Jaroslav Vanecek:JAROSLAV VANECEK, who died in November on the Isle of Wight, was a distinguished exponent of the Czech school of violin playing.
An only child, he was born in Bratislava in 1920 and received his first professionally formative lessons, aged 13, from Norbert Kubát at the Bratislava Conservatoire.
Later, at the National Conservatoire in Prague, his teachers were Jindrich Bastar and Bedrich Voldan for violin and Karel Moravec for viola.
He also came under the influence of the great Czech violinist, Jan Kubelik, who spoke of him as “a rare talent that is found but once in a lifetime”. All of these outstanding musicians followed the principles laid down by their famous teacher, Otakar Sevcík.
While still a student at the Prague Conservatoire, Vanecek began his career as a soloist, giving three recitals with different programmes in quick succession followed by concerto performances. This was something of a sensation and he was acclaimed by both critics and audiences.
He graduated from the Prague Conservatoire in 1945 and undertook his first foreign tours in Poland, Romania and the Netherlands in 1947. Following a successful tour of Norway and Denmark, he performed Martinu’s 2nd violin concerto in Paris and in the Netherlands. Czech and international critical comment was unanimous in recognising the beauty of his sound, technical virtuosity and consummate artistry.
He married Kveta Mrazova in 1942. She was a highly accomplished violinist of the same school and frequently appeared with him in recitals enriched by the inclusion of his own arrangements, masterpieces and neglected compositions for two violins.
Early in 1948, after the communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia, they decided not to return to their homeland. Following their outstanding concert at the Royal Dublin Society on December 7th, Jaroslav accepted the post of senior professor of violin and viola at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, effective from January 1949.
They were greatly assisted during this transitional period by the then consul of Czechoslovakia in Ireland, Maj Pavel Ruzicka.
This began an outstanding period in the further development of Irish string playing.
With his technical expertise, Czech string culture and sense of purpose, Jaroslav Vanecek proved a brilliant and inspirational teacher, first at the RIAM, and from 1954 to 1972 at the Municipal School of Music, Dublin.
His influence extended to Northern Ireland in the 1960s with his weekly visits as violin professor at the newly founded Ulster College of Music.
In 1966, when the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra performed for the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, 11 of the 15 first violinists, two second violinists and five viola players had been trained by Vanecek.
In the 1970s, the homogenous style and sound of the New Irish Chamber Orchestra were directly attributable to his teaching.
In addition to his teaching, he was active as soloist in concertos by Bach, Mozart, Goldmark, Dvorak, Paganini and Britten and he gave the first performances of Brian Boydell’s violin concerto.
As chamber musician, he performed with the Prieur Instrumental Ensemble and, in a long partnership with Rhona Marshall, he performed much of the violin and piano repertoire, including the sonata cycles by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.
Gradually, however, with an ever-increasing commitment to teaching, he phased out his performing career.
Not surprisingly, news of his teaching in Ireland was carried abroad by visiting examiners astounded at the standard they encountered in Dublin.
In 1972, he was invited to take up the position of senior professor of violin at the Royal College of Music, London, where he taught until his retirement, aged 80, in 2001.
As in Ireland, he continued his tried and trusted Czech teaching method, albeit acknowledging the influence of a great Hungarian pedagogue; in his own words in the March 1986 edition of The Strad: “I use the Sevcík materials but I am more on the Carl Flesch line.”
His outstanding legacy is a long succession of professional violinists and viola players. In addition to their prominence in the orchestras of Ireland and Britain, and as chamber musicians, many of his protégés are engaged in training a new generation of string players.
Jaroslav Vanecek was a devout Roman Catholic, high-minded, intellectual and something of an ascetic.
For all his emphasis on technical mastery, he was ultimately concerned with artistic development. He believed “an artist must have true experience of life in order to have something to say – he must face up to the vicissitudes of life and sublimate them if he can.”
He was an able pianist and a talented composer, particularly of virtuoso solo violin pieces like his Spanish Rhapsodywith its pyrotechnics and left-hand pizzicato.
To quote one of his teachers, Bedrich Voldan, Vanecek’s was “an art that has grown out of the instrument itself, from the love of the violin, to its praise, and of the joy of playing it”. His wife predeceased him in 2008. He is survived by their daughter Moninna, son Martin and grandchildren.
Jaroslav Vanecek: born September 13th, 1920; died November 16th, 2011.