Violin - Greatest Hits

Isaac Stern became renowned both for his recordings and for championing younger players. Among his discoveries were cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Jian Wang, and violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. In the 1960s, he played a major role in saving New York City's Carnegie Hall from demolition, by organising the Citizens' Committee to Save Carnegie Hall. Following the purchase of Carnegie Hall by New York City, the Carnegie Hall Corporation was formed, and Stern was chosen as its first president, a title he held until his death. Carnegie Hall later named its main auditorium in his honor.

Pinchas Zukerman began his musical studies at age four, on the recorder. His father then taught him clarinet, and he picked up the violin at age eight. Isaac Stern and Pablo Casals learned of Zukerman's violin talent during a 1962 visit to Israel. Zukerman subsequently moved to the United States that year for study at the Juilliard School, under the tutelage of Stern and Ivan Galamian. He made his New York debut in 1963. In 1967, he shared the Leventritt Prize with the Korean violinist Kyung-wha Chung. His 1969 debut recordings of the concerti by Tchaikovsky (under the direction of Antal Dorati, with the London Symphony Orchestra) and Mendelssohn (with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic) launched a successful recording career that continues to the present day.

A violinist of outstanding technical ability, Zino Francescatti played all of the great concerti. His performances of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No. 3, Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, and others, continue to be highly regarded. Francescatti made many renowned LPs, including a set of the complete Beethoven violin-piano sonatas with Robert Casadesus, a frequent musical collaborator of his. Both in concerts and on disc, he performed on the celebrated "Hart" Stradivarius of 1727. Upon his retirement in 1976, he sold the instrument and established the Zino Francescatti Foundation, to assist young violinists, in La Ciotat. In 1987 an international violin competition was organized in his honor in Aix-en-Provence. He died in La Ciotat, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, aged 89.

Yuzuko Horigome started learning the piano at the age of four; she began the violin the following year, studying with Ryosaku Kubota. In 1975, she continued her violin studies with Toshiya Eto, before graduating from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in 1980. That same year she became the first Japanese musician to win First Prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition. She has played with the Berlin and New York Philharmonic Orchestras; the London, Chicago, St. Petersburg, Montreal, Vienna, and Tokyo Symphony Orchestras; the Amsterdam Concertgebouw; La Scala (Milan); the RAI Orchestra; the New Japan Philharmonic; and the Camerata Salzburg. Horigome guests at many international festivals including Marlboro, Lockenhaus, Tanglewood, La Jolla Music Summerfest, Lugano, and Buenos Aires. A guest teacher at the Brussels Conservatory, she is one of the most prominent soloists in Japan, where she tours for several months every year.

Teiko Maehashi is well known as a violin soloist in her native Japan and has appeared in concert around the world. She has appeared in Finland, Bermuda, and in the Brno Festival and Bratislava Festival in the former Czechoslovakia. She is also a teacher in Japan.

Cho-Liang Lin, born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is a Taiwanese American violinist who is renowned for his appearances as a soloist with major orchestras. "Musical America" named him its "Instrumentalist of the Year" in 2000. He founded the Taipei International Music Festival in 1997, the largest classical music festival in the history of Taiwan, performing to an indoor audience of over 53,000.