Adila Fachiri

Adila Fachiri (b. Budapest, 26 February 1889;, d. 15 December 1962) was a Hungarian violinist who had an international career but made her home in England. She was the sister of the violinist Jelly D'Aranyi.

Born Adila Arányi de Hunyadvár, her early musical education was at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. She began to study violin when she was ten years old, under Jenö Hubay. At the age of 17 she won the artists' diploma, the highest musical distinction in Hungary. She was a grand-niece of Joseph Joachim, and she then studied with him in Berlin until his death, being possibly the only private pupil he ever accepted. He bequeathed to her one of his Stradivarius violins.

She first went to England in 1909, and in 1915 she married Alexander Fachiri, an English barrister living in London. By 1924 she had played in public in the chief cities of Hungary, Austria, Germany, Italy, France and Holland, as well as appearing regularly at London concerts.

Adila Fachiri made a recording of the Beethoven 10th violin sonata with Donald Francis Tovey. [National Gramophonic Society, 78rpm record nos. 114-117.] She was the dedicatee of the two violin sonatas of Bela Bartok, and of the 1930 violin concerto by Sir Arthur Somervell. On April 3 1930, she and her sister gave the first performance of the "Concerto for two violins" of Gustav Holst, at a Royal Philharmonic concert at the Queen's Hall, under Oskar Fried. The sisters were concerned together in a spiritualistic séance in London in March 1933, at which the existence of the Robert Schumann violin concerto was revealed to them through the 'voices' of Schumann himself and of their late grand-uncle, Joachim.

Notes

Sources

*A. Eaglefield-Hull, "A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians" (Dent, London 1924)
*R. Elkin, "Royal Philharmonic" (Rider & co., London 1946).
*J. MacLeod, "The Sisters d'Aranyi" (Allen & Unwin, London 1969).
*R. Magidoff, "Yehudi Menuhin, The Story of the Man and the Musician" (Robert Hale, London 1956)