Rosa Hochmann (March 13, 1875 – December 1955), was a violinist and violin teacher.
"Hochmann, Rosa (Felicia), verh. Stransky, verh. Rosenfeld, Hochmann-Stransky, Hochmann-Rosenfeld"
''Europäische Instrumentalistinnen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts''. 2013. Online-Lexikon des Sophie Drinker Instituts.

Life

Hochmann was born in Proskurov, Russian Empire, now

Khmelnytskyi Khmelnytskyi (, ) is a city in western Ukraine. Located on the Southern Bug, it serves as the administrative centre of Khmelnytskyi Oblast as well as Khmelnytskyi Raion within the oblast. With a population of Khmelnytskyi is the second-larges ...

, Ukraine. She was trained in Kiev by Oskar Stock. She moved to Vienna with her mother in 1885 and studied there from 1889 to 1891 at the conservatory with

Jakob Grün Jakob Moritz Grün (; 13 March 1837 – 1 October 1916) was an Austrian violinist of Hungarian origin. After positions as principal violinist in the court orchestras of Weimar and Hannover, he was, from 1868 to 1897, concertmaster of the Vienna ...

who was concertmaster of the

Vienna Court Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by A ...

. There is evidence of several concerts by Hochmann in Vienna in the 1890s, during which she performed, among others, the Violin Concerto No. 8 in A minor, Op. 47 by

Louis Spohr Louis Spohr (, 5 April 178422 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, ...

, the Violin Concerto in G minor by

Max Bruch Max Bruch (6 January 1838 – 2 October 1920) was a German Romantic Music, Romantic composer, violinist, teacher, and conductor who wrote more than 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin ...

, and solo works by

Pablo de Sarasate Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (; 10 March 1844 – 20 September 1908), commonly known as Pablo de Sarasate, was a Spanish violinist, composer and Conducting, conductor of the Romantic music, Romantic period. His best known work ...

, Carl Halir, and

Henryk Wieniawski Henryk Wieniawski (; 10 July 183531 March 1880) was a Polish virtuoso violinist, composer, and pedagogue, who is regarded amongst the most distinguished violinists in history. His younger brother Józef Wieniawski and nephew :pl:Adam Tadeusz Wien ...

. In 1894–95 she made concert tours to Budapest and Dresden as well as to Berlin, Warsaw, Magdeburg and Potsdam. She also gave concerts in Milan in 1896, again in Berlin in 1898, and in Saint Petersburg in 1900. In Saint Petersburg, at the age of 25, Hochmann met the Jewish banker Felix Stransky, whom she married in Vienna in 1900. Felix Stransky was a member of the Konzerthaus management in Vienna from 1914 to 1938. The couple initially resided in Saint Petersburg, but then moved to Zurich, and from about 1905 the Hoffmann-Stransky family, now with two children, George Franz Kyrill and Claire Eugenie, lived in Vienna. According to the social conventions of the time, marriage meant a withdrawal from public concert life for the violinist. After the marriage, only a few public concerts are documented, such as on November 6, 1901, at the Vienna Concert Association, on March 12, 1907, at the Vienna Conservatory on the occasion of Jakob Grün's 70th birthday, two symphony concerts in Vienna in the fall of 1907, and her participation in a charity concert on March 9, 1908, at the

Musikverein The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. The acoustics of the building's 'Grea ...

ssaal, Vienna. The couple divorced in 1908. In 1907 she was awarded the Romanian medal of merit Bene Merenti first class for her artistic achievements. In later years Hochmann worked primarily as a violin teacher, training Erika Morini and

Norbert Brainin Norbert Brainin, OBE (12 March 1923 in Vienna – 10 April 2005 in London) was the first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, one of the world's most highly regarded string quartets. Because of Brainin's Jewish origin, he was driven out of Vienna ...

, among others. Rosa Hochmann remarried with the banker Alfred Rosenfeld (1873 – c. 1941). Hochmann managed to emigrate to the United States. She returned to Vienna after the Second World War where she died in 1955. Her first husband Felix Stransky was deported to the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

, but survived.

Life

References

Further reading