Walter Levin
Walter Levin (December 6, 1924 in Berlin) is an American violinist and quartet player of German-Jewish origin.
Life
Levin, grandson of Wuppertal cantor and composer Hermann civilians, emigrated in December 1938 with his mother, Erna, born civilization ( 1894-1974 ), his father Alfred and the sisters Eva and Lore from Berlin to Palestine. The father had a men's clothing company in the monastery road run, the " arisiert " had been, the family had (now Pacelliallee ) lived in Berlin -Dahlem in the Cecilienstraße 47.
Levin received his musical training initially in Tel Aviv, where the Schoenberg expert Peter Gradenwitz put the spark for Levin's lifelong interest in 20th century music. In New York City, he was awarded a place to study at the Juilliard School of Music with Ivan Galamian. Here he met a native of Dresden violinist Henry Meyer, whom he brought into the LaSalle String Quartet, founded in 1946 in 1949. With the violist Peter Kamnitzer (* 1922), as well as various cellists ( Richard Kapuscinski ( 1946 ), Jack Kirstein ( 1955 ) and Lee Fiser ( 1975 ) ), they played until 1988 in the quartet, whose first violinist was Levin.
The LaSalle Quartet benefited from a " Residence " at the Colorado College and later at the Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music, where all four members had a job, so Levin taught for 36 years violin and chamber music at the University of Cincinnati. In addition to the commitment to the music of the Second Viennese School, the LaSalle Quartet also took care of the sustainable revival of the quartets of Schoenberg's teacher Alexander Zemlinsky and engaged in addition also for the current string quartet composition by awarded commissions and premieres of Hans Erich Apostel, Witold Lutoslawski, Gyorgy Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Mauricio Kagel, and Michael Gielen grossed.
After his retirement, Levin gave his personal archive to the Paul Sacher Foundation in the house " at Burg " at Basel Cathedral Square. Levin also has an apartment in Basel, from where it continues to courses where he trains the young quartet. Since 2002, Levin is also a consultant for chamber music at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. In 2011 he gave up the leadership of the Basel quartet courses and now lives in Chicago.
Writings
- Walter Levin: Immigrant Musicians and the American Chamber Music Scene, 1930-1950. In: Reinhold Brinkmann and Christoph Wolff ( ed.): Driven into paradise: the musical migration from Nazi Germany to the United States, University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 978-0520214132, pp. 322-339