Edge Rewrite
everything Source code View original
// HTMLRewriter · presentation

This page was redesigned at the edge.

Cloudflare fetched the original article and streamed it through HTMLRewriter to apply an entirely new visual system without rebuilding the source page.

// request.cf · coarse context

A page that knows where it met you.

Only coarse request metadata is shown. This demo does not display or persist visitor IP addresses.

Country
US
Cloudflare location
CMH
Connection
HTTP/2
Language
Not provided

Ray ID: a24becb82fab8305

Jump to content

Judith Bokor

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judith Bokor
Portrait in 1929
Portrait in 1929
Background information
Born
Judit Bokor

(1899-04-10)April 10, 1899
Budapest, Austria-Hungary
DiedJuly 21, 1972(1972-07-21) (aged 73)
The Netherlands
EducationFranz Liszt Academy of Music
Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin
Years active1919–1931
Spouse
Géza Kálmán Kosch

Judit Bokor (Anglicized Judith; /ˈboʊkɔːr/ BOH-kor; April 10, 1899 – July 21, 1972) was a Hungarian cellist. A student of David Popper and Hugo Becker, she was based in the Netherlands for most of her career and performed widely across Western Europe in the 1920s with the support of her husband, the impresario Géza de Koos. She performed on the Graudan cello, made by Guadagnini in 1743. Bokor was best known for her heavy use of the portamento technique.

Her short career was ended in 1931 by an illness that prevented her from playing music for the rest of her life. Her recordings for Columbia Records in 1924 and 1925 are among the earliest surviving cello recordings by a Hungarian musician.

Early life and education

[edit]

Bokor was born in 1899 in Budapest, co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a family of Hungarian Jews.[1][2] At the age of nine, she began studying cello at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music (now the Franz Liszt Academy of Music) in Budapest under David Popper, the Bohemian-born virtuoso and composer who had been appointed to the faculty there in 1886 at the recommendation of Franz Liszt.[3] She later went to Berlin to continue her studies under German cellist Hugo Becker at the Hochschule für Musik.[1][2]

Career

[edit]

In 1919, following the short-lived communist government of Béla Kun in Hungary, Bokor and her husband, Hungarian lawyer Géza Kálmán Kosch (1887–1971), fled to the Netherlands.[4][5] On the advice of conductor Willem Mengelberg, Kosch established himself as a concert impresario,[6] adopting the professional name Géza de Koos.[7] His agency, the Hollandsche Concertdirectie, became one of the most influential in the Netherlands: he managed the celebrated Kurhaus Concerts and represented major international artists including Jorge Bolet and Sergei Rachmaninoff.[8][9]

Bokor gave her solo debut in the Netherlands on September 23, 1919.[10] She was accompanied by Dutch pianists including Willem Pijper at the inaugural Mahler Festival,[11][12] and by Louis Schnitzler [nl] (1868–1933) until 1925, after which she had Theo van der Pas as accompanist.[2] On March 3, 1920, she played Pjiper's Sonata in C Major, with the composer accompanying her on piano.[13][14] She received critical acclaim for her early performances:

Her playing this time showed a remarkable advance in technique, ripeness of feeling, and general musicianship. Considering her attainments at her present age—which one is permitted to hint at if a lady has hardly passed twenty—it may safely be predicted that she will have a splendid career.

Bokor in 1925

With the support of her husband's professional connections,[16] she began performing concerts across the Netherlands,[17] and then across Western Europe.[18][19][20] She performed the Saint-Saëns Concerto in A Minor in Amsterdam in the autumn of 1920, to critical acclaim.[21] She also played at the Aeolian Hall in London, Ontario on May 1924, performing a Haydn concerto and Léon Boëllmann's Variations Symphoniques, and was praised by The Strad for her "fine technique" and playing "full of vigour and character."[22] She toured North America again in 1930 for three months. Her technique featured heavy use of portamento, which was common among cellists of the period.[10]

In 1927, she acquired the Graudan cello made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1743 from Marguerite Agaranthe Miles Tennant (1868–1943), who also owned the Lady Tennant Stradivarius.[23] Her last performance was in 1931, when an illness prevented her from playing the cello, thus all recordings of her date to before this period. She sold the Graudan cello through W. E. Hill & Sons in 1935,[24] and it was acquired by Nathan E. Posner (1880–1962), a rare violin collector.[25]

She died in the Netherlands on July 21, 1972, aged 75.[26]

Recordings

[edit]
Le cygne by Saint-Saëns (1925)
Chants russes by Édouard Lalo (1925)
Kol Nidrei by Max Bruch (1924)

She made a number of recordings, including 78 RPM records for the Columbia label in 1924 and 1925, and electric 78 RPM records in 1927.[10] The following lists her surviving discography:

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 "Bokor, Judith (cello) - Columbia (1924-1925)". Columbia Records. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "HUNGARIAN CELLIST JUDITH BOKOR (1899-1972) CDR". Classical Music CDs. September 13, 2024. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  3. ↑ "Magyarországi Felsőoktatási Intézmények (1580-1918): Bp Zeneművészeti Akadémia 1875-1918". ELTE Egyetemi Könyvtár és Levéltár (in Hungarian). Eötvös Loránd University. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  4. ↑ Kenneson, Claude (October 1, 1994). Szekely And Bartok. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-931340-70-3. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  5. ↑ Fehling, Wiert W. (2007). Irail Gadescov: danseur célèbre 1894-1970 : de opmerkelijke carrière van danspionier Richard Vogelesang (in Dutch). Eburon Uitgeverij B.V. p. 59. ISBN 978-90-5972-181-4. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  6. ↑ Samama, Leo (January 6, 2016). The meaning of music. Amsterdam University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-90-485-2892-9. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  7. ↑ Musical Magazine and Musical Courier. 1959. p. 6. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  8. ↑ Kenneson, Claude (October 1, 1994). Szekely And Bartok. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 50–51, 194, 231. ISBN 978-0-931340-70-3. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  9. ↑ Steenhuis, Peter Henk (June 8, 2012). De rode ambassadeur: coen Stork: diplomaat van Pretoria tot Boekarest (in Dutch). Singel Uitgeverijen. ISBN 978-90-253-6895-1. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  10. 1 2 3 Judith Bokor, cello (+ piano). "Bokor, Judith (cello) - Columbia (1924-1925)". Columbia Records. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  11. ↑ "Opera in Amsterdam". Welsh National Opera. October 9, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  12. ↑ Musical Courier and Review of Recorded Music. 1920. p. 27. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  13. ↑ Jean-Aubry, G. (January 1920). The Chesterian, New Series, No. 4. Great Marlborough Street, London. p. 249. Retrieved May 26, 2026.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. ↑ Leichtentritt, Hugo (1923). Musical News. p. 498. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  15. ↑ The Musical Times and Singing-class Circular. Novello. November 1, 1921. p. 804. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  16. ↑ The World Musical and Theatrical Guide. World musical and theatrical guide. 1929. p. 300. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  17. ↑ Fehling, Wiert W. (2007). Irail Gadescov: danseur célèbre 1894-1970 : de opmerkelijke carrière van danspionier Richard Vogelesang (in Dutch). Eburon Uitgeverij B.V. p. 59. ISBN 978-90-5972-181-4. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  18. ↑ The Musical Leader. J. French Demerath and E. French Smith. 1930. p. 3. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  19. ↑ Tesler-Mabé, Hernan (March 13, 2020). Mahler's Forgotten Conductor: Heinz Unger and his Search for Jewish Meaning, 1895–1965. University of Toronto Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-4875-0516-5. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  20. ↑ "Judith Bokor Concert Setlists". setlist.fm. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  21. ↑ The Musical Times & Singing-class Circular. Novello. December 1, 1920. p. 849. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  22. ↑ The Strad. Orpheus. 1924. p. 6. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  23. ↑ "Historical Owners: Judith Bokor". Tarisio. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  24. ↑ "Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Piacenza, c. 1744, the 'Graudan'". Tarisio. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  25. ↑ "NATHAN E. POSNER, VIOLIN DEALER, 80; Specialist in Rare Bows and Instruments Is Dead". The New York Times. June 2, 1962. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  26. ↑ Farbman, Michael; Muir, Ramsay; Spender, Hugh F. (1927). The Europa Year-book. Europa Publishing Company. p. 353. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
  27. ↑ "Bokor, Judith (cello) - Columbia (1924-1925) : Judith Bokor, cello (+ piano) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive".
  28. 1 2 Rodríguez, María Cadenas (June 15, 2020). "An Approach to Romantic cello playing in Brahms's time". KC Research Portal. Retrieved May 26, 2026.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judith_Bokor&oldid=1363259136"