Tchaikovsky
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Adol'f Davidovich Brodskii

Адольф Давыдович Бродский

Russian violiinst, also known in the West as Adolph Brodsky. Born 21 March/2 April 1851 at Taganrog, Russia.

Son of the violinist David BRODSKII, Adol'f took up the instrument even before his fifth birthday, soon becoming a pupil of Joseph Hellmesberger (1828-93) at the Vienna Conservatory. He began his professional career as a lecturer at the Moscow Conservatory (1875-78), and subsequently professor at the Leipzig Conservatory (1883-91), where he established the Brodskii Quartet. In 1891 he travelled to the United States to serve as first violinist of the New York Symphony Orchestra (1891-94) under Walter Damrosch. In 1895 he returned to Europe, where he accepted an invitation from Sir Charles Hallé to teach at the recently-founded Royal Manchester College of Music in England, and to lead the Hallé Orchestra. Hallé died shortly after the Brodskiis' arrival in Manchester, and Brodskii took over as principal of the College - a position which he held until his death in Manchester on 2 January 1929, aged 77.

It was in 1882, after Leopold Auer had rejected Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, Op. 35 (1878) as too difficult to play, that the composer was greatly impressed when Brodskii took on the task of premiering the work to a hostile Viennese audience; consequently, Tchaikovsky withdrew the original dedication to Auer, and gave it to Brodskii instead. During his foreign tours in the late 1880s, Tchaikovsky stayed with Adolf and his wife Anna at their home in Leipzig, where he encountered Johannes Brahms and Edvard Grieg.