Norman Carroll, a former child violin prodigy who for nearly three decades was the acclaimed first violinist and concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra and who made history when he toured Mao Zedong’s China with the orchestra in 1973, died on April 28 at the age of 95.
The band on social mediareleaseThe news of his death at a nursing home in Bala Cynwyd, Philadelphia’s Main Line neighborhood, did not attract much attention outside of classical music circles.
As the principal of the orchestra, he is responsible for tuning the orchestra andCarroll has performed under the acclaimed conductors Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Muti andWolfgang SawallischWork under you.
“As a leader, he was dashing, proper, even heroic,” Paul Arnold, a violinist with the orchestra, said in a statement. “His playing was bold, expressive, and majestic.” Carroll “came to represent the ‘Philadelphia sound’ in his own right,” he added.
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As Classical Voices of North America noted in 2015, the renowned Philadelphia soundOriginated fromLeopold StokowskiDuring his tenure, he served as the orchestra’s music director for a long time since the 1930s.OrmandyIt is gradually formed under the leadership of the string section.Unique honey sound”, while the brass instruments’ attack is softer and the percussion instruments’ playing method is more integrated.
During Carroll’s tenure, the Philadelphia Orchestra toured Europe and Asia and gained worldwide acclaim.
OrchestraGroundbreaking trip to ChinaIt was made at the request of President Nixon.AsheRestoring Sino-US relationsAs part of the effort, the orchestra performed in Beijing for Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing.That visit was similar to the visit of American table tennis players to China in 1971.“Ping-pong diplomacy“It has the same effect.”
“We were the first Western orchestra to go,” Carroll said in a 2013 interview with the music publisher Acclaim, with whom he had collaborated on several works. “It was the end of the Cultural Revolution, and people were in great need of classical music.”
Under the baton of Mr. Ormandy, the orchestra agreed to perform the Yellow River Concerto, a collective work that is seen as an ode to the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long campaign that Mao began in 1966 to purify the country’s revolutionary spirit but later morphed into aBloody cleansingkilling an estimated 1 million people or more.
As for the works of Western musicians, due to the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations at the time, the works of Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers were banned. Beethoven was considered acceptable because he was somehow regarded asRevolutionaryJames Carter, a historian who studies China, wrote in an article about the orchestra’s visit to China published in 2021 on the New York news website The China Project.
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At Jiang Qing’s special request, the Philadelphia Orchestra played Beethoven’s “Sixth Symphony”, also known as the “Pastoral Symphony”, which coincides with the agricultural ideals of the Cultural Revolution.
Ormandy was not particularly enthusiastic about the work, but he eventually agreed to it, telling a colleague:When in Rome, do as the Romans dothe guest should follow the host’s wishes.”
Carroll, photographed at an unknown time.
Carroll, photographed at an unknown time. “As a leader, he is cool, decent, even heroic,” said the orchestra’s violinist. via Philadelphia Orchestra
Norman Carroll was born on July 1, 1928, in Philadelphia, one of two children of Anna and Max Carroll, both of whom were Russian immigrants.
He started learning violin at the age of six.Temporary child care servicesso my mother often took me to class with her,” he told“My sister’s violin teacher discovered that I could be a ‘torture target’.”
At the age of nine, he was already playing his first Mozart concerto, and at 13 he began studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he taught for 35 years, starting in 1979.
After graduating in 1947, Carroll began a solo career and made his debut at New York’s Town Hall, where his performance was reported in Time magazine.
Carroll (bottom left) with classmates outside the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1946. He graduated from the school the following year.
Carroll (bottom left) with classmates outside the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1946. He graduated from the school the following year. Courtesy of the Curtis Archives
During the Korean War, he enlisted in the Army. While stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco, he met jazz trumpet players,singerChet Bakerand future conductorsAndrei PrevinA member of the military band.
During this time, he met his future wife, Eleanor Trobe. After they married in 1952, Carroll discovered that “being single is not always as good as it seems, when it comes to eating or doing other things in life,” he said in an interview with Acclaim.
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After concertmaster appointments with the New Orleans and Minneapolis symphonies, he joined his hometown orchestra in 1966, where he remained until chronic pain in his arms and shoulders forced him to retire in 1994, at the age of 66.
His survivors include his daughter Leslie, his son Dan, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Carroll with violinists from the China Central Philharmonic Orchestra during a visit to China in 1973.
Carroll with violinists from the China Central Philharmonic Orchestra during a visit to China in 1973. Beethoven in Beijing, via The Philadelphia Orchestra Association Archives
Last year, a delegation of Philadelphia Orchestra musicians visited several Chinese cities to mark the 50th anniversary of their 1973 trip to China. They joined their counterparts from the China National Symphony Orchestra for a concert in Beijing.
Although the 1973 visit to China became part of Cold War history, it was not Carroll’s last visit to China.
“In 1993, exactly 20 years later, we went back again,” he said. “China has changed dramatically. Before, we didn’t see any cars on the streets, but now there are huge traffic jams.”