After three-quarters of a century as a violinist, Guila Bustabo, who has died aged 86, wryly recalled the life of another American-born prodigy whose career had run parallel to hers, but down a route showered with honour rather than scorn. "Menuhin got away from his parents. He was lucky. I never got away from mine."
At the end of her career, she found herself in the ranks of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Feeling a pain in her shoulder, she went to the doctor. "You're sitting all wrong," he explained, before being interrupted by a scream of outrage from Bustabo's ever-present mother, Blanche, the ultimate musical pushy parent. "Don't you know who you're talking to?" she demanded. "This is Guila Bustabo." Bustabo, it transpired, had not played in an orchestra before, so had never learnt to play while seated.
Guila Bustabo was born to musical parents in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. When, at the age of two and a half, she asked for a violin, her father cut up a cigar box, and her mother started to teach her on it. Not for long: Guila stamped on it in a rage and demanded a "proper violin", whereupon her father carved a tiny rosewood fiddle engraved with her initials in gold script. Within 18 months, the family had moved 200 miles to Chicago, so that Guila could study with Leon Samétini, a pupil of Ysaÿe.
At the age of five, she won a local competition with the Bach A minor concerto, whereupon Samétini secured a scholarship for her in New York. Studies with Louis Persinger at the Juilliard School followed her sensational debut there: other pupils in his class, who included Menuhin, remember Bustabo arriving in the mornings with bruises on her arms and head, and drew their own conclusions.
At the age of 15, she played the second Wieniawski concerto at Carnegie Hall, and she first toured abroad in 1934, starting in London. That year, a consortium including Toscanini bought a Guarneri del Gesù violin for her. Sibelius invited her to his villa in Jarvenpaa in 1937 to play his violin concerto: she did so exactly as he had "envisioned it when I composed it".
Mother and daughter arrived in Paris before the occupation of May 1940, and there the composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari chanced upon them. He took them into his home, composed a concerto for Bustabo and became her recital partner on tours of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Spain.
In occupied Amsterdam in October 1940, she played Bruch's G minor concerto with Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The performance, available on CD, gives a good idea of why she was so feted: a rapid vibrato is just about held in check enough for facile articulation and a flexible bow arm to deliver constant excitement and tension. A Beethoven concerto tape, also with Mengelberg, is less stylistically sensitive, but her recording of the Sibelius, made in Berlin, shows a passionate, alert interpreter.
It is unclear whether Blanche somehow managed to hide from her daughter the political crassness of performing in axis territories, or whether Guila was a true naif. When they arrived back in Paris after the liberation of 1944, General Patton requisitioned Bustabo to play for the US troops - until he learned of her wartime career, and arrested her. But her subsequent de-Nazification did not prevent most US orchestras from declining to have her back, and she continued to tour Europe throughout the 1950s and 60s.
In 1964, Bustabo settled in Innsbruck as professor of violin at the conservatoire. When bipolar disorder led to her retirement in 1970, Gordon Andrews, music director of the Alabama Symphony, invited her to join the orchestra. However, she could neither sight-read nor betray her soloist's style, and left after five years.
Blanche, her tormentor and mentor, died in 1992: sadly, her determination to put her daughter on the stage only ensured that Guila's name is now known to few.
At the end of her career, she found herself in the ranks of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Feeling a pain in her shoulder, she went to the doctor. "You're sitting all wrong," he explained, before being interrupted by a scream of outrage from Bustabo's ever-present mother, Blanche, the ultimate musical pushy parent. "Don't you know who you're talking to?" she demanded. "This is Guila Bustabo." Bustabo, it transpired, had not played in an orchestra before, so had never learnt to play while seated.
Guila Bustabo was born to musical parents in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. When, at the age of two and a half, she asked for a violin, her father cut up a cigar box, and her mother started to teach her on it. Not for long: Guila stamped on it in a rage and demanded a "proper violin", whereupon her father carved a tiny rosewood fiddle engraved with her initials in gold script. Within 18 months, the family had moved 200 miles to Chicago, so that Guila could study with Leon Samétini, a pupil of Ysaÿe.
At the age of five, she won a local competition with the Bach A minor concerto, whereupon Samétini secured a scholarship for her in New York. Studies with Louis Persinger at the Juilliard School followed her sensational debut there: other pupils in his class, who included Menuhin, remember Bustabo arriving in the mornings with bruises on her arms and head, and drew their own conclusions.
At the age of 15, she played the second Wieniawski concerto at Carnegie Hall, and she first toured abroad in 1934, starting in London. That year, a consortium including Toscanini bought a Guarneri del Gesù violin for her. Sibelius invited her to his villa in Jarvenpaa in 1937 to play his violin concerto: she did so exactly as he had "envisioned it when I composed it".
Mother and daughter arrived in Paris before the occupation of May 1940, and there the composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari chanced upon them. He took them into his home, composed a concerto for Bustabo and became her recital partner on tours of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Spain.
In occupied Amsterdam in October 1940, she played Bruch's G minor concerto with Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The performance, available on CD, gives a good idea of why she was so feted: a rapid vibrato is just about held in check enough for facile articulation and a flexible bow arm to deliver constant excitement and tension. A Beethoven concerto tape, also with Mengelberg, is less stylistically sensitive, but her recording of the Sibelius, made in Berlin, shows a passionate, alert interpreter.
It is unclear whether Blanche somehow managed to hide from her daughter the political crassness of performing in axis territories, or whether Guila was a true naif. When they arrived back in Paris after the liberation of 1944, General Patton requisitioned Bustabo to play for the US troops - until he learned of her wartime career, and arrested her. But her subsequent de-Nazification did not prevent most US orchestras from declining to have her back, and she continued to tour Europe throughout the 1950s and 60s.
In 1964, Bustabo settled in Innsbruck as professor of violin at the conservatoire. When bipolar disorder led to her retirement in 1970, Gordon Andrews, music director of the Alabama Symphony, invited her to join the orchestra. However, she could neither sight-read nor betray her soloist's style, and left after five years.
Blanche, her tormentor and mentor, died in 1992: sadly, her determination to put her daughter on the stage only ensured that Guila's name is now known to few.
After three-quarters of a century as a violinist, Guila Bustabo, who has died aged 86, wryly recalled the life of another American-born prodigy whose career had run parallel to hers, but down a route showered with honour rather than scorn. "Menuhin got away from his parents. He was lucky. I never got away from mine."
At the end of her career, she found herself in the ranks of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Feeling a pain in her shoulder, she went to the doctor. "You're sitting all wrong," he explained, before being interrupted by a scream of outrage from Bustabo's ever-present mother, Blanche, the ultimate musical pushy parent. "Don't you know who you're talking to?" she demanded. "This is Guila Bustabo." Bustabo, it transpired, had not played in an orchestra before, so had never learnt to play while seated.
Guila Bustabo was born to musical parents in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. When, at the age of two and a half, she asked for a violin, her father cut up a cigar box, and her mother started to teach her on it. Not for long: Guila stamped on it in a rage and demanded a "proper violin", whereupon her father carved a tiny rosewood fiddle engraved with her initials in gold script. Within 18 months, the family had moved 200 miles to Chicago, so that Guila could study with Leon Samétini, a pupil of Ysaÿe.
At the age of five, she won a local competition with the Bach A minor concerto, whereupon Samétini secured a scholarship for her in New York. Studies with Louis Persinger at the Juilliard School followed her sensational debut there: other pupils in his class, who included Menuhin, remember Bustabo arriving in the mornings with bruises on her arms and head, and drew their own conclusions.
At the age of 15, she played the second Wieniawski concerto at Carnegie Hall, and she first toured abroad in 1934, starting in London. That year, a consortium including Toscanini bought a Guarneri del Gesù violin for her. Sibelius invited her to his villa in Jarvenpaa in 1937 to play his violin concerto: she did so exactly as he had "envisioned it when I composed it".
Mother and daughter arrived in Paris before the occupation of May 1940, and there the composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari chanced upon them. He took them into his home, composed a concerto for Bustabo and became her recital partner on tours of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Spain.
In occupied Amsterdam in October 1940, she played Bruch's G minor concerto with Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The performance, available on CD, gives a good idea of why she was so feted: a rapid vibrato is just about held in check enough for facile articulation and a flexible bow arm to deliver constant excitement and tension. A Beethoven concerto tape, also with Mengelberg, is less stylistically sensitive, but her recording of the Sibelius, made in Berlin, shows a passionate, alert interpreter.
It is unclear whether Blanche somehow managed to hide from her daughter the political crassness of performing in axis territories, or whether Guila was a true naif. When they arrived back in Paris after the liberation of 1944, General Patton requisitioned Bustabo to play for the US troops - until he learned of her wartime career, and arrested her. But her subsequent de-Nazification did not prevent most US orchestras from declining to have her back, and she continued to tour Europe throughout the 1950s and 60s.
In 1964, Bustabo settled in Innsbruck as professor of violin at the conservatoire. When bipolar disorder led to her retirement in 1970, Gordon Andrews, music director of the Alabama Symphony, invited her to join the orchestra. However, she could neither sight-read nor betray her soloist's style, and left after five years.
Blanche, her tormentor and mentor, died in 1992: sadly, her determination to put her daughter on the stage only ensured that Guila's name is now known to few.
At the end of her career, she found herself in the ranks of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. Feeling a pain in her shoulder, she went to the doctor. "You're sitting all wrong," he explained, before being interrupted by a scream of outrage from Bustabo's ever-present mother, Blanche, the ultimate musical pushy parent. "Don't you know who you're talking to?" she demanded. "This is Guila Bustabo." Bustabo, it transpired, had not played in an orchestra before, so had never learnt to play while seated.
Guila Bustabo was born to musical parents in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. When, at the age of two and a half, she asked for a violin, her father cut up a cigar box, and her mother started to teach her on it. Not for long: Guila stamped on it in a rage and demanded a "proper violin", whereupon her father carved a tiny rosewood fiddle engraved with her initials in gold script. Within 18 months, the family had moved 200 miles to Chicago, so that Guila could study with Leon Samétini, a pupil of Ysaÿe.
At the age of five, she won a local competition with the Bach A minor concerto, whereupon Samétini secured a scholarship for her in New York. Studies with Louis Persinger at the Juilliard School followed her sensational debut there: other pupils in his class, who included Menuhin, remember Bustabo arriving in the mornings with bruises on her arms and head, and drew their own conclusions.
At the age of 15, she played the second Wieniawski concerto at Carnegie Hall, and she first toured abroad in 1934, starting in London. That year, a consortium including Toscanini bought a Guarneri del Gesù violin for her. Sibelius invited her to his villa in Jarvenpaa in 1937 to play his violin concerto: she did so exactly as he had "envisioned it when I composed it".
Mother and daughter arrived in Paris before the occupation of May 1940, and there the composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari chanced upon them. He took them into his home, composed a concerto for Bustabo and became her recital partner on tours of Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Spain.
In occupied Amsterdam in October 1940, she played Bruch's G minor concerto with Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The performance, available on CD, gives a good idea of why she was so feted: a rapid vibrato is just about held in check enough for facile articulation and a flexible bow arm to deliver constant excitement and tension. A Beethoven concerto tape, also with Mengelberg, is less stylistically sensitive, but her recording of the Sibelius, made in Berlin, shows a passionate, alert interpreter.
It is unclear whether Blanche somehow managed to hide from her daughter the political crassness of performing in axis territories, or whether Guila was a true naif. When they arrived back in Paris after the liberation of 1944, General Patton requisitioned Bustabo to play for the US troops - until he learned of her wartime career, and arrested her. But her subsequent de-Nazification did not prevent most US orchestras from declining to have her back, and she continued to tour Europe throughout the 1950s and 60s.
In 1964, Bustabo settled in Innsbruck as professor of violin at the conservatoire. When bipolar disorder led to her retirement in 1970, Gordon Andrews, music director of the Alabama Symphony, invited her to join the orchestra. However, she could neither sight-read nor betray her soloist's style, and left after five years.
Blanche, her tormentor and mentor, died in 1992: sadly, her determination to put her daughter on the stage only ensured that Guila's name is now known to few.
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