Cembal d’Amour has now reached Volume Three in its series of
live Heifetz material. It collates material recorded between c.1940 and
1951 of which a part has previously been available. The Mozart Concerto
featured on a Rococo LP 2074 and the Sibelius can be found on Music and
Arts CD766. The delightful Korngold turned up on another Rococo LP, 2071,
whilst the Heifetz-Jack Benny comedy routine made a limited appearance
on a Strad double LP devoted to rare Heifetz discs. So whilst little is
new for the devoted collector, almost all will be new to the general listener
and much will be of interest, even though much is ancillary to the main
body of Heifetz’s extensive discography.
The disc is topped and tailed by speech items. The
lip-smacking tones of Lionel Barrymore introduce Heifetz in a Concert
Hall broadcast, followed immediately by the Ponce-Heifetz Estrellita
(presumably from that same concert). In a syrupy orchestral arrangement
Heifetz lavishes some succulent Palm Court expression on a piece he
made famous for fiddle players in his own arrangement. I would however
prefer the two commercial recordings – the Achron accompanied 1928 or
the post War disc with Emanuel Bay. The Mozart A major Concerto features
three times in Heifetz’s commercial discography – with Barbirolli in
1934, Sargent in 1951 and in the self conducted 1963 performance. His
Mozart is, for many, an acquired taste – the nadir being the Sinfonia
Concertante with William Primrose – but he was not always so indifferent
and crude. With Efrem Kurtz conducting the New York Philharmonic in
1947 Heifetz constantly inflects the solo line with expressive shadings
and intensely accented notes. There is slight damage to the acetates
in places but not enough to mar the bewitching fascination of his bowing
in the passage around 6.20 or the way he gives life and colour to paragraphs.
It’s brisk, certainly, but not unfeeling. The slow movement is again
flowing – a minute and a half quicker than the Barbirolli traversal
of thirteen years before – and there are times when Heifetz is curt
with phrase endings. I admired the series of excellently employed diminuendi
in the middle of the movement but an air of calculation hangs over the
playing that it’s not easy to dismiss. And so with the finale which
is vibrantly played but – to me – rather too flashy for comfort. This
has nothing to do with ease of execution – it’s rather more to do with
the sense of rightness that informs the playing of such as Grumiaux
and Szeryng in this repertoire and which I find generally lacking in
much of Heifetz’s Mozart.
The same could not easily be said of his Sibelius.
We now have available the long rumoured Stokowski/Philadelphia performance
of 1934 as well as the Beecham/LPO of the following year and the Hendl/Chicago
of 1959. Familiar and strong, intensely vibrant and superbly bowed this
is Heifetz in exterior mode, rather than the introspective white-toned
tremulousness other players impart. He is tested nonetheless by the
passagework and rarely falters (a few split notes and one or two slight
intonational buckles aside). Mitropoulos is granitic and involved, adding
immeasurably to the colossal drama and whilst this is not the tidiest
performance imaginable, and there are coughs and splutters aplenty from
the audience, nothing derails the players. Full of depth in the slow
movement Heifetz’s razor sharp rhythmic impetus galvanizes the finale,
the harmonics negotiated with panache, bowing excellent, the orchestra
glowering from the depths behind him. Splendid to have this to add to
his Sibelius on disc.
After which the temperature is lowered via Korngold’s
attractively simple "Garden Scene" (the Intermezzo
from Much Ado About Nothing), which he recorded commercially
with Bay in 1947 and via Drigo’s Valse Bluette, which finds Emanuel
Bay in characteristically po-faced mood. The disc ends with some Jack
Benny and if you think Mordecai Shehori of Cembal d’Amour more than
slightly eccentric in opening a Heifetz disc with Lionel Barrymore and
closing it with Jack Benny, there’s more than a little sensitive historical
reclamation here. Because this is precisely how Heifetz would
have been introduced on the innumerable radio shows he performed – by
Barrymore or whoever – and if you don’t like Jack Benny or want to hear
what he and Heifetz do to MacDowell’s To a wild rose, well, shame
on you.
Jonathan Woolf
New York Philharmonic/Dmitri
Mitropoulos (Sibelius) 