Henryk Szeryng

Henryk Szeryng [ ʃɛrɨŋk ] ( born September 22, 1918 in Wola Żelazowa; † 3 March 1988, Kassel ) was a violinist of Polish-Jewish origin, who lived in Mexico since 1946.

Life

His mother gave him his first piano lessons, but soon the child preferred the violin. Bronislaw Huberman heard him and recommended to send him for training to Carl Flesch in Berlin ( 1928-32 ). Henryk Szeryng debuted in 1933. 1935 played the 17 -year-old violinist in Warsaw under the direction of Bruno Walter 's Violin Concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven. Then he sat until 1939 continued his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris.

After the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted as a volunteer in the Polish army on French soil and was the liaison officer. Because of his language skills ( Szeryng spoke eight languages), he also worked as an interpreter for the Polish government in exile. Frequently he performed in front of Allied soldiers and gave charity concerts.

During a stay in Mexico City, he was offered there to take over the String Department at the University of Mexico. He did so and became a Mexican citizen in 1946. In 1954 he recorded his concert career, which he continued until his death. He died in 1988 during a concert tour with the Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken in Kassel.

The violinist was a performer with an extensive repertoire and has achieved worldwide recognition. He took a large number of plates on, including the violin concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Mendelssohn and Paganini, the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart with Ingrid Haebler, selected violin sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart with Arthur Rubinstein, and two photographs of the entire solo sonatas and partitas of Bach. For his collaboration with Pierre Fournier and Arthur Rubinstein, he received a Grammy in 1975 and 1976 each. For his recording of the Brahms Concerto with Pierre Monteux in 1959 he was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque. His recordings of Bach's solo sonatas and partitas are today considered set new standards. So in the video The Art Of Violin the important young violinist Hilary Hahn has shown that Szeryngs Bach recordings are indicative of their own Bach interpretation.