6 August 1991(1991-08-06) (aged 86) Bern, Switzerland
Genres
Classical
Occupation
Violinist
Instrument(s)
Violin, viola
Musical artist
Max Rostal (7 July 1905 – 6 August 1991) was a violinist and a viola player. He was Austrian-born, but later took British citizenship.[1]
Biography
Max Rostal was born in Cieszyn[2] to a Jewish merchant family. As a child prodigy, he started studying the violin at the age of 5, and played in front of Emperor Franz Josef I in 1913.[3]
Rostal played a wide variety of music, but was a particular champion of contemporary works such as Béla Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2. He made a number of recordings. Rostal premiered Alan Bush's Violin Concerto of 1946–8 in 1949.[7] He was the dedicatee of Benjamin Frankel's first solo violin sonata (1942),[8] and he also made the premiere recording. He commissioned the violin concerto by Bernard Stevens in 1943.[9]
Rostal's daughter Sybil B. G. Eysenck became a psychologist and is the widow of the personality psychologist Hans Eysenck, with whom she collaborated. Rostal died on 6 August 1991 in Bern, Switzerland.[11]
Discography
Benjamin Frankel: Sonata No. 1 for solo violin, Op. 13 (1942) on Decca K 1178[12]
Frederick Delius: Violin Sonata No. 2, Sir Edward Elgar: Violin Sonata, and Sir William Walton: Violin Sonata (1954 recordings, released 1955-7 on LP on Westminster), reissued on the Testament UK label, SBT1319 (2003).[13][14]
Maurice Ravel: Sonate fur Violine und Klavier, Marcel Mihalovici: 2.Sonate fur Violine und Klavier op.45 Deutsche Grammophon SLPM 138 016, 1959.
Franz Schubert: 3 Sonatas, Op. 137, No. 1-3, Rondo in B minor, Op. 70, D. 895, Sonata in A major, Op. 162, D. 574, Symposium Records, UK
Media
European Archive Copyright free LP recording of Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata by Max Rostal (violin) and Franz Osborn (piano) at the European Archive (for non-American viewers only).
Bibliography
Books
Rostal, Max (1985). Beethoven: The Sonatas for Piano and Violin: thoughts on their interpretation. Horace and Anna Rosenberg, translators, foreword by the Amadeus Quartet. With a Pianist's Postscript by Günter Ludwig and a History of Performance Practice by Paul Rolland. London: Toccata Press. ISBN0-907689-06-X.
Rostal, Max, Ludwig van Beethoven: Die Sonaten für Violine und Klavier, Gedanken zu ihrer Interpretation, Mit einem Nachtrag aus pianistischer Sicht von Günter Ludwig, R.Piper & Co. Verlag, Munich, 1981
Rostal, Max, Handbuch zum Geigenspiel, unter Mitarbeit von Berta Volmer, Müller & Schade publishing house, Bern, 1993
Rostal, Max, Violin – Schlüssel – Erlebnisse, Erinnerungen, Mit einem autobiografischen Text von Leo Rostal, Ries & Erler, Berlin, 2007
^A keyword search at http://www.schott-music.com turns up – after disabling fuzzy search – 16 items of sheet music – one, the Studie in Quinten for violin and piano (ISMN M-001-06487-3), of his own composition, but mostly edited by him. (Also two items in periodicals that are about his music-making or influence, but not by him.)
