Creston:
Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 78
(World Premiere) November 17, 1960
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Georg Solti
Engel, Carl:
Sea-Shell
arr. Zimbalist. Australian tour, Sydney Town Hall. July 1952
Glazunov:
Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 82
March 3, 1968
Radio-Orchester Beromester, Zurich, Erich Schmid
Godowsky:
Triakontameron No. 11 'Alt Wien'
arr. Heifetz
Kreisler:
Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3
Mendelssohn:
Song without Words, Op. 19b No. 1 in E major 'Sweet Remembrance'
arr. Heifetz. Australian tour, Sydney Town Hall. July 1952
Mozart:
Violin Concerto No. 4 in D major, K218
February 9, 1960
The Denver Symphony Orchestra, Saul Caston
Paganini:
Caprice for solo violin, Op. 1 No. 9 in E major 'The Hunt'
January 20, 1970, New York WQXR Radio (The listening room)
The Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra, Donald Voorhees
Caprice for solo violin, Op. 1 No. 21 in A major
Caprice for solo violin, Op. 1 No. 11 in C major
Caprice for solo violin, Op. 1 No. 16 in G minor
Prokofiev:
The Love for Three Oranges: March
arr. Heifetz. Australian tour, Sydney Town Hall. July 1952
Ravel:
Tzigane
Saint-Saëns:
Etude en forme de valse Op. 52 No. 6

In 1906, Nathan “Tossy” Spivakovsky was born in Odessa. A child prodigy, with his elder brother Jascha, a pianist, they toured Europe as the Spivakovsky Duo. At only 18, Spivakovsky was spotted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, and he became the youngest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic. In 1940, Spivakovsky emigrated to the U.S and made his New York debut at Town Hall. Two years later he became concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra under Artur Rodzinski. Obviously he was one of the top violinists of the Twentieth Century. Since childhood, Spivakovsky had a special interest in the way Bach repertoire for solo violin should be played. Although most violinists arpeggiate chords, Spivakovsky had become convinced early on that this was not what Bach intended. Upon realizing that Bach wanted certain chords in his solo violin works played without arpeggiation, he wrote an article entitled "Polyphony in Bach’s Works for solo Violin," published in 1967 in The Music Review, Vol. 28, No. 4., in which he provided the evidence for Bach’s preference. He later acquired a curved Vega Bach Bow from Knud Vestergaard, of Denmark, which enabled him to perform with increased ease, sonority and smoothness of tone. The New York Times, describing Spivakovsky's performance of the Bach on April 1, 1963, wrote: "Tossy Spivakovsky demonstrated again his impressive artistry, and his use of the curved bow gave his performances unusual interest. ... The violinist's use of the curved bow had its most persuasive results in the great Chaconne." This set contains a distinctive performance: Spivakovsky’s interpretation of the Bach Chaconne using the VEGA BACH-Bow had never been released or available on record until now. We are therefore pleased to present here a brilliant live broadcast by Radio Stockholm from 1969. His playing is simply magnificent and attests to Spivakovsky’s genius as a magical new dimension is added to Bach’s violin music.

According to Ates Tanin’s notes, Leonid Kogan and his brother-in-law, Emil Gilels, played together in Moscow and elsewhere, yet they never recorded anything in the studio. DOREMI has made available three Beethoven Violin Sonatas from one of their live performances. The engineers seem to have placed the microphones close to the players—but closer to Kogan than to Gilels. Kogan’s sound may be all the edgier as a result, but the proximity also magnifies already colossal Beethoven: stormy even in the Third Sonata, thunderous in the “Spring” (the Scherzo’s trio spawns a virtual tornado), and volcanic in the “Kreutzer.” Some have dismissed Kogan as a bland technician, conceding that his technical wizardry’s worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Heifetz’s and Milstein’s but insisting that he didn’t project the same kind of individuality. Those detractors might do well to listen to him playing Beethoven violin sonatas with Gilels. Although the earlier works (and even the “Kreutzer” itself) may be designated as sonatas for piano and violin, Kogan holds the stage as though he were playing the Violin Concerto. Yet Gilels swells in stature to such a magnitude that he simply can’t be overwhelmed. Engineering alone could never have accounted for this effect. Sometimes, as in the “Spring” Sonata and in the “Kreutzer” Sonata’s theme and variations, the close miking gives the impression that the duo never relaxes; and there may be some truth in that observation. But the “Kreutzer” ’s final adrenaline-drenched cadence having arrived, there’s little temptation to quibble. Anne-Sophie Mutter tried to introduce a novel, strongly personal view of Beethoven (in both the sonatas and the Concerto) and produced instead a reflection that many will not find cogent. David Oistrakh’s performances of the work that I’ve heard, though profoundly and powerfully conceived, don’t generate Kogan and Gilels’s crackling voltage. Among the great violinists of the preceding generation, perhaps Francescatti came closest to the sheer energy of these readings. But even after the effects of the unusually close recording and the potentiating effect of the live audience (which must have inspired both Kogan and Gilels) have been filtered out, the residual supercharge could light a city for a year.

It’s tempting to conclude that these wouldn’t be optimal choices for anyone who doesn’t already know the works, but that caution would undervalue the ability of the program’s sheer communicative power to attract new devotees to Beethoven, to the violin sonatas, or even to music in general. Acquisition of DOREMI’s re-mastering, therefore, should be as urgent a priority for those who know nothing as for those who know everything; it should be especially attractive to those who wish to experience Beethoven in the pit of the stomach.

Robert Maxham, FANFARE

DAVID OISTRAKH COLLECTION, VOL. 13 • David Oistrakh (vn); Vladimir Yampolsky (pn) • DOREMI 7950, mono (70:19) Live: Paris 1/21/1959; Los Angeles, 1965 1


TARTINI Violin Sonata in g, “Didone abbandonata.” FRANCK Violin Sonata. SCHUMANN (arr. Kreisler) Fantasia in C. RAVEL Tzigane. BACH Violin Sonata No. 2 in a: Andante 1


DOREMI’s 13th volume dedicated to David Oistrakh combines what seems to be a complete recital with Vladimir Yampolsky from 1959 with a quasi-encore, the third movement from Bach’s Second Solo Violin Sonata, from 1965. The recital program opens with Tartini’s “Didone abbandonata,” a work that Oistrakh recorded for Melodiya, along with the “Devil’s Trill,” with Frida Bauer in 1970. Oistrakh sounded magisterial from the first measure of the first movement; but he didn’t pause to wring sentiment from the sprightly second movement, nor did he play the final Allegro commodo (he interposed an extraneous Largo in B? Major—published with the other movements—as was common at the time) in such a way as to suggest the pathos of Virgil’s tragedy. Nevertheless, his performance strikes a balance between expressivity and objectivity, an intoxicating antidote to the tendency to deprive this Sonata of Tartini’s hallmark vitality. Throughout his career, Tartini progressively dispensed with the heavily worked-out figured bass, and some have suggested that even the skeletal version of the bass that’s left in the “Devil’s Trill” could simply be omitted. So it’s perhaps no criticism to mention that Oistrakh dominates Yampolsky in this work.


DOREMI’s series reveals Oistrakh’s commitment to chamber music as well as his willingness to “sink the individual,” and his performance of Franck’s Sonata illustrates both of these attitudes. Yampolsky may not have possessed the dynamism of Sviatoslav Richter, three of his live performances of the work with whom from the mid 1960s have been available from time to time (he made studio performances with Oborin in 1950 and with Yampolsky in 1954); but Oistrakh, though the dominant partner, didn’t run roughshod over his frequent accompanist. Testament has released a live performance by the duo from the preceding year (9/20/1958) in Bucharest (1442); this one seems more given to subtlety and nuance.


The Bucharest recital also included Schumann’s Fantasia, which Oistrakh seems never to have recorded in the studio, and Ravel’s Tzigane , which he did (with Kondrashin and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, a solid performance, the recorded sound of which still seemed more than acceptable in the mid 1960s, when it appeared on LP as Monitor MC 2073). In Bucharest, Oistrakh projected a strong individuality as well as a captivating (and in the last pages, downright scintillating) virtuosity through both Schumann’s work and Kreisler’s arrangement, and he did so as well in his performance in Paris. Oistrakh spits out the passages on the high G string in Ravel’s opening cadenza. Oistrakh didn’t play the Tzigane with Francescatti’s arch wit nor with Heifetz’s white-hot intensity, but his performances generally could serve as models of Gypsy excess rationally moderated. In this reading, he explores the beginning of the accompanied section almost tentatively before throwing himself into the spiky passagework. This performance, perhaps more than the others, creates an atmosphere suggesting a Gypsy campfire—or at least the reflection of one on the wall of a French drawing room.


Since so few examples of Oistrakh playing Bach’s solo sonatas or partitas have become available (DOREMI 7760 included a complete performance of the First Solo Sonata, 24:6), every stray movement should be particularly welcome to collectors. If his live performance of the Andante from the Second Sonata communicates an impression of strength rather than of subtlety; Oistrakh demonstrates through his deployment of a wide dynamic range just how tall an edifice he could erect with this movement’s building materials.


The recorded sound from Paris (air-checks?) balances the instruments fairly well; and, while it may not be particularly lively, communicates adequately a sense of Oistrakh’s sound, at once oleaginous and fibrous. In an interview, Yehudi Menuhin noted that Oistrakh fused control with abandon, and he appears to have struck a different balance from performance to performance, even those close in temporal proximity. That’s why it’s easy to recommend this recital strongly, despite its similarity in content to the one Testament has released.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Oistrakh Collection, Vol. 10: Beethoven with Richter

Daniel Shafran, Vol. 1: Shostakovich & Davidov

Mravinsky, Vol. 1: The Brahms Symphonies

Lillian Fuchs (1903–1991) was considered the “first lady of the viola,” and enjoyed a very successful career as a performer, composer, and teacher. Her students at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music became the elite players of the viola in the US and her influence is still very much alive, 14 years after her death. The Bach suites that she recorded in the beginning of the 1950s were received with unanimous praise by her contemporaries, but since then they have disappeared from the market, and have become collectors’ items. So I was piqued to find out what the fuss was all about.

Yes, it is a dated performance in many senses. Fuchs plays with the kind of unrelenting legato that we would bash in any aspiring musician of today. Her interpretation is overly Romantic, phrases long, and breaths almost non-existent. Yet, I could not stop listening, and after the first CD ended, I was still curious to hear more. Why was that? Part of the reason is the lush, flexible sound produced by the artist, the interesting inflections, the unerring sense of direction, the overall technical achievement. Notable also is the very spare use of vibrato, pointing to a more “modern” conception (that is, one which is closer to our notions about authentic-performance practices) than was the norm at the time. But the main reason is that intangible charisma, the star quality that makes us follow every mood change, every nuance in dynamics, every twist in the musical plot.

...I was left with the sensation of having shared a unique moment, of the kind that transcends fashion or trends, and that can rightfully be called a legendary performance.

Laura Rónai, FANFARE

Artur Schnabel's Complete Bach Recordings

Next to Segovia, Julian Bream is one of the greatest classical guitarists of all time. Included in this album are never released before live performances of the young Bream from the Aldeburgh Festivals of 1958 and 1959, playing the lute and the guitar in solo works, in songs with tenor Peter Pears, and in chamber combinations with Aurèle Nicolet (flute) and George Malcolm (harpsichord). Virtuosic classical guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream was born in 1933 in England. One of the most distinguished guitarists of the 20th century, he played an important role in improving the public perception of the classical guitar as a respectable instrument. Throughout his career he has been awarded numerous awards, and has had many pieces dedicated to him.

Johanna Martzy, Vol. 2: Beethoven Concerto for Violin, Op. 6

Richter Archives, Vol. 20: Janácek & Hindemith (Live)

This exciting new release features recently discovered recordings of the legendary guitar duo of Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya live in concert at the Orford Arts Centre in Quebec, Canada. In 1962, Presti and Lagoya came to teach at the Jeunesses Musicales summer camp near Mount Orford, returning yearly until Presti’s sudden and tragic death at the age of 42 only five years later. Fortunately, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recorded their sold-out recitals from 1962 and 1963, and included excerpts on two transcription discs meant for broadcast only—with dates for them to be destroyed. Happily, a small number escaped this fate, and DOREMI is honored to announce the first ever release of music from these concerts. To this we add a recording from the French Radio Network, also meant only for limited radio broadcast. Beautifully recorded, the sound is far more natural and nuanced than that of their commercial recordings. The programs provide a panorama of their varied repertoire, including a plethora of superb baroque transcriptions made by Lagoya—a sonata by the baroque lutenist Lauffensteiner, Vivaldi’s violin concerto Op. 3 No. 9, and Handel’s keyboard Chaconne—the first two works never commercially recorded by the duo. Sor’s celebrated duet, “L’Encouragement,” written for himself and his student Napoléon Coste, is given a sumptuous treatment, and contemporary French composers who wrote for Presti-Lagoya are represented by Daniel-Lesur’s Élégie. Two arrangements by Lagoya round out the recitals, Poulenc’s Improvisation No. 12, and Albeniz’s famous Tango.

Segovia & Contemporaries, Vol. 12: Tárrega, His Disciples &

When Dino Ciani died in 1974 in a car accident in Rome at age 32, the world lost a great pianist. He was described by his teacher Alfred Cortot as "a youth possessing the rarest gifts bestowed by nature." He is now considered an icon among classical record collectors, and has a piano competition dedicated to his memory which is held each year at Teatro alla Scala. During his too short career Ciani collaborated with some of the world’s finest conductors including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Carlo Maria Giulini, and others. Each track featured on this new release is a live or studio performance recorded between the years 1965 and 1973. All tracks are available here for the first time.