A close associate of Felix Mendelssohn, Ferdinand David was a key figure in 19th century German musical life. He gave the world premiere of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64. David was born on June 19, 1810, in Hamburg, in the same house where Mendelssohn had been born a year earlier. His father was a salesman. David was raised Jewish, but in 1828, he converted to Protestantism. He studied with Moritz Hauptmann and Louis Spohr in the early 1820s, and by 1826, he was ready to begin his professional career as a violinist at the Königstädtischen Theater in Berlin. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, he toured as a virtuoso, appearing as far afield as Moscow and St. Petersburg. He also played first violin in a quartet attached to the household of the nobleman Carl Gotthard von Liphardt. In 1835, David was named concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, where Mendelssohn had just become conductor. Many of his compositions are for violin, but by no means all; one of his most familiar pieces is the early Concertino for trombone and orchestra, Op. 4, of 1838, which continues to be used in university exams for trombone players. David joined the faculty of the new Leipzig Conservatory of Music in 1843, teaching violin. He provided technical advice to Mendelssohn on the latter's violin concerto before premiering it in Leipzig in 1845. He also gave the premiere performance of Robert Schumann's Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor, Op. 105, in 1852. After Mendelssohn's death in 1847, he became the music director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. David wrote some 50 published works, many of which are little played today. However, his cadenza for Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, was played by the 12-year-old Joseph Joachim in 1844 and continues to be used. His violin-and-piano arrangement of Paganini's 24 Caprices for violin and orchestra has also been recorded several times. In later life, he edited performing versions of many works, including Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for solo violin. David died suddenly while on vacation with his family in Klosters, Switzerland, on July 18, 1873. As of the mid-2020s, some 25 of his works had been recorded, including two of his five violin concertos by violinist Hagai Shaham. ~ James Manheim, Rovi