Samuel J. Chotzinoff

from youtube:

Jascha Heifetz plays Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, op. 20 in C minor. This was recorded in the 1910's for the RCA Victor (Nos. 74689-74694) label. He is accompanied by Samuel Chotzinoff.

about Chotzinoff

Dates: 1892-1964
Dates in Ridgefield: lived on Spring Valley Road 1935-1955
non-fiction writer, musical director, accompanist, music critic, novelist, biographer
Arturo Toscanini, one of the leading conductors of the 20th Century, liked Ridgefield – and his friend Samuel Chotzinoff – enough to give concerts here in 1947 and 1949 to benefit the library (on whose board Mr. Chotzinoff served 10 years) and the Boys Club. Mr. Chotzinoff, who lived on Spring Valley Road from 1935 to 1955, was musical director of NBC and persuaded Toscanini to come out of retirement in Italy to lead the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He also commissioned Gian Carlo Menotti to write television’s first opera, the now-famous Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti and Toscanini often visited Chotzinoff’s Ridgefield home). Born in Czarist Russia, Mr. Chotzinoff came to America at 17, studied piano, and was an accompanist for Efrem Zimbalist and later Jascha Heifetz, whose sister, Pauline, he married. Later a music critic for The New York Post and other papers, he penned a novel, Eroica, co-authored two plays, and wrote a biography of Toscanini as well as an autobiography. (His daughter Anne Chotzinoff married conductor Herbert Grossman, has written several books and has translated many operas and lieder, and her daughter, Lisa Grossman Thomas, is a musician and writer.) He died in 1964 at 72. Source: Notable Ridgefielders-Jack Sanders