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Abstract
Until Louis Persinger replaced Leopold Auer at the Juilliard School in 1930, virtually every great violin pedagogue teaching in America had been born outside the country. European-trained violin teachers were the center pieces of American music conservatories: Leopold Auer was born in Hungary, studied in Germany, and taught in St. Petersburg before coming to America; Persian born Ivan Galamian taught in Moscow and then Paris, moving to New York during World War II. Even Joseph Gingold, whose name is so closely associated with a number of American orchestras and schools, was born and raised in Russia.
Louis Persinger was the first great American violin teacher to bring the important tonal and musical innovations of Eugène Ysaÿe back to the United States. In 1957, after more than three decades as a highly successful pedagogue at the Juilliard School, Persinger set out to formulate his methods in writing in his sixty-four-page book Why the Violin? Persinger's treatise stands as a direct link to the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing: his methods are imbued with the influence of Ysaÿe. The treatise may be the definitive documentation of the arrival of the Franco-Belgian violin school in America.
This document explores Persinger's rise to prominence as Yehudi Menuhin's teacher, the custody battle over Persinger's student Ruggiero Ricci that blazed across New York headlines in 1930 and the subsequent halting of Ricci's Carnegie hall recital by decree of the Mayor, and Persinger's years at the Juilliard School. Special attention is paid to Persinger's treatise on violin playing and teaching, and how he applied these methods in his own teaching and performing. Persinger's musical relationship with Ivan Galamian is also examined, along with a comparison of Galamian's book, Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching, and Persinger's treatise. The paper includes interviews with renowned violinists and teachers Fredell Lack, Almita Vamos, Camilla Wicks and Bonnie Douglas, and material is quoted from personal letters from Persinger to Fredell Lack. Rare documents about Persinger from the Juilliard library archives are also quoted within the document.
Through his teaching, recordings and his treatise, Louis Persinger left us with an important link to the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing. While his treatise is not a technical tour de force, it is a fascinating documentation of Persinger's approach to both teaching and performance. And it is a treatise unique among such documents for the wonderful humor contained within. Louis Persinger was unique, too, for the wit and kindness with which he passed on the Franco-Belgian violin tradition to many of the leading violinists of the twentieth century.
