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This recital was taped
at the 2000 Newport Music Festival and
is a welcome addition to Haendel’s relatively
sparse live commercial discography.
As ever she is a musician of pronounced
musical viewpoints. Interestingly the
only work discussed in the notes is
the Chaconne (she doesn’t play the rest
of the D minor Partita), in which Haendel
writes for two intensely communicative
pages about her changing approaches
to it, from her analytical Flesch training
through the then imperfectly understood
influence of Enescu. His however remained
the primary influence on her and she
felt it was only many years later that
she finally came to strip away extraneous
impression and to play it as she felt
it should be played. Her Sonatas and
Partitas are available on Testament
so her cycle of Bach works is not unknown
to us. This live performance explores
once again Haendel’s association with
the Chaconne and allows one to hear
her intensely rhapsodic way with it.
Rapt, italicised and deeply romanticised
it is also very slow – possibly the
slowest performance of it I have ever
heard. Her performance is one of emotive
consonance - things are related by attacks,
accents and dynamics and there is not
too much verticality or bite (not least
chordally). Hers is an explicitly linear
performance; intensely introspective
with the last note held an age. As a
performance it stands at a remove from
players such as Grumiaux, Milstein,
Szigeti – and Enescu himself – and as
a monumental piece of introversion.
Her Mozart Sonata takes
a little time to warm up – she’s not
on transcendent technical form in this
recital – but sports an attractive slow
movement and the C minor Beethoven likewise
has patchy moments. In compensation,
in this generally measured traversal,
one can appreciate the slow and reverential
sounding Adagio cantabile. She and her
partner, Valentina Lisitsa, play two
of the four Romantic Pieces of
Dvořák. They don’t sculpt these
pieces as do Příhoda and Graef
in their live performance – especially
the Allegro moderato – which is otherwise
attractive though in the Allegro maestoso
Haendel and Lisitsa could have made
more of the incisive duo aspect –
it’s all rather soloist and reticent
accompanist here. That encore staple
Wieniawski’s Polonaise polishes off
the recital splendidly.
There are some strongly
personalised performances here, captured
in good-ish sound with functional notes.
Haendel is always exciting to hear,
whatever the repertory and whatever
one’s own instincts may or may not be.
Violinists of her background are not
so common that we can easily afford
to pass over her discs.
Jonathan Woolf
Ida Haendel (violin) 