Decca Honors Szeryng Centennial with 44 CDs

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

Polish violinist Henryk Szeryng was born in Warsaw on September 22, 1918, making this part of the centennial year of his birth. He made his solo debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra on January 6, 1933, playing Johannes Brahms’ Opus 77 violin concerto in D major. However, his career in Poland was interrupted by World War II.

He was invited by Władysław Sikorski, Premier of the Polish government in exile, to serve as his liaison officer and interpreter. This included a trip to Mexico in 1941 in an effort to resettle 4000 Polish refugees. Szeryng was so impressed by the country’s efforts that he decided to become a naturalized citizen there, and his citizenship was granted in 1946. Beginning in 1945 he led the String Department at the National University of Mexico.

Following the War, Szeryng’s career escalated on an international scale. Arthur Rubinstein introduced him to Sol Hurok; and the rest, as they say, is history. To honor the centennial of his birth, Decca compiled a 44-CD box set collecting all of the recordings that Szeryng made for Philips, Mercury, and Deutsche Grammophon (DG). The repertoire for these recordings is, for the most part, traditional, beginning with Johann Sebastian Bach but with a “center of gravity” firmly rooted in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, in May of 1988 he had a session with DG to record Alban Berg’s violin concerto, suggesting that he was always interested in expanding his repertoire.

As is usually the case with these major anthologies, I try to segment the content into “meaningful chunks.” The most appropriate segmentation is by record label, but it is not particularly balanced. The first 29 of the 44 CDs are devoted to Philips recordings, the first of which were made in 1966. Szeryng began recording with Mercury in 1962, but only seven CDs resulted. The DG sessions began in 1968 and resulted in eight CDs. I shall use those dates of first recording sessions to order the way in which I approach the labels, meaning that this article will deal with the Mercury sessions, followed by Philips and DG in that order.

Szeryng’s Mercury sessions took place when one of that label’s leading conductors was Antal Doráti. As a result, three of the CDs in this portion of the collection are concerto performances made with Doráti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). These include revisiting his “debut concerto” by Brahms, as well as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 35 concerto in D major, Aram Khachaturian’s D minor concerto, Robert Schumann’s WoO 23 concerto in D minor, and Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 64 concerto in E minor. (This is the first CD release of the Tchaikovsky concerto.) In addition, Szeryng recorded two concerto performances with Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting the LSO, Jean Sibelius’ Opus 47 in D minor and Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 63 (second) concerto in G minor. The CD of those two concertos is receiving its first international release.

Also receiving its first release on CD is the one Bach album in the collection of the “usual” three concertos: BWV 1041 in A minor, BWV 1042 in E major, and BWV 1043, the “double” concerto in D minor. Szeryng himself leads the Collegium Musicum Winterthur. The second violinist in the performance of BWV 1043 is Peter Rybar.

On the remaining two CDs Szeryng is accompanied by pianist Charles Reiner at recording sessions made in New York. These might be classified as “encore albums;” but that would be too dismissive. One is devoted entirely to compositions by Fritz Kreisler, and each of the thirteen tracks offers a vivid reminder that there was far more to Kreisler than merely showing off technique. Indeed, one encounters a sense of deep affection in Szeryng’s performances that tends to be lacking in any of those “Historic Recordings” of Yehudi Menuhin in the mammoth Warner Classics The Menuhin Century collection. The other CD offers a wide diversity of shorter selections, almost all of which are arrangements. Indeed, one of the most interesting of those arrangements is of Brahms’ F-sharp minor Hungarian dance made by Kreisler.

Those who have followed this site for some time may have noticed that I tend not to “deep end” on violinists the way they I do on cellists. The fact is that, for better or worse, Jascha Heifetz continues to have a firm lock on my interest in the violin repertoire; and Warner’s Menuhin project did little more than reinforce my allegiance to Heifetz. To be fair, however, the DVD box in that Warner collection has some fascinating footage of a very young Doráti performing with a very young Menuhin, both at the piano and conducting the “Symphony Orchestra of Hollywood.” I find my encounters with Doráti recordings to be consistently satisfying; and, when it comes to his work with Szeryng, I find the chemistry between them to be utterly irresistible! Indeed, I would say that their partnership on the Schumann concerto makes it clear how undeservedly neglected this composition is.