AVAILABILITY
www.biddulphrecordings.com
It’s hard to keep up
with the discography, not least in terms
of Japanese CD reissues, but I’m not
aware that Elman’s Handel Sonata recordings
have been reissued in over fifty years.
He made them in 1949 for Victor and
they were consolidated in a set (WDM
1590, later LM 1183) that few will have
heard. Though he was past his best,
most glowing years, Elman still had
a strong following and these echt Romantic
performances will satisfy many. He employs
all the trappings of expressivity to
keep the sonatas living ornaments of
seductive tonality and phrasing – subtle
portamenti, variance of repeated notes
and vibrato usage among them. It would
be pointless to compare these performances
with performers of today, much less
purveyors of original instruments but
even more instructive comparisons can
be made with his contemporaries in this
repertoire. His tonal effulgence had
not yet starved, as it was to do in
his later Vanguard sessions, but equally
was not quite the opulent lava flow
of the teens of the century. His portamanti
and diminuendi stud the Sonata in A,
his second movement Allegro is stout
and rather corpulent (not unattractively
so) and the concluding Allegro rather
hangs fire. Even in 1949 this must have
seemed a very Old School performance.
Certainly in comparison to the propulsive,
muscular, effortlessly singing and lithe
acoustic recording of the Sonata, made
in the early 1920s by Albert Sammons,
Elman comes off a poor second best (except
in terms of recording quality). Similarly
he cannot match Szymon Goldberg in the
Fourth in D for sensitive discretion,
much less Szigeti’s wonderful earlier
Columbia. Instead we should listen to
Elman in the finale of the Sonata (misprinted
as an Adagio in the booklet) for a superb
example of legato phrasing. For all
that it does sound breathless and non-attacca
in impulse it gives one an idea of how
an arch-romantic approaches this kind
of literature and refashions it in his
own image. But how one misses Szigeti’s
flair and almost improvisatory freedom
and his sheer excitement – and how prosaic
some of Elman’s phrasing can sound in
its wake. For the probably spurious
but very Handelian Sixth one can admire
his jog-trotting tempo in the Allegro
second movement and his intensely slow
and expressive Adagio, spun in endless
curlicues of vibrated tenderness. Turn
to Albert Spalding’s 1935 Victor though
and a different work emerges – palpably
more energised, incisive and alive.
The Bach Concerto was
recorded in 1932 with an orchestra under
Lawrence Collingwood – at least some
sources give him, others giving Barbirolli.
Two things are sure, firstly that Elman
and Barbirolli recorded it a couple
of months earlier but the result was
unsatisfactory (the report remarking
that there was insufficient body of
tone) and never released and that when
Elman went back into the studios to
re-record it, it was around the same
time as his recordings with Collingwood
of the Beethoven Romances. Whoever was
conducting – and we’ll stick with Collingwood
as per the notes - this is an affectionate
performance that now sounds rather bloated
– but only through the gauze of seventy
years of performance practice. At the
time, as can be seen from Jacques Thibaud’s
acoustic 1924 recording with Ortmans,
Elman’s tempi were unexceptionable –
though maybe the slow movement was pushing
it even then (he takes about a minute
longer than Thibaud). Still there is
his lustrous tone, his constant portamenti,
lyric highlighting of phrases and finger
position changes. There are strong orchestral
rallentandi but the one at 6.20, which
will sound so peculiar to modern ears,
comes at a side join and should be listened
to in that context. Elman cannily varies
his vibrato in the slow movement, shading
and winnowing it and articulates the
finale at a confident lick. He returned
to the Concerto many years later with
Golschmann in 1960 for Vanguard and
in this LP performance he is very much
quicker all round, shaving nearly two
minutes off his more indulgent youthful
self in the slow movement alone.
He recorded very little
solo Bach and the Prelude from the third
Partita gives us the chance to hear
his provocative way with repeated phrases
– always on the move and varied – as
well as the good tempo and his practical,
romantic instincts. For some reason
the Herbert Dawson accompanied disc
of Ombra mai fu has proved rather an
elusive one for Elman fanciers so it’s
good to have this grand piece here,
along with Dawson’s registral changes
and Elman’s security in the higher positions.
The Gavotte from the Suite in G could
do with a treble boost.
This is a fine and
in the main (the Bach is on Pearl) long
unavailable conspectus of Elman’s Bach
and Handel. Regarding the documentation
I’ll be boring and urge Biddulph again
to include original matrix and release
details (I’m going to keep doing this
until they do) but the transfers sound
first class; I’ve not heard the Handel
Sonatas in the original issues but the
Bach Concerto contains body and is warm
and detailed. Elman’s admirers – and
I’m one – shouldn’t hesitate.
Jonathan Woolf
Mischa Elman (violin) 