Váša Příhoda

Váša Příhoda — Biography

Váša Příhoda (22 August 1900, Vodňany – 26 July 1960, Vienna) was a Czech violinist and minor composer celebrated as a specialist in the music of Paganini. Trained under Jan Mařák at the Prague Conservatory, he gave his first solo recital in Prague in 1912 and began touring Europe from 1913, but the First World War left touring largely unprofitable, and by 1919 he was reduced to playing in a Milan restaurant. It was there that conductor Arturo Toscanini heard him and declared that even Paganini could not have played better, a moment that launched dozens of concert engagements across Italy in the following months.

After touring Argentina and the United States in the early 1920s, Příhoda returned to Europe and settled mainly in Austria, where he later taught at the Salzburg Mozarteum. The wartime death of his first wife, violinist Alma Rosé, at Auschwitz complicated his postwar reputation, but by the end of 1946 he had been cleared and resumed an intensive concert career. He enjoyed a triumphant appearance at the 1956 Prague Spring Festival and in 1958 recorded his best-known disc, Paganini's variations on "Nel cor più non mi sento." He also appeared on screen in the 1936 film A Woman Between Two Worlds, playing the violinist Stefano Polgar. Early in his career he favored the virtuoso repertoire of Paganini and Ernst, later gravitating toward the more central works of Mozart and Beethoven.