Bezekirsky, Vasili

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Bezekirsky, Vasili

Bezekirsky, Vasili, Russian violinist; b. Moscow, Jan. 26, 1835; d. there, Nov. 8, 1919. He studied violin in Moscow, and in 1858 went to Brussels, where he took violin lessons with Leonard and lessons in composition with Damcke. Returning to Moscow in 1860, he was concertmaster at the Bolshoi Theater (1861–91); from 1882 to 1902 he was prof. at the Moscow Phil. Inst. As a violin virtuoso, he was greatly regarded in Russia. Tchaikovsky wrote about him: “Although not a Czar of the first magnitude, Bezekirsky is brilliant enough on the dim horizon of present violin playing.” Bezekirsky was also a composer; he wrote a Violin Concerto (Moscow, Feb. 26, 1873) and contributed cadenzas to the violin concertos of Beethoven and Brahms. He publ. a vol. of reminiscences, From the Notebook of an Artist (St. Petersburg, 1910).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire