The Heifetz Collection, Volume 26

9.7分（54人评分）

1002人收藏

共10首歌曲

艺人: Jascha Heifetz
语种: 其他
厂牌: RCA
发行时间: 1997年06月17日
专辑类别: 合集、杂锦

专辑介绍

"Many people do not even know that you play the violin, since you have been known from childhood as a clavier player," wrote Leopold Mozart to his son Wolfgang, on October 18, 1777. Two years before, at the age of 19, Wolfgang had composed five violin concertos, probably for his own use as concertmaster of the Prince-Archbishop's orchestra in Salzburg. Each succeeding one proved more expressive, mature and difficult than its predecessor. Together the five allow a rare glimpse of rapid evolution in Mozart's style. The last of these concertos, completed on December 20 of that year, is the most brilliant and complex of the set and most successful in conveying the spirit of Mozart's future great comic operas by purely instrumental means.

The violin often brought out the boisterous exuberance of the child in Mozart, and nowhere more so than in these concertos. That is perhaps why Heifetz, a former prodigy himself, takes to the extroverted character of the Fifth Concerto with an affinity that goes beyond his more objective approach to other works from the Classical era. In accordance with 18th-century custom Heifetz acts as both conductor and soloist in this recording. From the first entrance of the solo violin, which silences the vigorous opening tutti with a meditative Adagio, Heifetz projects a unique blend of elegance and sensuality, and his dominant presence throughout this movement is not inconsistent with Mozart's boast to Leopold: "I played as if I were the first violinist in Europe; they all stared. "

The beautiful, melancholy second movement is a dialogue between orchestra and soloist; here Heifetz's inimitable portamentos enhance the illusion of Mozart's vocal style, suggesting a grand soprano aria. The otherwise courtly Rondeau contains a section in minor drawn from the "Turkish" ballet Mozart had composed for his opera Lucio Siila. Imitating a Janissary band, he has the cellos and basses play col legno, striking the strings with the wood of their bows, a unique effect in the Classical period. The exotic "Turkish" tunes from which the concerto got its nickname are, however, not really Turkish, but Hungarian. (The confusion is natural given that not long before the eastern parts of Hungary were still under Ottoman rule.)

By the time Mozart composed his Sonata, K.378, one of several dedicated to his student Josepha von Auernhammer, he was well along in evolving the modern form of the violin-piano sonata, in which the two instruments appear as equal partners. "These sonatas require as equally accomplished a violinist as they do a pianist," marveled Cramer's Magazin der Musik, while announcing their publication.

Heifetz recorded the sonata soon after engaging Brooks Smith as his accompanist. Instead of discussing interpretation, he simply sat down to play the piano part for Smith, beautifully. While performing sonatas in public Heifetz never used music, but when playing Mozart sonatas he would stand modestly behind the pianist, where father Leopold once stood with 8-year-old Wolfgang at the clavier. Heifetz plays this work in a restrained fashion, free of personal mannerisms, in strict Classical and chamber-music style. Even so, the intimate, Romantic statement of the Andantino, a brief masterpiece in itself, cannot fail to move. The witty 4/4 section before the coda of the Rondeau recalls a brilliant operatic tongue-in-cheek "patter duet" and is a harbinger of Le nozze di Figaro.

There was a time when no self-respecting violin virtuoso, not even Heifetz, would have dared appear in public in a chamber ensemble larger than a piano trio. Rumors about "declining powers" would have circulated soon enough about the unfortunate artist. That this attitude has changed completely is in no small measure due to Jascha Heifetz. In 1961 he and the great cellist Gregor Piatigorsky formed the Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts. The two virtuosos were joined frequently by the celebrated violist William Primrose and, for larger works, by talented though relatively unknown younger musicians from Los Angeles, hand-picked by Heifetz during informal chamber-music sessions at his home. These were not unlike evenings in Vienna, where Mozart's string quartets and later his viola quintets were sight-read for the first time. Among the performers were the composer playing viola and his older friend and admirer, his "papa" Haydn, as first violinist. It is difficult to imagine what Haydn must have felt when they turned to the Quintet in G Minor. Nothing like it had been heard before. While others must have strained to comprehend it, to Haydn its Romantic vision must have been a revelation.

—Gabriel Banat

Gabriel Banat is the editor of The Mozart Violin Concerti: A Facsimile Edition of the Autographs, published by Raven Press

The Heifetz Collection, Volume 26 - Mozart

专辑介绍

热门评论

最新简评（共31条）