I find it rather difficult
to write about this performance of the
violin concerto. Heifetz, after all,
was one of the supreme violinists of
the 20th Century – and of
course I am not going to claim that
the playing as such shows anything but
total mastery. Furthermore, though he
was born in an age when fiddle-players
could be extremely mannered with their
schmaltz and their portamenti, he established
a cleanly classical style that should
be just right for Brahms. Fritz Reiner,
too, was the conductor of versions of
this composer’s 3rd and 4th
symphonies that still stand as leading
recommendations, so his Brahmsian credentials
are not in doubt.
And more: there has
been a tendency of late for performances
of this concerto’s first movement to
get very slow and frankly lugubrious,
so in principle I am all for a performance
that treats an Allegro as an Allegro,
even when Brahms has added his customary
"non troppo".
Unfortunately, the
performance did not turn out to be the
treat I was expecting, though I enjoyed
it more the second time round. The trouble
is, I am not convinced the great violinist
and the great conductor really agreed
with one another. Warning signs, if
slight, are there from the beginning
since Reiner shows a certain tendency
to broaden out at key moments. Not very
much, but just enough to give the idea
that he really feels the music a notch
slower. And then Heifetz, when he comes
in, often (and this is more noticeable)
moves ahead impatiently as if his
desired tempo is faster still. Both
artists, too, seem disinclined to indulge
in that capacity which usually came
so easily to their generation, of finding
expressive elbow-room even within
a basically swift tempo. The result
was that in spite of much refreshing
vitality, many well-loved corners of
this work seemed to have their expressive
life squeezed out of them.
This disconcerting
experience continued in the second movement.
Here Heifetz does seem to want to shape
the music lyrically and romantically,
even in the context of a fastish tempo,
but now it’s Reiner’s turn to be out
of sorts. One can almost hear him muttering
grumpily "If he wants a fast tempo
he can bloody well have one", and
he simply refuses the violinist the
leeway he seems to be asking for.
In the finale they
do seem to agree, but unfortunately
what they agree on is that Brahms was
as capable as Paganini of writing a
brilliant, emptily virtuosic finale.
It’s certainly exciting, but so many
of Heifetz’s colleagues, Menuhin (with
both Furtwängler and Kempe) and
Oistrakh (with Klemperer) not least
among them, have apparently believed
that this music has spiritual qualities
too – and for most listeners they have
carried their point.
However, as I say,
on a second hearing, while I remained
aware of the points above, I was much
more ready to be simply swept away by
the general vitality and sweep of it
all. Perhaps my negative reactions had
become enlarged in my mind in the intervening
few days, with the result that they
now seemed exaggerated. All the same,
I was still somewhat unnerved by the
experience, and was still hesitating
to write about it when the Takezawa/Colin
Davis version (part of an all-Brahms
5-CD set on which I will be reporting
duly) hit my doormat. Just look at the
difference in the timings:
Hefetz/Reiner: 18:54 08:16 07:19
Takezawa/Davis 24:43 10:13 08:19
Now, nearly 6 minutes
would be an incredible difference in
an entire opera, let alone a single
movement of a violin concerto. Was the
Takezawa/Davis going to be one of those
lugubrious modern versions? No; the
interesting thing is that it takes a
perfectly "normal" tempi for
the first movement, broad but certainly
not stagnant (so how ever long do the
really slow ones last?). Though
you can’t judge a performance just on
timings, they surely tell us something,
and I’m afraid Heifetz and Reiner’s
Brahms will have to be left for people
whose hearts beat faster than mine.
These two artists, by the way, collaborated
on disc only twice (the other was the
Tchaikovsky concerto), so perhaps they
really didn’t hit it off.
However, if you decide
to get this as an occasional corrective
to more indulgent performances, you
will be getting a very fine version
of the double concerto.
Oddly enough, one of
the first professional orchestral concerts
I ever attended, by the Royal Philharmonic
in Folkestone, Kent, was conducted by
Alfred Wallenstein (1898-1983) – I later
came to know that this was one of his
very few British appearances.
My principal impression, at that tender
age, was of how extraordinarily shiny
the conductor’s shoes were (no British
conductor wore them that shiny), but
I also have certain memories of calm
but authoritative gestures that resulted
in a performance of the "New World"
symphony that my music teacher felt
to be the finest she had ever heard.
First impressions are often abiding,
and maybe the name of Wallenstein has
had for this reason an "important"
ring for me that it by and large doesn’t
have on my side of the Atlantic, where
he is just a name who accompanied decently
enough any number of recordings by Heifetz
and Rubinstein. I wonder if his name
is more "important" for American
music-lovers; he was after all conductor
of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for
13 seasons (1943-1956). His recording
with them of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony
used to be a staple of the early Music
for Pleasure catalogue, but that was
in the days when the score was always
presented in a cut form, which would
be a limiting factor today. Perhaps
there are other LAPO/Wallenstein recordings
worth investigating?
Wallenstein took to
opera conducting late in his career,
yet the striking thing about this Brahms
is his ability to mediate between the
egos of his prima donna soloists
while ultimately controlling the overall
shape of the performance just as an
opera conductor does. His opening tutti
is fiery and forward moving, yet he
also finds that Brahmsian amplitude
that escapes Reiner. When Piatigorsky
comes in it can be heard that he is
basically a more romantically-inclined
artist than Heifetz. There are details
where the same music is differently
phrased by the two soloists, and Heifetz
sometimes shows a fidgety disposition
to move ahead, but with
Wallenstein’s help the performance remains
on even keel and is greater than the
sum of its parts. The Andante is more
swift and passionate than reposeful,
and I shan’t be throwing out my much-loved
Suk/Navarra/Ančerl, but I shall
keep this alongside it for when
I want to hear a passionate rather than
a reflective performance.
The recordings are
fair for their date though there is
a touch of distortion in the orchestral
tuttis. The liner notes by Richard Freed
are brief but do not waste space – they
contain much useful information. In
common with other issues in this series,
recording details are not given.
Christopher Howell
Jascha Heifetz (violin, 1, 2), Gregor Piatigorsky
(violoncello, 2), Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Fritz
Reiner (1), RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra/Alfred
Wallenstein (2) 