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Jelly d'Aranyi, fully Jelly Aranyi de Hunyadvár (Hungarian: Hunyadvári Aranyi Jelly (30 May 1893 – 30 March 1966) was a Hungarian violinist who made her home in London.
She was born in Budapest, the grand-niece of Joseph Joachim, and sister of the violinist Adila Fachiri. She began her studies as a pianist, but switched to violin at the Music Academy in Budapest when Jenő Hubay accepted her as a student. After concert tours of Europe and America as a soloist and chamber musician she settled in London. On memorable occasions, she and Béla Bartók gave sonata recitals together in London and Paris. His two sonatas for violin and piano were dedicated to her, Jelly and Bartók presented them in London in March 1922 (No. 1) and May 1923 (No. 2).
She was an excellent interpreter of Classical, Romantic and modern music. After d'Aranyi had, at his request, played "gypsy" violin music to him one evening, Maurice Ravel dedicated his popular violin-and-piano composition Tzigane to her. Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated his Concerto Academico to her. Gustav Holst's Double Concerto for Two Violins was written for Jelly and Adila. The D'Aranyi String Quartet is named after her.
She played a curious role in the emergence and 1937 world premiere of Robert Schumann's Violin Concerto. On the basis of messages she received at a 1933 séance, allegedly from Schumann himself, about this concerto of which she had never previously heard, she claimed the right to perform it publicly for the first time. That was not to be, but she did perform it at the London premiere (of which Robert Elkin remarked, "of this dismal fiasco, the less said the better").
From her 20s, Jelly d'Aranyi was a lifelong friend of Georgie Hyde-Lees, the wife of W. B. Yeats.
She died in Florence in 1966 aged 72.
Literature
- A Eaglefield-Hull (Ed), A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924)
- Elkin, Robert, Queen's Hall 1893-1941 (Rider, London 1944), 51.
- MacLeod, Joseph, The Sisters d'Aranyi (London, Allen & Unwin, 1969).
- Magidoff, Robert, Yehudi Menuhin: The Story of the Man and the Musician (Robert Hale, London 1956).