I have a feeling there is a lot more about Lili Petschnikoff to find than I have so far. She wrote a memoir that her son published after her death called The World at Our Feet.
I haven’t found much about her husband, the Russian violinist Alexander Petschnikoff, either. (He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry in English or German.) He was born in Orel, Russia, studied at the Moscow Conservatory, and burst onto the Berlin scene in 1895. He was an immediate sensation, and stayed at the top for over a decade. He was on the Berlin Philharmonic subscription concerts in 1895, 1896, 1898, and 1911.
He made a successful tour of the US in 1899, playing on the two Stradivarius violins in his possession, including “a large model which originally belonged to the St. Petersburg virtuoso, Ferdinand Laub, and which was presented to Petschnikoff by the Princess Ourosoff. This instrument has been referred to as the most costly violin in existence.”((The Violinist (1901): 12.))
But back to Lili. She was born with the less exotic-sounding name of Lili Schober in Chicago in 1874. She studied at the Hochschule from 1891-96. After meeting the famous musician on a train going to Berlin in 1896, they married in Warsaw later that year. They had three children together. Of these, Sergei Petschnikoff worked in the film industry for Universal.
One unusual feature of their relationship was that they performed concerts together for more than a decade. Works for two violins are not plentiful, and there was quite a disparity between one of the world’s most celebrated virtuosos and a woman who had never played a major public concert. Nevertheless, they premiered the Concerto for Two Violins by Hermann Zilcher that was specifically written for them in 1902.((MMR Dec 1902)) They performed it with the Berlin Philharmonic (now titled “Suite für zwei Violinen”) on 19 March 1904, with the composer conducting.
They had six other joint appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic over the span of thirteen years.((They were on 23.11.1900, 18.11.1901, 9.10. 1902, 23.11.1903, 14.10.1908, and 24.1.1913.))In 1906 they performed the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Richard Strauss at the Salzburg Festival in 1906.((The concert was on 17 August 1906, according to La Grange, Mahler Vol. 3, 433.))
Petschnikoff did another successful tour of the US in 1906-07, which included at least one concert with Lili. When he arrived in New York, he had to live down an embarrassing situation with his mother, who claimed he refused to see her. The New York Times published an article with the headline “Petschnikoff’s Violin above his Family. ‘I am an artist and cannot meet the vulgar,’ He Says.”((New York Times, November 16, 1906, p.8.))
When the First World War began, Petschnikoff was teaching at the Munich Conservatory and had become a naturalized German citizen. The son of a Russian soldier, he was called up for duty in the German army.((Musical America, June 5, 1915, p. 11.)) Lili gave a concert in New York in 1915, but managed during the war to return to Munich to bring her mother, aunt, and three children back to the US.((She gave a concert in Munich on 20 March 1917.)) By that time the couple had divorced. Alexander remained in Munich until 1921.
Lili lived the rest of her long life in the Los Angeles area, first in Pasadena, then in a house opposite the entrance to the Hollywood Bowl. She performed with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra in 1919 and in 1920 with pianist Cornelia Rider-Possart.((Los Angeles Evening Express, 12 January 1919, p. 57.)) She died on 23 September 1957. According to her obituary in the Los Angeles Times, “she was an acquaintance of the late Albert Einstein, who used to come to her house to play the violin with her while he was a professor at Caltech. In later years her association with the musical world was confined to her long friendship with Dr. Bruno Walter and Lotte Lehmann.”((Los Angeles Times, Sep 24, 1957, p. 42.))
Alexander Petschnikoff’s birthplace
Story about Lili’s time at the Hochschule
When Madame Lili Petschnikoff was a very young girl and had nearly finished her studies with Joachim, the great virtuoso discovered one day that she had a remarkable voice-coloratura and of extraordinary compass. She was giving a pretended imitation of a prima donna to the other students of the Royal High School, and could trill on high C and sing up in F so easily that Joachim was dumfounded and offered to give her a chance to study for the opera. Joachim put her in the hands of a vocal teacher at the Royal School while he still continued her violin lessons. As her voice was very delicate, he wished to hear it with orchestral accompaniment, so at the end of six months Madame Petschnikoff sang with the orchestra at the Royal High School, the number being one of Mozart’s famous arias. The test was a complete success and Joachim was jubilant at the prospects of his favorite pupil.
Mary W. T. Dickenson, “Madame Lili Petschnikoff: An Appreciation,” California Southland 8 (1919): 10.
Madame Petschnikoff went to Paris and studied under Marchesi for a year. But the young singer was not destined to win her laurels by her own voice, as a sensitive throat, suffering from the uncongenial climate, failed to rally after succeeding attacks of bronchitis.
