Gioconda de Vito
Encyclopedia
Gioconda de Vito was an Italian-British classical violin
ist. (The dates 22 June 1907 and 24 October 1994 also appear in some sources.)
near Lecce
in southern Italy
, to a wine-making family. Initially she played the violin untaught, having received only music theory lessons from the local bandmaster. Her uncle, a professional violinist based in Germany, heard her attempting a concerto by Charles de Bériot
when she was aged only eight, and decided to teach her himself. At age 11, she entered the Rossini Conservatory
in Pesaro
to study with Remy Principe. She graduated at age 13, commenced a career as a soloist, and at age 17 became Professor of Violin at the newly founded conservatory in Bari
. In 1932, aged 25, she won the first International Violin Competition in Vienna
. After she played the Bach
Chaconne in D minor, Jan Kubelík
came up to the stage and kissed her hand (she later appeared under the baton of Kubelik’s son Rafael Kubelík
).
She then taught at Palermo
and Rome
, at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia
. She had earlier been presented to Benito Mussolini
, who greatly admired her playing, and he used his influence to get her the Rome post. World War II
interrupted what would otherwise have been the most productive period of her burgeoning career. In 1944 she was given the unique honour of a lifetime professorship at the Academy.
In 1944 she premiered the Violin Concerto of Ildebrando Pizzetti
. She made the first of her relatively few recordings after the war. In 1948 she made her London debut under Victor de Sabata
, playing the Brahms concerto
. This was very successful, and led to performances at the Edinburgh Festival
and with fellow artists such as Yehudi Menuhin
, Isaac Stern
and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
. By 1953, she was considered Europe's No. 1 woman violinist, while remaining virtually unknown in the United States.
She played under Wilhelm Furtwängler
a number of times, and had a great affinity for his approach. In 1957 they also played a Brahms sonata at Castel Gandolfo
for Pope Pius XII
, the choice of Brahms being the Pope's own request. The following year she played the Mendelssohn concerto
for the pontiff. A member of the audience later sent her a letter saying that he was no longer an atheist, because her playing of the slow movement had made him realise there was a God.
During that concert, she realised she had reached the pinnacle of her career, and decided to retire in only another three years. She told the pope of her decision. Pius XII tried for an hour to dissuade her, saying she was far too young to retire so early, but to no avail. But she still had three years. During that time, Gioconda de Vito collaborated with Edwin Fischer
, who was near the end of his career. During their recording sessions for the Brahms sonatas Nos. 1 and 3, he had to go to London for medical attention; and he died soon after.
She retired in 1961, aged only 54, not just from concert appearances, but from playing the violin at all. She preferred not even to teach. On one occasion, on holiday in Greece, she encountered Yehudi Menuhin on a beach, and she agreed to play some duets with him at his villa. When they got back there, he realised he did not have a spare violin, so that sole opportunity to play once more came to nothing.
She never played in the United States
, although Arturo Toscanini
and Charles Munch repeatedly asked her to. (She had played Bach for Toscanini in Paris
in the 1930s, and he commented: "That's the way Bach should be played".) However, she did appear in Australia
(1957), Argentina
, India
, Israel
and Europe
; and in the Soviet Union
, where she was juror for the first Tchaikovsky Violin Competition
, at the invitation of David Oistrakh
.
Her repertoire was small. It excluded most works written after the 19th century (for example, the Elgar
, Sibelius
, Bartók
, Berg
, Bloch
and Walton
concertos) – the sole exception seems to be the Pizzetti concerto. Her particular favourites were "the three Bs" - Bach, Beethoven
and Brahms. Her major recordings were issued in 1990 as "The Art of Gioconda de Vito". They include a Bach Double Violin Concerto
with Yehudi Menuhin, conducted by Anthony Bernard
.
, and she lived in the UK from 1951, although her English was always rudimentary and she often needed a translator. Bicknell died in 1988, and Gioconda de Vito died in 1994, aged 87.
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. (The dates 22 June 1907 and 24 October 1994 also appear in some sources.)
Life
She was born, one of five children, in the town of Martina FrancaMartina Franca
Martina Franca is a town and comune in the province of Taranto, Apulia , Italy. It is the second most populated city of the province after Taranto....
near Lecce
Lecce
Lecce is a historic city of 95,200 inhabitants in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Lecce, the second province in the region by population, as well as one of the most important cities of Puglia...
in southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, to a wine-making family. Initially she played the violin untaught, having received only music theory lessons from the local bandmaster. Her uncle, a professional violinist based in Germany, heard her attempting a concerto by Charles de Bériot
Charles de Bériot
Charles Auguste de Bériot was a Belgian violinist and composer.-Biography:Born in Leuven, where there is now a street named in his honour, he moved to France in 1810, where he studied violin with Jean-François Tiby, a pupil of Giovanni Battista Viotti...
when she was aged only eight, and decided to teach her himself. At age 11, she entered the Rossini Conservatory
Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini"
The Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini" is a music conservatory in Pesaro, Italy. Founded in 1869 with a legacy from the composer Gioachino Rossini, the conservatory officially opened in 1882 with 67 students and was then known as the Liceo musicale Rossini...
in Pesaro
Pesaro
Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....
to study with Remy Principe. She graduated at age 13, commenced a career as a soloist, and at age 17 became Professor of Violin at the newly founded conservatory in Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
. In 1932, aged 25, she won the first International Violin Competition in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. After she played the Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann 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...
Chaconne in D minor, Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík was a Czech violinist and composer.-Biography:He was born in Michle . His father, a gardener by occupation, was an amateur violinist. He taught his two sons the violin and after discovering the talent of Jan, who was aged five at the time, arranged for him to study with Karel Weber and...
came up to the stage and kissed her hand (she later appeared under the baton of Kubelik’s son Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
).
She then taught at Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, based in Italy.It is based at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, and was founded by the papal bull, Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western...
. She had earlier been presented to Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, who greatly admired her playing, and he used his influence to get her the Rome post. World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
interrupted what would otherwise have been the most productive period of her burgeoning career. In 1944 she was given the unique honour of a lifetime professorship at the Academy.
In 1944 she premiered the Violin Concerto of Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...
. She made the first of her relatively few recordings after the war. In 1948 she made her London debut under Victor de Sabata
Victor de Sabata
Victor de Sabata was an Italian conductor and composer. He is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished operatic conductors of the twentieth century, especially for his Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. He is also acclaimed for his interpretations of orchestral music...
, playing the Brahms concerto
Violin Concerto (Brahms)
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 is a violin concerto in three movements composed by Johannes Brahms in 1878 and dedicated to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim...
. This was very successful, and led to performances at the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
and with fellow artists such as 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...
, Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern
Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...
and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was a virtuoso Italian classical pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, as well as one of the most important Italian pianists along with Ferruccio Busoni and Maurizio Pollini.-Biography:Born in Brescia, Italy, he began...
. By 1953, she was considered Europe's No. 1 woman violinist, while remaining virtually unknown in the United States.
She played under 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...
a number of times, and had a great affinity for his approach. In 1957 they also played a Brahms sonata at Castel Gandolfo
Castel Gandolfo
Castel Gandolfo is a small Italian town or comune in Lazio that occupies a height overlooking Lake Albano about 15 miles south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills. It is best known as the summer residence of the Pope. It is an Italian town with the population of 8834...
for Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
, the choice of Brahms being the Pope's own request. The following year she played the Mendelssohn concerto
Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn)
Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 is his last large orchestral work. It forms an important part of the violin repertoire and is one of the most popular and most frequently performed violin concertos of all time...
for the pontiff. A member of the audience later sent her a letter saying that he was no longer an atheist, because her playing of the slow movement had made him realise there was a God.
During that concert, she realised she had reached the pinnacle of her career, and decided to retire in only another three years. She told the pope of her decision. Pius XII tried for an hour to dissuade her, saying she was far too young to retire so early, but to no avail. But she still had three years. During that time, Gioconda de Vito collaborated with Edwin Fischer
Edwin Fischer
Edwin Fischer was a Swiss classical pianist and conductor. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, particularly in the traditional Germanic repertoire of such composers as J. S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert...
, who was near the end of his career. During their recording sessions for the Brahms sonatas Nos. 1 and 3, he had to go to London for medical attention; and he died soon after.
She retired in 1961, aged only 54, not just from concert appearances, but from playing the violin at all. She preferred not even to teach. On one occasion, on holiday in Greece, she encountered Yehudi Menuhin on a beach, and she agreed to play some duets with him at his villa. When they got back there, he realised he did not have a spare violin, so that sole opportunity to play once more came to nothing.
She never played in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, although 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...
and Charles Munch repeatedly asked her to. (She had played Bach for Toscanini 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...
in the 1930s, and he commented: "That's the way Bach should be played".) However, she did appear in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
(1957), Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
; and in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, where she was juror for the first Tchaikovsky Violin Competition
International Tchaikovsky Competition
The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical music competition held every four years in Moscow, Russia for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 30 years of age, and singers between 19 and 32 years of age...
, at the invitation of David Oistrakh
David Oistrakh
David Fyodorovich Oistrakh , , David Fiodorović Ojstrakh, ; – October 24, 1974, was a Soviet violinist....
.
Her repertoire was small. It excluded most works written after the 19th century (for example, the Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Sibelius
Jean 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."...
, Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla 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...
, Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
, Bloch
Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...
and Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
concertos) – the sole exception seems to be the Pizzetti concerto. Her particular favourites were "the three Bs" - Bach, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig 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...
and Brahms. Her major recordings were issued in 1990 as "The Art of Gioconda de Vito". They include a Bach Double Violin Concerto
Double Violin Concerto (Bach)
The Concerto for 2 Violins, Strings and Continuo in D Minor, BWV 1043, also known as the Double Violin Concerto or "Bach Double", is perhaps one of the most famous works by J. S. Bach and considered among the best examples of the work of the late Baroque period. Bach wrote it between 1730 and 1731...
with Yehudi Menuhin, conducted by Anthony Bernard
Anthony Bernard
Anthony Bernard was an English conductor, organist, pianist and composer.-Early life:He was born Alan Charles Butler, the son of a Thames lighterman and changed his name by deed poll in 1919 according to the National Archives....
.
Private life
In 1949, she married a Briton, David Bicknell, an executive with EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, and she lived in the UK from 1951, although her English was always rudimentary and she often needed a translator. Bicknell died in 1988, and Gioconda de Vito died in 1994, aged 87.
Sources
- In Vito Veritas
- Jessica Duchen’s classical music blog
- Eric BlomEric BlomEric Walter Blom CBE was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicographer, musicologist, music critic, music biographer and translator. He is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians .-Biography:Blom was born in Berne, Switzerland...
, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954