Jascha Heifetz (left) with Gregor Piatigorsky (right) on the cover of the RCA box set of their joint recordings (from the Amazon.com Web page for the collection)
As promised a week ago, in considering the RCA portion of the collection Gregor Piatigorsky: The Art of the Cello, I am addressing the concertante and chamber music performances separately. Of the four concertante pieces that Piatigorsky had recorded for Columbia, only Max Bruch’s Opus 47 “Kol Nidrei” (which had been coupled with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 104 cello concerto in B minor) does not appear in the RCA catalog. Instead, the Dvořák concerto is the only work on the RCA album, performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) conducted by Charles Munch.
However, the absence of Bruch is compensated by a recording or Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo,” also with Munch conducting the BSO. As Bruch’s Opus 47 had provided an “afterthought” following Dvořák, the Bloch selection follows a performance of William Walton’s cello concerto (also with Munch and the BSO). Thus, while Columbia opted for a “pairing” of late nineteenth-century rhetoric, RCA chose to link together two decidedly modernist (but still unabashedly tonal) composers.
Indeed, in my own listening experience, Walton and Bloch have one thing in common. Every time I listen to a composition by either of them, either in concert or on recording, I wonder why I do not hear more of their music! Unless I am mistaken, this Piatigorsky recording was my first encounter with Walton’s concerto, even though it has been recorded by the likes of both Yo Yo Ma and Steven Isserlis.
Bloch, on the other hand, gets a bit more respect, at least here in San Francisco, where he used to live; and “Schelomo” has become a concert favorite. Indeed, I have to wonder whether it was included on the Walton album by RCA as a marketing “lure.” “Schelomo” would attract buyers, who would then get Walton as part of the bargain!
Another marketing tactic may be responsible for the one oddity among the concertante selections. This is the recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 219 “Turkish” concerto in A major. Those who know their Mozart will immediately recognize that he never composed a cello concerto and that K. 219 is a violin concerto. Sure enough, the concerto soloist is Jascha Heifetz; and the album is actually titled The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts.
However, Piatigorsky is on the recording. He is leading the cello section of the accompanying chamber orchestra. Since no conductor is named, we can assume that Heifetz is also leading that ensemble. To be fair, the cello part is not particularly rich in this concerto; and the RCA recording team did not give it very much respect. Nevertheless, in some (slightly warped) literal sense of the words, this is a recording that Piatigorsky made for RCA!
A more “legitimate” conjunction of Heifetz and Piatigorsky can be found on the 1960 recording of Johannes Brahms’ Opus 102 “Double” concerto in A minor with Alfred Wallenstein conducting the “RCA Symphony Orchestra” (presumably a “pick-up” gathering of Hollywood studio musicians who happened to be available at the time). I know this recording well through my RCA Heifetz Collection, but I still can’t get enough of it. I continue to find it a valuable benchmark for the interpretation of this concerto on both technical and rhetorical grounds.
On the other hand, this is also the one selection that warrants two distinct RCA recordings. The other is much earlier (1951); and the violinist is Nathan Milstein. The performance is of The Robin Hood Dell Orchestra of Philadelphia (members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and others, who would give outdoor concerts during the summer months) conducted by Fritz Reiner. (The recording, fortunately, was made indoors at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.) While the technology is weaker, this is also a thoroughly well-conceived interpretation. (By way of context, when Heifetz recorded the Brahms violin concerto in D major, Opus 77 for RCA, he performed with the Chicago Symphony conducted by Reiner.)
My high opinion of Reiner also extends to his interpretations of the music of Richard Strauss, as I had observed in writing about Piatigorsky’s Columbia recordings. He does not return for the RCA recording of Richard Strauss’ Opus 35 tone poem “Don Quixote.” Piatigorsky made that recording with Munch and the BSO in 1953. (Reiner would make his RCA recording with the Chicago in 1958 with Antonio Janigro.) As the reader should probably guess by now, Piatigorsky had a good working relationship with Munch and his Bostonians. This was a time when the BSO took great pride in its brass section, and it does not take much listening to this Munch recording to see why!
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