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THE MULTI-FACETED ARTISTRY OF VIOLIST EMANUEL VARDI BY LYDIA M. TANG THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Music with a concentration in Performance and Literature in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Rudolf Haken, Chair Associate Professor Katherine Syer, Director of Research Associate Professor Scott Schwartz Professor Stephen Taylor Clinical Assistant Professor Elizabeth Freivogel Abstract As a pioneer viola virtuoso of the 20th century, Emanuel “Manny” Vardi (c. 1915-2011) is most widely recognized as the first violist to record all of Paganini’s Caprices. As a passionate advocate for the viola as a solo instrument, Vardi premiered and championed now-standard repertoire, elevated the technique of violists by his virtuosic example, and inspired composers to write more demanding new repertoire for the instrument. However, the details of his long and diverse career have never to date been explored in depth or in a comprehensive manner. This thesis presents the first full biographical narrative of Vardi’s life: highlighting his work with the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini, his activities as a soloist for the United States Navy Band during World War II, his compositional output, visual artwork, an analysis of his playing and teaching techniques, as well as his performing and recording legacies in classical, jazz, and popular music. Appendices include a chronology of his life, discography, lists of compositions written by and for Vardi, registered copyrights, and a list of interviews conducted by the author with family members, former students, and colleagues. This project fills in many gaps in existing documentation of Vardi’s life and work, and brings for the first time this multi- faceted artist into full view. ii Acknowledgments This project could not have been accomplished without the generosity and time of those that I interviewed: Lenore and Andrea Vardi, Pauline Normand, Julia Bullard, Michael Colgrass, David Dalton, Martin Eshelman, Erica Kiesewetter, Paula Krupiczewicz, Richard Maximoff, Paul Peabody, John Peskey, Alan Raph, Allan Sandlin, Richard Sortomme, Jay Shulman, Scott Slapin, Arlene Stock, Brooks Tillotson, Neil and Naomi Warner, and others who volunteered their stories of Manny. Thank you, Jane Champion, for sharing with me your oral history project with Manny. Thank you for the extended research assistance from MUC Mike Bayes and MUC Stanley Curtis (U. S. Navy Band Archives), David Day (Primrose International Viola Archives), Jessica Wood (New York Public Library), Jay Shulman, and David Bynog (American Viola Society). Thank you, Mikael Elsila, editor of Allegro, for assistance in reaching musicians of Local 802, and to the professionals in the Performing Arts Division of the Library of Congress, Juilliard School Archives, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, and Michigan State University Libraries for helping me obtain the resources I needed. Special thanks also goes to Head of Special Collections Peter I. Berg, and the MSU Libraries for supporting the completion of my degree. Much appreciated are the skillful and patient editorial assistance of Amanda Lawrence and Nathan Tang. I am deeply grateful for the endless support, faith, and encouragement of Tang and Swada families. Most of all, thank you to my biggest fan, coach, and support: my husband, Jeff. This scholarly essay is dedicated to everyone who knew and loved Manny Vardi. iii Table of Contents Introduction: Emanuel, Emmanuel, and Manny ..............................................................................1 Chapter I: Early Years .....................................................................................................................5 Chapter II: NBC Symphony and Town Hall Recitals (1938-1942) ...............................................11 Chapter III: World War II and the Navy Band (1942-c. 1946) .....................................................17 Chapter IV: Carnegie Hall and Other Ventures (c. 1946-1950) ....................................................21 Chapter V: Recording, Conducting, Arranging, and Producing ....................................................26 Chapter VI: Paganini’s Caprices (1965) ........................................................................................36 Chapter VII: “For Versatility in Music:” Vardi & Hambro (1967-1975) ......................................39 Chapter VIII: Playing Dates: Recording Studio Work ..................................................................45 Chapter IX: Breaking Boundaries: Self-produced Recordings and a New Career ........................49 Chapter X: Compositions and Arrangements ................................................................................52 Chapter XI: The Way He Played and Taught ................................................................................57 Chapter XII: The Sight of Music ...................................................................................................70 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................75 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................77 Appendix A: Timeline ...................................................................................................................82 Appendix B: Discography ..............................................................................................................91 Appendix C: Compositions and Arrangements by Vardi ............................................................102 Appendix D: Pieces Written for Vardi .........................................................................................108 Appendix E: Copyrights ..............................................................................................................110 Appendix F: Vardi and Hambro’s List of Commercial Clients ...................................................115 iv Appendix G: Twenty Four Scales Continuum .............................................................................116 Appendix H: List of Interviews ...................................................................................................119 v Introduction: Emanuel, Emmanuel, and Manny When faced with the daunting process of documenting the musical legacy of his father, cellist and composer Alan Shulman, Jay recalled: “I didn’t start writing until I wished that I could ask questions and, by that point, either their memories were gone or they were gone.” Emanuel “Manny” Vardi was a close friend and frequent musical collaborator with his father. When asking Vardi about their long intertwined musical career, he would say, “Jay, why didn’t you ask me these questions twenty years ago when I remembered it?” As a result, Shulman’s son remarked: “One of the things that I decided was that there was more to the story, and because I didn’t want it to be forgotten or lost, I started writing.”1 This project was inspired by a noted lack of available literature about the multi-faceted violist, Emanuel Vardi. Although valuable articles exist by Samuel and Sada Applebaum (The Way They Played and Violins and Violinists), Allan Kozinn (Frets), Tully Potter (Strad Magazine), Kathryn Steely (Journal of the American Viola Society), and Margalit Fox’s obituary in The New York Times, they are often limited in detail and scope, not addressing any of his recording studio activity and work in jazz and popular music. Another significant source of information is the VardiArt website, created by Vardi and his wife, Lenore,2 to promote their musical and artistic work. This website, which is discontinued and only select pages have been preserved and remain available through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, contains biographical information, promotional photographs, and images of their paintings. There are also several shorter interviews and articles online, as well as liner notes of LPs and re-released CDs. The main repository for primary sources on Vardi, his personal papers at the Primrose International Viola Archives in Provo, Utah, consists of only two boxes. During the many moves 1 Jay Shulman in discussion with the author, September 20, 2015. 2 Lenore Vardi is also a violinist, violist and painter. 1 in the final decades of Vardi’s life, important documents, including his iconic compositions Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Paganini and Paraphrase on the Blue Danube, were lost. More significant in researching Emanuel Vardi is the fact that his life’s narrative was recycled and rephrased across time. In the existing literature, there is a standard core narrative which highlights various events but does not provide much in the way of details, or a consistent timeline. The goal of this thesis is to move beyond this established narrative to create a more richly detailed picture of Vardi. Fragmented information about Vardi’s activities can in part be accounted for by the inconsistent spelling of his name. His first name Emanuel was often erroneously spelled with a double-m (Emmanuel), as was the case with his Vardi-Hambro commercial and jazz collaborations, Kapp and European recordings,3 in crowd-sourced databases (such as Wikipedia) and in many biographies and personal websites of former students and