Jenny Abel

Press, 25 July 1984, Page 22

Jenny Abel

Jenny Abel was born in Germany and began her musical studies at the age of six, making her debut as a violinist two years later. At 14 she became a pupil of Max Rostal at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik, Cologne and later studied with Henryk Szeryng. She has toured extensively in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Rumania, Switzerland, Yugoslavia), South America (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Venezuela) and Asia. Her visit to New Zealand has been arranged by the Goethe Institute. She will give a recital in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery tomorrow under the auspices of the School of Music, University of Canterbury in association with the gallery. Jenny Abel will play Sonata No. 1 by J. S. Bach, a work specially written for her by Hans Werner Henze, and the Bartok Sonata for unaccompanied violin. Jenny Abel’s interpretation of this last work has become a legend among music lovers in Europe.

Her “San Rafel” violin was made in Cremona in 1739 by Joseph Guarnerius and she has used this for her recordings. These include the first recording of Siegfried Wagner’s Violin Concerto (conducted by the composer’s nephew, Gilbert Graf Gravina), the first complete recording of Brahms’ violin — and viola — Sonatas and Bartok’s 4 Sonatas for Violin and Piano and Unaccompanied Violin. In the United States her first television film (music of Brahms and Bartok) was entitled “Jenny Abel, the Soul of Germany.”