Isolde Menges

Who was Isolde Menges?

Isolde Marie Menges was an accomplished English violinist who was most active in the first part of the 20th century.

A native of Sussex, England, she became a student of Leopold Auer and Carl Flesch. She concertised widely, as soloist and with the Menges Quartet and Quintet, in locations such as Darmstadt, Liège, Wiesbaden, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and throughout England, Scotland, Canada and the United States.

Her Quartet gave a complete cycle of Beethoven quartets in Wigmore Hall in London in 1938, and another in Oxford.

She gave concerti with noted orchestras and conductors such as the New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry J. Wood, and London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter, and the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 1916 she played the Brahms Violin Concerto and Édouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole with Ernest Bloch.

While living with friends in Kelowna, Canada, during the winter and spring of 1918, Isolde Menges gave daily private lessons to child prodigy Isobel Murray, who later became one of British Columbia's leading violinists.

A major prize commemorates her at the Royal College of Music, where she taught.