Jenő Hubay
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Jenő Hubay (b. Pest September 15, 1858, d. March 12, 1937) was an Hungarian violinist, composer and music teacher.
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[edit] Early life
Hubay was born into a German Jewish family of musicians, with the name Eugen Húber. During his twenties, while living in the French-speaking world, he chose to adopt a Hungarian style for his name.
Hubay was trained in violin and music by his father Karl, concertmaster of the Hungarian National Opera House and a teacher at the Budapest College of Music. Hubay gave his début public performance playing a concerto at the age of 11.
At the age of 13 Hubay studied abroad in Berlin for five years, receiving tuition from Joseph Joachim. In 1878, following the advice of Franz Liszt, he made his début in Paris, which was a great success. Sitting in the audience was Henri Vieuxtemps with whom Hubay formed an intimate friendship and from whom he received tuition. In 1882 Hubay was employed at the Brussels music institute as the head of the department of violin studies. Returning to Hungary in 1886 he took up employment as his father's successor as head of the Budapest College of Music.
[edit] Teaching
Hubay's main pupils, aside from József Szigeti and Endre Gertler, included Eugene Ormandy (who later turned to conducting). He also taught many female violinists such as Stefi Geyer, a friend of Bártok's first love, to whom he dedicated his first violin concerto, and Jelly Arányi, Joachim's niece who was successful in England and France and who collaborated on Maurice Ravel's Tzigane, and Ilona Feher.
[edit] Performance
As a soloist Hubay gained the praise of Vieuxtemps, Johannes Brahms and many others. As a chamber musician he formed two string quartets, one while he was in Brussels and one during his Budapest years. His favourite instrument was a Stradivarius.
[edit] Composition
In contrast to his teacher Joachim, whose compositional output was relatively small, Hubay composed four concertos and a very large number of other works. His concertos have themes from Hungarian Gypsy music, and his "gentle breeze" pieces are composed as if to continue the tradition of the German romantics such as Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, sharing features with the compositional style of his chamber music partner, the cellist David Popper.
