The Heifetz Collection, Volume 6 - 1946-1947

The contents of this volume are, with a few significant exceptions, rerecordngs of favorite short pieces or new additions to that list, all benefiting from the improved techniques resulting from World War II electronic research. It provides an opportunity to match Debussy's Lafille aux cheveux de lin of 1946 against La fille of 1926 and to make note of still another kind of Heifetz consistency: pure, sustained, unvarying tonal quality. Separated by 20 years and five-times-twenty leagues of technical change, the later output is merely an enlargement of what was heard before, as the second Ave Maria was not different from but merely more of the first. I would, however, say that the second Flight of the Bumblebee is more menacing than the first, for being so much closer at hand. The additions include—in greater profusion and wider variety than ever before—transcriptions by Heifetz himself: the Tempo di valse from Arensky's A Minor Violin Concerto; Mediterranean by Arnold Bax, originally for piano; Etudes d'ondes (retitled Sea Murmurs) from the piano piece by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco; Debussy's "La chevelure" from the Chansons de Bilitis; Halffter's Danza de la gitana (from a ballet), and Medtner's Fairy Tale No. 1. These are samples of a much longer list of efforts by Heifetz to expand the violin repertory. The "significant exceptions" include the Heifetz-Heifetz version of the D Minor "Double" Concerto of Bach. Recorded on film, it brought together the violinist, Franz Waxman and an ensemble of Los Angeles musicians. Heifetz— cued by earphones—added his performance of the second violin part to his previously recorded playing of the first violin line. The channels were then mixed and blended. It was an experiment Heifetz did not repeat. But the rediscovery of Bruch's Scottish Fantasy (which he pioneered in 1947— another first recording) was followed by a second a decade or so later and a third for the sound track of his 1970 TV special (not approved for records). A work of singular sweetness and strength, it never sounds quite itself when heard in any but one of the three Heifetz performances. The Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 5 was included in the Heifetz concert repertory long before this recording upgraded any prior reproduction. The work's musical elements at times suggest more than one masterful bow arm and a mere five fingers on the strings. —Irving Kolodin