Ion voicu paganini biography

Born in Bucharest (October 8th, 1923), Ion Voicu succeeded in bringing the renown of the Romanian school of violin players, formerly represented by Toma.
Ion Voicu was born into the gypsy tradition in Bucharest on 8th October 1923.
“Magical violinist” – this is how once was rightly described the artist born on October 8, 1923 in Bucharest in a family of Gypsy musicians with a tradition.

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It is hard to say when the Gypsies came to Romania for the first time, and then settled for good, but the oldest documents date from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when the royal charters mentioned the fiddler slaves, sold alongside the dependencies and objects from the courts of the great landowners from Walachia and Moldavia. From the 18^th century onwards, Gypsy musicians were quite expensive because their artistic talent quickly delivered them from the anonymity that hovered over other minorities (Tatars, Turks, Hungarians, Livonians/Russians, Greeks) settled North of Danube and at its mouths. From a charter of 1875, we learn that Gypsies had one price for their "soul" and another for their "craft", and it was forbidden "to pay a special price" for the craft of fiddling at sales, donations, legacies, purchases. Regardless of whether Gypsy musicians were freemen or slaves (fiddlers at the royal courts, at the monasteries or at the boyar courts), all of them were worth more than the rest of the minorities. In the mid-19^th century, when Gypsies were freed from the centu

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Ion Voicu was a legend in his own country, Romania, and in the profession at large, and appeared in most major musical centres. Yet he was not as well known in the English-speaking countries as he should have been. The long cold war and the dictatorial regime in his native land were mainly to blame for this state of affairs; but fortunately Voicu was able to make a few precious recordings on visits to the west.

Ion Voicu was born into this gypsy tradition in Bucharest on 8 October 1923. His father was a violinist and the family could trace their musical involvement back 300 years. He made his concert début aged sixteen, with Paganini’s First Concerto.

Ion Voicu died in Bucharest on 24 February 1997. ‘He was an outstanding violinist with a superb technique,’ says his Romanian successor Sherban Lupu. ‘His performances of the Paganini First Concerto were spectacularly memorable. I grew up as a small boy with him as a model for me, an aspiring young student. He was a very pleasant man – I got to know him better in 1974 when he was a member of the jury at the Carl Flesch competition

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Ion Voicu, violinist (1923 – 1997)

“Magical violinist” – this is how once was rightly described the artist born on October 8, 1923 in Bucharest in a family of Gypsy musicians with a tradition going back a century, and whose undisputable international fame was due to an overwhelming talent, exceptional virtuosity and a repertoire going from Bach to Enescu, Jora, Prokofiev, and Ravel. Impressive and sober stage presence, Ion Voicu displayed a spectacular, brilliant playing defined by clarity, be it intonational and articulation accuracy to stylistic vision and formal, architectural construction. There is a true “Voicu sound”, intense, communicative of expressive tension and élan, marked by his own feverish, unmistakable vibrato.

Ion Voicu began playing the violin aged five, training with such teachers as George Enacovici, Garabet Avakian and Vasile Filip. He also enjoyed the attention and advice of Enescu himself, both in Bucharest and in Sinaia. At the Moscow Conservatory, he studied with Abram Iampolski and David Oistrakh, becoming close friends with the latter.

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