Born just after the turn of the 20th century in Odessa when it was part of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), Nathan Milstein studied as a child with Leopold Auer, who ran the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Further study with Eugène Ysaÿe in Belgium led to a meeting with Vladimir Horowitz and they performed together in the Soviet Union and Western Europe. Milstein appeared with Leopold Stokowski and the Phildelphia Orchestra in his American bow in 1930 and toured extensively in Europe before he became an American citizen and settled in New York City before later moving to London.
Always in demand, Milstein won acclaim for his 1948 recording with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic of Felix Mendelssohn's 'Violin Concerto in E Minor'. Dedicated to precision and practice, he arranged many other works and composed several pieces including 'Paganiniana', variations on themes by Paganini.
In 1990, he published a memoir titled 'From Russia to the West' in which he relates his life and tells of the impact the Soviet Revolution had upon artists there. A fall, in which he broke his left hand curtailed his career in the late 1980s and he died of a heart attack in London aged 88. He famously sought the 1716 Goldman Stradivarius and obtained it in 1945. He renamed the violin the 'Maria Teresa' in honour of his daughter and used it for the remainder of his life.
