Mordecai Shehori’s
Cembal d’amour label has now reached
Volume 4 in its tribute series devoted
to Jascha Heifetz’s less tractable off-air
and Bell Telephone Hour broadcast performances.
He recorded most, but not quite all,
these pieces commercially (I can’t trace
the Londonderry Air and the Bach in
his discography) and they make fine
ancillary companions, though in truth
Heifetz was, in the main, a sumptuously
predictable – maybe "consistent" is
as appropriately apt - stylist. These
live performances don’t depart very
much from established Heifetzian orthodoxies
of interpretation.
That said, who could
fail to admire so much that is here.
His orchestrally accompanied Tzigane
may be more familiar from the Los Angeles-Wallenstein
recording – the piano-accompanied recordings
were with Brooks Smith (from 1972) and
Sándor from 1934. We get to hear
some luscious and guttural bowing courtesy
of the over-skewed orchestral balance
and if the orchestra under Voorhees
sounds a bit wooden Heifetz makes up
for it. A different level of accompaniment
is provided by Koussevitzky who vests
the opening of the Mozart Concerto in
D with combative military accents –
nice and trenchant – but Heifetz’s view
is pretty much recognisable from his
recordings with Beecham and Sargent.
There are many who still swear by Heifetz’s
Mozart but I always find that it lacks
Szigeti’s poise or Grumiaux’s naturalness
and a harrying inclination for breathless
tempi (as here in the finale). There
are a few moments of technical insecurity
in the slow movement. Rather than those
discs with Beecham and Sargent it would
have been advantageous for Heifetz to
have recorded with Barbirolli and to
have continued the august sequence of
recordings they’d made together in London
before the War though, quite rightly
from all accounts, Barbirolli refused
to have anything to do with the violinist
after some boorish behaviour from Heifetz
towards the distinguished oboist Henri
de Busscher in Los Angeles.
A Grieg C minor Sonata
has recently emerged from the archives
(RCA Victor), which rather excuses the
scrappy and ill-disciplined example
of the slow movement here with the less
than inspiring Emmanuel Bay. Those Heifetz
finger intensifications sound more than
usually mechanical and he is on unusually
poor form technically (poor bow sustenance,
inaccurate pizzicati, some fluffs).
The dazzling Dinicu-Heifetz Hora Staccato
is here, though it’s pursued by the
dogged Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra.
The Rossini-Castelnuovo-Tedesco and
the folk song Gweedore Brae were coupled
on a Brunswick 78 (and the former was
once released by The Strad) and Heifetz
was playing both frequently in 1944.
Gweedore Brae is a big favourite of
mine – if you think he couldn’t play
a folk song with simplicity think again
– but here we have a less incisive and
rather bloated band to follow him. The
Rossini arrangement is in rather unkindly
boxy sound. The Chausson is, with the
Mozart, the most prestigious recording
here. From 1951 and once more with the
Bell Telephone Orchestra under Voorhees
it reveals all Heifetz’s powers of persuasive
intensity and suavity. Most will know
the RCA Victor/Solomon disc though I
have a soft spot for the Sanromá/Musical
Arts Quartet recording.
Though not all is gold
here, there’s plenty that Heifetz admirers
will want. Inimitable and unignorable
he continues to excite and this series
continues to provoke and entertain.
Jonathan Woolf
Volume
5
Jascha Heifetz (violin) 