, Montserrat

The International Pablo Casals Cello Competition is held in Kronberg and Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy once every four years, starting in 2000, to discover and further the careers of the future cello elite, and is supported by the Pau Casals Foundation, under the patronage of Marta Casals Istomin. One of the prizes is the use of one of the Gofriller cellos owned by Casals. The first top prize was awarded in 2000 to Claudio Bohórquez.

American comedian George Carlin, in his interview for the Archive of American Television, refers to Casals when discussing the restless nature of an artist's persona. As Carlin states, when Casals (then aged 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, Casals replied, "'I'm beginning to notice some improvement...' [A]nd that's the thing that's in me. I notice myself getting better at this," Carlin continued.

In Puerto Rico, the Casals Festival is still celebrated annually. There is also a museum dedicated to the life of Casals located in Old San Juan. On October 3, 2009, Sala Sinfonica Pablo Casals, a symphony hall named in Casals' honor, opened in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The $34 million building, designed by Rodolfo Fernandez, is the latest addition to the Centro de Bellas Artes complex. It is the new home of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.

In Tokyo, the Casals Hall opened in 1987 as a venue for chamber music.^[19]

Socio-political columnist and economist David P. Goldman has called Caslas the greatest classical musician of the 20th century.^[20]

Partial Discography[link]

• 1926–1928: Casals, Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot – the first trios of Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn, the Beethoven "Archduke," Haydn's G Major and Beethoven's "Kakadu" Variations (Recorded in London)
  

  

  Pau Casals bust, Wolfenbüttel, Germany
• 1929, Brahms: Double Concerto with Thibaud and Cortot conducting Casals' own orchestra.
• 1929: Dvorak and Brahms Concerti
• 1929: Beethoven: Fourth Symphony (Recorded in Barcelona)
• 1930: Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 69, with Otto Schulhof.
• 1936–1939: Bach: Cello Suites
• 1936: Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 102 No. 1; and Brahms: Cello Sonata Op. 99, both with Mieczysław Horszowski.
• 1936: Boccherini: Cello Concerto in B-flat; and Bruch: Kol Nidrei – London Symphony conducted by Landon Ronald.
• 1937: Dvořák: Cello Concerto – Czech Philharmonic conducted by George Szell.
• 1939: Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, and 5, with Mieczysław Horszowski.
• 1945: Elgar and Haydn Cello Concertos – BBC Symphony conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.
• 1950: The first of the Prades Festival recordings on Columbia, including:
  • Bach: Sonatas for Viola da Gamba, BWV 1027–1029, with Paul Baumgartner
  • Schumann: Fünf Stücke im Volkston, with Leopold Mannes
  • Schumann: Cello Concerto, with Casals conducting from the cello.
• 1951: At the Perpignan Festival, including:
  • Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 5 No. 2, and three sets of Variations, with Rudolf Serkin
  • Beethoven: Trios, Op. 1 No. 2, Op. 70 No. 2, Op. 97, and the Clarinet Op. 11 transcription; also
  • Schubert: Trio No. 1, D.898, all with Alexander Schneider and Eugene Istomin.
• 1952: At Prades, including:
  • Brahms: Trio Op. 8, with Isaac Stern and Myra Hess
  • Brahms: Trio Op. 87, with Joseph Szigeti and Myra Hess
  • Schumann: Trio Op. 63, and Schubert: Trio No. 2, D.929, both with Alexander Schneider and Mieczysław Horszowski
  • Schubert: C Major Quintet, with Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, and Paul Tortelier
  • Brahms: Sextet No. 1, again with Stern, Schneider, and Katims, plus Milton Thomas and Madeline Foley
• 1953: At Prades, including:
  • Beethoven: Cello Sonatas Nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5, with Rudolf Serkin
  • Beethoven: Trios Op. 1 No. 1, and Op. 70 No. 1, with Joseph Fuchs and Eugene Istomin
  • Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Festival orchestra
• 1954: At Prades (all live performances), including:
  • Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 5, and Op. 66 Variations, with Mieczysław Horszowski
  • Beethoven: Trios Op. 70 No. 1, and Op. 121a, with Szymon Goldberg and Rudolf Serkin
• 1955: At Prades (all live performances), including:
  • Brahms: Trios Nos. 1–3, with Yehudi Menuhin and Eugene Istomin
  • Brahms: Clarinet Trio Op. 114, with clarinetist David Oppenheim and Eugene Istomin
  • Beethoven: Trio Op. 70 No. 2, with Szymon Goldberg and Rudolf Serkin
• 1956: At Prades (all live performances), including:
  • Bach: Sonata BWV 1027 for Viola da Gamba, with Mieczysław Horszowski
  • Schumann: Trio No. 2, with Yehudi Menuhin and Mieczysław Horszowski
  • Schumann: Trio No. 3, with Sándor Végh and Rudolf Serkin
• 1958: At Beethoven-Haus in Bonn (all live performances), including:
  • Beethoven: Sonata Op. 5 No. 1, with Wilhelm Kempff
  • Beethoven: Sonatas Op. 5 No. 2, Op. 102 No. 2, and the Horn Op. 17 transcription, with Mieczysław Horszowski
  • Beethoven: Trios Op. 1 No. 3, and Op. 97, with Sándor Végh and Mieczysław Horszowski
  • Beethoven: Trio Op. 70 No. 1, with Sándor Végh and Karl Engel
• 1959: At Prades (all live performances), including:
  • Haydn: "Farewell" Symphony (No. 45) and Mozart "Linz" Symphony (No. 36)
  • Beethoven: Trio Op. 1 No. 3, with Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin
  • Schubert: String Quintet, with the Budapest String Quartet
• 1961: Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 with Alexander Schneider and Mieczysław Horszowski (Recorded live November 13, 1961 at the White House)
• 1963: Beethoven: Eighth Symphony
• 1963: Mendelssohn: Fourth Symphony, at Marlboro
• 1964–65: Bach: Brandenburg Concerti, at Marlboro
• 1966: Bach: Orchestral Suites, at Marlboro
• 1969: Beethoven: First, Second, Fourth, Sixth ("Pastorale"), and Seventh Symphonies
• 1974: El Pessebre (The Manger) oratorio

See also[link]

• C-32 (highway), a highway in Catalonia named after Casals
• List of Catalans
• List of Puerto Ricans
• Windjammer (1958 film)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Joys and Sorrows; Reflections, Pau Casals, (1973) ISBN 0-671-21774-7
• Song of the birds, Julian Lloyd Webber, (1985) ISBN 0-86051-305-X
• Just Play Naturally, Vivien Mackie (in conversation with Joe Armstrong), (2002) ISBN 978-0-9717004-0-6

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pau Casals

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pablo Casals

• Pau Casals Foundation
• Photo feature on L'espace Casals in Prades
• Pau Casals' home town of El Vendrell
• Speach of Pau Casals on October 24, 1971 in the ONU
• Casals Festival, San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Festival Casals de Prades Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales, France
• 'In search of Pablo Casals' on Overgrown Path music website
• Pablo Casals at Allmusic
• Historic 26min video of Pablo Casals' exiled in Prada 1939–1942 – J.S.Bach Suite n.1 in the Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa * Discography and bibliography
• Trio with Alfred Cortot and Jacques Thibaud – Performances records, Recordings and discography (Youngrok Lee's Classical Music page)

Max Bruch

Max Christian Friedrich Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920), also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.

Life[link]

Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he received his early musical training under the composer and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, to whom Robert Schumann dedicated his piano concerto. Ignaz Moscheles recognized his aptitude. Bruch had a long career as a teacher, conductor and composer, moving among musical posts in Germany: Mannheim (1862-1864), Koblenz (1865-1867), Sondershausen, (1867-1870), Berlin (1870-1872), and Bonn, where he spent 1873-78 working privately. At the height of his reputation he spent three seasons as conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society (1880-83). There he met his wife, Clara Tuczek. He taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik from 1890 until his retirement in 1910. Bruch died in his house in Berlin-Friedenau.

Works[link]

His grave in Berlin

His complex and well structured works, in the German romantic musical tradition, placed him in the camp of Romantic classicism exemplified by Johannes Brahms, rather than the opposing "New Music" of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. In his time, he was known primarily as a choral composer.

His Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (1866) is one of the most popular Romantic violin concertos. It uses several techniques from Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor. These include the linking of movements, and a departure from the customary orchestral exposition and rigid form of earlier concertos. It is a singularly melodic composition which many critics^[who?] have said represents the apex of the romantic tradition.

Other pieces which are also well-known and widely played include the Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, which includes an arrangement of the tune "Hey Tuttie Tatie", best known for its use in the song Scots Wha Hae by Robert Burns. Bruch also wrote Kol Nidrei, Op. 47, a popular work for cello and orchestra (its subtitle is "Adagio on Hebrew Melodies for Violoncello and Orchestra"). This piece was based on Hebrew melodies, principally the melody of the Kol Nidre incantation from the Jewish Yom Kippur service, which gives the piece its name.

The success of this work has made many assume that Bruch himself had Jewish ancestry - indeed, under the National Socialist Party his music ceased to be programmed because of the possibility of his being a Jew; as a result of this, his music was completely forgotten in German speaking countries - but there is no evidence for his being Jewish. As far as can be ascertained, none of his ancestors were Jews, and Bruch himself was raised Rhenish-Catholic.

He wrote the Concerto in A flat minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op. 88a, in 1912 for the American duo-pianists Rose and Ottilie Sutro, but they never played the original version; they only ever played the work twice, in two different versions of their own. The score was withdrawn in 1917 and discovered only after Ottilie Sutro's death in 1970. The Sutro sisters also had a major part to play in the fate of the manuscript of the Violin Concerto No. 1. Bruch sent it to them to be sold in the United States, but they kept it and sold it for profit themselves.

Other works include two other concerti for violin and orchestra, No. 2 in D minor and No. 3 in D minor (which Bruch himself regarded as at least as fine as the famous first); and a Concerto for Clarinet, Viola and Orchestra. There are also 3 symphonies, which, while not displaying any originality in form or structure, nevertheless show Bruch at his best as a composer of fine melodic talent and a gift for orchestration, firmly in the tradition of the Romantics. He wrote a number of chamber works, including a set of eight pieces for piano, clarinet, and viola; and a string octet.

The violinists Joseph Joachim and Willy Hess advised Bruch on composing for strings, and Hess performed the premieres of a number of works by Bruch, including the Concert Piece for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 84, which was composed for him.

References[link]

• Fifield, Christopher (1988). Max Bruch: His Life and Works. George Braziller. ISBN 0-8076-1204-9. 

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bruch, Max.

• Classical Net, Basic Repertoire: Max Bruch
• Joseph Stevenson, "Max Bruch"
• "Max Bruch, Kol Nidrei"
• Max Bruch String Quartet No.2, sound-bites and discussion of work
• Site dedicated to Max Bruch (includes a list of works by opus number)
• Free scores by Max Bruch at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Max Bruch in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores Mutopia Project
• Bruch - Kol Nidrei on YouTube of Kol Nidrei
• Max Bruch's Viola and Clarinet concerto op.88 (double concerto)

Moishe Oysher (Yiddish: משה אוישר, (born 1906 in Lipkon (Lipkany), Bessarabia, Imperial Russia – died 27 November 1958, New Rochelle, New York, USA).^[1] was a cantor and Yiddish theatre actor. He is considered one of the most entertaining chazanim (cantors) ever recorded.

Biography[link]

Family background[link]

Oysher was born to a Jewish family that traced six generations of chazanim. He told writer Khaver-Paver that his grandfather sang folk songs and workers' songs to his students when Moyshe was young, and the heartfelt tunes were in my blood, and that it was from his other grandfather "Yosl der poylisher" and his father "Zelik der poylisher" that he inherited his gift as a khasn (chazan).

Childhood[link]

His father departed for America when Moyshe was young, leaving him with his grandfather. He started acting in school and played a few roles in the poet Eliezer Steinberg's Der Berditchever rov. He named Steinberg as a profound influence on his life.^[1]

In 1921, he traveled to Canada to join his father. On the way, he lost his perfect child's voice and in Canada worked as a dishwasher and later a launderer to support himself.

Career[link]

He finally got his voice back and began singing again, in literary and dramatic clubs. He met actor Wolf Shumsky and traveled with him to Winnipeg where he played Yiddish theater for three seasons. He was allowed into the Canadian Actors' Union in 1924 and played in the Montreal Yiddish theater under the direction of Isidore Holender. In 1928 he was on Yiddish radio in Philadelphia, where his parents had moved, and that same year he was engaged at the Hopkins Theater in Brooklyn, then in Newark with his wife Florence Weiss and then the Lyric Theater. In 1931 he was accepted into the New York Actors' Union and played in Anshel Shor group, then played with Boris Thomashevsky, then in 1932, he started his own company and traveled to Buenos Aires and across Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.^[1]

Returning to America, he worked on the radio and starred with his wife in the Harry Kalmanovitsh - Joseph Rumshinsky operetta Dos heyst gelibt (This is what's called being loved). Around the same time, with the encouragement of friends he applied to conduct services as chazan for the High Holidays at the First Roumanian-American congregation, in Manhattan, New York, on the Lower East Side and caused a sensation,^[2] being perhaps the first singer to step from 'the bine' (stage) to 'the bimah' (pulpit). He would thereafter work around the world in both arenas.^[1]

Some say that Oysher's voice was like the "roaring of the lion." He liked the jazz style, popular at that time, and he used similar rhythmic melodies in his prayers, respecting always the traditional Bessarabian "Doinas" and "Nussach" moods of the prayers.

Oysher starred in three Yiddish films. In 1943 Oysher signed a contract with Fortune Gallo to perform several roles with the Chicago Opera Company and a fine career was foreseen, but after a heart attack he had to abandon the idea; he continued to work in radio and as a khazn and recording artist until, after other heart attacks, on the advice of his doctors, he entered semi-retirement.

Descendents[link]

He died in New Rochelle, NY in 1958, survived by his second wife Theodora (a pianist who had often accompanied him in concert), their daughter Shoshana (Rozanna), his sister Freydele (a Yiddish theater actress and singer) and her husband Harold Sternberg, a chorister in the Metropolitan opera.^[1] Rozanna married Armond Lebowitz and they had two sons, David and Brad.

Filmography[link]

• The Cantor's Son (Dem Khazn's Zindl) 1937, USA, B&W, 90 min, Yiddish with English subtitles. ISBN 1-56082-079-9

Directed by Ilya Motyleff and Sidney Goldin. Other actors: Judith Abarbanel and Florence Weiss. Based on Moishe Oysher's life. A very poor young immigrant lands a job as a custodian, where he is "discovered" and becomes famous immediately. However, his success seems meaningless as he yearns for home.

• The Singing Blacksmith (Yankl der Shmid; the Yiddish title literally means "Yankel the Smith") 1938, USA, B&W, 95 min, Yiddish with English subtitles. ISBN 1-56082-085-3

Directed by Edga G. Ulmer. Also with Miriam Riselle and Florence Weiss. This is a classic story of a blacksmith that is a womanizer and almost an alcoholic. One day, he meets a beautiful lady called Tamare and his life changes.

• Overture to Glory (Der Vilner Shtot Khazn; the Yiddish title literally means "The Vilnius City Cantor") 1940, USA, B&W, 85 min, Yiddish with English subtitles. ISBN 1-56082-063-2

Directed by Max Nosseck. Starring Helen Beverly and Florence Weiss. Oysher is the "Vilner Balabesl", a cantor in Vilnius, with a renowned voice. Two men come from the Warsaw Opera to hear him sing the "Kol Nidre" on Yom Kippur and are so impressed that they introduce him to European classical music and to reading sheet music; they convince him, against the wishes of much of his family (and especially his father-in-law) to become an opera singer in Warsaw.

He leaves his job as the Vilnius cantor, and seems at first to be on the path to fame and fortune as an opera star in Warsaw, when the news arrives that his son has died. Grief-stricken, he stumbles over the aria he is supposed to sing, starting instead into a lullaby he used to sing to his son. In disgrace, he also loses his voice; he tries to return to his life in Vilna; finally, his voice comes briefly back to him on Yom Kippur. He sings the first few lines of the "Kol Nidre", then dies of a heart attack.

• In the 1944 movie Song of Russia," using the pseudonym Walter Lawrence, Moyshe Oysher sang Rusland iz ir nomen (Russia is Her Name), music by Jerome Kern.

• Singing in the Dark, 1956, USA, B&W, English. A motion picture about a Holocaust survivor suffering from total amnesia who comes to the United States and becomes a singer. Oysher sings in English and in Hebrew.

See also[link]

• List of Jewish Romanians

References[link]

External links[link]

• (Musical Album:) The Power, The Glory, The Soul of Moishe Oysher. Judaica Sound Archives. Florida Atlantic University
• Article about Moshe Oysher - Chazzanut Online

Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was a British cellist. She is particularly associated with Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor; her interpretation has been described as "definitive" and "legendary."^[1] Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at 28 and led to her premature death. Posthumously, she was the subject of a cinematic film "Hilary and Jackie", factually controversial and criticized for sensationalising her private life. The film was based on the memoir "A Genius in the Family" published by her siblings Hilary du Pré and Piers du Pre.

Early years[link]

Du Pré was born in Oxford, England, the second child of Derek and Iris du Pré. Derek was born in Jersey where his family had lived for generations. After working as an accountant at Lloyds Bank in St Helier and London, he became assistant editor and later editor of The Accountant. Iris Greep du Pré was a talented concert pianist who taught at the Royal Academy of Music.^[2] At the age of four du Pré is said to have heard the sound of the cello on the radio and asked her mother for "one of those." She began with lessons from her mother, who composed little pieces accompanied by illustrations, before beginning study at the London Violoncello School at age five. Her first teacher was Alison Dalrymple. She attended Croydon High School, an independent day school for girls in South Croydon.

From an early age du Pré was entering and winning local music competitions alongside her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré. Her main teacher from 1955 to 1961, both privately and at the Guildhall School of Music in London, was the celebrated cellist William Pleeth. In 1960 she won the Gold Medal of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the same year participated in a Pablo Casals masterclass in Zermatt, Switzerland. In 1962 she undertook short-term studies with Paul Tortelier in Paris, and in 1966 with Mstislav Rostropovich in Russia. Rostropovich was so impressed with his young pupil that at the end of his tutorship he declared her "the only cellist of the younger generation that could equal and overtake [his] own achievement."^[3]

Career[link]

In March 1961, at age 16, du Pré made her formal début, at Wigmore Hall, London. She was accompanied by Ernest Lush, and played sonatas by Handel, Brahms, Debussy and de Falla, and a solo cello suite by Bach. She made her concerto début on 21 March 1962 at the Royal Festival Hall playing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Schwarz. She performed at the Proms in 1963, playing the Elgar Concerto with Sir Malcolm Sargent. Her performance of the concerto proved so popular that she returned three years in succession to perform the work. At her 3 September 1964 Prom Concert, she performed the Elgar concerto as well as the world premiere of Priaulx Rainier's Cello Concerto. Du Pré became a favourite at the Proms, performing every year until 1969.

In 1965, at age 20, du Pré recorded the Elgar Concerto for EMI with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir John Barbirolli, which brought her international recognition. This recording has become the benchmark reference for the work, and one which has never been out of print since its release. Du Pré also performed the Elgar with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Antal Doráti for her United States début, at Carnegie Hall on 14 May 1965.

Du Pré performed with several prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, New Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. She regularly performed with such famous conductors as Barbirolli, Sargent, Sir Adrian Boult, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, and Leonard Bernstein.

Du Pré primarily played two Stradivarius cellos, the 1673 cello, and the 1712 Davidov Stradivarius. Both instruments were gifts from her godmother, Ismena Holland. She performed with the 1673 Stradivarius from 1961 until 1964, when she acquired the Davidov. Many of her most famous recordings were made on this instrument, including the Elgar Concerto with Barbirolli, the Robert Schumann Cello Concerto with Barenboim, and the two Brahms cello sonatas. From 1969 to 1970 du Pré played a Francesco Goffriller cello, and in 1970 she acquired a modern instrument from the Philadelphia violin maker Sergio Peresson. It was the Peresson cello that du Pré played for the remainder of her career until 1973, using it for a second, live, recording of the Elgar Concerto, and her last studio recording, of Frédéric Chopin's Cello Sonata in G minor and César Franck's Violin Sonata in A arranged as a cello sonata, in December 1971.

Her friendship with musicians Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, and Pinchas Zukerman and marriage to Daniel Barenboim led to many memorable chamber-music performances. In a book review for two biographies about the cellist, the former wife of Zukerman once wrote that du Pré was "one of the most stunningly gifted musicians of our time".^[4] The 1969 performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London of the Schubert Piano Quintet in A major, "The Trout", was the basis of a film, The Trout, by Christopher Nupen. Nupen made other films featuring du Pré, including Jacqueline du Pré and the Elgar Cello Concerto, a documentary featuring a live performance of the Elgar; and The Ghost, with Barenboim and Zukerman in a performance of the "Ghost" Piano Trio in D major, by Beethoven.

Personal life[link]

Jacqueline du Pré met pianist Daniel Barenboim on New Year's Eve 1966. Shortly after the Six-Day War ended, she cancelled all her existing engagements (to the enormous annoyance of promoters),^[5] and they flew to Jerusalem. She converted to Judaism, and they were married on 15 June 1967^[6] at the Western Wall.

Du Pré’s sister Hilary married conductor Christopher "Kiffer" Finzi, and they had four children. Jacqueline had an affair with Finzi from 1971 to 1972. According to Hilary and her brother Piers in their book A Genius in the Family, which was made into the film Hilary and Jackie, the affair was conducted with Hilary's consent as a way of helping Jacqueline through a nervous breakdown.^[7] In 1999, Clare Finzi, the daughter of Kiffer and Hilary, publicly criticised her mother's account and laid out a different version of events. She said her father was a serial adulterer who had seduced her emotionally vulnerable aunt in a time of great need in order to gratify his own ego.

Multiple sclerosis[link]

In 1971 du Pré’s playing began an irreversible decline as she started to lose sensitivity in her fingers and other parts of her body. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in October 1973. Her last recording of sonatas by Chopin and Franck took place in December 1971. She went on sabbatical from 1971 to 1972, and she performed rarely. In 1973 du Pré resumed performance, but by then her symptoms had become severe. In January she toured North America. Some of the less-than-complimentary reviews were an indication that her condition had worsened, although there were brief moments when she played without noticeable problems. Her last London concerts were in February 1973, performing the Elgar Concerto with Zubin Mehta and the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

Her last public concerts took place in New York in February 1973: four performances of the Brahms Double Concerto with Pinchas Zukerman and Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic were scheduled. Du Pré recalled that she had problems judging the weight of the bow, and just opening the cello case had become difficult. As she had lost sensation in her fingers, she had to coordinate her fingering visually. She performed three of the concerts and cancelled the last. Isaac Stern stepped in for her, performing Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.

Du Pré died in London on 19 October 1987, aged 42. She is buried in Golders Green Jewish Cemetery.

The Vuitton Foundation purchased her Davidov Stradivarius for just over £1 million and made it available on loan to Yo-Yo Ma. Russian cellist Nina Kotova now owns the 1673 Stradivarius, named by Lynn Harrell the du Pré Stradivarius in tribute.^[8] Her 1970 Peresson cello is currently on loan to cellist Kyril Zlotnikov of the Jerusalem Quartet.^[9]

Controversial book and film[link]

Anand Tucker's controversial 1998 film Hilary and Jackie is based on A Genius in the Family, with Emily Watson as Jacqueline and Rachel Griffiths as Hilary. Although the film was a critical and box-office success and received several Academy Award nominations, it ignited a furore, especially in London, the centre of du Pre's activities. A group of her closest colleagues, including fellow cellists Mstislav Rostropovich and Julian Lloyd Webber, sent a bristling letter to The Times. Clare Finzi, Hilary's daughter, charged that the film was a "gross misinterpretation, which I cannot let go unchallenged." Students from the Royal College of Music picketed the premiere. Barenboim was said to have remarked, "Couldn't they have waited until I was dead?"^[10]

Hilary, Jackie's sister and co-author of the book, strongly defends both the book and the film. She wrote in The Guardian: "At first I could not understand why people didn't believe my story, because I had set out to tell the whole truth. When you tell someone the truth about your family, you don't expect them to turn around and say that it's bunkum. But I knew that Jackie would have respected what I had done. If I had gone for half-measures, she would have torn it up. She would have wanted the complete story to be told."^[11] The New Yorker reported Hilary as saying, "When you love someone, you love the whole of them. Those who are against the film want to look only at the pieces of Jackie's life that they accept. I don't think the film has taken any liberties at all. Jackie would have absolutely loved it."^[12]

Honours and awards[link]

Du Pré received several fellowships from music academies and honorary doctorate degrees from universities in honour of her contribution to music. In 1956 she was the second recipient (after Rohan de Saram in 1955) of the prestigious Guilhermina Suggia Award, at age 11, and remains the youngest recipient. In 1960, she won the Gold Medal of the Guildhall School of Music in London and the Queen's Prize for British musicians. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1976 New Year Honours.^[13] At the 1977 BRIT Awards, she won the award for the best classical soloist album of the past 25 years for Elgar's Cello Concerto.^{[citation needed]}

After her death, a rose cultivar named after her received the Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.^[14] She was made an honorary fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, whose music building bears her name.

In 2012, she was voted into the first Gramophone Hall of Fame.^[15]

References[link]

Selected discography[link]

• Elgar: Cello Concerto / Sea Pictures / Cockaigne (In London Town) Overture. Janet Baker. London Symphony Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli (EMI 0724356288720)
• Brahms: Cello Sonatas. Daniel Barenboim (EMI 0724356275829)
• Haydn: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2/ Boccherini: Cello Concerto in B flat (arr. Grützmacher). English Chamber Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim. London Symphony Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli (EMI 0724356694828)
• Beethoven: Piano Trios Opp. 1 & 97 / Variations and Allegrettos. Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman (EMI 0094635079821)
• Beethoven: Piano Trio Op. 70/Cello Sonatas Nos. 3 & 5. Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman (Trio), Stephen Kovacevich (sonatas) (EMI 0094635080728)
• Jacqueline du Pré – The Early BBC Recordings (EMI 0724358623628)
• Beethoven: Cello Sonatas. Daniel Barenboim (EMI 0724358624229)
• Beethoven Cello Sonatas, No. 3 in A, Op. 69; No. 5 in D, Op. 102; No. 2 (Angel 36384)
• Brahms/Chopin/Franck:Cello Sonatas. Daniel Barenboim (EMI 0724358623321)
• Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor/Schumann:Cello Concerto in A Minor; New Philharmonia Orchestra^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim (EMI 0724356280526)
• The Complete EMI Recordings (17 discs). Various co-performers (EMI 5099950416721)

On DVD

• Remembering Jacqueline du Pré (1994), directed by Christopher Nupen
• Jacqueline du Pré in Portrait (2004), directed by Christopher Nupen
• The Trout (1970 documentary released on DVD in 2005), directed by Christopher Nupen
• Jacqueline du Pré: A Celebration of Her Unique and Enduring Gift (2007), directed by Christopher Nupen
• Hilary and Jackie (1998), dramatised portrait directed by Anand Tucker

Bibliography[link]

• Wilson, Elizabeth A. M. (1999). Jacqueline du Pré: Her Life, Her Music, Her Legend. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-20017-6. 
• Easton, Carol (2000). Jacqueline du Pré: A Biography. Cambridge: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80976-1. 
• Du Pré, Piers; du Pré, Hilary (1997). A Genius in the Family: Intimate Memoir of Jacqueline du Pré. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 1-85619-753-0. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• Emily Watson, "Interview with Hilary du Pré and Emily Watson"
• Jay Nordlinger, "Critical review 'twisted sister' "
• 'Who was Jacqueline du Pré'^{[dead link]}
• Biography on "Cellist.nl" Database