Violinist Jose White in Paris, 1855-1875

Abstract

Jose Silvestre White (1835-1918) enjoyed an international reputation as a leading concert violinist in the late nineteenth century and was ranked by his contemporaries as a leading exponent of the modern school of French violin playing, along with Jean-Delphin Alard, Jules Armingaud, Charles Lamoureux, Jean-Pierre Maurin, and Arnaud Dancla (Pougin 1870). Although this Afro-Cuban was applauded on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean as an accomplished musician, his links to the French school and concert life in Paris have been considerably deemphasized by modem historians, who generally consign him to a footnote in the annals of American music history because of his historic debut in the United States with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra