Carl Flesch

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Carl Flesch

Carl Flesch (Hungarian: Flesch K�roly, 9 October 1873 � 14 November 1944) was a
Hungarian violinist and teacher. Flesch�s compendium Scale System is a staple of
violin pedagogy.
Life and career

Flesch was born in Moson (now part of Mosonmagyar�v�r) in Hungary in 1873. He began
playing the violin at seven years of age. At 10 he was taken to Vienna to study
with Jakob Gr�n. At 17 he left for Paris, and joined the Conservatoire de Paris,
studying with Martin Pierre Marsick. He settled in Berlin, and in 1934 in London.

He was known for his solo performances in a very wide range of repertoire (from
Baroque music to contemporary), gaining fame as a chamber music performer. He also
taught in Bucharest (1897�1902), Amsterdam (1903�08), Philadelphia (1924�28) and
Berlin (Hochschule fuer Musik, 1929�34). He published a number of instructional
books, including Die Kunst des Violin-Spiels (The Art of Violin Playing, 1923) in
which he advocated for the violinist as artist rather than merely virtuoso. Among
his pupils were Charles Barkel, Edwin B�langer, Bronislaw Gimpel, Ivry Gitlis,
Szymon Goldberg, Ida Haendel, Josef Hassid, Adolf Leschinski, Alma Moodie, Ginette
Neveu, Yfrah Neaman, Ricardo Odnoposoff, Eric Rosenblith, Max Rostal, Henryk
Szeryng, Henri Temianka, Roman Totenberg and Josef Wolfsthal, all of whom achieved
considerable fame as both performers and pedagogues. He said his favorite pupil was
the Australian Alma Moodie, who achieved great fame in the 1920s and 1930s but made
no recordings and is little known today.[1] In his memoirs he said, "there was
above all Henry [i.e., Henri] Temianka, who did great credit to the [Curtis]
Institute: both musically and technically, he possessed a model collection of
talents."[2] See: List of music students by teacher: C to F#Carl Flesch.

One of Flesch's few recordings is a highly distinguished interpretation of Bach's

great D minor Double Violin Concerto (Columbia) in which he played second violin to
the great Joseph Szigeti, with Walter Goehr conducting an anonymous London string
orchestra in the late 1930s.

He was consulted (as was Oskar Adler) by Louis Krasner over technical difficulties
in Alban Berg's Violin Concerto, which Krasner was to premiere.

He owned the Brancaccio Stradivarius, but had to sell it in 1928 after losing all
his money on the New York Stock Exchange.

Flesch lived in London during the 1930s, and was later arrested by the Gestapo in
the Netherlands,[3][4][5][6] was released thanks to Furtw�ngler's intervention[7] ,
and died in Lucerne, Switzerland, in November 1944.
References

Kay Dreyfus, Alma Moodie and the Landscape of Giftedness, 2002

Carl Flesch: The Memoirs of Carl Flesch (trans. Hans Keller and ed. by him in
collaboration with C.F.Flesch); foreword by Max Rostal (1957)
Carl Flesch The memoirs of Carl Flesch - 1979 "Thus both my parents stayed on in
Holland. My father was, of course, not allowed to teach or play and occupied most
of ... Both my parents were arrested twice but my father had been lucky enough to
have in his possession a letter from ..."
Alma Ros�: Vienna to Auschwitz Richard Newman, Karen Kirtley - 2000 "same day Alma,
in despair, wrote a letter of farewell to Carl Flesch, who was still in Holland,
protected since March by his status as a "blue knight"
Special treatment: the untold story of Hitler's third race Alan E. Abrams - 1985
"They were the Hungarian-born, internationally renowned violinist and composer Carl
Flesch and his wife, the Dutch-born former Berta Josephus "
F. C. DeCoste, Bernard Schwartz The Holocaust's ghost: writings on art, politics,
law, and education - 2000 p79 " ... and therewith stopped his visits, only to find
himself back in Gestapo custody after the Netherlands, where he had moved, was
overrun. "

"Manuskriptdienst SWR2 Stolpersteine Carl Flesch" (PDF).

Carl Flesch: The Memoirs of Carl Flesch (trans. Hans Keller and ed. by him in
collaboration with C.F.Flesch); foreword by Max Rostal (1957).
Carl Flesch: The Art Of Violin Playing, Books 1 & 2 Translated & Edited by Eric
Rosenblith. New York: Carl Fischer Music � Edition ISBN 0-8258-2822-8
Boris Schwarz: Great Masters of the Violin; foreword by Yehudi Menuhin. New
York: Simon and Schuster � 1983.

External links

Flesch K�roly Violin Competition

A page on Flesch by Jos� S�nchez-Penzo
Works by Carl Flesch at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Carl Flesch at Internet Archive
Carl Flesch Archive in the Netherlands Music Institute, with biography
Free scores by Carl Flesch at the International Music Score Library Project
(IMSLP)

Authority control Edit this at Wikidata

BIBSYS: 90626686 BNE: XX884478 BNF: cb12962149b (data) CANTIC: a12310177 GND:
118691805 HDS: 026962 ISNI: 0000 0001 1769 553X LCCN: n87151248 LNB: 000036928 MBA:
c12e2384-acb6-4b13-8a18-4e5c84ca1623 NDL: 00521686 NKC: jn19990002323 NLA: 35089055
NLG: 234687 NLI: 000047434, 001433681, 001440748 NLK: KAC199608918 NLP: A12872696
NTA: 070599505 PLWABN: 9810546205505606 SNAC: w6cv4wbm SUDOC: 052471306 Trove:
823283 VcBA: 495/366447 VIAF: 71523479 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n87151248

Categories:

1873 births1944 deathsPeople from Mosonmagyar�v�rHungarian JewsAustro-Hungarian

JewsHungarian classical violinistsMale classical violinistsHungarian music
educatorsViolin pedagoguesJewish violinists

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