JOHANNA MARTZY

A Sparkling Meteor

OUR DISCOVERIES

Bande No. 1

Bande No. 1

JOHANNA MARTZY

THE UNRELEASED & RARE RECORDINGS

"God has given you all that you need … You must play as one of the first ten, not as the first fifty violinists”. These were the words of Jenő Hubay, Johanna Martzy’s teacher at the Liszt Academy of Budapest, when she was thirteen years old. She could not guess that she was fated to lead the life of a comet traversing an unremitting succession of light and shadow. The professional career of the young girl took off to a meteoric start. In 1943, she made her first performance in Budapest, playing the Tchaikovsky concerto under the baton of the great Willem Mengelberg. But the Nazi occupation of Nazis of Hungary, still part of the Axis, put a halt to the career...

JOHANNA MARTZY

THE UNRELEASED & RARE RECORDINGS

JOHANNA MARTZY

THE UNRELEASED & RARE RECORDINGS

An epic between Berlin and Amsterdam

“It was Rémi Vimard, a collector and friend who told to me for the first time about Johanna Martzy and her Brahms Concerto with Paul Kletzki. I'm skeptical: I grew up with the Oistrakh and Neveu versions. But listening to the copy he brought me, I was struck by the purity of Martzy's sound. In April 2021, when we had access to the RBB database for the first time, I read her name and decided to look for the original tapes. Haendel sonata transported me... Later, we found her Mozart recordings and such a unique Ravel sonata in Amsterdam!

Frédéric D'ORIA-NICOLAS
Musical treasure seeker

THE FORMATS OF THIS DISCOVERY


Le Journal du Dimanche

“The restorations of The Lost Recordings are worthy of those devoted to master paintings”

The Awakening of a Virtuoso

Johanna Martzy was born on October 26, 1924 in Timișoara, Romania. From an early age, she was captivated by the violin and began her musical studies at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where she was quickly spotted for her exceptional talent. Her meteoric rise was interrupted by the arrival of the Nazis in Hungary, where she was interned in a camp until the end of the war.

 

A Dazzling Trajectory

Freed, she took up her instrument again, and quickly made a name for herself on the international scene. She won first prize at the Geneva Competition in 1947, and performed on the world's greatest stages, from London to New York. However, her career was also marked by constant challenges, including accusations concerning her alleged political affinities during the war and a constant battle against sometimes hostile music critics.

The Eclipse of a Star

Despite the obstacles, Johanna Martzy remained an artist devoted to her art, refusing to compromise. In 1965, she began to gradually withdraw from the stage, finding refuge in Switzerland, where she died in 1979. Despite belated recognition, she remains an emblematic figure of twentieth-century violin, hailed for her exceptional talent. The Lost Recordings has had the privilege of rediscovering and restoring a series of previously unreleased studio and concert recordings by Johanna Martzy, made between 1955 and 1965. These documents attest to the artist's immense talent and the lasting impact of her music.

“Martzy is an artist who has always seemed to me, at least in North America, the most underrated of the great violinists of our age” Glenn Gould

OUR HAPPY MUSIC LOVERS