Stanisław Barcewicz

Stanisław Barcewicz (16 April 18581 September 1929) was a Polish violinist, conductor and teacher. Although his repertoire included almost all of the classical and romantic violin literature, he was valued primarily for his interpretations of works by Henryk Wieniawski and Felix Mendelssohn. He also premiered works by his teacher Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, including the Polish premiere of the Violin Concerto in D. He played on a Guadagnini violin. He later toured Europe extensively, including appearances in Leipzig, Dresden, Hamburg, Elberfeld, Koblenz, Berlin, Königsberg, London, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Riga.

In 1881 Barcewicz premiered Johan Svendsen's Romance for Violin and Orchestra in Kristiania (Oslo). On 14 January 1892 he gave the Polish premieres of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D and Sérénade mélancolique, in Warsaw, under the composer's baton.

In 1885, he became the concertmaster and second conductor of the Warsaw Opera. He occasionally conducted operas there, and he also conducted the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. Grzegorz Fitelberg, Pyotr Stolyarsky (teacher of David Oistrakh, Nathan Milstein, Boris Goldstein, Mikhail Goldstein and others), Henryk Gold, Aleksander Jabłoński (later to become a renowned physicist), Paul Godwin, and Józef Ozimiński.

In 1902 his former pupil Mieczysław Karłowicz wrote his Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 8 for Barcewicz, who premiered it on 21 March 1903 with the Berlin Philharmonic under the composer.

Barcewicz died in Warsaw in 1929, aged 71.

Recordings

He can be heard on the double CD set The Great Violinists, playing pieces recorded in 1905 with piano accompaniment: Paderewski's Melodie, Op. 15/2 (Barcewicz's own arrangement) the Canzonetta from the Violin Concerto in D by Tchaikovsky; and Henryk Wieniawski's Kujawiak Mazurka in A minor, Op. 3.

As an indication of his standing, other violinists in the collection include Joseph Joachim, Eugène Ysaÿe, Pablo de Sarasate, Arnold Rosé, Jan Kubelík, Willy Burmester, Jacques Thibaud, Marie Hall, Franz von Vecsey, Joseph Szigeti and Fritz Kreisler.