At first glance, Franziska Pietsch’s career seems to have been a fairy tale of good fortune. Born into a musical family in East Berlin – both her parents were violinists – she was celebrated as a child prodigy. Under the tutelage of Prof. Werner Scholz from Berlin’s Hanns Eisler Hochschule for Music, Pietsch began at a young age to win contests such as the Bach Competition in Leipzig and made her debut at Berlin’s Comic Opera at the age of eleven. There followed a number of years in the “Virtuoso Circus”, as she calls it in hindsight. She performed the violin concertos of Bruch, Lalo, Sibelius, and Paganini with the finest orchestras in East Germany; at the age of 12, she made her first recordings for the East German Radio (including Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs). But this fairy tale ended abruptly in 1984 when her father defected to West Germany during a concert tour. Two years would pass before his family was allowed to join him, and these two years would change the course of Franziska Pietsch’s life. From one day to the next, she was on her own, as all state-sponsored studies and scholarships were suspended.
“And so, at the age of 14, I was forced to ask myself a number of truly fundamental questions. Why do I want to be a musician? What does music really mean? What do I want to do with my life?” Franziska Pietsch found answers in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. For an entire year, with no instruction whatsoever, she devoted herself exclusively to Bach’s solo works, distancing herself quite consciously from the “circus” life of a child prodigy.
“Bach was my salvation, my healing. I suddenly became aware that great music is able to convey messages that live for centuries, in which I can discover my own soul and give voice to it.” After moving to West Germany in 1986, she continued on this path, supported by her teacher and mentor Prof. Ulf Hoelscher. She completed her years of study with the legendary violin teacher Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School in New York.
Béla
Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin and Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonatas Op. 27 are
the most significant works for solo violin after J.S. Bach. Both Bartók and Ysaÿe continually refer back to the great model whilst preserving
their originality. Prokofiev wrote his Solo Sonata Op. 115 for ambitious
violin students; short and crisp, with class and spirit. (Franziska Pietsch)
Thank you
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