Ferdinand Ernst Victor Carl David (German: ; 19 June 1810 – 18 July 1873) was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David was raised Jewish but later converted to Protestant Christianity. David was a pupil of Louis Spohr and Moritz Hauptmann from 1823 to 1824 and in 1826 became a violinist at Königstädtischen Theater in Berlin. In 1829 he was the first violinist of the string quartet of Baron Carl Gotthard von Liphardt (father of Karl Eduard von Liphart) in Dorpat, and he undertook concert tours in Riga, Saint Petersburg and Moscow. In 1835 he became concertmaster (Konzertmeister) at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig working with Mendelssohn. David returned to Dorpat to marry Liphardt's daughter Sophie. In 1843 David became the first professor of violin (Violinlehrer) at the newly founded Leipziger Konservatorium für Musik. David worked closely with Mendelssohn, providing technical advice during the preparation of the latter's Violin Concerto in E minor. He was also the soloist in the premiere of the work in 1845, and, with Clara Schumann, played the official premiere of Schumann's first violin sonata in Leipzig in March 1852.

Advertisement Advertisement