The "Old Russian School" Line of Violin Virtuosos The "Old Russian School" is a style of virtuoso violin techniques
and pedagogy that has been passed down for over 150 years.
Old Russian virtuosos have a distinctive "Bel Canto" (Italian for "the singing voice") tone and focus on bow control for absolute accuracy.
Joseph Joachim (1831 – 1907).
Protégé of Mendelssohn and the favored violinist of Brahms.
Regarded by many contemporaries as better than Paganini
and the top19th century violinist.The first major violinist to be recorded.
Leopold Auer (1845 – 1930).
Protégé of Joseph Joachim.
Widely-viewed as the greatest violin teacher of all-time.
Favored violinist of Tchaikovsky, his colleague at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatory for 49 years and then at Curtis and Juilliard.
Ann Fontanella is the last protégé of the "Old Russian School" style of violin play and pedagogy that has been passed down from premier virtuosos for over 150 years. The Old Russian style emphasizes a warm and rich romantic tone with exacting precision that allows you to hear each note clearly even when playing at tremendous speed. The most famous Old Russian violinist is Jascha Heifetz, widely-viewed as the greatest instrumentalist of all-time.
At age seven, Ann was selected to begin studying under Sherry Kloss, Jascha Heifetz's teaching assistant. Ann debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age 10. For the next five years, Ann was the protégé and final student of Erick Friedman, Heifetz's own protégé. Erick Friedman was the only violinist with whom Heifetz ever recorded on equal footing.
At the age of 14, Ann was one of the youngest artists ever accepted to Yale University's School of Music. Later that year she appeared on NPR's From the Top to critical acclaim. Ann released her debut album Bach, Schubert, Bruch in 2005.
In addition to being a violinist, Ann is also a commissioned composer. In 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2005 she was an award recipient in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Competition. The song "Rondo" (in the playlist above) was one of the award-winning compositions.
Ann plays on a 320-year-old Grancino violin with Heifetz's own custom-engineered mute that he used for four decades. Ann is supported by Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour (PennPAT), which pays for half of costs in: DE, DC, MD, NJ, NY, OH, PA, VA and WV.
21-year old Ann is currently writing and developing a new album and studies musicology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is engaged and lives in Philadelphia, PA.
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Mischa Elman (1891 – 1967).
Student of Leopold Auer.
Widely-viewed as the top early-20th century violinist.
Jascha Heifetz (1900 – 1987). Protégé of Leopold Auer.
Widely-viewed as the greatest instrumentalist of all-time.
Nathan Milstein (1904 – 1992).
Student of Leopold Auer. Top mid-20th century violinist
Erick Friedman (1939 – 2004).
Protégé of Jascha Heifetz.
Regarded as one of the top 5 late-20th century violinists.
Ann Fontanella (1988 – ). Protégé of Erick Friedman.
"One of the great stipulations that Heifetz imposed upon me was that I would teach and thus carry on the little bit of tradition that he gave me." The same had been wished of Heifetz by Auer, and Heifetz himself said that he always hoped that he would be "good enough to teach". As he reviews his career, Friedman muses: "Maybe I was in some way anointed to carry on a tradition that goes from Heifetz and Milstein, through Auer, back to Joachim. Because I know what it is."
- Erick Friedman 1990 interview in Strad Magazine
