Heifetz: Transcriptions for Violin and Piano
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Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) Transcriptions for Violin and Piano Jascha Heifetz was born in Vilnius in 1901, the son of a violinist, his first teacher from...
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987)
Transcriptions
for Violin and Piano
Jascha Heifetz was born in Vilnius in 1901, the son of a violinist,
his first teacher from the age of three. Further lessons from Elias Malkin
enabled him, by the age of six, to play Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and
at the age of nine he was able to enter St Petersburg Conservatory, eventually
to join the class of Leopold Auer. He made his international debut in Berlin in 1912, later in the same year appearing as soloist in Tchaikovsky's Violin
Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Nikisch. In 1917
he left Russia for a concert tour in the United States, making his American
debut at Carnegie Hall and his first commercial recordings, and eight years
later became an American citizen. He made his first return to Russia in 1934 and for many years he continued an international career of great brilliance
and distinction, earning a legendary reputation as a virtuoso, as well as for
his performances of chamber music with musicians of similar fame and calibre,
such as the pianist Artur Rubinstein, the cellists Emanuel Feuermann and Gregor
Piatigorsky, and the viola-player William Primrose. In his later years he taught
at the University of South California in Los Angeles, where the Heifetz Chair
of Music was established for him, giving master-classes, but with relatively
few pupils. He gave his final recital and made his
last recordings in 1972. He died in 1987.
As a player Heifetz did much to develop the techniques
of violin-playing, influencing many younger players through his virtuosity, his
agility and speed in performance, the purity of his intonation, his handling of
the bow and his use of vibrato, and providing a standard against which other
performances of standard concert repertoire might be measured. He introduced
new concertos, some written specially for him. This contemporary concerto
repertoire included concertos by William Walton, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Erich
Korngold and Miklos Rozsa. At the same time he was responsible for a large number
of transcriptions for violin and piano, many of which remain in standard
virtuoso repertoire.
In 1923 Heifetz acquired the instrument that he preferred,
made in 1742 by the last of the family, Giuseppe Guarneri, known as Guarneri
del Jesù. He also had a Tononi instrument and instruments by Antonio
Stradivari. His apparent impassivity in performance concealed strong powers of
concentration and interpretations that were carefully planned, with every
attention to detail.
The present recording opens with a transcription
of Chopin's Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2, a work written in 1843 and dedicated
originally to Chopin's Scottish admirer Miss Jane Wilhelmina Stirling. The long
melodic lines of the Nocturne, with only the lightest addition of double-stopping,
are in marked contrast to the energy of the Russian-Jewish composer Alexander
Krein's Dance No. 4, with its suggestions of the kletzmer style that had
been part of Krein's family background.
'Jeanie with the light brown hair', by the American composer
Stephen Foster, author also of the words of what has all the familiarity of a
long-established folk-song, is treated with idiomatic assurance. Again a
contrast is provided in the famous arrangement of the much-transcribed Flight
of the bumble-bee, taken from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Tale of Tsar
Saltan, where it serves as an entr'acte illustrating the activities of
Prince Guidon, disguised as a bee to sting revenge on his wicked aunts. Gluck's
Dance of the Blessed Spirits, from his opera Orpheus and Eurydice is
given with all the serenity that the Elysian fields demand, as the legendary
Orpheus seeks to retrieve his beloved Euridice from the Underworld.
Prokofiev's idiosyncratic musical language is
revealed in the transcription of the March from his opera The Love for
Three Oranges, a work based on a play by Gozzi in which the melancholy
Prince is the victim of a curse that forces him to seek the love of the title.
The perky little March is a recurrent feature in the work. Debussy's Prelude
à l'après-midi d'un faune, based on Mallarme, created by Nijinsky and
notably danced by Serge Lifar in a succeeding generation, is remarkably
convincing in violin transcription, which captures the essence of the piece.
The Italian-Jewish composer Mario
Castlenuovo-Tedesco found himself obliged in 1939 to leave his native country
and settle in the United States, where, like many others, he found an outlet in
the composition of music for the cinema. Heifetz commissioned a violin concerto
from him and his Tango is a version of the composer's own arrangement
derived from his setting of a song from Shakespeare's play A Winter's Tale for
the shepherdess Mopsa. A measure of calm is restored with the traditional negro
Deep River.
The angular musical idiom of Prokofiev is
immediately evident in the excerpt from his ballet Romeo and Juliet,
taken from the scene of the Masks, where Romeo first sees Juliet. Richard
Strauss's early Stimmungsbilder, Op. 9, a set of piano mood
pictures provides, in the first of these pieces, the evocative Auf stillen
Waldespfad (Along the silent forest path), which makes an admirable singing
violin piece. The breadth of Heifetz's taste is demonstrated by the following Ao
pe da fogueira, a version of a Prelude by the versatile Brazilian
composer and violinist Flausino Rodrigues Vale, characterized by its continued
double-stopping.
Sevilla
by Isaac Albeniz is an arrangement of a piano piece
from his Suite Espanola, splendidly captured in its essence in the
transcription, with its opening suggestion of the guitar and its contrasts of
mood. It is followed here by one of Heifetz's most famous transcriptions, his
version of the Romanian composer and violinist Grigoraş Dinicu's lively Hora
staccato. Debussy's take on ragtime, Golliwogg's Cake-walk, is shown
in a new light in the violin
and piano arrangement of a piano piece that had formed part of the composer's Children's
Corner, written for his young daughter.
Heifetz recorded the Hungarian composer Erno Dohnanyi's Serenade
for violin, viola and cello with William Primrose and Emanuel Feuermann.
Less familiar is the Romanza from the Suite in F sharp minor. It leads to
an arrangement of one of the most popular works by the Mexican Manuel Ponce, echoes of which are heard in the same composer's violin concerto. The recording ends
with one of Heifetz's arrangements of songs from George Gershwin's black opera Porgy
and Bess, 'A woman is a sometime thing', into which he injects something of
the drama, as he develops and varies the material.
Keith Anderson
Nocturne No. 16 in E flat major, Op. 55, No. 2 (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Nocturne No. 16 in E flat major, Op. 55, No. 2 - 5:27
Dance No. 4 (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Dance No. 4 - 1:09
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair (arr. J. Heifetz for violin and piano) (more info)
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Jeanie with the light brown hair - 3:16
Tale of Tsar Saltan, Op. 57 (arr. for trombone and piano) (more info)
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The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Op. 57: Flight of the Bumble-Bee - 1:17
Orfeo ed Euridice (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Orfeo ed Euridice, Act II: Dance of the Blessed Spirits - 3:15
The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Op. 33bis (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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The Love for Three Oranges Suite, Op. 33bis: No. 3. March - 1:40
Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
Composed by:
Claude Debussy
Judy Loman, harp
Su Yeon Lee, violin
Michael Chertock, piano
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Dominique Morel, piano
Douglas Nemish, piano
Rouben Aharonian, violin
Svetlana Safonova, piano
Nora Shulman, flute
Recording date: 11 - 14 March, 1997
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Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune - 8:10
Tango, Op. 24b (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Tango, Op. 24b - 1:42
Deep River (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Deep River - 2:29
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64: Masks - 2:09
Stimmungsbilder, Op. 9, TrV 127 (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Stimmungsbilder, Op. 9: No. 1. Auf stillen Waldespfad - 2:49
Prelude No. 15, "Ao pe da fogueira" (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Prelude No. 15, "Ao pe da fogueira" - 1:26
Suite espanola No. 1, Op. 47 (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Suite espanola No. 1, Op. 47: No. 3. Sevilla - 4:15
Hora staccato (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Hora staccato (Hora spiccato) - 2:08
Children's Corner (more info)
Composed by:
Peter Breiner
Claude Debussy
Gerald Garcia
Lise Boucher, piano
Su Yeon Lee, violin
Michael Chertock, piano
Vladimir Horowitz, piano
Kyoko Tabe, piano
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano
Noel Lee, piano
Idil Biret, piano
Francois-Joel Thiollier, piano
Krzysztof Jablonski, piano
Jack Richard Crossan, piano
Martin Souter, piano
Recording date: 28 March 1928
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Children’s Corner: No. 6 Golliwogg’s Cake-Walk - 3:07
Suite in F sharp minor, Op. 19: III. Romanza (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Suite in F sharp minor, Op. 19: III. Romanza - 4:37
Estrellita (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
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Estrellita (My little star) - 3:16
Porgy and Bess Suite (arr. J. Heifetz) (more info)
Composed by:
George Gershwin
Wayne Marshall, piano
Margo Garrett, piano
Peer Findeisen, piano
Natasha Korsakova, violin
Kira Ratner, piano
Su Yeon Lee, violin
Michael Chertock, piano
Robert Koenig, piano
Emmanuel Bay, piano
Jascha Heifetz, violin
Elmar Oliveira, violin
Chuanyun Li,
Friedemann Eichhorn, violin
Jaime Laredo, violin
Matthew Trusler, violin
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Porgy and Bess, Act I: A woman is a sometime thing - 4:23