A fiddler's tale : how Hollywood and Vivaldi discovered me / Louis Kaufman with Annette Kaufman ; foreword by Jim Svejda.

Author/creator Kaufman, Louis
Other author Kaufman, Annette.
Format Book
Publication InfoMadison : University of Wisconsin Press, ©2003.
Descriptionxv, 462 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.)
Subjects
Kaufman, Louis, 1905-1994.
Violinists--United States. --Biography.

Contents Bucharest to Portland and back -- I become a violinist -- New York and Kneisel -- More Kneisel--Auer--graduation--chamber music -- The Musical Art Quartet is launched : I become an art collector -- The Musical Art Quartet -- In Baltimore and Capri with the Musical Art Quartet -- Paris! -- Italian concerts : encore Paris -- "The real thing" : romance and Annette -- Together in Europe : our honeymoon -- Hometown triumph and California here we come -- The goal : Los Angeles! -- Hollywood : the golden years -- Another aspect of Hollywood--art & music : William Grant Still--Darius Milhaud -- Bernard Herrmann--another view : other friends, Anthony Collins -- Concert opportunities--Works Progress Administration (WPA): Music, art, theater, trail-blazing -- Vivaldi discovers me--we meet Francis Poulenc--historic recordings -- En route to France via Honolulu -- En route to Venice via Zurich (Paris-visit with Poulenc) -- Unfinished business : meeting Malipiero -- Brussels con moto : Paris recordings--arrival in Brussels--fateful meeting with Paul Collaer -- More Poulenc, more Brussels : Paris premiere -- Introducing Vivaldi to America -- Unexpected North African tour: Paris friends -- We meet Samuel Barber in San Francisco -- South American adventures -- Utrecht recordings--war crimes--search for Spohr -- Paris--the survivor--Maryan -- London adventures in music and art -- Northern exposure -- Miracle in Milan : Recording in Paris -- Return to Los Angeles Korngold memorial concert -- Adventures behind the iron curtain -- Recordings at last--the Lebduska mystery -- Cousin Mico Kaufman, sculptor -- The dybbuk--a devil to produce -- From Sicily to Tahiti -- Hazardous travel -- Postscript / by Annette Kaufman -- Appendix 1: Reviews ; Appendix 2: Los Angeles program notes, 9 December 1956 ; Appendix 3: The changing recording world ; Appendix 4: Violin editions of Louis Kaufman ; Appendix 5: A Louis Kaufman filmography: concertmaster in the golden years, a partial list.
Abstract This book recounts an extraordinary life in music written by one of the greatest American violinists of the twentieth century. Once called by the New York Times "a violinist's violinist and a musician's musician," Louis Kaufman was born in 1905 in Portland, Oregon. He studied violin with Franz Kneisl at New York's Institute of Musical Art. He was the original violist of the Musical Art Quartet (1926-1933) and won the Naumburg Award in 1928, the year of his American solo recital debut in New York's Town Hall. During these early years, he played chamber music with Pablo Casals, Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Gregor Piatigorsky, and Efrem Zimbalist, among others. After performing the violin solos for Ernst Lubitsch's 1934 film The Merry Widow, Kaufman became the most sought after violin soloist in Hollywood, playing in some 500 films, including Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, The Diary of Anne Frank, Wuthering Heights, The Grapes of Wrath, and Spartacus. He worked closely with Robert Russell Bennett, Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Miklós Rózsa, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and Victor Young. Extraordinary as it seems today, Kaufman was largely responsible for bringing the once-forgotten music of Antonio Vivaldi to its current popularity worldwide among both classical musicians and the general population of music lovers. The book includes a music CD with Kaufman?s performances of Vivaldi?s Concerto 2 of op. 9, Havanaise by Camille Saint Saëns, Nocturne for Violin and Piano by Aaron Copland, Much Ado about Nothing Suite for violin and piano by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Jerome Kern, among other favorites.
Bibliography noteIncludes filmography (407-411), discography (pages 412-[445]), bibliographical references (pages 446-448), and index.
LCCN 2002010217
ISBN0299183807 (alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Music Media - Ask at Circulation Desk CD-6354 ✔ Available Place Hold
Music Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk ML418.K28 A3 2003 ✔ Available Place Hold