In his book Great Masters of the Violin, musicologist Boris Schwarz remembered the powerful musicianship and magnetic stage presence of French violinist Ginette Neveu (1919-1949):
No one who saw or heard her could forget that impression—the serious concentration, the complete immersion in her task, the burning yet controlled intensity. To speak of technique is pointless because it never served for display—it was always subordinate to a musical goal.
At the age of 15, Neveu was awarded first prize at the 1935 Wieniawski Competition, beating the 27 year old David Oistrakh and a 7 year old Ida Haendel. She had risen to international prominence when her life was cut short at age 30. Ginette and her brother Jean-Paul Neveu, an acclaimed pianist, were on their way to the United States for a concert tour when their Air France flight crashed into a mountain in the Azores on October 28, 1949.
In this 1938 recording, Ginette Neveu plays Fritz Kreisler’s 1913 arrangement of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Melody (“Dance of the Blessed Spirits”). It is an excerpt from the second act of Gluck’s 1762 opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, Wq. 30. Neveu is accompanied by pianist Bruno Seidler-Winkler.
Recordings
- Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice, Wq. 30, Act II: Melody (Dance of the Blessed Spirits) [Arr. Kreisler for Violin and Piano], Ginette Neveu, Bruno Seidler-Winkler Warner Classics
Featured Image: Violinist Ginette Neveu, Sydney, July 1948, by Max Dupain Photographs taken for Australian Broadcast Commission, vintage film negative, State Library of NSW