Identity area
Reference code
GB GB1179 AB-AB/908
Title
Photocopy of an autograph letter signed from Adolph Brodsky to Edvard Grieg
Date(s)
- [20th cent] (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
1 item, 2 folios
Context area
Name of creator
(1851-1929)
Biographical history
Adolph Brodsky was born in 1851 in Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. At the age of not quite five, he began to play the violin and later became a pupil of Hellmesberger at the Vienna Conservatoire. In 1880 he married Anna Tskadowska in Sebastopol in the Crimea. The following year Brodsky became the first person to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, declared unplayable by Leopold Auer to whom the original dedication was made. From 1883 to 1891 Brodsky taught at the Leipzig Conservatoire and established the Brodsky Quartet. In October 1891 Adolph and Anna Brodsky sailed for New York . After a very strenuous three years as concertmaster and soloist with the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch, Brodsky decided to return to Europe. When in Berlin, Adolph Brodsky received a letter from Sir Charles Hallé inviting him to teach at the recently founded Royal Manchester College of Music and to lead the Hallé Orchestra. Although Brodsky received offers of work from St. Petersburg, Berlin and Cologne and despite his wife's misgivings, Brodsky accepted the Manchester post. Within weeks of Brodsky's arrival in Manchester in 1895, Hallé died and Brodsky took over as principal of the College, a position which he held until his death in 1929.
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Scope and content
Adolph Brodsky is delighted to have received the score with Edvard's inscription on the title page and thanks Grieg heartily for this Christmas present. He writes in haste as he must pack and go off in a few hours. They are playing in Frankfurt Museum on 21 December and in Muhlhausen on the 22nd. Then Brodsky goes to his nephew [Leon Picard] in Nancy and back via Paris. Brodsky has had only a cursory look at the score and will give it to Richter but study it on his return. For months Brodsky has heard nothing more from Urbanek [who ran a concert agency in Prague] since they wrote and said they were ready to play without a fee, only travelling expenses. Maybe that is too much but he should write to let them know. Brodsky mentions Brahms and the Herzogenbergs whose correspondence Edvard is reading. Brodsky admits that Leipzig was paradise for him but later it was not so pleaasant and he was happy to have come out of the nest of gossip. The original letter is dated 18 Dec 1906, and it is unclear when this photocopy was made.
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Open
Conditions governing reproduction
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Existence and location of copies
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Place access points
Name access points
- Brodsky, Adolph Davidovich (1851-1929), Violinist, Principal of the Royal Manchester College of Music (Creator)
- Grieg, Edvard Hagerup (1843-1907), Composer, Pianist, Conductor (Subject)
- Picard, Leon (fl.1900s-fl.1940s) (Subject)
- Richter, Hans Johann Baptist Isidor (1843-1916), Conductor (Subject)
- Urbánek, František Augustin (1842-1919), music publisher (Subject)
- Brahms, Johannes (1833-1897), Composer (Subject)
- Peccaduc, Heinrich Picot de (1843-1900), composer, conductor, Baron von Herzogenberg (Subject)
- Herzogenberg, Elisabet von (1847-1892), composer, pianist, singer, philanthropist (Subject)
- Kalbeck, Max (1850-1921), writer, critic, translator (Subject)