‘Heifetziana’: Lessons From the Master

Just when we thought that RCA had emptied its vaults of recordings by Jascha Heifetz, along comes more blasting from the past--5 1/2 hours’ worth--by the incomparable violinist. This five-CD release, each disc issued separately in RCA’s mid-price Gold Seal series, presents material taped between 1947 and 1968.

At least one of these CDs (7871) should be mandatory listening for anyone who plays the violin--or anyone who listens to violin playing. It contains 1950 recordings of Debussy’s Sonata in G minor and Respighi’s in B minor, both with the assertive collaboration of pianist Emanuel Bay; the Ravel Trio with Artur Rubinstein and Gregor Piatigorsky; and with Piatigorsky, Martinu’s 1927 Duo, recorded live in 1964.

The Debussy is magnificently, idiomatically atmospheric, showing a degree of patience, of intimacy of phrasing which came--unjustly--to be considered the very antithesis of the violinist’s style.

The Ravel Trio is a marvel, not only for the commanding strength of the three artists, but also for the rapt sensuality of their reading, while Respighi’s ponderously Brahmsian Sonata is tolerable solely for Heifetz’s passionate dedication and, of course, prodigious technique. Martinu’s brief, potent piece is given what must be the most attentive and grandiose reading in its history.

Mozart’s “Turkish” Concerto, recorded in 1963 with an unnamed orchestra and conductor (Heifetz often had his accompanying orchestras “prepared” by some gifted youngster, e.g. Michael Tilson Thomas, who would not be present at the final performance) is far less aggressive and Romantically oriented than one might expect, while the 1954-recorded Sonata in G, K. 378, shows a comparable degree of elegant relaxation.

But the G-minor Quintet, K. 516, taped in 1961, is over-driven and unlovely, with Heifetz’s co-workers--Israel Baker, William Primrose, Virginia Majewski and Piatigorsky--more sidemen than partners (7869).

Much of the pure Heifetziana is combined on a single CD (7872): Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto No. 2, “The Prophets,” was written expressly for the violinist in 1933. It’s a deliciously dense confection of Hollywood- cum -Bloch Hebraica that ultimately breaks out into some Gypsyoid noodling and a suggestion of Hoppy riding into the sunset (perhaps on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades). Against a colorful backdrop provided by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Alfred Wallenstein, Heifetz plays it with ear-boggling richness of tone, technical finesse and such obvious affection that any but the most dour academic (and the terminally envious) will have to capitulate.

The program further includes a British-folksy 1931 Sonata by Belfast-born Howard Ferguson and a more energetic but equally forgettable (and forgotten) 1947 Sonata by Karen Khachaturian, a nephew of Aram’s, but more indebted to Prokofiev.

Both were recorded in 1966, with Lillian Steuber a powerful piano collaborator. Finally, the high-speed intensity of Heifetz, Piatigorsky and violist Joseph de Pasquale (captured in 1964) make Jean Francaix’ relentlessly frothy, frisky, early-’30s exercise in Gallic flippancy quite listenable.

The 1968 recording of Louis Spohr’s Double Quartet in D minor shows the violinist reducing to hard-breathing puppets such notable students and collaborators from his and Piatigorsky’s USC days as Pierre Amoyal, Paul Rosenthal, Milton Thomas and Laurence Lesser.

But Spohr’s once-popular Concerto in A minor, recorded in 1954, is a grateful vehicle both for Heifetz the showman and Heifetz the sweet singer of old-fashioned songs. The concluding work on this program (7870), Beethoven’s bucolic Serenade in D is rather too urban-nervous in the hands of Heifetz, Primrose and Piatigorsky.

The last of this quintet of CDs (7873) has the same threesome in a jaunty 1960 reading of Beethoven’s D-major String Trio; the Schubert Fantasy in C (1968) with Brooks Smith, where Heifetz’s weighty bow pressure gives the unpleasant feeling of steel cleaving wood; and the somewhat slapdash but bracing 1968 recording of Brahms’ C-minor Piano Quartet with pianist Jacob Lateiner, violist Sanford Schonbach and Piatigorsky.