Henryk Szeryng

Henryk Szeryng, born in Poland, emerged as perhaps the most remarkable graduate from Carl Flesch’s storied pedagogical lineage, a studio that also produced Ivry Gitlis and Ida Haendel during the interval separating the two world wars. Equipped with an unassailable command of the instrument and an uncommonly penetrating musical understanding, Szeryng secured his place among the leading concert violinists of the decades after the Second World War.

Born in 1918 to a prosperous Polish industrialist whose spouse nurtured a profound devotion to music, the young Szeryng relinquished early piano lessons at his own insistence in favor of the violin, although he retained considerable keyboard facility throughout his life. Rapid advancement on the new instrument allowed him, at the age of nine, to perform the Mendelssohn concerto for the family friend Bronislaw Hubermann, whose counsel prompted Szeryng’s relocation to Berlin for study with Carl Flesch. He remained under Flesch’s guidance until age thirteen and later credited that singular instructor exclusively for his technical mastery. In 1933 the violinist made his Warsaw debut in the Beethoven concerto under Bruno Walter and, in the same year, undertook a modest tour that included appearances with orchestras in Bucharest, Vienna, and Paris.

Szeryng developed an immediate attachment to Paris, where he remained for further study and artistic maturation. There he cultivated a lasting admiration for the French school of violin playing, which he regarded as more refined and graceful than its German or Russian counterparts; it was during this period that he discarded the so-called Flesch bow hold in favor of the Franco-Belgian grip. Although he came under the artistic influence of Enesco and Thibaud, Szeryng never undertook formal instruction with either master. At the same time he seriously contemplated a career in composition and, between 1933 and 1939, pursued lessons with Nadia Boulanger.

When war erupted in 1939, Szeryng enlisted in the Polish army, then exiled in western Europe. Because he commanded seven languages, he was attached to General Sikorski as an interpreter and assisted in relocating hundreds of Polish refugees to Mexico. Throughout the conflict he presented hundreds of recitals for Allied forces worldwide; during a 1943 series in Mexico City he received an invitation to head the string department at the University of Mexico, an offer he accepted and assumed in 1946.

For the ensuing decade Szeryng devoted himself principally to teaching in Mexico and ultimately obtained citizenship there. Performances became infrequent and local, causing him to recede from notice in Europe’s principal musical centers. A fortuitous meeting in Mexico City with fellow Pole Artur Rubinstein persuaded Szeryng to resume an international career; Rubinstein, previously unacquainted with Szeryng’s playing, was so impressed that he immediately arranged for his own manager, Hurok, to secure engagements. Szeryng’s New York debut in 1956 instantly affirmed his stature among the foremost violinists of the time—an emergence that surprised a younger generation of players who had remained unaware of his existence—and for the next thirty years he balanced a worldwide concert schedule with his continuing pedagogical responsibilities in Mexico.

Szeryng’s interpretive manner was singular, marked by an unmistakably patrician and aristocratic bearing. Though sometimes faulted for undue restraint, he could summon genuine warmth and intensity when the music demanded it, as demonstrated in his compelling accounts of the Sibelius concerto. His distinguished recordings encompass two complete traversals of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas—the second of which ranks among the century’s truly landmark documents and profoundly shaped subsequent violinists—as well as the principal concertos of the standard repertory; he also championed and documented numerous works by composers of his adopted homeland, Mexico. A musical purist by temperament, Szeryng adhered closely to the printed score, with rare exceptions such as the added high D natural at the climactic recapitulation of the Brahms concerto, whose rationale remains obscure. In Bach he eschewed historically informed performance practices, seeking instead to reveal the composer’s essence through contemporary instrumental resources; his embellishments, always tasteful and meticulously shaped, never lapsed into self-indulgence. Particularly rewarding are his sonata collaborations with Artur Rubinstein, and notable as well is Szeryng’s premiere recording of Paganini’s E-major Violin Concerto No. 3, which he himself reconstructed from parts preserved in the archives of the composer’s heirs.

Szeryng’s performances could occasionally prove uneven; onstage, his calculated precision sometimes yielded to emotional detachment, and later accounts suggest that difficulties with alcohol may have compromised his technical assurance. Until his death in 1988 he traveled on a Mexican diplomatic passport and participated in numerous humanitarian initiatives under United Nations auspices, steadfast in his conviction that music possesses a unique capacity to foster unity and healing.