The Russian-born violinist Efrem Zimbalist (1889-1985) is featured in the first volume of “The Auer Legacy”. The Hungarian-born Leopold Auer was the greatest violin pedagogue at the beginning of the 20th century, and Biddulph recordings is launching a series of CDs devoted to his greatest students.

Efrem Zimbalist was the first of Auer’s students to achieve international fame. Renowned for the patrician elegance of his playing, he recorded a host of short violin pieces early in his career. Zimbalist was also a superb composer, who not only wrote many works for violin and piano, but also composed an elaborate piano concerto as well as a full-length opera entitled Landara. He succeeded Auer as the principal violin teacher at the Curtis Institute, and eventually became the school’s Director of Music for over 25 years.

This CD surveys Zimbalist’s recordings made over a 20-year span. In addition to a selection of short violin encores, it features the violinist’s only two commercial recordings of multi-movement works: the Brahms Violin Sonata no.3 in D minor and Ysaÿe’s Solo Violin Sonata no.1 in G minor.