Big Bass Day, Brisbane 2022

Marian

Heckenberg

July 17 was a typically beautiful wnter’s day in Brisbane but on this particular day, an unusual sight was seen at The Old Museum, home of the Queensland Youth Orchestras. From first light, a gathering of eighty double bass enthusiasts, aged between 7 and 70, rumbled in for the third Big Brisbane Bass Day. The BBB Day was created by me and Chloe Williamson as a non-competitive, allinclusive learning experience to celebrate the double bass. The event has been enormously successful but this year was extra special due to the generosity of QYO. Being able to use the Old Museum facilities meant there was space for huge mass bass technical classes, small group lessons, teacher training and chamber music. Amazing parents and participants supported the BBB Day by coming from far and wide including Sydney, Toowoomba, Stanthorpe, Mackay, Rockhampton, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. The dedicated tutors – Phoebe Russell,

Dušan Walkowicz, Justin Bullock, Paul O’Brien, Ken Poggioli, Robert Davidson, Connie GarretBenson, Danica Inglis plus Chloe and me – gave generously and imparted their own personal skill sets to their groups. We were also fortune.ate to have accomplished bassist Bernardo Alviz join us a tutor, and fearless conductor!

We are grateful to our parent supporters who worked hard behind the scenes to make the day run smoothly. Wonderful prizes and support were supplied by Benedict Puglisi, Leatherwood Rosin, Simply for Strings, Bassworks, Four Bass Music, Dalseno Music, Fractal Fingering and local luthiers John Simmers and David Heckenberg.

The climax of the day was a free concert for parents and friends and we were honoured to see Mrs Curro and Queensland Youth Symphony director Simon Hewett in attendance. A moving performance of Mahler’s bass solo from his Symphony no. 1 (for massed bass ensemble) opened the concert and after each chamber group had performed their items, everyone enthusiastically joined forces again for the finale, Enredo de Tango, written by talented bassist and composer Harrison Young.

Many thanks to QYO (through Geoff Rosbrook and Louise Robinson) as they have elevated our uniquely low register event to new heights!

Marian Heckenberg is a graduate of the Universities of Queensland and Southern California. She teaches at the Queensland Conservatorium (Griffith University), is Principal Bass for the Camerata Orchestra and performs with QSO.

Ukraine’s contribution to the world of music

Mary Nemet and Susan Pierotti

AUSTAdoes not promote political views or take sides in conflicts. However, as Ukraine is in the news and a hot topic of interest, we thought it might be of interest to record what influence Ukrainian string players, teachers and luthiers have had on our world of strings.

Until 1991, Ukraine was part of Russia so many of the musicians listed below identified themselves as Russian.

Composers

Reinhold Glière (1875–1956) was born in Kyiv. He was noted for his works incorporating elements of the folk music of several eastern Soviet republics.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) was born in Krasne, now known as Sontsivka. He was taught in his early years by Glière and is widely considered one of the 20th century’s major composers. The international airport in Donetsk bears his name.

Igor Markevitch (1912–1983) was born in Kyiv. He was a conductor and avant-garde composer whose work was commissioned by impresario Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Bartók hailed him as ‘the most striking personality in contemporary music’ and claimed him as an influence on his own creative work.

Valentin Silvestrov (1937–) was born in Kyiv and is one of the favourite composers of his Estonian contemporary, Arvo Pärt. Silvestrov fled from Ukraine following the Russian invasion and now lives in Berlin.

Pianists

Jascha Spivakovsky (1896–1970) was born near Kyiv and was the eldest brother of Tossy, Adolf and Isaac Spivakovsky (see below). Considered the musical heir to Rubenstein and Paderewski, he was regarded in Europe as the finest living interpreter of Brahms. He fled to Australia a few days before the Nazis seized power in 1933.

Benne Moiseiwitsch (1902–1963) was born in Odesa. Moiseiwitsch was noted for his elegance, poetry, lyrical brilliance, rhythmic freedom and relaxed virtuosity. He married Australian Daisy Kennedy, a relative of Nigel Kennedy.

Vladimir Horowitz (1903–1989) was born in Kyiv and is considered one of the greatest pianists of all time.

Shura (Alexander) Cherkassky (1908–1995) was born in Odesa but his family fled to the United States to escape the Russian Revolution of 1917. His playing was characterised by a virtuoso technique and singing piano tone.

Emil Gilels (1916–1985) was born in Odesa, the brother of violinist Elizabeth Gilels. He was universally admired for his superb technical control and burnished tone and Rachmaninoff regarded him as his pianistic successor.

Violinists

Pyotr Stolyarsky (1871–1944) was born in Lypovets, near Kyiv. He founded the Odesa School of violin playing and became one of the founders of the Soviet violin school. His students include David and Igor Oistrakh, Boris Goldstein, Nathan Milstein and Elizabeth Gilels. In 1937, at the International Ysaye Competition, five of his students took the top prizes, ‘with an assurance that bordered on arrogance’ as one reporter put it.

Abram Yampolsky (1890–1956) was born in Yekaterinoslav, also known as Dnipropetrovsk and now Dnipro. He was a Professor and Head of the violin faculty of the Moscow Conservatorium. His students include Elizabeth Gilels, Leonid Kogan and Eduard Grach.

Mischa Elman (1891–1967), was born in Talne near Kyiv. He was famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality.

Mischa Mischakoff (1895–1981) was born in Proskuriv, now known as Khlmelnytskyi. He escaped from Russia in 1921 with his friend and colleague, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. He led many of America’s greatest orchestras from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Toscha Seidel (1899–1962) was born in Odesa. He was known for his lush, romantic tone and unique and free rubato. He was a leader in the new Hollywood studio orchestra scene and was musical director of CBS radio where he had a show called ‘The Toscha Seidel Program’. His 1714 ‘da Vinci’ Strad sold in June this year for $15.34 million.

Louis Krasner (1903–1995) was born in Cherkasy. He commissioned and premiered works by Berg’s and Schonberg’s violin concertos and works by many American composers.

Nathan Milstein (1904–1992) was born in Odesa. He was known for his interpretations of Bach’s solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period.

David Oistrakh (1908–1974) was born in Odesa. One of the 20th century’s most pre-eminent violinists, he premiered works by Prokofiev, Khatchaturian and Shostakovich.

Elizabeth Gilels (1919–2008) was born in Odesa, the younger sister of pianist Emil Gilels. A student of Stolyarsky and Abram Yampolsky, she became professor of violin at the Moscow Conservatory in 1987. She married violinist Leonid Kogan.

Isaac Stern (1920–2001) was born in Kremenets, then in Poland but now in Ukraine. Isaac Stern told Mary Nemet that soldiers were taking pot-shots through his nursery window while in his crib, so his mother pushed the cradle to the other side of the room to avoid the bullets. His family moved to San Francisco in 1921. He was the first American violinist to tour Soviet Russia (in 1951).

Boris Goldstein (1922–1987) was born in Odesa. As a teenager, he was described by Heifetz as being USSR’s most brilliant violin talent.

Leonid Kogan (1924–1982) was born in Yekaterinoslav. A brilliant and compelling violinist who excelled in both concerto repertoire and chamber music, he was the first Soviet violinist to play and record Berg’s Violin Concerto.

Nelli Shkolnikova (1928–2010) was born in Zolotonosha. She defected to the West in 1982 and settled in Melbourne where she taught at the Victorian College of the Arts. She became the Victorian Arts Centre’s first Artist-inResidence.

Eduard Grach (1930–) was born in Odesa and learnt from Stolyarsky. He has followed in the footsteps of another of his teachers, Yampolsky, in that he is now Professor and Head of the violin faculty of the Moscow Conservatorium.

Igor Oistrakh (1931–2021) was born in Odesa, the son of David Oistrakh. He appeared internationally as a soloist and in joint recitals with his father, or with his father conducting. The asteroid 42516 Oistrach was named in his and his father’s honour.

Violists

Boris Kroyt (1897–1969) was born in Odesa. His family’s apartment was a meeting place for young radicals, including Leon Trotsky. Trained as a violinist, as a teenager he taught himself the viola in three days. He played viola with the Budapest String Quartet from 1936 till 1967.

Maxim Rysanov (1978–) was born in Kramatorsk. At 14, he swapped from violin to viola and his performances and recordings have since won several awards.

Cellists

Emanuel Feuermann (1902–1942) was born in Kolmyja, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but now in Ukraine. He performed with Carl Flesch, Szymon Goldberg, Hindemith, Heifetz and Primrose. Casals said, ‘What a great artist Feuermann was!’

Gregor Piatigorsky (1903–1976) was born in Yekaterinoslav, also known as Dnipropetrovsk and now Dnipro. He led orchestras in Moscow, Berlin and the US and performed chamber music with Heifetz, Horowitz, Milstein and William Primrose. He premiered works by Prokofiev, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Walton.

Further facts

By the second half of the 20th century, it became a standing joke that if you weren’t Jewish and born in Odesa in Ukraine, you would never make it as a solo violinist.

According to Stella Nemet (the mother of Reviews Editor Mary Nemet), Odesa was either in Russia, Ukraine or Poland, depending on her history teacher at the time.

Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Toscha Siedel and Sasha Jacobsen achieved unexpected fame when in 1922, George Gershwin wrote a song about them called ‘Mischa, Jascha, Toscha, Sascha’.

An Australian connection: Tossy Spivakovsky (1905–1998), a younger brother of pianist Jascha Spivakovsky, was born in Odesa and was considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. On tour in Australia when the Nazis took power in 1933, he taught at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium with his brother Adolf (bass baritone) during the 1930s. The Adolph Spivakovsky Scholarship for the Composition of Music is presented annually by the University of Melbourne. Tossy’s brother, Isaac, played and taught violin and cello at Scotch College in Melbourne.

Kyiv, Sontsivka, Odesa and Kramatorsk have all been under direct fire from the Russian invasion.

To help Ukrainian violin maker Oleksandr Smykovskyi, whose home and violin shop in Mariupol were burned down in the Russian invasion, Tarisio has auctioned a 2010 violin made by Smykovskyi, with all proceeds going to the luthier.