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Ginette Neveu (11 August 191928 October 1949) was a French . At the age of 15, she beat David Oistrakh to win the Polish Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition. She made several concert tours and was considered to be 'one of the finest violinists of her generation'. Following an interruption to her career during the Second World War she resumed playing concerts more widely and made a small number of recordings. She died in the 1949 Air France Lockheed Constellation crash on São Miguel Island, in the Azores at the age of 30.
Neveu made her solo debut at the age of seven with Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. In the same year she performed Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Concerts Colonne under Gabriel Pierné. Her parents then decided to send her to study under Line Talluel. Aged nine, she won first prize at the École Supérieure de Musique and the City of Paris Prix d'Honneur. After further studies with Jules Boucherit at the Conservatoire de Paris, she completed her training with instruction from George Enescu (who had been Yehudi Menuhin's teacher), Nadia Boulanger and Carl Flesch. Flesch offered to teach her without charge after hearing her in the Vienna International Violin Competition, at which, aged 12, she was placed fourth out of 250 entrants. The Vienna Neues Tageblatt wrote, "If you close your eyes, you think you are listening to the vigorous playing of a man and not that of a little girl in a white frock."
Neveu's international career was interrupted by World War II, during which she gave few concerts, nearly all in France. Many invitations to play in Germany were turned down, and she played almost exclusively in small halls in the zone libre. She was finally able to make her London debut in 1946. She recorded Jean Sibelius's Violin Concerto at Abbey Road Studios in the same year.
Her brother Jean-Paul usually accompanied her on piano, and the two toured postwar Europe extensively, appearing at the Prague Spring International Music Festival as well as visiting Australia and South America. They also played return engagements at major venues in the United States. At one concert in the Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth was so moved by the Beethoven Concerto that she invited Neveu up to the royal box for the second half. 'On the platform,' wrote the critic of the New York newspaper, the World-Telegram, 'Ginette Neveu is an impressive figure – tall, dark, and with an imposing manner. Whenever there is a rest for the violin she stands like an acolyte robed in white, her eyes fixed on the conductor ... it is fascinating.'
Neveu made few commercial recordings, but all of them remain available. She recorded the Brahms and Sibelius Concertos, Maurice Ravel's Tzigane, Ernest Chausson's Poème, the Claude Debussy Sonata (with her brother) and a handful of shorter pieces. There are also two recordings of her Beethoven Concerto (with Hans Rosbaud and Willem van Otterloo conducting) and two other recordings of her Brahms (with Antal Dorati and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt) from non-commercial sources. Most highly praised, and most revelatory, was her Sibelius (with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Walter Susskind). Of it, the composer wrote, 'I particularly wish to speak of my feeling of profound gratitude when I think of the inspired and extremely sensitive performance of my Violin Concerto which Ginette Neveu rendered unforgettable.' She loved the Concerto, but, as she said, 'Ils ne le connaissent en France, et ils ne veulent pas le connaitre!' (They don't know it in France, and they don't want to know it!). Perhaps she was thinking of that difficult concerto when she wrote, 'As far as I am concerned, the truly technical problems which are the most disconcerting and the most fruitful are those posed by composers who have a strong personality and pursue the essence of their musical idea to its logical conclusion without wasting too much sympathy on the performer.'
During the return of the bodies to France, Neveu's coffin was confused with that of another victim, Amélie Ringler, whose funeral took place before the error was discovered. On 28 November, Neveu's brother-in-law identified her remains in the coffin disinterred from the graveyard in Bantzenheim. Neveu now lies in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, close to the grave of Frédéric Chopin.
Neveu was posthumously awarded the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur. A street is named in her memory in the Montmartre region of Paris. (2025). 9782856204832, Mengès. ISBN 9782856204832
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