Album Reviews

Lovers of chamber music in general and Heifetz in particular, will find this “Living Stereo” oddity from 1961 a sonic and musical treasure. “Oddity” because it’s an album pieced together from two studio recordings made at either side of “the pond.”

The Beethoven Sonata #9 (“Kreutzer”) is a domestic studio recording; the Bach Concerto For Two Violins was recorded in the U.K. with Heifetz joined by his protégé, the late Erick Friedman (making his recording debut) and Malcolm Sargent conducting the New Symphony Orchestra of London.

I don’t for a minute pretend to be a chamber music connoisseur, nor have I heard a wide variety of performances of the “Kreutzer,” though I own and have played on occasion one by Zino Francescatti on Columbia that doesn’t sound nearly as good as this one, though the performance is equally lyrical if not quite as fast. This is a sweet, melodic piece that’s easy to grasp the first play. I don’t pretend to know which the fans prefer musically, but it’s usually a safe bet if you bet on Heifetz.

The key to enjoying side the piece, which takes up all of side one and the first third of side two, is to lower the volume to an intimate level, turn the lights out and imagine your listening hovel is the venue. The miking is close and the studio acoustics nearly dead so your room will have to provide the space.

The Bach is an upbeat, melodic piece, beautifully, though somewhat distantly recorded in what sounds like an actual hall with an ideal reverberation time that’s just long enough to add depth and body without submerging the players in echo. I was involved in a recording session at the famed Walthamstow Town Hall outside of London, where we recorded a string section for the movie soundtrack to “TRON” and it’s an oft-used venue for classical music recordings of small ensembles (and sometimes larger ones). The town hall wasn’t built specifically for music. It just turned out to be a gorgeous-sounding space, with an ideal reverb time, particularly for strings. Maybe this was done there given that RCA used the space for many of its Readers Digest box set recordings.

Mr. Friedman made his recorded debut here, playing with his mentor. He went on to have a distinguished recording career of his own, but after an auto accident injured his left arm and hand in the late 1980’s he became a professor at Yale, teaching violin and chamber music until cancer took him in 2004 at the age of 64. I couldn’t tell you which violinist was stage right (left speaker) and which was stage left (right speaker). The student sounded a great deal like the teacher.

Speaking of death, this is one of Cisco’s final vinyl reissues. The label ceased operations, not due to slow vinyl sales in America (believe me, it’s release of Steely Dan’s Aja sold well), but because of financial issues involving the parent company in Japan. The label’s final project was to have been a three 45rpm LP set of Jennifer Warnes’ audiophile warhorse Famous Blue Raincoat. It will be issued on BoxStar Records, a new label started by Cisco’s David Fonn. Hopefully it will be one of many vinyl reissues from the new label.