Paul Kochanski

This famous Polish violinist was a friend and early recital partner of Arthur Rubinstein, first in Europe, then in the US, where Paul (originally Paweł Kochanski) settled. He taught at Juilliard from 1924 while pursuing his highly successful solo career. There are no films of Kochanski performing, but there is this amusing snippet from a home movie in which, following a concert in Cincinnati, he can be seen drinking champagne and imitating the cellist Pablo Casals:

Kochanski’s virtuosity is on display in recordings he made in the early 1920s. The Wieniawski piece here was in his Schubert Club program in 1930:

Kochanski is probably best remembered today as the dedicatee of the violin works by his friend, the great Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. Unfortunately there isn’t a recording of him playing either of the concertos or the solo pieces, but here is an outstanding modern performance of Kochanski’s violin-piano arrangement of an excerpt from Szymanowski’s opera King Roger:

Artist Note by Richard Evidon