JAVS Fall 2022

In Memoriam

Remembering Milton Preves: An Important Violist from the Recent Past

Right after college, I was drafted into the US Army. After my basic training, I was shipped to Stuttgart, Germany, where for 18 months I was violist in the 7th US Army Symphony Orchestra. My stand partner was Ted Kaitchuck, a good violist from Chicago, who had studied with Milton Preves, the principal violist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Ted praised Preves as a fine teacher and a good person. As Ted had little money to pay for his lessons, Preves agreed to have him do garden work in his home in exchange. Many years later, I met the Preves’ older son, David, a good violinist/violist. We played many quartet sessions and did several chamber concerts together. Although I never met Milton Preves, I knew of his fine reputation as a superb violist, teacher, and conductor. The CSO recently celebrated his birthday with this wonderful, memorial tribute. I hope you enjoy meeting Milton Preves. -Myron Rosenblum The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family remembers one of its iconic musicians, Milton Preves (1909–2000), in honor of the anniversary of his birth on June 18.

Born in Cleveland, Preves moved to Chicago as a teenager and attended Senn High School. He was a student of Leon Sametini at Chicago Musical College, Richard Czerwonky at the Bush Conservatory of Music, and Albert Noelte and Ramon Girvin at the Institute of Music and Allied Arts before attending the University of Chicago. Preves joined the Little Symphony of Chicago in 1930, regularly worked in radio orchestras, and was invited by Mischa Mischakoff (then CSO concertmaster) to join the Mischakoff String Quartet in 1932. Two years later, second music director Frederick Stock appointed Preves to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s viola section, promoting him to assistant principal in 1936 and principal in 1939. He would remain in that post for the next forty-seven years, serving under a total of seven music directors, including Désiré Defauw, Artur Rodzinski, Rafael Kubelik, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, and Sir Georg Solti. Preves performed as a soloist with the Orchestra on dozens of occasions, including the world premieres of David Van Vactor’s Viola Concerto and Ernest Bloch’s Suite Hébraïque for Viola and Orchestra, both dedicated to him. Under Reiner, he recorded Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote —along with cellist Antonio Janigro and concertmaster John Weicher—with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA in 1959. A lifelong educator, Preves served on the faculties of Roosevelt, Northwestern, and DePaul universities, and he also always taught privately out of his home. An avid conductor, he held titled posts with the North Side Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, Oak Park–River Forest Symphony, Wheaton Summer Symphony, Gary Symphony, and the Gold Coast Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he performed with the Budapest, Fine Arts, Gordon, and Chicago Symphony string quartets, as well as the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players.

Milton Preves in 1934, the year he joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Photo credit: George Nelidoff

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 2, Fall 2022

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