Identity area
Reference code
GB GB1179 AB-AB/917
Title
Photocopy of an autograph letter signed from Adolph Brodsky to Edward Elgar
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
Brodsky submits a programme for a concert [to be given to the Worcester Philharmonic Society] for Elgar's approval: Volkmann's Quartet in G minor; the first movement of Mozart's Concerto for Violin and Viola [to be played by Brodsky and Speelman]; Andante Cantabile from Tchaikovsky's first Quartet; Lezione Quinta by Attilio Ariosti [Mr. Fuchs] and Beethoven op.135. Brodsky hopes that Elgar will undertake the accompaniment in the Mozart concerto in which Hellmesberger's cadenza in the first movement is a beauty. If the quartet has already played op.135 in Worcester, they will play op.130 instead. The original is dated 15 Feb 1903, and it is unclear when this photocopy was made.
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Open
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Name access points
- Brodsky, Adolph Davidovich (1851-1929), Violinist, Principal of the Royal Manchester College of Music (Creator)
- Elgar, Edward William (1857-1934), Knight, 1st Baronet, composer (Subject)
- Worcester Philharmonic Society (19th-20th century) (Subject)
- Volkmann, Robert (1815-1883), Composer (Subject)
- Mozart, Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791), Composer (Subject)
- Brodsky, Adolph Davidovich (1851-1929), Violinist, Principal of the Royal Manchester College of Music (Subject)
- Speelman, Simon (1852-1920), Violist (Subject)
- Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il'yich (1840-1893), Composer (Subject)
- Ariosti, Attilio Malachia (1666-1729), composer, (Subject)
- Fuchs, Carl (1865-1951), cellist (Subject)
- Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827), Composer (Subject)
- Hellmesberger Jr., Josef (1855-1907), composer, violinist, conductor (Subject)