Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Toscha Seidel, Nathan Milstein, Josef Szigeti, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Grumiaux, Josef Suk, Leonid Kogan, David Oistrakh … and so on. No shortage of top violinists in the previous century. But for me, at the top of the pile, was Ginette Neveu. Her career was tragic: it started in 1938, then came the second world war in 1939. Her career re-started in 1946 after the end of the war, only to end in October 1949 with her death in a plane crash while on her way to an American tour.
Andrew Rose of Pristine Classical has (thankfully) diverted from transferring endless American radio recordings of the 1950s and 60s to apply his considerable talents to remastering Ginette Neveu in a selection of violin and piano recordings from 1939 to 1948. The sound is now at the best it has ever been and is perfectly acceptable (except for the Debussy sonata recorded in 1948 where the piano as recorded was far too dominant, and Neveu too distant). The sound in the Strauss sonata, recorded in Berlin in 1939 with Gustaf Beck, is excellent, even given the 83 year time gap.
There is a supreme passion and vibrancy in Neveu's playing. I grew up in the 1950s with her recordings of the Sibelius violin concerto (coupled on an American LP with Josef Suk's Four Pieces Op 17 recorded in London, August 1948 which are also reproduced on this new Pristine CD). Her sound has little in common with the sophisticated Franco-Belgian school of violin playing; in Scarlatescu's Bagatelle, and in Ravel's Tzigane, she sounds almost Romanian or Hungarian, perhaps reflecting the influence of her teacher, the Hungarian Carl Flesch. Her playing in the four pieces by Suk has been engraved on my memory for over 60 years now and no one plays Ravel's Tzigane to approach Neveu. To my ears, her playing of Richard Strauss's evergreen violin sonata (with Gustaf Beck in 1939) outclasses even Heifetz in its soaring lyricism.
In an age where violinists now play with computer-like precision and accuracy, but with little passion, it is well worth remembering of what a violin is capable, in the right hands. For that we need the legacy, meagre in quantity though it may be, of Ginette Neveu. A big thank you to Andrew Rose of Pristine for reminding us of Ginette. Her few recordings are ones from which I will never part for the rest of my life.
