The Heifetz Collection, Volume 25 - Beethoven, Spohr

At the height of his brilliant solo career, in 1941, Jascha Heifetz joined cellist Emanuel Feuermann and pianist Artur Rubinstein in recordings of trios by Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. Later that year violist William Primrose joined Heifetz and Feuermann to record Mozart's Divertimento, K.563. What this "summit" of artistic superpowers proved to considerable critical acclaim was that top virtuosos can create chamber music at an Olympian level without abdicating their own brilliant individualities. There were further recordings with Primrose, trios with Rubinstein and Gregor Piatigorsky and then, in 1961, the first of the memorable recordings to stem from the Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts. The two virtuosos invited not only Primrose and other established artists to join them but also talented younger musicians such as those heard here in the Spohr Double Quartet. The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts recordings continued through 1968. Beethoven's Serenade, Op. 8, is a string trio with a multi-movement construction. A stem English critic somewhat disapprovingly labeled it "such a lightweight work that it seems absurd to listen to it with solemn attention," rather ignoring the fact that, at age 26, Beethoven was not yet storming the heavens, merely the portals of the publisher Artaria. His efforts bore fruit, because the serenade was published forthwith for the pleasure of Hausmusik cultivators. Aside from a virtuosic passage for cello in the polacca section, the work poses no great technical difficulty, though hearing the melody of the Andante movement passing from Heifetz to Primrose to Piatigorsky is anything but an everyday experience. Considering Spohr's enormous and varied legacy of some 200 works, primarily involving strings, its relatively scant representation on records is surprising. Here, too, Heifetz made a substantial contribution when he recorded the Concerto No. 8 in 1954. Also known under its subtitle "Gesangsszene," it dates from 1816, the same year as Spohr's Faust, considered by some to be the first Romantic opera. The concerto's three movements are played without pause, the violin, with recitatives and arias, taking the role of an opera singer. This style was understandably attractive in an era when opera was flourishing, and the work became the most popular of Spohr's 17 violin concertos. It was favored by such later virtuosos as Ernst, Wieniawski and Joachim, and Heifetz's teacher, Leopold Auer, thought highly of it because "in it technique is always subordinated to musical thought. " Spohr's output reveals a bent for formal experimentation. In writing his four double quartets he was not after the interaction of eight instruments (à la Mendelssohn's Octet, Op. 20) but rather an interplay with two units performing individual roles. An avid leader of chamber ensembles himself, Spohr found the double quartet an ideal medium for a gathering of colleagues, frequently joined by wealthy amateurs or members of his own orchestra at Kassel, the court where he was orchestral director for the last 36 years of his life. In the Double Quartet, Op. 65, written in 1823, the first violin of Quartet 1 plays a dominating role—a characteristic trait of Spohr's quartet writing, which may account for the diminished popularity of his works with later generations of chamber players. The individual movements are in the conventional mold, with the interesting device of starting out the first movement's opening theme by all eight players in unison as if to catch listeners' attention. In the Trio section of the vigorous Scherzo all four members of Quartet 1 are given brief solo opportunities, with Quartet 2 modestly accompanying. The third movement acts like a brief interlude leading to the bracing Finale. —George Jellinek