Perlman, Benedetti and Bell among the "Top 20 Greatest Violinists of All Time"
Itzhak Perlman, Nicola Benedetti and Joshua Bell are featured on uDiscoverMusic’s list of the 20 greatest violinists of all time
Best Violinists: Top 20 Greatest All Time
By Jeremy Nicholas
uDiscoverMusic
June 22, 2022
uDiscoverMusic has put together a list of the 20 greatest violinists of all time, featuring legendary virtuosos of the past and today’s young stars.
Nicola Benedetti (b. 1987), Scottish-Italian
Benedetti, one of the best violinists, was catapulted to national attention when she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004 at the age of 16. For this, she played Szymanowski’s unfamiliar Violin Concerto No. 1 (which she recorded in 2005) heralding a discography that today imaginatively mixes standard repertoire (Mendelssohn, Bruch, et al) with lesser-known and new works. In 2020 she won the Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo with Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto and Fiddle Dance Suite. Her imaginative support of children’s music education was rewarded with a CBE in 2019.
Watch Nicola Benedetti performing and discussing recording Wynton Marsalis’ Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin and his Violin Concerto with the composer here.
Joshua Bell (b. 1967), American
A child prodigy who studied with the legendary Josef Gingold (“my mentor and grandfather figure”), Bell appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Muti aged 14 and made his Carnegie Hall debit at 17. His soulful, agile playing has led to many fine recordings (notably concertos by Barber, Goldmark and Nicholas Maw whose concerto was written for him) and film soundtracks, among them The Red Violin, Ladies in Lavender and Angels & Demons. He owns the Gibson ex-Huberman 1713 Stradivarius for which he paid $4,000,000.
Watch Joshua Bell perform “Summertime” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess here.
Itzhak Perlman (b. 1945), Israeli-American
Perlman, one of the greatest violinists, seems to have all the technical accomplishment of Heifetz and the communicative warmth of Kreisler (he has something of the same friendly, collegial personality). Afflicted by polio from the age of four, he has to play seated which inevitably invites another level of admiration. His generous, rich tone and expressive depth are ideally suited to the recording studio, and he has featured on several film soundtracks, most notably John Williams’s score for the 1993 film Schindler’s List. Ronald Reagan awarded him the President’s Medal of Freedom in 1986.
Listen to Itzhak Perlman performing the violin solos in the theme from Schindler’s List here.
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