Nathan Milstein was born in Odessa in
1904. There he studied with Pyotr Stoliarsky
but went on to become a pupil of Ysaye
in Belgium and of Auer in St Petersburg,
great teachers indeed. He toured Russia
in 1923 with a pianist of his own age,
Vladimir Horowitz. Two years afterwards
the two young men were allowed to go
outside Russia, or the Soviet Union
as it then was. He later settled in
the US and had an unusually long and
prominent career. I heard him in 1983
at my first visit to the then recently
inaugurated Barbican Hall, where, at
the age of 79, he gave an impressive
rendition of Brahms’ violin concerto
with the Hallé Orchestra and
James Loughran. He certainly belongs
to a select number of really outstanding
violinists during the 20th
century: Heifetz, Oistrakh, Menuhin
and a few more. On this disc, the first
in what is supposed to be a series,
we meet him mid-career. Apart from the
two Paganini caprices he was around
forty – and a further forty years were
to pass before I heard him. In some
camps he is regarded as a technically
brilliant but emotionally cold artist;
most of these, mainly live, recordings,
contradict this opinion. Recorded in
the US for the Armed Forces Radio Service
or for the War Department’s V-discs,
they give a clear impression of the
wide scope of his mastery.
We first meet him as
the no-holds-barred virtuoso in Flight
of the Bumble Bee. This is taken
at break-neck tempo, and is of course
a piece that requires technical brilliance
but little more. Still it is impressive.
The Massenet Meditation from
Thaïs is something quite
different: slow, beautiful, sentimental
but in Milstein’s hands not saccharine.
It is here presented in two different
transfers of the same recording played
with different cartridges. The first
one, with a Stanton (track 2) is more
open with a fuller sound while track
15 is more recessed and initially thinner
but in the last resort warmer, more
beautiful. The two Wieniawski pieces
are brilliantly played with glowing
tone. These, as well as several of the
other off-air recordings also preserve
the voice of the radio announcer, who
at least in the case of the Bruch concerto,
is Lionel Barrymore.
The concerto suffers
from a rather murky recording, something
that the sonic restorer Jacob Harnoy,
can’t do much about, but from what can
be heard, the New York Phil is in good
shape, producing a rather beefy sound.
Variable the sound quality is, even
as far as the soloist is concerned,
but Milstein’s brilliant tone and elegant
bowing is always in evidence, although
there is a lot of surface and very little
depth in his reading. The technical
excellence is in itself admirable.
Brahms’ A major sonata
is quite a different proposition. Although
the sound is still primitive, at least
when it comes to the reproduction of
the piano, it is very listenable. And
what is so striking, right from the
outset, is the warmth of Milstein’s
playing. He colours his tone so expressively
and catches the ebb and flow of the
music. His pianist, Valentin Pavlovsky,
assists him with much sensitive playing
– and also the odd wrong note in the
first movement. This happens to be my
favourite Brahms sonata. Few others
have invested the second movement with
such emotion and such a glow.
The two unaccompanied
Paganini caprices, recorded live in
Copenhagen in 1933, also show him in
technically fine fettle, No. 5 is hair-raisingly
virtuosic and with perfect intonation.
The recording, although a bit recessed,
is clean enough so as not to mask any
important details.
In the Vivaldi sonata,
interestingly enough arranged by Respighi,
Milstein plays with enormous drive and
a rhythmic lilt that creates an almost
jazzy atmosphere. In the Schumann piece,
Abendlied, placed as a first
encore, only followed by the second
version of the Massenet Meditation,
he spins long thin golden and silvery
threads of beautiful sound. On my equipment
at least there was some distortion and
strictly speaking I believe this issue
is more for the specialist collector
than for the general listener. Still
I am happy to have had the opportunity
to hear these recordings and I will
certainly return to the Brahms sonata
and possibly some of the lollipops as
well. There is a biographical note about
Milstein by James Creighton, to whose
memory the disc is dedicated. Playing
time is generous.
Göran Forsling
see also review
by Jonathan Woolf
Nathan Milstein (violin) 
