Robert Menga, 70; was child prodigy on violin
Robert Menga gave his first violin concert at a flower show in Attleboro when he was 5.
At 11, when he played a solo rendition of a Mendelssohn concerto with conductor Arthur Fiedler at the Hatch Memorial Shell, the Globe reported that he "brought the crowd roaring to its feet, dissolved his mother in joyful tears, and left Fiedler flushed with vicarious delight."
At 12, he played Carnegie Hall.
Mr. Menga, who as an adult played with the New York Philharmonic and orchestras abroad, died Nov. 21 in his sleep, apparently of a heart attack, at his home in Auckland, New Zealand. He was 70. He had moved from Brockton to New Zealand last spring to be close to his son, Justin, according to his sister, Norma Perry, of Attleboro.
The son of Italian immigrants Fortunato and Mary (Iervolino) Menga, Mr. Menga was born in Fall River and raised in Mansfield. He received his first lesson on the violin from his father at the age of 4.
But the boy had inherited his musical talent from his mother's side of the family, his musical uncles and "a grandfather who sang in the San Carlo Opera," Fortunato Menga said in a 1951 story in the old Boston Post magazine.
He told the Post that he first heard his son "singing in his sleep" when he was 3 years old.
"You won't believe this," he told the reporter, "but he was singing a whole, slow movement -- a classic -- just as he had heard me play it."
Fortunato Menga came to this country as a young man from Calabria, Italy, in 1909. He played the violin in bands and for silent movies once he came to the States.
He wanted to study the violin professionally, Perry said, and in 1928 he returned to Italy, where he graduated from the conservatory of music in Naples. While there, he married Mary, and when the couple came to Massachusetts, she was pregnant with Robert, Perry said.
As a toddler, her brother would "bury rocks he named for Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms," she said.
Fortunato supported his family by giving violin lessons and introduced his son to the violin. But as the boy rapidly progressed, his father sought out more advanced teachers for him.
"I taught Bobby when he was 4," Fortunato told the Globe in 1946. "Then he got too big for me."
The Mengas scrimped to pay for their son's lessons, according to the Globe story, but his father said he never had to nag him to practice. "He is so crazy about the music, he can't wait," he said.
When he was 11, a month before he played the Hatch Shell, the young violinist won the Edgar Stillman Kelley junior scholarship of the National Federation of Music Clubs.
The following year he was a soloist in two full concertos at Carnegie Hall.
"He began his program with Vitali's 'Chaconne,' a big work, which obviously didn't daunt him," The New York Times said in its review.
After graduating from Mansfield High School, Mr. Menga attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.
In 1962, when he was hired by the New York Philharmonic, The New York Times reported that Mr. Menga had been "a member of the St. Louis Symphony and the Longine Symphonette and was concertmaster of the Boris Goldovsky Opera Company."
Mr. Menga played with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein until 1967. In 1966, he won second prize in the prestigious Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy. No first prize was awarded that year.
In 1971, while playing in a concert on the West Coast, Mr. Menga met Diana Protheroe , a pianist from New Zealand. They were married in Attleboro in 1973, performing for guests at the reception with a song they composed together. The couple divorced in 1977.
In 1970 and 1971, he was coconcertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He had also been alternating concertmaster for the symphony in Biel, Switzerland, in 1974 and 1975.
In a eulogy later e-mailed to the Globe, Mr. Menga's son Justin recalled that in 1970 his father traveled to Israel and performed "concerts for Israeli returned servicemen and subsequently was awarded a medal from the prime minister."
In later years he became an avid chess and bridge player and took part in many tournaments.
Before he left for New Zealand, in semiretirement, he played with the New Bedford, Fall River, and Brockton symphony orchestras.
Mr. Menga never boasted about his illustrious past, said Paul Carchidi, chairman of the Brockton Symphony. "He was a humble, unassuming man who spoke through his instrument."
In addition to his son, sister, and former wife, Mr. Menga leaves a granddaughter.
Services were held in New Zealand. 