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In Reply to: RE: Yes, but if he chooses Heifetz. . . posted by grichens on July 02, 2009 at 09:44:51
I have nearly all Heifetz recordings on vinyl starting with mono era all the way to the later period when he concentrated more on chamber works performing with Piatigorsky and several other big name soloists.
The single major issue with most Heifetz recordings are the poor audio, the Chicago and Boston recordings are the exceptions. The later chamber recordings suffer from some of the driest and lifeless sound on record, those of you who are old enough and remember RCA’s famous Studio 8-H sound will know what I am talking about. (Studio 8-H was the studio where Arturo Toscanini produced his radio broadcast performances with NBC orchestra, those still stand as the worst recordings made by anyone, simply put “telephone booth” ambiance).
Heifetz never fared well with record reviewers, past and present, some of it is due to his complete lack of any emotional display during his public performances, public loves showmanship on the stage and having a few orgasms on the stage always guarantees standing ovations
.
Some have called him violinists violinist, I recall reading an article in “Musical America” journal back in sixties on David Oistrakh’s first trip to USA, one of the first items on his agenda was to order all Heifetz recordings.
Whether you like Heifetz, Oistakh, Stern, Menuhin or any of the old timers from the past generation, one disturbing thing about all current star violinists active today is how similar they all sound, I can identify Heifetz or any of the big name violinists from the first note, not so with current artists, they all sound the same to me.
And finally, being a Heifetz fan, my all time favorite performance is Max Bruch Scottish Fantasy, to me his tone and technique is made for this work and no other performance comes close.
Vahe
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