DESCRIPTION:
Recorded ~1913, unknown pianist

Thanks to Marc Bernstein for allowing me to upload this transfer from his collection of 45,000 78s. Marc produces and sells custom CDs. I purchased three very reasonably priced CDs that from my requests and his suggestions include wonderful recordings of groups and individuals both new and familiar to me and very difficult to find anywhere else. If you wish to add rare and hard-to-find material to your collection, here's your chance.

Marc's email: marcsrecordings@gmail.com

Heritage Records
Marc Bernstein
President and Proprietor
21 Mayfair Avenue, Suite 301
Toronto Ontario Canada M5N 2N5

Marc Bernstein worked as projectionist (Famous Players Theatres (Canada) 1980-2005 and did a series of radio programs 1977-Seneca College: "Musical Sleuth." He gave presentations for the ARSC: (Association of Recorded Sound Collections) in 2003 and 2004. Marc gave a lecture in 2010 to the Toronto Wagner Society and a Cantorial lecture at Queen's University, Kingston, October 2000.

Marc's father was Jack Bernstein (1918-1988), President (and motion picture industry pioneer) of the Famous Players Theatres, Canada. His mother is retired soprano, Mary Simmons who worked with pianist Leonard Shure, violinist Joseph Gingold, and conductors: Ozawa, Stravinsky, Scherchen, and Suskind.

Marc Bernstein's late grandfather and his 3 brothers were all distinguished North and South American Cantors, "The Four Borenstein Brothers."
Akiva Bernstein (1893-1968) was Chazzan at Beth Tzedec Synagogue, Toronto: 1937-1956.
Cantor Henoch Borenstein (1907-1996): (Philadelphia, New York City).
Cantor Pinchas Borenstein (1902-1955) recorded 78s for Stinson and South American Victor 78s and was State Cantor, Argentina.
Cantor Hershel Borenstein (1880-1947): bass/baritone, Philadelphia.

Marc's father was a major influence on his life and love of great recordings on 78s. His mother, Mary Simmons currently is in a nursing home in Toronto.

Marc has been collecting 78s and LPs, since he was 14 years old in 1970.


Marie was the daughter of Edward Felix Handley Hall, a harpist who played at times in the Carla Rosa opera orchestra. She was born 1884 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where it is said that Hildegarde Werner gave Marie her first violin lessons as a very young child.

The Hall family played in the homes of music lovers in the Malvern area, and to eke out the family budget, Marie sometimes played her violin in Church Street, Great Malvern, while her mother collected pennies from passers-by.

Then, so the story goes, at 9, Marie was discovered by the French composer Emile Sauret, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He recommended that the young musician should attend the Academy, but finances made this impossible.

Instead, she continued to take lessons with local teachers, one of whom was Edward Elgar, who gave violin lessons in Malvern each week. Marie became a pupil of Elgar at the beginning of the summer term 1894, but this association was to last only a short time. Meanwhile, her skill with the violin earned her a scholarship to the Royal Academy, but she was still unable to take up her place, presumably because of straitened family finances.

She did eventually, at the age of sixteen, go to London to study under Johann Kruse. A year later she was heard by the eminent Czech violinist, Jan Kubelik, on whose advice she went to the Prague Conservatory to complete her musical education with the tutor Ottakar Sevcik. Marie made her concert debut in Prague in 1902 to enormous acclaim, repeating her success the following year in Vienna and London. Marie Hall's reputation was now firmly established. At just 19 she toured the world, playing in Germany, Canada, America and Australia.

In 1916 her association with Elgar was renewed. In 1916 Marie and Elgar came together to record his violin concerto "a big work, lasting for nearly an hour, and calling for a soloist with great technical virtuosity, combined with deep emotional sensitivity."

Perhaps the greatest tribute paid to Marie Hall was by another English composer, Ralph Vaughan-Williams. He wrote and dedicated one of his principal works to her: "The Lark Ascending", which she performed in London in 1921 with Adrian Boult and the British Symphony Orchestra.

In 1911 Marie married her manager Edward Baring and had one child, Pauline. For the last years of her life she lived in Cheltenham in a large Victorian villa. Marie has been described as "a very charming woman, very small and jolly and with a great sense of humour. She was also extremely generous." Marie Hall died in Cheltenham on November 11th 1956, aged 72. The 1709 Stradivarius violin, which she had played for over 50 years and which became known as the Marie Hall Stradivarius, was sold at Sotheby's in April 1988 for a record £473,000 to an anonymous South American bidder.