Zimbalist, Efrem (Alexandrovich)

(b Rostov-na-Donu, 9 April 1890; d Reno, NV, 22 Feb 1985). American violinist, composer and teacher of Russian birth. His father, a professional violinist and conductor of the Rostov Opera, taught him for the first few years. In 1901 Zimbalist joined Auer's class at the St Petersburg Conservatory, and received the Gold Medal and the Rubinstein Prize on his graduation in 1907. That year he made his débuts in Berlin (7 November) and London (9 December). He made a memorable appearance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 1 January 1910 under Nikisch, playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto. At his American début in Boston on 27 October 1911 Zimbalist introduced Glazunov’s Concerto. His success made him decide to settle in the USA. He married twice, in 1914 the singer Alma Gluck with whom he frequently appeared in joint recitals as a violinist and also as an expert accompanist, and in 1943 Mary Louise Curtis Bok, founder of the Curtis Institute, Philadelphia.

In 1928 Zimbalist began to teach at the Curtis Institute, and was director from 1941 to 1968. Among his best-known students were Oscar Shumsky and Norman Carol. He retired from the platform with a farewell concert in New York on 14 November 1949, but returned in 1952 to give the première of Menotti's Violin Concerto, dedicated to him. He also played the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra as late as 1955. He served on the jury of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1962 and 1966.

Zimbalist was usually considered, with Elman and Heifetz, to represent the Auer school at its best. Yet the three were very dissimilar. Less emotional than Elman's and less perfectionist than Heifetz's, Zimbalist's interpretations derived their strength from a searching penetration into the meaning of the music. His quiet temperament led to unhurried tempos; his performances were noble, fine-grained, never extrovert. In general he avoided virtuoso exhibitionism, yet he could play Paganini with flair and was one of the first to use Emile Sauret's intricate cadenza for the Violin Concerto in D.

Like Flesch, he gave a series of five programmes spanning violin music over four centuries, which led to his publishing Solo Violin Music of the Earliest Period (Bryn Mawr, 1951). Among his compositions are an opera, Landara (1956), a symphonic poem, Portrait of an Artist (1945), concertos, chamber music and effective solo violin music (Carmen Phantasy, Sarasateana, Coq d'Or Phantasy). He was also a skilful transcriber.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CampbellGV

SchwarzGM

M. Davenport: ‘Profile of Efrem Zimbalist’, New Yorker (5 Dec 1931)

J. Bescoby-Chambers: ‘Efrem Zimbalist’, The Archives of Sound (Lingfield, 1966), 46 [partial discography]

J.W. Hartnack: Grosse Geiger unserer Zeit (Munich, 1967, 4/1993)

J. Creighton: Discopaedia of the Violin, 1889–1971 (Toronto, 1974)

‘Efrem Zimbalist Honored by the Curtis Institute of Music’, Journal of the Violin Society of America, iv/1 (1977–8), 57–78

R. Malan: ‘Beyond Virtuosity’, The Strad, c (1989), 315–21

BORIS SCHWARZ/R

Zimbel (i)

(Ger.).

A term found in medieval sources for the Cymbala.

Zimbel (ii)

(Ger.).

See under Organ stop.

Zimbelstern

(Ger.).

See under Organ stop.

Zimerman, Krystian

(b Zabrze, 5 Dec 1956). Polish pianist. He studied with Andrzeij Jasinski, first privately and then at the Katowice Conservatory. He gave his first recital at the age of six and in 1975 became the youngest-ever winner of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Feeling the need to expand his horizons, Zimerman worked intensively with Rubinstein, one of his greatest musical heroes, in 1976. In 1980 he curtailed his flourishing career and took a 14-month sabbatical in London. On his return to the concert platform his playing was marked by even greater freshness and vitality, which he attributes to his refusal to give more than 50 or 60 concerts a year. Among the finest pianists of his generation, he has made numerous recordings, including the Lutosławski Concerto (written for him and first performed by him in 1988), the complete Beethoven and Brahms concertos (the latter with Bernstein), much Chopin and an imaginative coupling of Liszt’s B minor Sonata with several of his later, prophetic works, including La notte. He has also recorded an award-winning disc of the complete Debussy preludes and a disc of the Respighi and Richard Strauss violin sonatas with Kyung-Wha Chung. Fiercely self-critical, Zimerman has long resisted the temptation to record his celebrated readings of Szymanowski’s piano music.

BRYCE MORRISON

Zimmer, Ján

(b Ružomberk, 16 May 1926; d Bratislava, 21 Jan 1993). Slovak composer, pianist and teacher. He studied the organ, the piano with Anna Kafendová (from 1941) and composition with Suchoň at the Bratislava Conservatory before continuing his studies in composition under Farkas at the Budapest Music Academy (1948–9) and in Salzburg (1949). From 1945 to 1948 he contributed to Czechoslovak radio and, for the next four years, taught theory and the piano at the Bratislava Conservatory. Thereafter he devoted his time to composition and, exceptionally, to performance as a concert pianist.

His compositional style had its roots in the work of Suchoň, manifested by his emphasis on concise structure (based mostly on Classical or Romantic forms) and in the use of modally extended tonality, with elements of dodecaphony in works of the 1960s. After an early period of compositional constructivism and sober emotionality (as in the Concerto grosso, 1951), he tended towards large, teleologically closed symphonic pieces, mainly as a consequence of political and cultural pressure. This change involved building upon contrast between meditative sections and exalted, extravagant gradations. While the chamber works of his mature compositional period display intimate expressivity (e.g. Piesne bez slov (‘Songs without Words’), Four Madrigals and Smaragd), his symphonic works from the same period show a predilection towards Baroque polyphony, which he convincingly combines with Romantic potency in instances such as the eighth and eleventh symphonies. The music of his opera–oratorio Oidipus draws upon Renaissance monody, while Herakles combines stimuli from Greek theatre with the poetics of Bertolt Brecht. His pieces and concertos for piano contain a virtuoso and highly idiomatic style of writing.

WORKS

(selective list)

Ops: Oidipus (2, prol and epilogue, Zimmer, after Sophocles), op.48, 1963, unstaged, rev. 1919 for Czechoslovak TV; Herakles (op-pantomime, 4, Zimmer), op.70, 1972–82, unstaged, rev. 1987 for Czechoslovak TV; Odlomený čas [The Broken-Off time] (2, epilogue, Zimmer, after L.N. Tolstoy: Bozheskoye i chelovecheskoye [The Divine and the Human]), op.76, 1977

Syms. [12]: op.21, 1955; op.26, 1958; op.33, 1959; op.37 (J. Kostra), S, T, chorus, orch, 1959; op.44, 1961; ‘Improvisata’, op.51, 1965; op.54, 1966; op.68, 1971; op.72, 1973; ‘Homage à J. Haydn’, op.82, 1979; op.98, 1980; op.107, orch, org, tape, c1985

Other orch: Pf Conc. no.1, op.5, 1949; Conc. grosso, op.7, 2 pf, perc, pf, 2 str orch, 1951; Pf Conc. no.2, op.10, 1952; Vn Conc., op.15, 1953; Concertino, op.19, pf, str, 1955; Conc., op.27, org, str, perc, 1957; Pf Conc. no.3, op.29, 1958; Strečno, sym. poem, op.34, 1959; Pf Conc. no.4, op.36, 1960; Pf Conc. no.5 op.50, left hand, 1964; Conc., op.57, 2 pf, orch, 1967; Piesne bez slov [Songs without Words], op.66, str, 1970; Pf Conc. no.6, op.71, 1972; Oslobodenie [Liberation], sym. poem, op.78, 1975; Chbr Conc., op.102, str, portative org, 1983; Pf Conc. no.7, op.106, 1985

Vocal: Jar v údolí [Spring in the Valley] (R. Dilong), op.3, S, pf, 1947; Povstanie [Uprising] (cant., M. Procházka), op.17, male chorus, orch, 1954; Holubica pokoja [The Dove of Peace] (cant., J. Kostra), op.41, solo vv, chorus, orch, 1960; Pamiatke Jiřího Wolkra [In Memory of Jiří Wolker] (J. Wolker), song cycle, op.43, B, pf, 1961; 4 Madrigals (Eng.), op.52, chorus, 1964; 4 Motets (Latin), op.58, chorus, 1967; Smaragd, song cycle, op.64, S, pf, 1969; Letters to Hebrews (3 madrigals), chorus, 1977

Chbr: Fantasia and Toccata, op.32, org, 1958; Sonata, op.31, va, 1958; Str Qt no.1, op.39, 1960; Conc., D, op.42, org, 1960; Poetická sonáta, op.85, vn, pf, 1976; Variations, op.87, 2 vn, va, 1977; Str Qt no.2, op.100, 1983; Str Qt no.3, op.110, 1987

Pf: 7 sonatas: op.4, 1948, op.45, 1961, op.55, 1966, op.69, 1971, op.90, 1978, op.94, 1980, op.113, 1988; Tatry [The High Tatra], Suite no.1, op.11, 1952, arr. orch; 4 sonatas, 2 pf: op.16, 1954, op.35, 1959, op.53, 1965, op.73, 1973; Tatry, suite no.2, op.25, 1956, arr. orch

Principal publishers: Opus, Slovenský hudobný fond

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Hrušovský: Slovenská hudba v profiloch a rozboroch [Slovak music in profiles and analyses] (Bratislava, 1964), 355–68

J. Hatrík: ‘Jánovi Zimmerovi namiesto blahoželania’ [For Zimmer instead of the congratulation], Hudobný život, viii/10 (1976), 4 only

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