Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps (French: [ɑ̃ʁi fʁɑ̃swa ʒozɛf vjøtɑ̃]; 17 February 1820 – 6 June 1881) was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th century. He is also known for playing what is now known as the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, a violin of superior workmanship.

Vieuxtemps was born in Verviers, Belgium (then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands), son of a weaver and amateur violinist and violin-maker. He received his first violin instruction from his father and a local teacher and gave his first public performance at the age of six, playing a concerto by Pierre Rode. Soon he was giving concerts in various surrounding cities, including Liège, La Haye and Brussels where he met the violinist Charles Auguste de Bériot, with whom he began studies.

In 1829, Bériot took him to Paris where he made a successful concert debut, again with a concerto by Rode, but he had to return the next year because of the July Revolution and Bériot's marriage to his mistress Maria Malibran and departure on concert tour. Back in Brussels, Vieuxtemps continued developing his violin technique on his own, his musicianship deepened by playing with the deeply musical mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, Malibran's sister. A tour of Germany in 1833 brought friendship with Louis Spohr and with Robert Schumann, who compared the boy to Niccolò Paganini. During the following decade he visited various European cities, impressing with his virtuosity not only audiences but also famous musicians such as Hector Berlioz and Paganini himself, whom he encountered at his London debut in 1834.

He had aspirations of becoming a composer as well and, having already taken lessons with the respected Simon Sechter in Vienna, spent the winter of 1835–1836 studying composition with Anton Reicha in Paris. His first violin concerto in E major, Op. 5, dates from this period, followed by further composition lessons with Simon Sechter in the winter of 1836/37, who helped him compose the still unpublished concerto in B minor, Op. 7, followed by the concerto in F-sharp minor, which was later published as his Concerto No. 2, Op. 19.

His Violin Concerto E major, Op. 10 (published as concerto No. 1) was acclaimed when he played it in Saint Petersburg on his second visit in 1840 and in Paris the next year; Berlioz found it "a magnificent symphony for violin and orchestra". Based in Paris, Vieuxtemps continued to compose with great success and perform throughout Europe. With the pianist Sigismond Thalberg, he performed in the United States.

In early 1846 he visited the English city of Leeds where he met and offered to tutor George Haddock whilst he performed in London. Haddock and Vieuxtemps became friends and he would stay with Haddock when visiting and performing in Leeds.

He was particularly admired in Russia where he resided permanently between 1846 and 1851 as a court musician of Tsar Nicholas I and soloist in the Imperial Theatre. He founded the violin school of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and guided the formation of a "Russian school" of violinists. In 1871, he returned to his native country to accept a professorship at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where his most illustrious pupil was Eugène Ysaÿe.

A paralytic stroke disabled his right arm two years later and he moved to Paris again, his violin class being taken over by Henryk Wieniawski. Although he seemed to be gradually recovering from his stroke, another one in 1879 ended his career as a violinist for good. He spent his last years in a sanatorium in Mustapha Supérieur, Algeria, where his daughter and her husband had settled, and continued to compose, though frustrated by his inability to play or, far from the musical centres of Europe, even hear his music played by others.