HENRYK SZERYNG

HENRYK SZERYNG was born on September 22, 1918 in the Warsaw suburb of Zelazowa Wola, the birthplace of Chopin, into a wealthy family, his father being a highly successful industrialist. His musical studies began with piano lessons from his mother, but at the age of seven he became interested in the violin through his elder brother’s playing.

Szeryng’s first teacher was Maurice Frenkel, who was an assistant to Leopold Auer in St.Petersburg prior to World War I. Although Frenkel was perhaps the most influential teacher of young Henryk, the wonderfully disciplined training in matters both musical and technical came from the renowned pedagogue Carl Flesch (1873 - 1944), whose expertise virtually created and nurtured Szeryng’s immense talent between the years 1928 and 1932.

Flesch was the major musical force that influenced the boy’s life through his remarkable teaching approach. It should be mentioned that it was the famed Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman who, after hearing the 10 year-old Szeryng play the Mendelssohn concerto, convinced his parents to approach Flesch.

Later through the elegant and profound Jacques Thibaud and the coaching and guidance of Gabriel Bouillon, Henryk Szeryng was associated firmly with the French school of violin playing. His studies with them led to young Szeryng’s graduation from the Paris Conservatory with the coveted First Prize in 1937.

The legendary Nadia Boulanger, his guide in counterpoint and composition, introduced him to such personalities as Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alfred Cortot, Manuel Ponce, Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel. It was back in 1933 that Szeryng made his European debut playing the Brahms concerto which, as it turned out, was so highly successful that an extensive concert tour followed immediately in spite of his ongoing studies.

At the outbreak of World War II Szeryng was appointed liaison officer and interpreter (he spoke and wrote in eight languages) by General Sikorski for the Polish government then in exile. He served in that capacity until 1945, having given well over 300 concerts for allied troops in Europe, Africa and the Americas from 1939. In 1941 he accompanied the exiled Polish Premier to Latin America in search of a home for about 4.000 Polish refugees displaced by the war. It was Mexico that finally accepted these desolate and homeless people. Henryk Szeryng was so moved by this humanitarian gesture that he returned to Mexico in 1945 when he was offered the post of director of the string department at the National University of Mexico in order te reorganize the Mexican violin school. Only one year later he was granted Mexican citizenship for his high musical and cultural merits.

Besides this important task, Szeryng regularly gave concerts all over Latin America until the day in 1952 when he met in Mexico his fellow Pole, Arthur Rubinstein, who encouraged him to extend his musical activities over all five continents. The two men enjoyed the deepest friendship that was built upon mutual admiration and respect for each other as human beings and musicians. Rubinstein, who died in 1982, thought of his friend as an artist of the highest order and remarked: “Real music lovers want emotion - great moments - which Szeryng’s playing gives them.”

Apart from sterling musicianship, Szeryng was a tonalist and a colorist, whose broad musical lines and innate interpretative qualities always reached for the highest peak in the art of violin playing, while his technical command was awesome. This gift was lavished upon an absolutely huge repertoire that delighted his audience around the world. What he asked of himself was exacting, but the result of what he achieved was about as close to perfection as one is likely to encounter.

Szeryng was one of the most recorded violinist in the history of phonograph with a recording career that spanned more than forty years. It was Szeryng , who rediscovered and was the first to record Paganini’s third violin concerto. Chávez’ “Mexican” concerto, the “Cuban” concerto by Csonka, violin concertos by Manuel Ponce, Benjamin Lees, Camargo Guarnieri, and Jean Martinon, the “Poema Concertante” by Xavier Montsalvatge and compositions by Julian Carrillo, Román Haubenstock-Ramati, Peter Racine Fricker and José Sabre Marroquín are among the works written for him. They were part of his vast program repertoire ranging from the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for violin alone to the great classical concertos. No violinist drawed upon a larger number of substantial compositions than Henryk Szeryng!

Apart from the various posts he had held over the years, Szeryng had been appointed Special Music Advisor to the Mexican Permanent Delegation at UNESCO in 1970 being the first artist ever to travel on a diplomatic passport.

Many honors have been bestowed upon Henryk Szeryng, such as the Grand Prix du Disque six times, the Grammy Award, the Edison, the Golden Record, the Wiener Flötenuhr and the Golden Medal of the Cities of Paris and Jerusalem. Add to these decorations such as the Polonia Restituta Order, the “Commendattore alla Reppublica” of Italy, the Officer of the Crown of Belgium, the Commander of “Alfonso X El Sabio” of Spain, the Officer’s Cross of the Legion of Honor of France, the Gran Premio Nacional of Mexico, the Commander’s Cross of the Order of St.Charles of Monaco and you begin to realize the extent of esteem in which the world held this very special man.

The violins that have passed through the hands of Henryk Szeryng are a story in themselves. There was the “Hercules” Stradivarius of 1734 which at one time belonged to Eugene Ysaye. Szeryng put this famous intrument into the hands of Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem on December 24, 1972 as a special token of friendship towards the Golden City to be used by the first concertmasters of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

He presented the Prince Sovereign Rainier III of Monaco with his famous Vuillaume, the Messiah Strad copy and he gave to the City of Mexico the “Sancta Theresia” instrument by Andrea Guarneri of 1683. Szeryng gave away literally all of his violin collection to cities, to violin competitions as first prizes and to students, such as Shlomo Mintz, who had studied with him in Geneva.

On March 3, 1988, Henryk Szeryng, a great musician, diplomat, pedagogue and philanthropist, died suddenly in the middle of a tour in Germany after a performance of the Brahms concerto in the city of Kassel.