More Bronislaw Gimpel

I often lament the number of recordings I possess, usually only listened to a couple of times. On occasions when I am overcome by an enthusiasm, however, it is good to have an extensive collection to fall back on. I have some 60 pieces of music recorded by the Polish violinist Bronislaw Gimpel and I have been diving into the archives. Some time ago I jettisoned the Bach unaccompanied sonatas and partitas recorded by Gimpel, since I really have too many recordings of these works, and it never seemed to me that Bach suited Gimpel's style of playing.

His recorded legacy features a roll call of minor conductors and orchestras, mainly German, often echoing the recording career of Aaron Rosand – Pro Musica Orchestra Stuttgart, Sudwestfunk Orchestra Baden-Baden, Hamburg Radio Orchestra, Radio Luxembourg Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, with conductors Arthur Grüber, Franz Paul Decker, Rolf Reinhardt, Curt Cremer, Hakan von Eichwald, Henri Pensis, Martin Walter, Fritz Rieger, Roberto Benzi, Johannes Schüler, Arnold Rezler …

The violin concertos of Tchaikovsky and Lalo (Symphonie Espagnole) seem to suit Gimpel down to the ground, and the grotesque Wilhelmj rewrite of the first movement of Paganini's first violin concerto shows what an immaculate technique Gimpel had. Glazunov's violin concerto suffers from an absurd balance in his recording of it with Hakan von Eichwald; if the violin volume is fine, the orchestra then fades into the middle distance. Brahms violin concerto provides proof of Gimpel's credentials in the Romantic repertoire, but it is Karl Goldmark's lovable concerto from Gimpel's heartland, Jewish Central Europe, that reveals the violinist at his finest. He obviously liked the concerto, since there are at least two recordings of it: a 1951 broadcast in December 1951 with the Luxembourg Radio Symphony Orchestra (never to be mistaken here for the Berlin Philharmonic), and a superior circa 1956 recording for Vox with Rolf Reinhardt in Baden-Baden with whom Gimpel also made studio recordings of the first Bruch concerto, plus the Dvorak and the Paganini-Wilhelmj. And, true to his roots, he also recorded much Wieniawski and Szymanowski, as well as Kreisler. His name has faded from the lists of available recordings but, hopefully, someone one day will resurrect the memory of this genial virtuoso of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Born in 1911 in Lvov, he died in 1979 in Los Angeles on his return from a tour of South America, still playing, with a concert scheduled with his brother Jakob the week after his death.