“You played it masterfully in every respect…I congratulate myself that my concerto has found an interpreter of your rare standard.” Jean Sibelius
These words formed part of the Finnish composer’s fan letter written to the violinist Ida Haendel after he heard her 1948 Finnish radio broadcast of his violin concerto. The indefatigable Polish-born violinist has died at her home in Miami on 1 July 2020, aged 91. The Sibelius Violin Concerto was one of her signature works.
In a life that spanned the greater part of the twentieth century, Haendel was a much-loved musician whose seven-decade career stretched back to another age.
In addition to the many obituaries from around the world are tributes from the musicians who played with her and loved her.
“So sad to hear of the death of Ida Haendel … What a lady! …. Passionate, inspired, stubborn, utterly unique - glorious! Playing the Beethoven Triple with her and Martha Argerich remains one of my most cherished – if surreal! – memories … There’s never been anyone like Ida,” said British cellist Steven Isserlis.
Comments such as these speak to the pioneering nature of this musician’s musician whose recordings were well-known and loved by aficionados and connoisseurs but whose gender meant she was often overlooked for important gigs.
Born in 1928 to a Polish Jewish family in Chem, she always expressed surprise at her musical talent after she picked up her sister’s violin when she was three. "It certainly had nothing to do with me. I can't explain it. I said to my mother, `I can play what you're playing,’ and I did. Nobody taught me. At only three and a half, I hadn't had time to absorb everything."
Her portrait-painter father had run away from home in the vain hope of studying music, and remembering his own frustrations, made it his life’s duty to nurse his daughter’s talent.
After winning a gold medal from the Warsaw Conservatory playing the Beethoven concerto when she was five and competing against David Oistrakh and Ginette Neveu to become a laureate of the first Wieniawski Violin Competition in 1935, she moved to Paris to study with Carl Flesch and George Enescu.
“My father took me to Paris to meet Enescu. He was one of the simplest people – this is the greatest art in music: nothing contrived, he followed the score faithfully, as I attempt to do because my greatest respect is not for the performer but the composer, who is the greatest genius because he gets it from the depth of his soul. I call myself a servant of the composer.”
Carl Flesch, she describes as “a person who had all the cures and all the answers for people who had problems on the violin – like a fantastic physician who knows how to cure many illnesses.”
The Haendels moved to England to advance their daughter’s studies. In 1937 she gave her London debut under the baton of Sir Henry Wood, one of her early champions, at the BBC Proms, playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto. A natural stage animal who adored playing concertos, she was a huge favourite at the Proms, making her last appearance in 1993, playing the concerto by Britten.
During World War II, she played in factories and for British and American troops. Shortly after she made her first recordings. EMI’s impresario Walter Legge spotted her and paired her with Rafael Kubelik and the Philharmonia Orchestra in Bruch’s First Violin Concerto and the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Later her repertoire expanded to include then-neglected concertos by Schumann and Szymanowski and contemporary works by Allan Pettersson and Luigi Dallapiccola.
Still a teenager, she performed with the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, (the forerunner of the Israel Philharmonic), riding a bus that was riddled with gunfire. “It was a very, very dangerous time," Haendel recalled. “Nor is it much safer these days. No matter. We cannot stop trying, we have to go on and on."
In later decades she toured tirelessly to give concerts in America, Australia and The Soviet Union and was the first Western violinist to appear in China in 1981, after the Cultural Revolution.
Montreal became her home in 1952 and in 1979 she moved to Miami retaining a base in London, a city she loved. She was appointed CBE in 1991. In 1970 she wrote her autobiography Woman with Violin.
Ida Haendel said she loved the violin for its “…human sound and emotional impact. I am a dramatic person; I go for the drama. I can also be very funny you know – sometimes people think I’m a stand-up comic, I love jokes – but mostly it’s tragedy and tears, this is what I find in music.”
Mairi Nicolson presents Lunchtime Concert, The Opera Show and Sunday Opera on ABC Classic.