Ferdinand David (musician)

Ferdinand Ernst Victor Carl David (; 19 June 181018 July 1873) was a German virtuoso violinist, composer and conductor. Biography Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David returned to Dorpat to marry Liphardt’s daughter Sophie. In 1843 David became the first professor of violin (Violinlehrer) at the newly founded Leipziger Konservatorium für Musik. David worked closely with Mendelssohn, providing technical advice during the preparation of the latter’s Violin Concerto in E minor. He was also the soloist in the premiere of the work in 1845, and, with Clara Schumann, played the official premiere of Schumann’s first violin sonata in Leipzig in March 1852. After Mendelssohn’s sudden death, David was assigned Kapellmeister of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, a duty he fulfilled 1841–1842 and 1852–1854. He died suddenly in 1873, aged 63, while on a mountain excursion with his children, near Klosters in the Graubünden (Grisons) area of Switzerland. Compositions David’s own compositions number about 50 opuses. They include 12 “theme and variations” pieces for violin and orchestra, five violin concertos, a string sextet, concertinos for violin,