The virtuoso and world-famous violinist Ivry Gitlis died on Thursday at the age of 98 in Paris, his family announced to AFP.
The death of this musician who played in the most prestigious venues, for varied audiences and with the largest orchestras occurred this Thursday morning, said David Gitlis, one of his four children.
A UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, this Israeli resident in France had a special place in the world of classical music: known for his sometimes atypical repertoire performances, he also felt comfortable with jazz or gypsy music.
Cellist Gautier Capuçon expressed on social media his “immense sadness” after the death of this “legend of the violin”, while his brother, Renaud Capuçon greeted: “a star for all the violinists “,” the last of the violin tsars who crossed the twentieth century “.
He was born on August 25, 1922 in Haifa, present-day Israel and then under British rule, where his parents had emigrated from Ukraine.
“When I was 5, they raised the funds to buy me a violin. Since then, the violin is a part of me,” he wrote in his autobiography “The Soul and the String.”
He was the first Israeli artist to perform in the USSR (in 1955), founder of numerous festivals and was also an ardent supporter of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
With thick white hair and piercing blue eyes, a charismatic, capricious, fierce and narcissistic personality, Ivry Gitlis played generally motionless and with his eyes closed. His violin: a 1713 Stradivarius acquired in 1964.
He asserted that “emotion” was the engine of his art, but that “beyond emotion, it was important to transmit to the public such a legacy of beauty, in these times of ideological manipulation.”