Lillian Fuchs - Background

Background

Lillian Fuchs began her musical studies as a pianist, later studying violin with her father and afterwards with Franz Kneisel (former concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and first violinist of the Kneisel Quartet) at the Institute of Musical Art, now the Juilliard School. She enjoyed a distinguished teaching career at the Manhattan School of Music, the Juilliard School the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Blue Hill Music School, which she founded with her brother Joseph. Martha Strongin Katz, James Wendell Griffith, Geraldine Walther, Lawrence Dutton and Yizhak Schotten were her students. Her books of etudes for the viola (Twelve Caprices for Viola, Fifteen Characteristic Studies for Viola, and Sixteen Fantasy Etudes) are in standard use today in universities and music schools around the world, and were much appreciated by the great Scottish violist, William Primrose. She also composed a Sonata Pastorale for solo viola.

She performed many standard and non-standard pieces in the viola repertoire, including significant 20th century works. Fuchs was known for her warm, beautiful tone, expert musicianship and technical mastery. She owned a fine instrument made by Matteo Goffriller (1659–1742) and was the lifelong custodian of another lovely viola, darker in tone, by Gasparo da Salò (1540–1609). She played with a bow made by the English bow maker, John Dodd (1752–1839) and used a gut 'A' string, considering it a sacrilege to use a metal 'A' string on an old Italian instrument. (Dodd bows are often shorter than other viola bows, a quality Fuchs prized for the greater control it permitted and also for its sheer practicality, since she was of diminutive stature.)

Lillian Fuchs made her New York début on the violin in 1926, but soon switched to viola at the urging of Franz Kneisel (she was once heard to say, much to the great surprise of the auditors present, that it had never been her idea to play the viola, as she considered the instrument to be too big for her!). She thereafter was a founding member of the Perolé Quartet, playing viola with this ensemble from 1925 to 1945. She collaborated with the Budapest and Amadeus String Quartets (see below) and often in performance with her brothers Joseph, a violinist and Harry, a cellist. She played in a number of chamber groups, notably the Musicians Guild, and appeared as a soloist with major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Casals Festival Orchestra. In 1947, Bohuslav Martinů composed and dedicated his 'Madrigals' for violin and viola to Lillian and Joseph Fuchs after hearing them perform the Mozart Duos at Town Hall in New York City.

A renowned teacher of viola, Fuchs was also an important teacher of chamber music, counting among her pupils Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zuckerman and Dorothy Delay. Lillian Fuchs's influence can be seen in her two daughters, Barbara Stein Mallow, 'cellist, Carol Stein Amado (deceased), violinist, her granddaughter, Jeanne Mallow, violist, and grandson, David Amado, conductor.