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Berl Senofsky in Concert - EXPO '58 Brussels

Berl Senofsky

Berl Senofsky in Concert - EXPO '58 Brussels

Format: CD
Label: Bridge
UPC: 0090404947025
Catnr: BRIDG 9470
Release date: 30 September 2016
1 CD
 
Label
Bridge
UPC
0090404947025
Catalogue number
BRIDG 9470
Release date
30 September 2016
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
DE

About the album

The extraordinary American violinist Berl Senofsky (1926-2002), was thrust into the international spotlight in June of 1955, taking the grand prize of the 1955 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Competition. One of the jury members, Zino Francescatti, wrote that "Senofsky is a complete artist: great musicality, beautiful tone, astounding technique." This CD documents Senofsky's 1958 return to Belgium for a triumphant recital at the Brussels World's Fair, Expo '58
Diese CD dokumentiert Berl Senofskys Rückkehr nach Belgien für ein erfolgreiches Recital im Rahmen des Brussels World's Fair, Expo '58.

Artist(s)

Berl Senofsky (violin)

Berl Senofsky was born in Philadelphia on April 19, 1926, the son of Russian immigrant violinists. Senofsky's father began teaching Berl his first lessons when the boy turned three. By the time he was six he began scholarship studies with Louis Persinger, a former pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe, and at the age of twelve Senofsky received a scholarship to the Juilliard School to study with Ivan Galamian. He remained with Galamian for twelve years. Following military service in World War II, Senofsky made his New York recital debut as the winner of the 1946 Walter Naumburg Prize. Shortly thereafter, he appeared as a soloist with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, and was engaged as assistant concertmaster with the Cleveland from...
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Berl Senofsky was born in Philadelphia on April 19, 1926, the son of Russian immigrant violinists. Senofsky's father began teaching Berl his first lessons when the boy turned three. By the time he was six he began scholarship studies with Louis Persinger, a former pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe, and at the age of twelve Senofsky received a scholarship to the Juilliard School to study with Ivan Galamian. He remained with Galamian for twelve years.
Following military service in World War II, Senofsky made his New York recital debut as the winner of the 1946 Walter Naumburg Prize. Shortly thereafter, he appeared as a soloist with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, and was engaged as assistant concertmaster with the Cleveland from 1951 to 1955. At this juncture Senofsky planned to relocate to Europe for several years, and left America. Traveling to Belgium with no expectations (he did not even bring a suit with him!), he entered the Queen Elisabeth, and the surprise win changed his life forever.
In later years Senofsky found satisfaction in other musical activities. He established a chamber music series in Baltimore and began a foundation to support American artists who were entering international music competitions. He was appointed to a teaching position at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1965, where he taught violin and chamber music until 1996. For a number of summers he also taught at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California.

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Composer(s)

Henryk Wieniawski

Wieniawski was a Polish composer. Even though he came from a jewish family, his father converted to catholocism. Wieniawski's violin talent was quickly discovere, in 1843 he attended the conservatory of Paris at the age of 8. After he graduated, Wieniawski went on tour giving many recitals. He was often accompanied by his brother, Józef. In 1847, he published his first work, the Grand Caprice Fantastique.  On invitation by Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg where he stayed until 1872. There, he taught a large number of violin students, led the Russian Musical Society's orchestra and string quartet. Fro, 1872 to 1874, Wieniawski toured throughout the United States together with Rubinstein and in 1875, he replaced Henri Vieuxtemps as a violin teacher at the conservatory of...
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Wieniawski was a Polish composer. Even though he came from a jewish family, his father converted to catholocism. Wieniawski's violin talent was quickly discovere, in 1843 he attended the conservatory of Paris at the age of 8. After he graduated, Wieniawski went on tour giving many recitals. He was often accompanied by his brother, Józef. In 1847, he published his first work, the Grand Caprice Fantastique.

On invitation by Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg where he stayed until 1872. There, he taught a large number of violin students, led the Russian Musical Society's orchestra and string quartet. Fro, 1872 to 1874, Wieniawski toured throughout the United States together with Rubinstein and in 1875, he replaced Henri Vieuxtemps as a violin teacher at the conservatory of Brussels. In Brussels, his health declined fast, which at one time forced him to stop a performance midway through. He gave his farewell concert in 1879. A year later he died from a heart attack in Moscow.


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Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of...
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Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

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Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the 'Three Bs' of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.   Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become...
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Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth.  Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.  
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Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.


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Béla Bartók

Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created...
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Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created his own musical idiom from folk music. Because of this, his composition style was flexible to other musical trends, without having to violate his own view points. For example, his two Violin sonates come close to Schoenberg's free expressionism, and after 1926 his music started to show neoclassicistic tendencies, comparable to Stravinsky's music. Bartók was not just interested in Hungarian folk music, but could appreciate musical folklore from all of the Balkan, Turkey and North-Africa as well.
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Eugène Ysaÿe

Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist and composer. He received his first violin lessons from his father at the age of five. At seven years old, he already gave his first public concert. However, it didn't go as his father would have liked it. Eugène didn't try his hardest and at one moment the Conservatory of Liège even refuse to take him because of his bad performance. In 1873, he received 12 lessons from Henryk Wieniawski. Since he admired Wieniawski so much, these lessons had an enormous impact on his career. In 1880, he became the concert master for one year of the Bilse Orchestra in Berlin, the direct predecessor of the Berliner Philharmoniker.  In 1896, he was appointed professor at the Conservatory of...
more
Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist and composer. He received his first violin lessons from his father at the age of five. At seven years old, he already gave his first public concert. However, it didn't go as his father would have liked it. Eugène didn't try his hardest and at one moment the Conservatory of Liège even refuse to take him because of his bad performance.
In 1873, he received 12 lessons from Henryk Wieniawski. Since he admired Wieniawski so much, these lessons had an enormous impact on his career. In 1880, he became the concert master for one year of the Bilse Orchestra in Berlin, the direct predecessor of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 1896, he was appointed professor at the Conservatory of Brussels. At this point, it was clear Ysaÿe was not just a masterful violinist, but also a great composer.

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Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov was a Russian pianist, composer, and conductor of the late-Romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular in the classical repertoire. Born into a musical family, Rachmaninov took up the piano at age four. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and had composed several piano and orchestral pieces by this time. In 1897, following the critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninov and his family left Russia and resided in the United States, first in New York City. Demanding piano concert tour schedules caused...
more
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov was a Russian pianist, composer, and conductor of the late-Romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular in the classical repertoire.
Born into a musical family, Rachmaninov took up the piano at age four. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and had composed several piano and orchestral pieces by this time. In 1897, following the critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a four-year depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1901. After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninov and his family left Russia and resided in the United States, first in New York City. Demanding piano concert tour schedules caused his output as composer to slow tremendously; between 1918 and 1943, he completed just six compositions, including Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Symphony No. 3, and Symphonic Dances. In 1942, Rachmaninov moved to Beverly Hills, California. One month before his death from advanced melanoma, Rachmaninov acquired American citizenship.
Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, and other Russian composers gave way to a personal style notable for its song-like melodicism, expressiveness and his use of rich orchestral colors.[3] The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninov's compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument.

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Press

Play album Play album
01.
Piece en forme de Habanera
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(Maurice Ravel) Berl Senofsky
02.
Roumanian Dances: I. Bot tánc / Jocul cu bât? (Stick Dance)
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(Bela Bartok) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
03.
Roumanian Dances: II. Brâul (Sash Dance)
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(Bela Bartok) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
04.
Roumanian Dances: III. Topogó / Pe loc (In One Spot)
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(Bela Bartok) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
05.
Roumanian Dances: IV. Bucsumí tánc / Buciumeana (Dance from Bucsum)
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(Bela Bartok) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
06.
Roumanian Dances: V. Román polka / Poarga Româneasc? (Romanian Polka)
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(Bela Bartok) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
07.
Roumanian Dances: VI. Aprózó / M?run?el (Fast Dance)
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(Bela Bartok) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
08.
Vocalise
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(Sergei Rachmaninoff) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
09.
Sonata No. 6 in E major for solo violin, Op. 27, No. 6
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(Eugène Ysaÿe) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
10.
Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 19: I. Prelude
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(Paul Creston) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
11.
Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 19: II. Air
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(Paul Creston) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
12.
Suite for Violin and Piano, Op. 19: III. Rondo
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(Paul Creston) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
13.
Grand Duo Polonaise, Op. 8
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(Henryk Wieniawski) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
14.
Chacoone from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004
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(Johann Sebastian Bach) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
15.
Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100, Mvt. III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andante)
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(Johannes Brahms) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
16.
Hungarian Dance No. 7
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(Johannes Brahms) Berl Senofsky, Marie Louise Bastyns
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