Ginette Neveu

Ginette Neveu debuted at a public concert at the age of five; officially - two years later, when she performed Max Bruch's Concerto No. 1 in G minor at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Fifteen year-old at the time of the Warsaw competition, she played so excellently that jurors found her performance better than the already mature David Oistrakh's. Was the verdict right? It is difficult to conclusively answer this question after all these years; the more so, that no recordings of the competition survived. Her artistic career was as brilliant (she graduated from Paris Conservatory in 1928 at the age of nine and with similar first prizes as Henryk Wieniawski!), as it was short. Former student of Carl Flesch's, her performance in Warsaw in 1935 included Partita No. 2 in D minor by Bach, Concerto No. 2 in D minor by the competition patron, and one of her showpieces - 'Tzigane' by Ravel. The composition was also featured in the programme of her last recital, which she gave in October 1949 at the Festival in Edinburgh. A few days later, flying from Scotland to America, she died in a plane crash. With her - her brother Jean, a pianist, and a 1730 Stradivari violin...

Rec. 1938, Berlin