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There has been a surge of interest in the great violinists of the
past recently, as if audiences have tired of the undifferentiated,
mass-produced–sounding performances often heard today and begun
yearning for the "good old days" when players could be clearly identified
by their tone and personality. The resulting flood of reissues on
compact disc offers a fascinating look at the style and characteristics
of the greatest violinists of the last century. In this selective
report on the concerto repertoire, I hope to reclaim some less-known
players and stimulate further explorations.
The earliest violinist recorded here is Carl Flesch (1873–1944),
who is remembered mainly as a great teacher but whose recording
of the Beethoven and Brahms Concertos (Historical Recordings
1905–1936, Symposium 1032) reveals formidable virtuosity and
a ravishing, expressive tone. Today, his wide vibrato and innumerable
slow slides sound old-fashioned. His tempo changes, liberties, and
contrasts, although often excessive, help to give every note meaning
and significance within a majestic, monumental structure. Many of
his students had successful careers, and, more remarkably, all of
them sounded entirely different, as is shown by the three represented
here.
Max Rostal shared with his mentor the virtuosity, the wide,
expressive vibrato, and the unflagging commitment to the music,
but Rostal’s tone had the greater purity, sweetness, warmth, and
variability. His fame as a teacher perhaps eclipsed his stature
as a performer, but a two-disc set that was recorded live during
BBC broadcasts (Max Rostal in Memoriam 1905–1991, Symposium
1142–3) of the Shostakovich No. 1 and concertos by Bartók,
Berg, and Bernard Stevens—the latter written for Rostal—stops the
breath and rends the heart with its emotional immediacy and impassioned,
sorrowful eloquence.
Henryk Szeryng’s most striking characteristics were his
aristocratic elegance and his pristine technical, tonal, and stylistic
perfection. His charm, wit, and warm expressiveness are all fully
displayed on a four-disc set of the complete Mozart concertos, which
includes the doubtful and unfinished ones, the single movements,
and the double concertos (Complete Mozart Edition, Vol. 8, Philips
22508). Combining simplicity with sophistication, Szeryng brings
out every mercurial mood, from serene inwardness to heavenly ecstasy
and passionate intensity.
Ginette Neveu’s talent was so extraordinary that Flesch
undertook to teach and subsidize her when she was 12 years old;
four years later, she won the Wieniawski Competition even though
one of her rivals was David Oistrakh. Her playing was heaven-storming
in its tempestuousness, fire, intensity, and power, but it never
lost its austere nobility; her tone was incredibly beautiful, dark,
varied, and expressive. Her recording of the Sibelius Concerto is
peerless for virtuosity, style, and atmosphere. It is paired with
an equally splendid Brahms Concerto on EMI References (EMI CDH7-61011-2),
and with a sensuous, ravishing-sounding Chausson Poéme on
Istituto Discografico Italiano (IDI 320). Tragically, her life was
cut short by a plane crash when she was 30.
Bronislaw Huberman was a phenomenon unto himself. A sensational
child prodigy, he was virtually self-taught. His technique was brilliant
but basically unstable, and depended on the inspiration of the moment;
his tone was sometimes heavenly, sometimes scratchy, and his approach
to the music was willfully idiosyncratic. He could play one movement,
even one phrase, like an angel, and make a mess of the next one.
However, due to his powerful personality and projection, his best
performances were unforgettable. With dauntless determination he
retrained his left hand and resumed his career after his wrist was
broken and two fingers smashed in a plane crash. In 1936 he founded
and organized the Palestine (now Israel) Philharmonic. His playing
can be heard in all its glory and unreliability in concertos by
Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky under illustrious conductors
including Bruno Walter and Eugene Ormandy (Music & Arts 4299),
George Szell and William Steinberg (Naxos 110903), and Leon Barzin
(Arbiter 115).
Adolf Busch, leader of the Busch String Quartet and the
Busch Chamber Players, founded the Marlboro Festival in Vermont
with his duo partner and son-in-law, pianist Rudolf Serkin. Busch’s
playing was entirely at the service of the music and the composer;
instrumental display was abhorrent to him. Full and intensely expressive,
his tone had the warm glow of burnished gold but was never sweet
or lush, and his style was austere, ardent, fiery, and rugged but
not rough. His artistic integrity carried over into his life: he
left Europe for America in revulsion against Nazism, even though
it meant losing his most appreciative audiences and half of his
income. Although Busch was known primarily as a chamber musician,
he was a popular, acclaimed virtuoso, especially as a young man,
and never stopped performing concertos—as three discs, all recorded
live, demonstrate. The Beethoven and Brahms Concertos were his lifelong
specialty, but he also championed contemporary composers, notably
Busoni and his friend Max Reger. His Beethoven of 1942 with the
New York Philharmonic under his brother Fritz, though not without
flaws, is tonally gorgeous, musically peerless, and deeply moving.
It is paired with the Busoni of 1936 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra
under Bruno Walter (Instituto Discografico Italiano 334), which
displays his temperament, humor, and virtuosity. His Brahms of 1951
and his Dvorák of 1944 on Adolf Busch: Live Concerto
Recordings (Arbiter 117) are simply great: noble, ecstatic,
flexible, rhapsodic. The Art of Adolf Busch, Vol. I (Music
& Arts 4861) combines Brahms, Busoni, and the Beethoven Romances.
An inspiring mentor, Busch influenced all who knew him. One of
these was Erica Morini, the first female violinist to attain
world renown after a meteoric start as a prodigy. A natural virtuoso
with a beguilingly sweet, pure, lovely tone and exquisite charm,
her rhythmic incisiveness and dramatic intensity kept her from sounding
"feminine." Two discs, recorded privately at her concerts with the
Musica Aeterna Orchestra, capture her inimitable style. On Morini
Plays Mozart (Arbiter 107), Mozart’s Fourth and Fifth Concertos
are classically noble and elegant; on Morini in Concert (Arbiter
106), concertos by Bruch, Wieniawski, and Spohr display her instinctive
bravura flair and passionate abandon. She achieved tragic posthumous
fame when her priceless Stradivari disappeared from her apartment
while she lay dying in the hospital.
Now to a sampling of particularly noteworthy CDs by some of the
20th century’s most famous violinists. Joseph Szigeti occupies
a special category. Combining brilliant virtuosity with high intellect,
he was both an eloquent exponent of the classics and a passionate
champion of living composers. Even in his later years, when arthritis
impaired his technical mastery, his playing was always arresting
and memorable. On Joseph Szigeti Plays the Beethoven and Brahms
Violin Concertos (Pearl 9345), his Beethoven under Walter is
glorious, exalted, free, and tremendously exciting, while his Brahms
is impetuous and dramatic, and the Finale has Gypsy flair and abandon.
Szigeti: A Centenary Tribute (Music & Arts 4720, four
CDs) includes concertos by Bloch (dedicated to him), Frank Martin,
Busoni, and Mozart; conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos conducts the Alban
Berg on Arkadia 78583.
The universally beloved, unique Fritz Kreisler is at his
best in one of the greatest performances of the Brahms Concerto:
expansive, intense, soaring with heavenly ecstasy and serenity.
It is paired with the Mozart No. 4 on The Complete Concerto Recordings,
Vol. 2 (Naxos 8110921) and with Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and
the Bach Double with Efrem Zimbalist on Kreisler: The Earlier
Concerto Recordings (Pearl 9996).
The Bach Double is performed by another illustrious team: Yehudi
Menuhin and his old teacher, George Enescu, who also
conducts Mendelssohn and Bruch (AVID Master Series 590). Menuhin’s
vibrant, intense, radiant tone and deeply personal expressiveness
captured the hearts of millions and are instantly recognizable on
his recordings. Of special interest is the premiere recording of
the Bartók Concerto, paired with Lalo’s Symphony espagnole,
which includes the usually omitted third movement (RCA Victor
Gold Label 09026-61395-2). There are two versions of the Beethoven
Concerto, both with a simply heavenly slow movement. One is under
Wilhelm Furtwängler, famous for his slow tempos and liberal,
but always organic, tempo changes (Testament 1109). The other was
recorded live under David Oistrakh, who also plays viola in Mozart’s
Sinfonia Concertante, with his son Igor on violin and Menuhin conducting
(BBC Legends 4019). The two recordings of the Elgar Concerto, one
in 1932 (Naxos 110902) and the other in 1965 under Adrian Boult
(EMI CDM-64725), are legendary. Comparing them with the 1929 recording
of Elgar’s friend Albert Sammons, the great English violinist,
is interesting (Pearl GEMM 50). He had a brilliant technique and
a warm, radiant, expressive tone; his playing—elegant, intense,
and impetuous—has an almost improvisatory flexibility.
The line of great Russian violinists starts with Jascha Heifetz,
perhaps the most widely admired of all violinists. He recorded
virtually the entire repertoire, much of it repeatedly; of the monumental
65-volume Heifetz Collection on RCA Victor, several singles have
been released by Pearl, Naxos, and RCA, all splendid. He set a new
standard of impeccable perfection; no matter what he played, his
pure, focused tone, finesse, and aristocratic restraint are unmistakable
and inimitable.
The sweet-toned, unabashedly sentimental Mischa Elman was
Heifetz’s exact opposite. Elman plays Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn
with sublime indifference to the score on Mischa Elman in Concert
(Music & Arts 4868), but still sounds lovely. Nathan
Milstein is all elegant refinement performing works by Mendelssohn,
Lalo, and Bruch on Pearl (9259), in Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky
concertos on Penguin Classics (460619), and not least on Nathan
Milstein: Concert Performances and Broadcasts, 1942–1969 (Music
& Arts 4972, four CDs), which includes two of Milstein’s specialties:
Goldmark and Dvorák.
David Oistrakh, the man and the musician, radiated such
embracing warmth that he has been described as being "all heart."
He too left a large recorded legacy, mostly on Praga, including
a Prokofiev disc (PR 250-041/3); a CD of Dvorák and
Glazunov concertos and a Grieg sonata (PR 256-009); Shostakovich
and Khachaturian concertos (PR 256-012); and a six-CD set with those
three discs plus Bartók, Ravel, Schubert, and more (David
Oistrakh in Prague, PR 256007-12).His meltingly beautiful tone
could express passion, repose, joy, and sorrow, and cast golden
glory over everything he touched. By contrast, his student, Leonid
Kogan, was distinguished by a warm, dark, but lean tone and
an austere, controlled style. However, he displays plenty of passion
and impetuosity, as well as tenderness and charm, in concertos by
Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Lalo on a two-CD set (EMI Classics
7-67732-2). His facility and virtuosity are stunning, and his tone
shimmers and glows.
Finally, some unusual combinations. On Arkadia 78576, three performances
of the Mendelssohn Concerto: Heifetz under Beecham, Milstein under
Walter, and Oistrakh under Kondrachine. On Russian Disc, Kogan plays
Shostakovich No. 1 and Oistrakh No. 2. A two-CD set on Golden Memories
(3007–08, two CDs) has Menuhin in Bach No. 1 under Enescu, Heifetz
in Mozart's No. 5 under Barbirolli, Erich Röhn in Beethoven
under Furtwängler, Milstein in Mendelssohn, and Kreisler in
Brahms. In these reissues, the past yields up a priceless treasure
of incomparable violin playing to be cherished by generations of
music lovers.
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