DeLay, Gingold & Galamian: Three Legendary Violin Teachers

Even Itzahk Perlman had a teacher, without whom he would not be the performer he is today. It takes sacrifice to leave the stage and cultivate those who will one day take it themselves.

The saying, “Those who can’t, teach,” has never been true. Without teachers, civilized societies would have nothing. Teaching itself requires intense rigor and an ability to master the pedagogy of leading a student to discovery – all the while having the talent and patience required to get there.

Some of the greatest violin teachers might have suffered the slings and arrows of that unfortunate and unfounded phrasing. But they didn’t allow it to deter them. And the results are many more times violin virtuosos than there are great teachers. It’s an inverted pyramid, where great music is created on the foundation of a select few who dedicated themselves to fostering greatness in others.

As with Perlman and other renowned violinists, it takes more than talent to build a career as a soloist. It takes more than an arsenal of fine Italian violins to play on. Only those who have mastered an instrument can teach an instrument.

Three violin teachers are standouts in American music education in the 20th century. They are Dorothy DeLay, Ivan Galamian, and Josef Gingold. Among their many students are Itzhak Perlman, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Anne Akiko Meyers, Vida Reynolds, Paul Makanowitzky, Joshua Bell, Arnold Steinhardt, Endre Granat, Leonidas Kavakos, and Gwen Thompson. Some biographies:

DeLay (1917-2002) – who trained at Oberlin Conservatory, Michigan State university, and the Juilliard Graduate School, in addition to receiving honorary degrees from several universities, Yale among them – determined in her 20s that she was less interested in performing than teaching. She returned to Juilliard to study under Ivan Galamian (see below), after which she taught there and, for 40 years, at Sarah Lawrence College, in addition to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, and several music festivals. Said Itzahk Perlman, her student: “I would come and play for her, and if something was not quite right, it wasn’t like she was going to kill me…we would have a very friendly, interesting discussion about ‘Why do you think it should sound like this?’”

Galamian (1903-1981) was born to an Armenian family living in Iran, and when he was a baby they emigrated to Russia; this was at a time when Armenians were being persecuted in massive numbers in their homeland. Russia (Moscow) was fortuitous for the wandering family in Galamian’s education with the School of the Philharmonic Society (although he was jailed when he was 15 during the Bolshevik revolution; the Bolshoi Theater opera manager argued successfully for his release). In addition to teaching violin at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia before becoming the head of the violin department at Juilliard, he authored two seminal violin method books (Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching, and Contemporary Violin Technique, both first published in 1962). An enduring legacy is the Meadowmount School of Music summer program in Westport, New York, which he founded. Dorothy DeLay was one of his several teaching assistants.

Gingold (1909-1995) had a notable career as a concertmaster and soloist (Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra) before embarking on a 30-year career teaching at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Millions of Americans got to meet Gingold when one of his students, Patricia Shih, performed for his 75th birthday celebration on the “Charles Kuralt Show,” a national television broadcast.

But Gingold didn’t only teach. His recording of Fritz Kreisler’s work earned him a Grammy Award nomination. This is in addition to several teaching awards from various orchestras and universities.

The best teachers are those who know what they’re teaching – and multiply their talent through generations of students.

Due Diligence and Purchasing a Fine Stringed Instrument

The provenance of a great violin, viola or cello plays heavily into its value. But how that is proven is difficult – and no job for an amateur.

The challenges and sometimes great triumphs of tracking the provenance and value of art and antiques has been the subject of extensive media coverage and even movies. The 2015 biographical drama, “Woman in Gold,” tracks the story of an elderly Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor as she and a young attorney reclaim a Gustav Klimt painting of her aunt (Adele Bloch-Bauer), stolen by the Nazis in World War II.

But for anyone purchasing a fine stringed instrument, perhaps one that was improperly documented if not entirely misappropriated by malevolent forces, the due diligence process is severely impaired.

Many fine violins, cellos, violas, basses, pianos, and other instruments in Europe were looted by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and never recovered. For more on that read below. But even instruments not subject to war and cataclysm can be difficult to document. We’re not talking about average instruments here. We are talking about the highest quality, fine stringed instruments for sale; fine violins, violas and cellos crafted by fine violin makers and certified by reputable and renowned experts that an instrument is what it is being sold as.

Why due diligence matters – and is challenging

At the outset, it needs to be established that the process of identifying the history and value of a fine stringed instrument needs to be undertaken by a professional appraiser. Sometimes an experienced violinist can help figure some of this out, but even then, an objective and trained researcher is still a good check on what is found.

There are several physical clues on when and how a violin was made: the woodgrain, varnish, and the shape, style, and size of the violin. The label, found inside the instrument, can be a defining characteristic, however it can also be fake (many instruments said “Stradivari” meaning ‘in the style of Stradivari,’ a critical and usually damning distinction).

The sound of an instrument might be its greatest strength. But because a violin or cello or any other instrument is also a product of its player, sound is an unreliable marker of the instrument and its history.

Documentation that includes bills of sale, reliable papers showing chain of ownership, and photographs can be very defining. But photography wasn’t invented until the mid-19th century, hundreds of years after the creation of many of the finest of instruments. Meanwhile, written documentation very often was lost in wars, through owner disorganization, and in the settling of estates.

Without documentation, there seems to be a matter of faith in storytelling that sometimes makes up for a lack of evidence. Vintage violins by the Klotz family of luthiers, who crafted fine instruments in the early 1700s in Mittenwald (Bavaria), typically sell in the $15,000 to $25,000 range, according to StringsMagazine.com. But one particular Klotz is believed to have been owned by Mozart as a teenager, and was the instrument through which he composed several concertos, so it has a much higher valuation. The story is hearsay, dependent on what Mozart’s sister said at the time, with no written documentation.

What was lost in World War II

Paintings are unique in their appearance, while violins are much less so. This impairs identifying instruments in the way art can be.

A pernicious aspect of what happened to untold numbers of fine stringed instruments is tied to a program of the Nazis that began in the mid-1930s. They literally had a unit dedicated to looting the homes of Jews who either fled Europe or were abducted and murdered. Called Sonderstab Musik, this team of organized criminals systematically cataloged and inventoried what they took. In France alone, survivors claimed 8,000 pianos that were missing. As reported by National Public Radio, instrument dealers resold instruments from the Nazi storehouses “on a large scale” without checking provenance or providing documentation.

So while it is possible that many important, fine instruments from the 17th and 18th century workshops of Mittenwald, Cremona, Venice, or Paris may indeed still exist, proving where they came from, who owned them and who played them most likely is lost to the ashes of war.