Memories

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Dmitry Potemin

Dmitry Potemin, violinist, member of the Soloists of Moscow ensemble, performer of chamber music, teacher, record collector. In the 1960s, Potyemin studied in Leningrad’s Specialized Music School and lived in the school dormitory in a room adjacent to Hirshhorn....

Gudrun Vercampt

Hirshhorn's student in the late 80-s - early 90-s. The first time I saw Philippe was when I played in the auditions to enter the Utrecht Conservatory. At the time, I had already completed a course in Brussels with Georges Octors and was looking for a possibility to...

Gregor Sigl

- Do you remember how you became acquainted with Philippe?  I remember very well. I was sixteen, and I was in the middle of a big crisis which was related to my changing from a capable child into an incapable adult violinist.  I was preoccupied with the question of...

Dmitry Makhtin

I will begin with my arrival in The Netherlands at age 17. My mother entered the Hague orchestra and at the time I was studying in America. Once mama heard how I play – and she was a very experienced and professional person - she said: "That’s enough. Let’s go to...

Philippe Graffin

A french violinist, recording artist and concerto soloist. Studied with Hirshhorn in 1980-s. - Please tell us how you became acquainted. When did you see Philippe for the first time? I became acquainted with him in Brussels. At the time, I was just a kid, fourteen...

David Grimal

... from an interview to Ilze Medne, latvian radio, Riga, 2007 I have many memories with Philippe Hirshhorn, but the one I would like to tel now is when I met him. I didn’t know about him. He was such a great player but not so famous, to compare to some other...

Frédéric d’Ursel & Shirly Laub

Shirly Laub is a violinist, a founder member of Oxalys ensemble. She is also a professor at the Royal Music Conservatory in Brussels. Frédéric d'Ursel is a founder member of Oxalys too, he is also assistant to the violin professor Véronique Bogaerts at the RMC in...

Sebastian Guertler

An Austrian violinist, student of Hirshhorn in Utrecht in 1990s. "Tu comprends mon chou?"[You see what I mean, my dear?] I became acquainted with Philippe Hirshhorn in 1994. On the recommendation of our common friend, a master violinist from Lyon, I enrolled in the...

Giovanni Radivo

An Italian violinist, now the concertmaster at National Symphony Orchestra in Lyon, France.

 I think a great deal about him, especially in the month of November. How shall I describe my first encounter with Philippe?

 Perhaps "special" is the word best suited to...

Otto Derolez

Otto Derolez, Concertmaster Brussels Philharmonic My earliest memories of Philippe Hirshhorn go back to the mid-eighties, when I was doing a Master after Master, (then called Extended Year after graduating with a Diplome Supérieur), at the Brussels Royal Music...

Leonid Girshovich

"Magicians with violins" (excerpt) … "He literally always felt himself out of place. Out of his determination to hide this, there arose – and I am certain that it was all under his control – that unique, Hirshhornian type of behavior which no one else could get away...

Ronald Zollman

Ronald Zollman, conductor. Music director of the Belgian National Orchestra from 1989 to 1993.

 The first time I heard Philippe as a violinist on the evening of Mai 1967, when he stunned the audience of Palais des Beux-Arts in Brussels during the finals of the Reine...

Inna and Ilya Hait

Inna and Ilya Hait were close friends of Hirshhorns family in Riga.

 Ilya Hait: - I first saw Philippe when he was 7-8 days old, I think. It was just after he was born. We always maintained relations with his parents. They lived at the time on Moskovskaya Street. It...

Alexander Fischer

Russian violinist, assistent of Mikhail Vaiman in the Leningrad conservatory in 1960-s, later a professor himself, the dean in Leningrad conservatory and a professor in Tallinn. Alexander Alexandrovich, you are a violinist and were a first-hand witness to the events....

George & Lena Edelman

George EdelmanArtistic Director of Ferrara Musica, C. Abbado Theatre (Ferrara, Italy)Leна EdelmanMusicologist. Based in Paris. George: – One can speak forever about what kind of musician Philippe was. An artist of immense talent, a genius performer. I am not afraid to...

Dmitry Ferschtman

An interview taken by Ilze Medne, Latvian radio, Riga Philippe Hirshhorn is someone who has not departed from our lives, even though twenty years have now passed since his death. He was a unique and inimitable personality. I knew him going back to 1962, and my wife...

Frederic Meinders

Frederic Meinders, dutch pianist and composer, Hirshhorn's partner in chamber music

 When I played with Philipp Hirshhorn for the first time, hearing his first notes (Mozart sonata) it was a shock for me; I wondered if Kreisler had returned from heaven; the most...

Oleg Maisenberg

Philippe Hirshhorn…While still in Moscow, I heard about this "Miracle from Leningrad".Somewhat later we became acquainted and I was amazed by his vitality, temperament, wit and his physical beauty. Still later we met in Lockenhaus and made music together. That is when...

Emil Ludmer

Pianist, a student of Leningrad Conservatoire during the same years as Hirshhorn Philippe Hirshhorn was introduced to me in a very enigmatic way, like in a fairy-tale, where those cherished and fiercely beloved personages find a place in our heart from childhood...

Christine Kyprianides

Philippe Hirshhorn: A Remembrance I had the good fortune to work with Philippe Hirschhorn in the Orchestre de Chambre de Wallonie, in Mons, Belgium, in the mid-1980s. Philippe was the music director of this small string chamber orchestra and was attempting build it...

Véronique & Nina Hirshhorn

Ilze Medne interview. - What are your first recollections of your father? Veronica: - My father and I played a lot together, fooled around. My father loved games. And, of course, the violin. I fell asleep listening to the sounds of the violin. In the daytime, as well,...

Mara Bobrushkin-Amromin

Mara Bobrushkin-Amromin – doctor, family friend of the Hirshhorns We became acquainted nearly thirty-five years ago and from that time on we maintained close relations.Some friends phoned me to say that a young couple had just arrived in Brussels:  she was an artist...

Marina Akimova

Marina Akimova - a viola-player, a violinist, a teacher, an archive researcher at the theme of russian music life at the beginning of the XXth century. The invisible burden of perfection (an essay of 2011) … Filmed in black and white, a certain sketchiness of the...