Mathieu Crickboom (2 March 1871 – 30 October 1947) was a Belgian

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist, who was born in

Verviers Verviers (; ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Ensival, Heusy, Lambermont, Petit-Rechain, Stembert, and Verviers. It is also the cent ...

(Hodimont) and died in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. Crickboom was the principal disciple of

Eugène Ysaÿe Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (; 16 July 185812 May 1931) was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, composer, and conductor. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tsar". Early years Born in Liège, Ysaÿe began ...

, who dedicated to him his ''Sonata for solo violin op. 27 No. 5''. In the same vein,

Ernest Chausson Amédée-Ernest Chausson (; 20 January 1855 – 10 June 1899) was a French Romantic composer. Life Born in Paris into an affluent bourgeois family, Chausson was the sole surviving child of a building contractor who made his fortune assisting Ba ...

dedicated his string quartet to Crickboom, who for some years played second violin in the Ysaÿe Quartet. He lived for a while in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, where he directed a violin school and a concert society. The year 1897 saw the formation of Crickboom's own quartet, with

Pablo Casals Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), known in English as Pablo Casals,cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

; José Rocabruna, second violin; and Rafael Gálvez,

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

. Having returned to Belgium, he became a professor at the Conservatoire of

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

and, subsequently, at the Conservatoire of Brussels. It was in Brussels that he spent most of his later life. He edited numerous violin concertos by great composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, but his principal work was his violin method, arranged into progressive etudes, duos, popular melodies and technical themes. Most of the pieces in this method were by great violin pedagogues of the 19th century, though some were by Crickboom himself.

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* * * Frédérique Petrides - Orchestrette Classique 20th-century Belgian classical violinists Belgian male classical violinists Belgian music educators Violin educators 1871 births 1947 deaths Academic staff of the Royal Conservatory of Liège {{Violinist-stub