Toscha Seidel, Violinist

There is a well-known photo from the early years of the 20^th century showing a teenage Jascha Heifetz (“the angel of the violin”) accompanying on the piano a teenage Toscha Seidel (“the devil of the violin”) with a paternal Leopold Auer looking on. Heifetz and Seidel later emigrated to America, fleeing the chaos of the Russian revolutionary years. Heifetz had his brilliant career, eclipsing all violinists in America in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. America, with its quasi- duopoly of RCA and CBS for classical recordings had only one slot for one major violin star, and Jascha Heifetz was so ordained. Major violinists such as Mischa Elman and Toscha Seidel were relegated to the “B” team. Yehudi Menuhin and Nathan Milstein managed to make international recording careers in Europe, as did Mischa Elman in some desperation towards the end of his performing career, followed by America-based violinists such as Bronislaw Gimpel, and Erica Morini.

Listening today to a recital compilation of recordings by Toscha Seidel, one mourns the fact that this fascinating violinist is not now well-known. There is fire and spirit in his playing, such as one rarely encounters elsewhere, coupled with an incredible technique. Few violinists nowadays would abandon themselves so recklessly (and impeccably) to short pieces by Mozart, Wagner, Brahms, Kreisler, Achron, et al. This is the Devil of the Violin (recorded variously in the 1920s, 30s and 40s). Seidel's playing in a 1941 recording of Korngold's Much Ado About Nothing suite (with Korngold at the piano) yields nothing to Heifetz in style and technique, but trumps even Heifetz

with an added vibrancy and emotion that will always make this my number one choice for this music. The new generation of fine violinists could learn a lot about putting everything into their playing.

Seidel died in 1962 at the early age of 63 years, suffering in his later years from acute depression. His few recordings of longer works, such as the Grieg and Franck violin and piano sonatas, suggest that, somewhat like Mischa Elman, he was above all the master of shorter pieces where violin sound and technique were paramount, though his performances of the Brahms violin concerto – alas, never preserved from radio recordings – were legendary, and one would have loved to have heard him in the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. I have nothing of his playing preserved in recordings after 22^nd July 1945, when he would have been 46 years old. This was an eloquent and moving account of Chausson's Poème, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Most of his concertising was done for American radio stations, and the recordings were never retained.

The hackneyed saying “they don't play like that nowadays” is particularly true of Toscha Seidel (and of Mischa Elman). More's the pity. The last violinist to play with such inner vibrancy was probably Ginette Neveu (also in the 1940s).