Sunday 12 December 2010

Naxos re-issues have now reached Jascha Heifetz's 1950 recordings (transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn) so it is good to find a new excuse to listen to Mr Heifetz playing the violin. The first of these reissues contains the Tchaikovsky violin concerto (Phiharmonia conducted by Walter Susskind, 1950), the Conus concerto (1952 with Izler Solomon), Sarastate's Zigeunerweisen (1951 with Steinberg) and the Korngold concerto (1953 with Wallenstein). The transfers seem to be excellent, though I have not compared them head-to-head with the RCA transfers of 15 years or so ago.

The Romantic repertoire suited Heifetz down to the ground, and he is in his element in all these works. No one, ever, has been able to sound like Heifetz, and the palette of sounds he draws from one small violin remains extraordinary. The current CD also suggests some of the drawbacks from Heifetz recordings: his preference for back-up groups or accompanists rather than partners, and his insistence on being placed well forward. Heifetz must have been mystified by Adolf Busch's rejection of his own studio recording of the Beethoven violin concerto in 1942 because Busch and his violin were "recorded too forward" (Busch had been made to stand on a wooden box next to the microphone).

No matter in the repertoire on the current CD, however. The works by Tchaikovsky, Conus, Sarasate and Korngold can get by with the likes of Susskind, Steinberg, Wallenstein and Solomon waving distant batons and close-up Heifetz playing at his magical best. One can also admire Heifetz's sense of line and phrasing, and the fact that his unwillingness to indulge in sentimental lingering gives all these works a welcome sense of form and cohesion. Heifetz eases up slightly for tender or sentimental passages, but he never wallows as do so many other violinists.

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