Emanuel Feuermann - The 1939 Victor Recordings (1991)

Emanuel Feuermann was born in 1902 in Kolomyja, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Kolomyia, Ukraine) to Jewish parents. Both of his parents were amateur musicians. His father, who played the violin and cello, was his first teacher. His older brother Sigmund was also musically talented, and their little sister, Sophie (born January 1908) was the piano prodigy in the family.

Their father decided to move the family to Vienna in 1907 for Sigmund to start his professional career there. At the age of nine, Emanuel received lessons from Friedrich Buxbaum, principal cello of the Vienna Philharmonic, and then studied with Anton Walter at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. In February 1914, the eleven-year-old prodigy made his concert debut, playing Joseph Haydn's Cello Concerto in D major with the Vienna Philharmonic under Felix Weingartner.

The ascension to power of the Nazi Party in 1933 left him looking for a place to settle. He took a world tour in 1934 and 1935, with a pair of memorable New York concerts in January 1935. He and his wife settled in Zurich, where he gave master classes and based his touring career. He traveled to Austria, where he was trapped when Hitler's forces poured in to take the country. Violinist Bronislaw Huberman managed to get Feuermann out and into Palestine.

A month later Feuermann, his wife, and his daughter arrived in New York and applied for citizenship. He taught at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and in summers settled in Los Angeles, where he gave master classes. There, he could be close to Jascha Heifetz and Artur Rubinstein, making up one of the greatest of trio ensembles.



Tracklist :

George Frederick Handel
Dank sei dir, Herr 

Franz Schubert
Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen ("Ruh'n in Frieden alle Seelen"), song for voice & piano, D. 343

George Frederick Handel
Organ Concerto in G minor, Op.4/3, HWV 291

Ludwig van Beethoven
Variations for cello & piano in F major on Mozart's "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen," Op. 66 1939

Felix Mendelssohn
Sonata for cello & piano No. 2 in D major, Op. 58

Johann Sebastian Bach
Adagio

Gabriel Fauré
Après un rêve ("Dans un sommeil"), song for voice & piano, Op. 7/1

Joseph Canteloube
Deux Bourrées, folksongs for voice & orchestra (Chants d'Auvergne, Series 2, No. 5) : Bourée Auvergnate

Stepan Ivanovich Davïdov
At the Fountain

Frédéric Chopin
Introduction and Polonaise brillante for cello & piano in C major, Op. 3, CT. 148

Emanuel Feuermann - The 1939 Victor Recordings (1991)

(320 kbps, cover art included)