Guila Bustabo
Encyclopedia
Giulia Bustabo was a prominent American concert and recital violinist. Born in Manitowoc
, Wisconsin
, February 25, 1916 (neé Teressina Bustabo), she had a remarkable career, the latter part mostly in Europe due to her domineering mother’s poor political judgment, and was considered to be eccentric, but a superbly skilled and gifted artist. Her performances were characterized by intensity and extraordinary facility. She died in Birmingham
, Alabama
, April 27, 2002.
Bustabo began playing the violin at age two. At age three, she played privately for Frederick Stock
, the esteemed conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
. At age three, her family moved to Chicago
so that she could study with Ray Huntington at the Chicago Musical College
. Before she was five, she was studying in Chicago with Leon Samétini, a former pupil of the great 19th-early 20th century virtuoso and composer, Eugène Ysaÿe
. By age nine, she performed with the Chicago Symphony and as a young prodigy she also performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra
and the National Orchestral Association. Still a prodigy, she then studied at the Juilliard School of Music under the great pedagogue, Louis Persinger
. Her later comment about Yehudi Menuhin
was not idle name-dropping. He was one of her Juilliard classmates.
She made her Carnegie Hall
concert debut at age at age fifteen, playing the Wieniawski Concerto for Violin No. 2. A year later, she made her Carnegie Hall recital debut with Louis Persinger at the piano and Arturo Toscanini
in the audience. At age eighteen, she toured England, continental Europe and Asia. That same year, she acquired a Guarneri del Gesu violin. Her acquisition of this rare instrument is variously attributed to help from a group of professional musicians including Toscanini, to Fritz Kreisler
and to the British aristocrat Lady Ravensdale. It is possible that all were involved. In 1938 and 1939, she returned to New York, giving “poised and expressive” performances with the New York Philharmonic
.
, Albert Coates
, Hermann Abendroth
, Wilhelm Furtwängler
, Oswald Kabasta
, Herbert von Karajan
and Willem Mengelberg
. Blanche Bustabo decided that Guila would remain in Europe and perform in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries during World War II.
Her performances under Mengelberg during that period helped get her in trouble at the end of the war. The Dutch maestro had performed in Germany with his Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra from the onset of the war through 1942 and thereafter continued performances in other occupied lands, resulting at the end of the war in a Dutch ban on his future performance in Holland. This, in turn, resulted in Bustabo’s arrest in Paris
, when U.S. Army General George S. Patton
discovered that Bustabo had played as soloist under Mengelberg during some of the performances in question, as well as other concerts in occupied territory. These charges, part of the denazification
program, were later dropped. However, because of this situation a career in the US was essentially closed to her. She continued to perform in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s.
reportedly said of her performance of his own violin concerto at his estate in 1937 that she played it just as he "envisioned it when I composed it". Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
composed a concerto for her. He then became her recital partner on tours of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Spain. The less prominent composer, Otmar Nussio, also composed a concerto for her. These three concerti are among her recorded performances once (and all but the Sibelius still) available on CD. Bustabo's recorded live performance of the Max Bruch
Violin Concerto No. 1 with Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra is considered one of the finest recordings of that work ever made. At one point in her career, Bustabo was a Columbia Records
artist. Columbia issued several Bustabo studio recordings of short violin recital pieces.
Conservatory, appearing occasionally in concert. Bipolar disorder forced her to retire from this position in 1970. She returned to the U.S., accompanied by mother and husband, where she played for five years in the violin section of (and as occasional soloist with) the Alabama Symphony Orchestra
. Her 1949 marriage to Edison Stieg, an American military musician, ended in divorce in 1976. Bustabo outlived her mother by ten years.
Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1 in g minor, recorded live in concert, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg, conductor, October 27, 1940. Originally recorded on 78 rpm glass-based lacquer discs. Issued on Rococo LP 2029. Re-issued on Music and Arts CD- 780, “Willem Mengelberg Public Performances, 1938-1944.”
Chausson, Poeme, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, "Gerd Rubahn", conductor. Released 1952 on LP Royale 1339. The violinist, if it is Bustabo, is listed under the pseudonym Karl Brandt. The origin of this recording is in doubt. The violinist is probably but not certainly Bustabo. "Gerd Rubahn" is a pseudonym used by Royale and related labels to disguise the sources of unauthorized publications.
Dvorak, Violin Concerto in a minor, NWDR Sinfonieorchester, Hamburg, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt conductor, recorded live in concert March 24, 1955, issued on Tahra CD TAH 640.
Paganini, Violin Concerto in D Major (ed./arr. August Wilhelmj), Berlin Stadtischen Orchestra, Fritz Zaun conductor, issued on LP Rococo 2031.
Paganini, Violin Concerto in D Major (ed./arr. August Wilhelmj) issued in 1952 on LP Royale 1339, the orchestra being misidentified as the "Berlin Symphony Orchestra" with "Gerd Rubahn", conductor. Bustabo is listed under the pseudonym "Karl Brandt". Pseudonymmous issue of the April 1943 RRG (Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft) recording of Bustabo with the Orchester des Reichssenders München under Bertil Wetzelsberger.
Sibelius, Violin Concerto, with the Berlin Stadtischen Orchestra, Fritz Zaun conductor. Reissued on LP Rococo 2031 with additional materials.
Wolf-Ferrari, Violin Concerto, Munich Philharmonic, Rudolf Kempe conductor, live broadcast, Munich Herkulesaale, November 27, 1971, issued on A Classical Record CD.
Various recital pieces by Sarasate, de Falla, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Kreisler, Rubenstein, Suk, Debussy, Pugnani, and Novacek, with Gerald Moore at the piano, which, together with the concerti by Sibelius, Paganini,Wolf-Ferrari and Nussio, were once available on the now-discontinued CD set “The Bustabo Legacy” on the A Classical Record label, ACR 37, issued 1993.
Various recital pieces by Novacek, Mendelssohn, Kreisler, Sarasate and Paganini with Gerald Moore and Heinz Schröter at the piano, available on the CD Symposium 1301. Includes the first movement of the Paganini violin concerto No. 1, listed above, Fritz Zaun conducting.
Various of the shorter works listed above were originally issued on Columbia label 78 rpm shellacs.
Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Manitowoc is a city in and the county seat of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, United States. The city is located on Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Manitowoc River. According to the 2000 census, Manitowoc had a population of 34,053, with over 50,000 residents in the surrounding communities...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, February 25, 1916 (neé Teressina Bustabo), she had a remarkable career, the latter part mostly in Europe due to her domineering mother’s poor political judgment, and was considered to be eccentric, but a superbly skilled and gifted artist. Her performances were characterized by intensity and extraordinary facility. She died in Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, April 27, 2002.
Child prodigy
Bustabo’s career was tightly controlled by her iron-fisted mother, Blanche, even to the end of Blanche’s days. Bustabo once said, "Menuhin got away from his parents. He was lucky. I never got away from mine."Bustabo began playing the violin at age two. At age three, she played privately for Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock
Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:...
, the esteemed conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
. At age three, her family moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
so that she could study with Ray Huntington at the Chicago Musical College
Chicago Musical College
Chicago Musical College is a division of Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt UniversityIt was founded in 1867, less than four decades after the city of Chicago was incorporated...
. Before she was five, she was studying in Chicago with Leon Samétini, a former pupil of the great 19th-early 20th century virtuoso and composer, Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
. By age nine, she performed with the Chicago Symphony and as a young prodigy she also performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
and the National Orchestral Association. Still a prodigy, she then studied at the Juilliard School of Music under the great pedagogue, Louis Persinger
Louis Persinger
Louis Persinger was an American violinist and pianist.Louis Persinger trained at the Leipzig Conservatory, before finishing with Eugène Ysaÿe in Brussels. He became leader of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra and the Royal Opera Orchestra in Brussels. In 1915 he was appointed leader and assistant...
. Her later comment about Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
was not idle name-dropping. He was one of her Juilliard classmates.
She made her Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
concert debut at age at age fifteen, playing the Wieniawski Concerto for Violin No. 2. A year later, she made her Carnegie Hall recital debut with Louis Persinger at the piano and Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
in the audience. At age eighteen, she toured England, continental Europe and Asia. That same year, she acquired a Guarneri del Gesu violin. Her acquisition of this rare instrument is variously attributed to help from a group of professional musicians including Toscanini, to Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
and to the British aristocrat Lady Ravensdale. It is possible that all were involved. In 1938 and 1939, she returned to New York, giving “poised and expressive” performances with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
.
A cloud over her career
Bustabo toured Europe and Asia. She performed under top-rank conductors, including Sir Thomas Beecham, Issay DobrowenIssay Dobrowen
Issay Alexandrovich Dobrowen was a Russian-Norwegian pianist, composer and conductor.He was born Itschok Zorachovitch Barabeitchik in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire of Jewish parents. He left the Soviet Union in 1922, and became a Norwegian citizen in 1929.He once played Beethoven's Sonata...
, Albert Coates
Albert Coates
Albert Coates may refer to:*Albert Coates , Anglo-Russian conductor and composer*Albert Coates , Australian surgeon and soldier...
, Hermann Abendroth
Hermann Abendroth
Hermann Paul Maximilian Abendroth was a German conductor.-Early life:Abendroth was born on 19 January 1883, at Frankfurt, Germany, belonging to a family which had already produced other artistic figures of divers disciplines...
, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
, Oswald Kabasta
Oswald Kabasta
Oswald Kabasta was an Austrian conductor.Kabasta was born in Mistelbach, Austria and later studied with composer Franz Schmidt. In 1931 he became head of conducting at the Vienna Academy. He also served as musical director of Vienna Radio about this time. In 1938 he became principal conductor...
, Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
and Willem Mengelberg
Willem Mengelberg
Joseph Willem Mengelberg was a Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.- Biography :...
. Blanche Bustabo decided that Guila would remain in Europe and perform in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries during World War II.
Her performances under Mengelberg during that period helped get her in trouble at the end of the war. The Dutch maestro had performed in Germany with his Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra from the onset of the war through 1942 and thereafter continued performances in other occupied lands, resulting at the end of the war in a Dutch ban on his future performance in Holland. This, in turn, resulted in Bustabo’s arrest in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, when U.S. Army General George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
discovered that Bustabo had played as soloist under Mengelberg during some of the performances in question, as well as other concerts in occupied territory. These charges, part of the denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
program, were later dropped. However, because of this situation a career in the US was essentially closed to her. She continued to perform in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s.
Plaudits
Contemporary composers admired Bustabo’s work. Jean SibeliusJean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
reportedly said of her performance of his own violin concerto at his estate in 1937 that she played it just as he "envisioned it when I composed it". Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...
composed a concerto for her. He then became her recital partner on tours of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Spain. The less prominent composer, Otmar Nussio, also composed a concerto for her. These three concerti are among her recorded performances once (and all but the Sibelius still) available on CD. Bustabo's recorded live performance of the Max Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
Violin Concerto No. 1 with Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra is considered one of the finest recordings of that work ever made. At one point in her career, Bustabo was a Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
artist. Columbia issued several Bustabo studio recordings of short violin recital pieces.
Teaching career and a “demotion”
In 1964, Bustabo became professor of violin at the InnsbruckInnsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...
Conservatory, appearing occasionally in concert. Bipolar disorder forced her to retire from this position in 1970. She returned to the U.S., accompanied by mother and husband, where she played for five years in the violin section of (and as occasional soloist with) the Alabama Symphony Orchestra
Alabama Symphony Orchestra
- 1921-1955: Beginnings :The Alabama Symphony Orchestra can trace its beginnings to 1921, when on Friday, April 29, fifty-two volunteer musicians joined to perform at the Birmingham Music Festival at the Old Jefferson Theater...
. Her 1949 marriage to Edison Stieg, an American military musician, ended in divorce in 1976. Bustabo outlived her mother by ten years.
Discography
Beethoven, Violin Concerto in D Major, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg conductor, recorded live in concert May 6, 1943, issued on Tahra CD TAH 640.Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1 in g minor, recorded live in concert, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Willem Mengelberg, conductor, October 27, 1940. Originally recorded on 78 rpm glass-based lacquer discs. Issued on Rococo LP 2029. Re-issued on Music and Arts CD- 780, “Willem Mengelberg Public Performances, 1938-1944.”
Chausson, Poeme, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, "Gerd Rubahn", conductor. Released 1952 on LP Royale 1339. The violinist, if it is Bustabo, is listed under the pseudonym Karl Brandt. The origin of this recording is in doubt. The violinist is probably but not certainly Bustabo. "Gerd Rubahn" is a pseudonym used by Royale and related labels to disguise the sources of unauthorized publications.
Dvorak, Violin Concerto in a minor, NWDR Sinfonieorchester, Hamburg, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt conductor, recorded live in concert March 24, 1955, issued on Tahra CD TAH 640.
Paganini, Violin Concerto in D Major (ed./arr. August Wilhelmj), Berlin Stadtischen Orchestra, Fritz Zaun conductor, issued on LP Rococo 2031.
Paganini, Violin Concerto in D Major (ed./arr. August Wilhelmj) issued in 1952 on LP Royale 1339, the orchestra being misidentified as the "Berlin Symphony Orchestra" with "Gerd Rubahn", conductor. Bustabo is listed under the pseudonym "Karl Brandt". Pseudonymmous issue of the April 1943 RRG (Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft) recording of Bustabo with the Orchester des Reichssenders München under Bertil Wetzelsberger.
Sibelius, Violin Concerto, with the Berlin Stadtischen Orchestra, Fritz Zaun conductor. Reissued on LP Rococo 2031 with additional materials.
Wolf-Ferrari, Violin Concerto, Munich Philharmonic, Rudolf Kempe conductor, live broadcast, Munich Herkulesaale, November 27, 1971, issued on A Classical Record CD.
Various recital pieces by Sarasate, de Falla, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Kreisler, Rubenstein, Suk, Debussy, Pugnani, and Novacek, with Gerald Moore at the piano, which, together with the concerti by Sibelius, Paganini,Wolf-Ferrari and Nussio, were once available on the now-discontinued CD set “The Bustabo Legacy” on the A Classical Record label, ACR 37, issued 1993.
Various recital pieces by Novacek, Mendelssohn, Kreisler, Sarasate and Paganini with Gerald Moore and Heinz Schröter at the piano, available on the CD Symposium 1301. Includes the first movement of the Paganini violin concerto No. 1, listed above, Fritz Zaun conducting.
Various of the shorter works listed above were originally issued on Columbia label 78 rpm shellacs.