Jascha Heifetz - Wieniawski, Saint-Saëns, Vieuxtemps & Sarasate: Works for Violin and Orchestra (2020)

The insert-note here relates the remarkable story that Barbirolli, stepping off the boat-train at 11 o'clock one morning in 1935 after a visit abroad, was told that at 2 o'clock he was to record Vieuxtemps's Concerto No. 4—a work he had never even heard, let alone seen—with Heifetz. Using a score "so yellow with age that the pages crumbled" as they were turned, the work was nevertheless recorded in a single session—a tribute not only to Barbirolli's professionalism and skill but also to Heifetz's confidence in the conductor (then aged 36, two years older than himself), having already recorded concertos by Glazunov and Mozart with him, as the most able of accompanists. On the face of it, as AS remarked when reviewing this collection on LP (10/87— nla), the combination may have seemed surprising, in view of the different temperaments of the two artists; but it certainly worked. There is a romantic fervour in the performance of this fourmovement concerto (which won Berlioz's praise), and which is notable for the lyricism of its first two movements and the spectacular virtuosity of its one-in-a-bar Scherzo (the first sight of which alarmed Barbirolli, and no wonder) and of its finale, both of which Heifetz dispatches with consummate mastery.

The sound is less good, oddly enough, in the Wieniawski concerto and Saint-Saens's Introduction and Rondo capriccioso recorded only four days later. The orchestra is recessed and compressed, and Heifetz's tone is made to appear rather small, though very sweet (with his quick vibrato particularly noticeable in the lovable Romance): nothing, however, can disguise the infallibility of his stunning agility and intonation, and his spiccato in the finale of the Wieniawski is delightful, as is his virtuosity in the Saint-Saens pieces and, especially, Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, of which it would be hard to imagine a more wonderful performance. The 1937 recordings are greatly superior in roundness and fullness of tone, both of the violin and of the orchestra; and there is virtually no background noise from the original 78s. Terrific! (Gramophone)

Jascha Heifetz, violin
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir John Barbirolli, conductor

Digitally remasteredr