Ursula Bagdasarjanz
Encyclopedia
Ursula Bagdasarjanz is a Swiss violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist
Early life
Ursula Bagdasarjanz was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, to a mother who was herself a violinist. The seeds of Ursula's musical talent were sown in the cradle, or, as she herself believes, were bestowed as a gift to accompany her through life. Her father, Samuel Bagdasarjanz, who was of Armenian and Swiss extraction, was born in Romania, whence his family emigrated to Switzerland. Through her mother, Margrit Weiss, born in Switzerland, of Austrian and Swiss descent, Ursula learnt at an early age to express herself on her instrument. In 1944, at the age of ten, Ursula Bagdasarjanz gave her first concert (Beethoven Romance in F major). Her teachers were Aida Stucki in Winterthur, Switzerland (1944–1953), Marcel Reynal at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, France (1953–1956), where she was awarded the "Premier Prix de Violon" in 1956, and Sándor VéghSándor Végh
Sándor Végh was a Hungarian, later French, violinist and conductor. He was best known as one of the great chamber music violinists of the twentieth century.- Education :...
in Basel, Switzerland (1957 and 1958). She took masterclasses with Joseph Calvet in Paris and Max Rostal
Max Rostal
Max Rostal was a violinist and a viola player. He was Austrian-born, but later took British citizenship.-Biography:Max Rostal was born in Cieszyn and studied with Carl Flesch. He won the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1925...
in Bern. At the time Ursula Bagdasarjanz was taking violin lessons from Aida Stucki, the latter was herself a student of Carl Flesch
Carl Flesch
Carl Flesch was a violinist and teacher.Carl Flesch was born in Moson in Hungary in 1873. He began playing the violin at seven years of age. At 10, he was taken to Vienna, and began to study with Jakob Grün. At 17, he left for Paris, and joined the Paris Conservatoire...
, one of the most famous violin educators ever. This was a stroke of luck: as a child, Ursula Bagdasarjanz had already had the chance of familiarising herself with a unique method of work for violinists, the Carl Flesch scale system.
In 2000, another Aida Stucki student, the virtuoso violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a German violinist.- Early life :Mutter was born in Rheinfelden, Germany. She began playing the piano at age five, and shortly afterwards took up the violin, studying with Erna Honigberger, a pupil of Carl Flesch...
, wrote the introduction to Eric Rosenblith's new edition (published in English) to Carl Flesch's book on "The Art of Violin Playing".
Another violinist having done extensive work on the Carl Flesch's works was Max Rostal. He published a new, revised and broader edition of the scale system in 1987 and passed his in-depth knowledge of the standard works of Carl Flesch on to students attending his masterclasses.
As both soloist and a chamber musician, Ursula Bagdasarjanz pursued an active concert career. She did much for the composer Othmar Schoeck
Othmar Schoeck
Othmar Schoeck was a Swiss composer and conductor.He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas and instrumental compositions including two string quartets and...
. She performed a full range of his violin works, including recordings of all his violin sonatas, accompanied by Gisela Schoeck, the composer's daughter.
Concert performance 1956-1982 overview
Before beginning her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris, Ursula Bagdasarjanz was awarded 1st prize at the Concours Bellan in Paris, France. While still studying, she made her first radio recording with Radio Paris-Inter. Many were to follow with the same station. After having completed her studies with the "Premier Prix de Violon", she returned to Switzerland. Her substantial concert career led her, in addition to solo performances in Switzerland, to a long concert tour in Spain, Germany and Finland, where she became the Turku City Orchestra soloist. In Switzerland, she repeatedly performed as soloist with great orchestras and famous conductors, such as the Tonhalle Orchestra ZurichTonhalle Orchester Zurich
Tonhalle Orchester Zürich is a symphony orchestra founded in 1868 in Zürich Switzerland, where it established its residence in the neue Tonhalle in 1895....
and the city orchestras of Winterthur (in Winterthur, Glarus and Uster), St. Gallen, Aarau and Olten as well as the "Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana". Ursula Bagdasarjanz gave violin concerts and recitals at many music centres abroad: in Switzerland and, among others, in Barcelona, Berlin, Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Zurich, Winterthur, Geneva, Schaffhausen, Basel, Bern, Rorschach, Rapperswil, Herisau, and Stans. Her recordings in the radio studios of Zurich, Lugano, Paris and Berlin contributed significantly to making her more renowned as a Swiss soloist.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz performed as soloist and narrator in a ZDF TV documentary, which introduced the public to a Swiss industrialist's pre-eminent collection of Stradivarius instruments. She was also part of the "Tonhalle Wettbewerb Zurich" jury (competition by Tonhalle Zurich).
In July 2001, 2002 and in 2004, Ursula Bagdasarjanz was invited to Romania to give violin master classes in Târgu-Mureş
Târgu-Mures
Târgu Mureș is the seat of Mureș County in the north-central part of Romania. As of January 1, 2009 the city had a population of 145,151 inhabitants, making it the 16th most-populated city in Romania.-Names and etymology:...
. She was also member of the jury of the Constantin Silvestri music competition. Ursula Bagdasarjanz gave an interview to radio Bucureşti. Her CDs are highly appreciated.
Her long co-operation with the pianist Gisela Schoeck, the daughter of the composer Othmar Schoeck, should be particularly noted. In addition, in June 1995, Ursula Bagdasarjanz was heard with Dr. Knaus on "Musik à la Carte", the Swiss Radio DRS broadcast, accompanied by music pieces from her CDs.
Publications
- Book / Heft 1: "STORIES FROM THE VIOLIN / DIE GEIGE ERZÄHLT", Edition Kunzelmann (GM 1777a)
- Book / Heft 2: "THE OTHER WAY / DER ANDERE WEG", Edition Kunzelmann (GM 1777b)
- Book / Heft 3: "Sept poésies pour Violon et Piano", Edition Kunzelmann (GM 1833)
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 1
- Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
: Sonata in A Minor for violin solo. - Pietro NardiniPietro NardiniPietro Nardini was an Italian composer and violinist.-Life:He was born in Fibiana and studied music at Livorno, later becoming a pupil of Giuseppe Tartini. Having been a student of Giuseppe Tartini, he moved to Germany where he joined the court chapel in Stuttgart where he became conductor in 1762...
: Sonata in D Major for violin and piano. - Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
: Sonata in B-flat Major for violin and piano, K. 378. - Béla BartókBéla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
: First Rhapsody for violin and piano.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz (violin), Luciano Sgrizzi & Fernande Kaeser (piano).
Remastering 2008. Disques VDE-GALLO (GALLO CD 1248)
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 2
- Othmar SchoeckOthmar SchoeckOthmar Schoeck was a Swiss composer and conductor.He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas and instrumental compositions including two string quartets and...
: Sonata with variations, w/o op.22. - Othmar SchoeckOthmar SchoeckOthmar Schoeck was a Swiss composer and conductor.He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas and instrumental compositions including two string quartets and...
: Sonata in D Major for violin and piano, op.16. - Othmar SchoeckOthmar SchoeckOthmar Schoeck was a Swiss composer and conductor.He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas and instrumental compositions including two string quartets and...
: Sonata in E for violin and piano, op.46.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz (violin), Gisela Schoeck (piano).
Remastering 2008. Disques VDE-GALLO (GALLO CD 1249)
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 3
- Othmar SchoeckOthmar SchoeckOthmar Schoeck was a Swiss composer and conductor.He was known mainly for his considerable output of art songs and song cycles, though he also wrote a number of operas and instrumental compositions including two string quartets and...
: Violin concerto in B-flat Major, op. 21 (quasi una fantasia). - Alexander Glasunow: Violin concerto in A Minor, op. 82.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz (violin), Radiorchestra Lugano. Directors: Francesco d'Avalos and Leopoldo Casella.
Remastering 2008. Disques VDE-GALLO (GALLO CD 1250)
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 4 "Sept poésies pour Violon et Piano"
- Ursula Bagdasarjanz: Berceuse, Dracula, Gipsy-Romance, Caprice, Joie de vivre, Rêverie, Introduction et petite Valse des Alpes.
- Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
: 1756-1791, Sonata in B-flat Major for violin and piano, K. 378 1. Allegro. - Georg Friedrich Händel: 1685-1759, Sonata in F Major for violin and piano.
- Pietro NardiniPietro NardiniPietro Nardini was an Italian composer and violinist.-Life:He was born in Fibiana and studied music at Livorno, later becoming a pupil of Giuseppe Tartini. Having been a student of Giuseppe Tartini, he moved to Germany where he joined the court chapel in Stuttgart where he became conductor in 1762...
: Sonata in D Major for violin and piano. 1. Adagio. - Niccoló Paganini: 1782-1840, Sonata n°12 Op.3 for violin and piano.
Melanie Di Cristino (violin), Raluca Stirbat (piano), Ursula Bagdasarjanz (violin). Extraits de ses CDs.
Remastering 2008. Disques VDE-GALLO (GALLO CD 1251)
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 5
- Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
: 1756-1791, Sonata in G Major KV 301 for violin and piano. - Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
: 1770-1827, Sonata in A Major op.47 (Kreutzer Sonata) for violin and piano. - Johannes BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
: 1833-1897, Sonata in D-flat Minor op.108 for violin and piano.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz (Violin), Luciano Sgrizzi & Bruno F. Saladin (Piano).
Remastering 2011. Disques VDE-GALLO (GALLO CD 1352)
CD Reviews
The Strad, August 2009, by Julian Haylock.Recordings by the legendary violinist Ursula Bagdasarjanz (b. 1934) are much prized by contemporary collectors, most especially her 1961 cycle of Othmar Schoeck's complete music for violin and piano with the composer's gifted daughter Gisela (Gallo CD-1249). The second volume in a reissue of these classic radio tapes features the op.22 variations an the op.16 and 46 sonatas in performances so authoritative and responsive to the music's remote idiom (think Hindemith with added warmth and charm) that it is impossible to imagine them ever being superseded. The mono recordings have been transferred most expertly, with plenty of body to the sound and a smooth treble response.
Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare is a magazine devoted to reviewing classical music performance and recordings.Fanfare's contributors have a range of expertise from the medieval to contemporary work...
, 6 August 2010, by Adrian Corleonis.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz: Schoeck Violin Sonatas on Gallo
Classical Reviews – Composers & Works
Chez Bagdasarjanz and Gisela Schoeck, the first sonata's lyricism and crackling high spirits awaken to sheer vivacity; the second's rumination's and eeriness acquire a mordant and suddenly compelling conviction, lifting both works into a dimension only half-heartedly hinted at in other readings. The early 1905 sonata without opus number takes on a heretofore unexpected charm. Rescued from Swiss radio tapes made in 1961, Gallo's sound is close, well balanced, and detailed. A companion issue featuring Bagdasarjanz performing Schoeck's Violin Concerto with the Lugano Radio Symphony (Gallo CD-1250) exhibits a similar nuance-rife fluency, while one hopes that more tapes of Gisela Schoeck will surface - her brilliance and swagger through the sonatas make one avid to hear her again in any repertoire. Enthusiastically recommended. – Adrian Corleonis
Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare Magazine
Fanfare is a magazine devoted to reviewing classical music performance and recordings.Fanfare's contributors have a range of expertise from the medieval to contemporary work...
, 6 October 2010, by Adrian Corleonis.
Departments - Want List
Accompanying the volatile, inspired violinistics of Ursula Bagdasarjanz, Gisela Schoeck animates her father’s violin sonatas with an expressive flair beside which even the most sympathetic performances of all other would-be interpreters seem stodgy, academic. These artifacts raise the question once again, If one has heard a work only in competently clueless, professionally respectable performances, has one really heard it?
The WholeNote, November 2010, by Terry Robbins.
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 1: Bach; Nardini; Mozart; Bartok Ursula Bagdasarjanz; Luciano Sgrizzi; Fernande Kaeser (Gallo CD-1248)
Ursula Bagdasarjanz Vol. 2 - Othmar Schoeck Ursula Bagdasarjanz; Gisela Schoeck (Gallo CD-1249)
Current Reviews - Early, Classical and Beyond
Volume One features works by Bach, Nardini, Mozart and Bartok, recorded between 1960 and 1969, and demonstrates not only Bagdasarjanz’s performance range but also the consistent elements in her playing: a big, warm tone; faultless intonation; a fairly heavy (but not wide) vibrato which is always used intelligently and sensitively; and a sophisticated sense of phrasing. The Bach A minor solo sonata is technically flawless, with a great sense of line and some remarkably tight triple-stopping in the Fuga. The big tone is evident in the Nardini D major sonata, the Mozart Bb major sonata K378, and Bartok’s First Rhapsody. The piano sound is slightly fuzzy in the Nardini, but otherwise the transfers are excellent.
"By far the most significant of the two CDs, however, is Volume Two, which features the complete works for violin and piano by the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck. Recorded for Swiss Radio in 1961, only 4 years after the composer’s death, the three sonatas feature Schoeck’s daughter Gisela as the accompanist in performances that The Strad magazine rightly called “so authoritative… that it is impossible to imagine them ever being superseded.” All three sonatas – Op.16, Op.22 and Op.46 - are not part of the standard repertoire and are rarely performed these days, which is a real shame; the first two in particular, dating from the early 1900s, are strongly personal works reminiscent of Brahms and Franck. Again, the re-mastered sound is excellent."
"If you know Bagdasarjanz’s playing – and recordings of her have always been pretty scarce – then you won’t need to be told to get these CDs; if you don’t know her playing, get them anyway – you won’t be disappointed!"
American Record Guide
American Record Guide
The American Record Guide is a classical music magazine. It has reviewed classical music recordings since 1935.Since 1992, with the incorporation of the Musical America editorial functions into ARG, it started covering concerts, musicians, ensembles and orchestras in the US.The magazine prides...
, 1/2011, by MAGIL
SCHOECK Violin Sonatas
Ursula Badgasarjanz (violin), Gisela Schoeck (piano)
Gallo 1249, 50 minutes
Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) was one of Switzerland’s leading composers in the first half of the 20th Century. These works for violin show the influence of Brahms and a good deal of technical proficiency. While Schoeck lacked the trailblazing imagination of the very greatest composers, his themes are lovely, his harmonic knowledge has an impressive range, and his material is expertly worked out. These are satisfying works, and as I listen to them I never feel that they are lacking. Of the three works presented here, the First and Second Violin Sonatas are the best. The Second is more harmonically fluid, but the First has stronger themes and is more affecting. The Variations, without opus number, don’t hold my interest as well. They are from 1905, the earliest of the three works, so that comes as no surprise. Swiss violinist Ursula Bagdasarjanz recorded these pieces for Swiss radio in 1961. The composer’s daughter Gisela plays the piano and does a very fine job. The sound is a bit dry, and I wish the piano were a bit more forward, but these are very good readings.