Violinists of the century: ............was Comparison of Heifetz and Oistrakh
italiano
Date: Sat, Apr 15 2006 6:04 am
>Both violinist are widely available on DVD's so you might wish to acquire
them and do your own comparison. I never saw Heifetz except in videos and
heard him in many recordings I saw Oistrakh twice, once in the Beethoven and
once in Mozart 4th
Sorry I took so long, but I did so want to reply to this one...you are so
lucky.....I'd give my eye-teeth to have heard your list of greats live!
Oistrakh's Beethoven didn't grab me as much as say Schneiderhan, but it is
Oistrakh nonetheless....as for the Mozart 4th, well, he pretty much nailed
all 5 concerto's (as well as the sinfonia concertante with Igor) as his
own.....I love no.1 especially. That clip on "L'Art du Violon" with him
rehearsing No.4 with the Berlin Philharmoniker section is amazing....the
bowing - so clear, so pure, like glass....
>Heifetz had an effortless bow and could do some amazing strokes.
I have always felt that Heifetz could have played anything, absolutely
anything: there were simply no technical obstacles in his playing and in his
talent - kinda like how I imagine Paganini would have sounded, had he been
accessible to the 20th century.
> Try to find a video of him playing the Hora Staccato to see some amazing
feats.
The up-bows with many staccato's all in a bow??? Incredible.....I haven't
heard it repeated - the nearest may be Michael Rabin...
> The bow hardly seems to move yet each note is clear as a bell and has
substance. I would describe Heifetz tone as silvery.
Ivry Gitlis described his playing as 'cold steel' on the outside with fire
inside I think........on the other hand I may have completely
misquoted....my own sentiment basically...
>He had a tendency to play things faster than most other violinists of his
era.
I heard he chopped quite a few minutes off the Brahms in terms of
conventional performance....
>He had a cold prickly stage presence.
I watched him play the Tchaikovsky on DVD with Fritz Reiner (if my memory is
still working) and just remember the conductor looking so tense and then
relieved at the end....in some parts he seemed to tear ahead of the
orchestra like a thoroughbred racehorse - magnificent and unique....
>I grew up in an era when Heifetz (at the end of his touring days which I
why I never saw him), Stern, Oistrakh, Milstein, Kogan and Menuhin were all
active and I saw them all except Heifetz.
Did you hear Aaron Rosand in his heyday?
Ruggiero Ricci? Uto Ughi? Franco Gulli? Ivry Gitlis? Artur Grumiaux? Henryk
Szeryng?
Do you have any recordings of Bronislav Hubermann? - he had such a
magnificent poise....
>Oistrakh had the biggest tone and for me the greatest appeal. Oistrakh
recordings were almost inevitably my first choice for a given piece.
The greatest interpreter and servant of violin music....undoubtedly the most
faultless of recordings, and consistent of all time - as far as from what I
have been able to hear....
> At the times I was hearing him...from 1958 to his death in ca. 1974 he
seemed to eschew virtuosity for virtuosity sake and it would be hard to
imagine him doing Paganini for example.
Yeah, I was a bit disappointed at that, because I still believe Paganini had
something to offer above mere virtuosity....maybe it's because I have to
much Italian pride...but I hear some operatic beauty in his works, and don't
see him as less creative than say Rossini or Bellini or Paisiello...
>Yet if anyone doubted his skill, watch the video of him doing the encore
piece of Locatelli's "Labyrinth."
I wasn't convinced with that Labyrinth - I think there are a few recordings
of it though....the one he did as an encore (was it after a Schostakovich or
Tchaikovsky concerto) wasn't his usual self, then again that piece seems
suicidal......but you are right about the bow technique - also that 2nd page
of the 1st movement of the Sibelius - I can't even begin to get 4 of those
semiquavers to sound like that......just don't know how he slams them
together....???
>He had an endless bow and could change bow strokes from up to down and
reverse with nary a break in the sound. Listen to him play the Kreisler
cadenza to the Beethoven concerto. The sound just builds and builds and when
you think it can have no more intensity, the intensity increases.There were
times that he would play and play with rave notices repertory you could
hardly imagine him playing such as the Stravinsky and Hindemith concerti (He
recorded the latter with the composer conducting. He gets my vote as the
"Violinist of the Century."
Hear, hear.....there are recordings of his that are untouched in my opinion,
and will probably remain so for a long while:
Concertos: Sibelius, Khatchaturian, Kabelevsky, Brahms, Bach, Mozart 1-5 &
SC, Schostakovich 1&2, Dvorak....
Sonatas: Ravel, Prokoviev, Brahms, Beethoven, Ysaye....
> Heifetz is a player who has grown on me in later years. I tend not to like
much of what he does in the standard repertory because it is to me almost
glib and facile. Yet I have grown to admire his Tchaikovsky and Brahms
concerti even if I prefer Oistrakh. He premiered many modern works written
for him (probably paid for by him.) Most were very conservative works, often
by composers who made their name writing film scores or were resident in
Southern California where he lived.
Did he do the Korngold?...or are you talking about Waxman?
I love the Heifetz encores - I think he ruled in this genre.....right across
the board in all styles and periods.....the other thing that impressed me so
much about Heifetz, besides his violinistic genius, was his ability to
arrange music, rivalling Kreisler.....he has done stunning things with a
variety of works, displaying a superb knowledge of piano writing as
well....just heard his rendition of the Vivaldi 'Largo' (D minor concerto
Op.3#11) this weekend and I was blown away at the harmonic invention....add
to that his versions of works by Poulenc, Gershwin, Brahms, Albeniz,
Debussy - to name a few.....sadly some of these are unpublished now and only
available from archive....
> I saw Stern many times in many concerti. He could do anything he wanted
and had the biggest tone other than Oistrakh...
To the detriment of being unusually rough at times - a problem I suffer with
too - always a risk when you play ion the edge....
> especially after he acquired the Ysaye Del Gesu. He had a wider repertory
than the others and did much (then) new music and he popularized music
ignored by others such as the Barber and Hindemith concerti (Oistrakh later
did an admirable Hindemith.) He would also pioneer concerti such as the
Berg, Bartok 2, Penderecki, Rochberg etc that others wouldn't touch.
Something I always admire in a musician - being a contemporary
voice.....like Gidon Kremer, without him I would have never heard the
concerto by Schumann, Milhaud's Le boef sur le toit and the Vieuxtemps
Adagio Appassionata e Tarantella (did I get that title right?)
> He did not advertise his technical prowess, much the same as Oistrakh but
again he would do some amazing things. I saw him in Bartok 2 when he had an
almost endless string of staccato notes in a single bow. He is the only
person I have ever seen do the running third in the last movement of the
Sibelius Concerto all in down bows.
That I have to see! ;-)
Unfortunately he had the ability to be good and bad in the same
performance - I loved his Lalo, yet it had some abominable intonation
moments....the paradoxical violinist....
> He could be variable and I once heard him in the Brahms (I saw him do this
four times) concerto in which he distorted things like he was bored with the
piece and didn't quite know what to do with it. In the standard repertory of
"big" concerti he would usually be my second or third choice in each piece.
Unlike some of the others he committed his recital repertory to disk,
especially the great sonatas. He and Oistrakh probably had the best
communication with their audiences and Stern also had charisma away from the
violin.
Well, did you watch "From Mao to Mozart"???.....and part II???
> I really regret that he never committed the Bach sonatas and partitas to
disk. I saw him do the D minor partita with the Chaconne and that Chaconne
may have been the greatest single piece of music I have ever heard live.
I assume you are speaking of Oistrakh here, not Stern, and I felt the same.
For all of the beauty he showed in the 3 Bach concerti, he was a Bach
interpreter of note....I can just imagine how that Chaconne sounded -
anything like Milstein's?
> I saw Milstein once, in the Brahms, and he was a phenomenon.
I love the cadenza he wrote for the Brahms - so romantic - in fact I way
prefer it to the traditional one by Joachim....
>He was nearly 75 yet he conceded absolutely nothing to his age. I always
felt that his EMI (Angel) recordings didn't do him justice and weren't
recorded as well as his later DG recording of which there are sadly too few.
I sat too far away to really observe technical issues.
Milstein like Oistrakh was one of those violinists that just seemed to be
untouched by approaching age, until they died....
> I saw Kogan once, in a recital. I was upset because I was late for the
concert because I got stopped by a cop because a tail light was out on my
car and he insisted that I get it repaired immediately or he was going to
confiscate my car and have it towed. In spite of that I do remember a fine
Brahms Sonatensatz and Prokofiev 2nd violin sonata. He had a good tone and
good volume in a hall (Washington DC's old Constitution Hall, a barn if
there ever was one, the 2nd worst hall I have been a auditor in. (Orlando's
is the worst.) Kogan was a more overt technician than Oistrakh, his
greatest peer in Russia. I just listened to a dazzling "Symphonie Espagnol"
by Lalo.
I loved his Brahms, but only had the LP of the last movement on EMI when I
was young - it was fast and crispy, just like a Brahms last movement should
be. When I got the 'Testament's re-release, I was disappointed to find that
it wasn't the same performance....Kogan had some great encores too -
Schostakovich preludes and Locatelli sonata amongst others.....
>I saw Menuhin twice, once each in the Beethoven and the Brahms. While he
was only middle aged (younger than I am now (63) ) he was clearly past his
prime. His tone was rough, he distorted the music and slopped through the
runs. Some of his recordings in the stereo era are amazing that they were
ever issued, they are that eccentric. I have heard a few of his early
recordings and it is easy to see what the fuss was about. Had he showed up
on the prodigy circuit now instead of the 1920's he might have been
dismissed as an also ran.
Jon Teske, violinist
Menuhin was great when he was young, and then went completely off the boil
in my estimation. Walter Mony did a series on violinists from yester-year on
SAFM (our national radio station) about 15 years ago, and he presented a gem
by Menuhin: the 'presto' from Bartok's solo sonata. I also used to
frequently borrow the his LP recording of the Brahms 3rd sonata (with his
sister at the piano) from the local municipal library when I was very
young....sadly that's gone too....
It's still a mystery to me what happened to him, but there were two phases
in his playing - the 1st one was definitely the one to write home about.....
Did you manage to see any of these? - they're also my favourites:
Kyung Wha Chung (Lalo, St Saens #1& 3)
Aaron Rosand (French/Spanish works)
Henryk Szeryng (solo Bach)
Artur Grumiaux (St Saens #3, Paganini #4 )
Salvatore Accardo (Vivaldi & Bruch)
Viktoria Mullova (Bach, Paganini, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokoviev,
Schostakovich......all before her terrible relocation to the UK, and other
dalliances!)
Miriam Contzen (sp? encores & solo stuff)
Joseph Hassid (miniatures from wax-disc)
I wonder if you can shed some light on one of the greatest mysteries I have
ever had with regards to recordings: when I was young we used to take out an
LP from another library which had the Tchaikovsky concerto coupled with the
Tartini "Devils Trill' sonata. It had perfect playing. The Tchaikovsky is
the best I have ever heard, clear, bold and Russian (if one can make that
categorization). The 1st movt cadenza is modified and is better than the
conventional one (ie without all the Auer trimming and tainting - in fact I
wish Auer had never set eyes on that work), even containing a stunning
chromatic octaves run; in the last movement, the optional cuts are
exercised, removing that awful repetition of the fast passages. The end of
the work is the fastest and finest I have ever heard. Then to the Tartini -
the full Kreisler rendition is done, with the cadenza untouchable and ditto
for the speed and duration of trills throughout the work......Who is this
great violonist? I didn't make a note of it at the time for some insane
reason!
I have recordings of the Tchaikovsky by Oistrakh, Rosand, Milstein, Szeryng,
and have heard others by Perlman, Mutter, Chung, Accardo etc - no one comes
close to this.
Help?
Ciao Marco.
J. Teske
wrote:
>From: J. Teske
>Date: Sat, Apr 15 2006 6:04 am
>
>
>Sorry I took so long, but I did so want to reply to this one...you are so
>lucky.....I'd give my eye-teeth to have heard your list of greats live!
>Oistrakh's Beethoven didn't grab me as much as say Schneiderhan, but it is
>Oistrakh nonetheless....as for the Mozart 4th, well, he pretty much nailed
>all 5 concerto's (as well as the sinfonia concertante with Igor) as his
>own.....I love no.1 especially. That clip on "L'Art du Violon" with him
>rehearsing No.4 with the Berlin Philharmoniker section is amazing....the
>bowing - so clear, so pure, like glass....
I haven't seen the rehearsal video. Oistrakh, in Mozart 4, used the
Ferdinand David cadenza which is very hard to find. I got what appears
to be the only published copy (at least up to about 1990) of it when I
went to the nearby Library of Congress and found a 1905 Schirmer
edition which had it. It is part of an absolutely wretched edition by
Hans Sitt. The LOC had acquired the sheet music in 1905 and nobody
had ever checked it out in the 85 years it had been there at the time.
The paper, being cheap and acidic, had almost disintegrated, but I did
manage to make a photocopy. The rest of the edition aside from the
cadenza is laughable by present standards of Urtext, with runs
rewritten in thirds and octaves.
>
>
>> Try to find a video of him playing the Hora Staccato to see some amazing
>feats.
>
>The up-bows with many staccato's all in a bow??? Incredible.....I haven't
>heard it repeated - the nearest may be Michael Rabin...
>
>> The bow hardly seems to move yet each note is clear as a bell and has
>substance. I would describe Heifetz tone as silvery.
Some one on another violin forum just posted two videos of Heifetz
playing the Hora Stacatto, one from 1949 with orchestra and another
with Brooks Smith on piano from 1950. The 1949 version had a couple of
shots with an overhead camera angle during the staccato portions. I
think she took the videos down now. What was interesting about the
overhead views was that it showed him using more bow on each pop of
the staccato than was apparent in the profile views of similar
passages. He also didn't maintain rigid perpendicularity which was
also surprising.
>
>
>I heard he chopped quite a few minutes off the Brahms in terms of
>conventional performance....
I don't have the timings, but it was quite fast.
>
>I watched him play the Tchaikovsky on DVD with Fritz Reiner (if my memory is
>still working) and just remember the conductor looking so tense and then
>relieved at the end....in some parts he seemed to tear ahead of the
>orchestra like a thoroughbred racehorse - magnificent and unique....
Haven't seen that.
>
>>I grew up in an era when Heifetz (at the end of his touring days which I
>why I never saw him), Stern, Oistrakh, Milstein, Kogan and Menuhin were all
>active and I saw them all except Heifetz.
>
>Did you hear Aaron Rosand in his heyday?
Only on TV. His physical mannerisms remind me of Salerno-Sonnenberg.
(I'm not very big on musician falling all over the stage, grimacing
etc. I detest the physical mannerisms of folks like pianist Lang Lang
or even the pained expression of Anne-Sophie Mutter...she's far too
pretty to frown like that when she plays.
>
>Ruggiero Ricci? Uto Ughi? Franco Gulli? Ivry Gitlis? Artur Grumiaux? Henryk
>Szeryng?
Szeryng, of that group...playing the Brahms with Dorati conducting the
local pro orchestra.
>
>Do you have any recordings of Bronislav Hubermann? - he had such a
>magnificent poise....
I have never knowingly heard him.
>
>>Oistrakh had the biggest tone and for me the greatest appeal. Oistrakh
>recordings were almost inevitably my first choice for a given piece.
>
>The greatest interpreter and servant of violin music....undoubtedly the most
>faultless of recordings, and consistent of all time - as far as from what I
>have been able to hear....
>
>> At the times I was hearing him...from 1958 to his death in ca. 1974 he
>seemed to eschew virtuosity for virtuosity sake and it would be hard to
>imagine him doing Paganini for example.
>
>Yeah, I was a bit disappointed at that, because I still believe Paganini had
>something to offer above mere virtuosity....maybe it's because I have to
>much Italian pride...but I hear some operatic beauty in his works, and don't
>see him as less creative than say Rossini or Bellini or Paisiello...
>
>>Yet if anyone doubted his skill, watch the video of him doing the encore
>piece of Locatelli's "Labyrinth."
>
>I wasn't convinced with that Labyrinth - I think there are a few recordings
>of it though....the one he did as an encore (was it after a Schostakovich or
>Tchaikovsky concerto) wasn't his usual self, then again that piece seems
>suicidal......but you are right about the bow technique - also that 2nd page
>of the 1st movement of the Sibelius - I can't even begin to get 4 of those
>semiquavers to sound like that......just don't know how he slams them
>together....???
There is another video of the Labyrith with Szeryng, with piano
accompaniment. The Oistrakh video of the Labyrith (to a Rozhdetvensky
orchestration) is on an EMI DVD/VHS with the Sibelius and Tschaikovsky
Concerti. I think the Tschaikovsky was for his 60th birthday (in 1968)
which is why all the flowers are on the stage.
>
>>He had an endless bow and could change bow strokes from up to down and
>reverse with nary a break in the sound. Listen to him play the Kreisler
>cadenza to the Beethoven concerto. The sound just builds and builds and when
>you think it can have no more intensity, the intensity increases.There were
>times that he would play and play with rave notices repertory you could
>hardly imagine him playing such as the Stravinsky and Hindemith concerti (He
>recorded the latter with the composer conducting. He gets my vote as the
>"Violinist of the Century."
>
>Hear, hear.....there are recordings of his that are untouched in my opinion,
>and will probably remain so for a long while:
>
>Concertos: Sibelius, Khatchaturian, Kabelevsky, Brahms, Bach, Mozart 1-5 &
>SC, Schostakovich 1&2, Dvorak....
>Sonatas: Ravel, Prokoviev, Brahms, Beethoven, Ysaye....
>
>> Heifetz is a player who has grown on me in later years. I tend not to like
>much of what he does in the standard repertory because it is to me almost
>glib and facile. Yet I have grown to admire his Tchaikovsky and Brahms
>concerti even if I prefer Oistrakh. He premiered many modern works written
>for him (probably paid for by him.) Most were very conservative works, often
>by composers who made their name writing film scores or were resident in
>Southern California where he lived.
>
>Did he do the Korngold?...or are you talking about Waxman?
Vague memory seems to recall a mono of the Korngold. He also recorded
things by Castlenuovo-Tedesco, Rosza and a bunch of others who did
film music. These mono recordings were owned by my college roommate so
I really haven't heard them since 1964, the year I got out of college.
>
>
>> I saw Stern many times in many concerti. He could do anything he wanted
>and had the biggest tone other than Oistrakh...
>
>To the detriment of being unusually rough at times - a problem I suffer with
>too - always a risk when you play ion the edge....
He did take risks.
>
>> especially after he acquired the Ysaye Del Gesu. He had a wider repertory
>than the others and did much (then) new music and he popularized music
>ignored by others such as the Barber and Hindemith concerti (Oistrakh later
>did an admirable Hindemith.) He would also pioneer concerti such as the
>Berg, Bartok 2, Penderecki, Rochberg etc that others wouldn't touch.
>
>Something I always admire in a musician - being a contemporary
>voice.....like Gidon Kremer, without him I would have never heard the
>concerto by Schumann, Milhaud's Le boef sur le toit and the Vieuxtemps
>Adagio Appassionata e Tarantella (did I get that title right?)
I just heard Kremer's second Schumann (with Harnoncourt) on the radio
while in the car the other day. I found the last movement (the only
one I heard and about half of the slow movement) to be eccentrically
slow. The first recording of it I heard was with Szeryng who does it
almost twice as fast.
>
>> He did not advertise his technical prowess, much the same as Oistrakh but
>again he would do some amazing things. I saw him in Bartok 2 when he had an
>almost endless string of staccato notes in a single bow. He is the only
>person I have ever seen do the running third in the last movement of the
>Sibelius Concerto all in down bows.
>
>That I have to see! ;-)
Too late...he's dead.
>
>Unfortunately he had the ability to be good and bad in the same
>performance - I loved his Lalo, yet it had some abominable intonation
>moments....the paradoxical violinist....
He declined in his later years on the intonation front. I have also
heard him screw up passages in Mozart 5, once in a radio broadcast
while I was in college (and in his 40s) and again live during a five
concert series he did in Washington for his 60th birthday (I saw two
of these)
>
>> He could be variable and I once heard him in the Brahms (I saw him do this
>four times) concerto in which he distorted things like he was bored with the
>piece and didn't quite know what to do with it. In the standard repertory of
>"big" concerti he would usually be my second or third choice in each piece.
>Unlike some of the others he committed his recital repertory to disk,
>especially the great sonatas. He and Oistrakh probably had the best
>communication with their audiences and Stern also had charisma away from the
>violin.
>
>Well, did you watch "From Mao to Mozart"???.....and part II???
I saw the first one, didn't know there was a sequel.
>
>> I really regret that he never committed the Bach sonatas and partitas to
>disk. I saw him do the D minor partita with the Chaconne and that Chaconne
>may have been the greatest single piece of music I have ever heard live.
>
>I assume you are speaking of Oistrakh here, not Stern, and I felt the same.
I was referring to Stern. I have never heard any recordings of
Oistrakh in the S & Ps. I don't ever recall seeing them on any of his
programs when I used to see ads of his recitals in the NY Times or the
Times of London.
>For all of the beauty he showed in the 3 Bach concerti, he was a Bach
>interpreter of note....I can just imagine how that Chaconne sounded -
>anything like Milstein's?
>
>> I saw Kogan once, in a recital. I was upset because I was late for the
>concert because I got stopped by a cop because a tail light was out on my
>car and he insisted that I get it repaired immediately or he was going to
>confiscate my car and have it towed. In spite of that I do remember a fine
>Brahms Sonatensatz and Prokofiev 2nd violin sonata. He had a good tone and
>good volume in a hall (Washington DC's old Constitution Hall, a barn if
>there ever was one, the 2nd worst hall I have been a auditor in. (Orlando's
>is the worst.) Kogan was a more overt technician than Oistrakh, his
>greatest peer in Russia. I just listened to a dazzling "Symphonie Espagnol"
>by Lalo.
>
>I loved his Brahms, but only had the LP of the last movement on EMI when I
>was young - it was fast and crispy, just like a Brahms last movement should
>be. When I got the 'Testament's re-release, I was disappointed to find that
>it wasn't the same performance....Kogan had some great encores too -
>Schostakovich preludes and Locatelli sonata amongst others.....
I do remember the Shostakovich Preludes now that you mention
them...unfortunately that was a recording my roommate had. I will
likely see him next week when I return to Wisconsin for a wedding.
I'll have to ask if he still has that old mono LP. I don't remember
what else was on it other than a Caprice Basque by Sarasate which I
remember well.
>
>>I saw Menuhin twice, once each in the Beethoven and the Brahms. While he
>was only middle aged (younger than I am now (63) ) he was clearly past his
>prime. His tone was rough, he distorted the music and slopped through the
>runs. Some of his recordings in the stereo era are amazing that they were
>ever issued, they are that eccentric. I have heard a few of his early
>recordings and it is easy to see what the fuss was about. Had he showed up
>on the prodigy circuit now instead of the 1920's he might have been
>dismissed as an also ran.
>Jon Teske, violinist
>
>
>Did you manage to see any of these? - they're also my favourites:
>
>Kyung Wha Chung (Lalo, St Saens #1& 3)
Doesn't tour the US much, I never remember her being in Washington. I
had a whole bunch of her recordings when cassette tape was the only
medium for car stereo and I had a 45 minute commute each way when I
worked.
>Aaron Rosand (French/Spanish works)
>Henryk Szeryng (solo Bach)
in the Brahms above.
>Artur Grumiaux (St Saens #3, Paganini #4 )
Didn't tour in the US very much.
>Salvatore Accardo (Vivaldi & Bruch)
I like the Bruch set. I particularly like the neglected Third
concerto. Never saw him though.
>Viktoria Mullova (Bach, Paganini, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokoviev,
>Schostakovich......all before her terrible relocation to the UK, and other
>dalliances!)
I saw her do the Sibelius with Ozawa and Boston, shortly after she
defected and just before her recording of the piece with the same
forces...they made the recording the next week. I have also seen her
in the Brahms. Her stage demeanor is that of the ultimate "Ice
Princess" She played the spots off the fiddle though, especially in
the Sibelius.
>Miriam Contzen (sp? encores & solo stuff)
I have the Arte Nova CD which I really like.
>Joseph Hassid (miniatures from wax-disc)
I'm not THAT old. I think he was dead before I was even interested
in violin. One recording I regret not buying was one with Joseph
Hassid coupled with recordings by Guila Bustabo. My interest in
Bustabo was that she was born in my hometown of Manitowoc, Wisconsin
(although I was not born there, I spent most of my young life there).
She was a good friend of my wife's early mentor when my wife was an
intern at our local newspaper and majoring in Journalism. This mentor
was the society editor of our local paper and used to write frequently
about Bustabo...more from the "local girl" angle.
Bustabo had an overbearing "stage mother". As a young woman, Bustabo
had great success in Europe and was the muse or mistress (stories vary
on this) of composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, many years her senior. She
made the very unfortunate choice of remaining in Nazi occupied Europe
during WW II despite being an American Citizen. She made some notable
recordings during the war years in Holland with Mengelberg. The
decision to remain in Europe was essentially her mothers as she was a
total naif. After the war, she was almost unmarketable because of her
tainted past, but she did make some recordings under pseudonyms. She
did teach in Europe and ultimately came back to the US where she ended
up as a rank and file violinist in the Birmingham AL symphony. She
died about five years ago. I never heard her except for a couple
recordings. Her Sibelius was said to be a favorite performance of the
composer's. There are still a few of her relatives in the hometown,
on her father's side and some of them are friends with members of my
wife's family. They all say that the mother was a "real piece of
work."
>
>I wonder if you can shed some light on one of the greatest mysteries I have
>ever had with regards to recordings: when I was young we used to take out an
>LP from another library which had the Tchaikovsky concerto coupled with the
>Tartini "Devils Trill' sonata
I don't recall this at all.
Jon Teske
italiano
J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:cppu521kmv4fjjgn1...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 8 May 2006 13:41:55 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
> >Sorry I took so long, but I did so want to reply to this one...you are so
> >lucky.....I'd give my eye-teeth to have heard your list of greats live!
> >Oistrakh's Beethoven didn't grab me as much as say Schneiderhan, but it
is
> >Oistrakh nonetheless....as for the Mozart 4th, well, he pretty much
nailed
> >all 5 concerto's (as well as the sinfonia concertante with Igor) as his
> >own.....I love no.1 especially. That clip on "L'Art du Violon" with him
> >rehearsing No.4 with the Berlin Philharmoniker section is amazing....the
> >bowing - so clear, so pure, like glass....
> I haven't seen the rehearsal video. Oistrakh, in Mozart 4, used the
> Ferdinand David cadenza which is very hard to find. I got what appears
> to be the only published copy (at least up to about 1990) of it when I
> went to the nearby Library of Congress and found a 1905 Schirmer
> edition which had it. It is part of an absolutely wretched edition by
> Hans Sitt.
I was under the impression that Oistrakh had published Mozart 3,4,5 in
Peters edition complete with the cadenza's that he played...I have no.3. I
love the cadenzas he uses - the Khatchaturian one being the most
notable....they have such a sense of composition about them....
> The LOC had acquired the sheet music in 1905 and nobody
> had ever checked it out in the 85 years it had been there at the time.
> The paper, being cheap and acidic, had almost disintegrated, but I did
> manage to make a photocopy. The rest of the edition aside from the
> cadenza is laughable by present standards of Urtext, with runs
> rewritten in thirds and octaves.
Yeah, I hate that kind of garbage - like the Nachez re-write of Vivaldi's
concerto for 2 violins in A minor op.3 no.8......or Dushkin's re-write of
the Rachmaninov Hungarian Dance....
> >> Try to find a video of him playing the Hora Staccato to see some
amazing
> >feats.
> >The up-bows with many staccato's all in a bow??? Incredible.....I haven't
> >heard it repeated - the nearest may be Michael Rabin...
> >> The bow hardly seems to move yet each note is clear as a bell and has
> >substance. I would describe Heifetz tone as silvery.
> Some one on another violin forum just posted two videos of Heifetz
> playing the Hora Stacatto, one from 1949 with orchestra and another
> with Brooks Smith on piano from 1950. The 1949 version had a couple of
> shots with an overhead camera angle during the staccato portions. I
> think she took the videos down now.
Did you download them by any chance?
What was interesting about the
> overhead views was that it showed him using more bow on each pop of
> the staccato than was apparent in the profile views of similar
> passages. He also didn't maintain rigid perpendicularity which was
> also surprising.
It doesn't surprise me - I have the Bell telephone hour DVD, and quite a few
of the greats seem to be doing strange things....I loved the close-ups of
Michael Rabin....interesting - I love his Tchaikovsky.....
There was a CD anthology of all of his recordings that I was trying to buy
recently, but Amazon said it was out of stock...incidentally it had the
Tartini too...maybe it is him that is my 'mystery' great....
> >I heard he chopped quite a few minutes off the Brahms in terms of
> >conventional performance....
> I don't have the timings, but it was quite fast.
I have just found his Beethoven which I haven't listened to yet.....I think
it has the Brahms on it.....will listen on the way to my student's lesson
tonight...
> >I watched him play the Tchaikovsky on DVD with Fritz Reiner (if my memory
is
> >still working) and just remember the conductor looking so tense and then
> >relieved at the end....in some parts he seemed to tear ahead of the
> >orchestra like a thoroughbred racehorse - magnificent and unique....
> > Haven't seen that.
I think it is one of those grey-cover EMI DVD releases....I also have a
stunning rendition of the Walton Cello concerto by Piatigorsky in that
collection, along with some great stuff by Oistrakh, Kogan, Menuhin,
Christian Ferras, Szeryng, Milstein and Grumiaux, and also incidentally,
rare footage of one of my favourite Italian pianists: Aldo Ciccolini.....
> >>I grew up in an era when Heifetz (at the end of his touring days which I
> >why I never saw him), Stern, Oistrakh, Milstein, Kogan and Menuhin were
all
> >active and I saw them all except Heifetz.
> >Did you hear Aaron Rosand in his heyday?
> Only on TV.
I always rated him in my top-5 of all time....of course he is very old now:
when he told me about his recent recording of the Khatchaturian and Sibelius
with the Singapore (Phil?) orchestra, I asked him if they were as good as
his earlier days with Sarasate/Ravel....he laughed - afterwards I felt like
I had been so rude....
> His physical mannerisms remind me of Salerno-Sonnenberg.
I was never quite impessed by her at all - way over-rated....I have only
seen his latest DVD - a recital of encores at some famous music college
(can't remember the name for the life of me).....unfortunately he does well,
but is past his prime - and by that I mean his prime, he's still way better
then me...!!! I don't remember him moving around too much
> (I'm not very big on musician falling all over the stage, grimacing
> etc.
Me too - one of the biggest turn-offs of any musician....of course one must
bear in mind that some of it is completely subconscious.....like when Monica
Selez used to rally from the base-line.
I detest the physical mannerisms of folks like pianist Lang Lang
> or even the pained expression of Anne-Sophie Mutter...she's far too
> pretty to frown like that when she plays.
Hey, you and von Karajan would have had a lot to talk about. I am not a fan
of Mutter as I think she is too rough at times, but I like her Beethoven and
fell in love with the Heifetz-Gershwin Porgy and Bess transcriptions thanks
to her and newly acquired hubby, André Previn (or was it Lambert Orkis?).
Any how, she plays those very well.....
> >Ruggiero Ricci? Uto Ughi? Franco Gulli? Ivry Gitlis? Artur Grumiaux?
Henryk
> >Szeryng?
> Szeryng, of that group...playing the Brahms with Dorati conducting the
> local pro orchestra.
Oh yeah, that was quite a good pairing - I think I have that pair on a
recording - not bad!
> >Do you have any recordings of Bronislav Hubermann? - he had such a
> >magnificent poise....
> I have never knowingly heard him.
I see there is a movement of the Beethoven available here on a CD of past
greats like Menuhin....I think it is on the DG label...
I think I may have that too...
The Oistrakh video of the Labyrith (to a Rozhdetvensky
> orchestration) is on an EMI DVD/VHS with the Sibelius and Tschaikovsky
> Concerti. I think the Tschaikovsky was for his 60th birthday (in 1968)
> which is why all the flowers are on the stage.
Yeah, I have the same one.....I seem to remember there were problems with
that performance....intonation maybe.....something wasn't right....s it was
Oistrakh, I looked right past it......the man was virtually faultless....
Yeah, he was a champion of Castelnuovo-Tedesco - the tango comes to mind -
but I never heard anything by Miklos Rosza....would be interesting...
> >> I saw Stern many times in many concerti. He could do anything he wanted
> >and had the biggest tone other than Oistrakh...
> >To the detriment of being unusually rough at times - a problem I suffer
with
> >too - always a risk when you play ion the edge....
> He did take risks.
I applaud those brave enough.....
> >> especially after he acquired the Ysaye Del Gesu. He had a wider
repertory
> >than the others and did much (then) new music and he popularized music
> >ignored by others such as the Barber and Hindemith concerti (Oistrakh
later
> >did an admirable Hindemith.) He would also pioneer concerti such as the
> >Berg, Bartok 2, Penderecki, Rochberg etc that others wouldn't touch.
> >Something I always admire in a musician - being a contemporary
> >voice.....like Gidon Kremer, without him I would have never heard the
> >concerto by Schumann, Milhaud's Le boef sur le toit and the Vieuxtemps
> >Adagio Appassionata e Tarantella (did I get that title right?)
Sorry, I think that is actually called the "Fantasia Appassionata and
Tarantella"
> I just heard Kremer's second Schumann (with Harnoncourt) on the radio
> while in the car the other day. I found the last movement (the only
> one I heard and about half of the slow movement) to be eccentrically
> slow. The first recording of it I heard was with Szeryng who does it
> almost twice as fast.
I must have the first recording then - I have a feeling it is with Ricardo
Muti.
> >> He did not advertise his technical prowess, much the same as Oistrakh
but
> >again he would do some amazing things. I saw him in Bartok 2 when he had
an
> >almost endless string of staccato notes in a single bow. He is the only
> >person I have ever seen do the running third in the last movement of the
> >Sibelius Concerto all in down bows.
> >That I have to see! ;-)
> Too late...he's dead.
Ha-ha, very funny......I meant on film.....crikey, I hadn't realized he had
passed away - was that a while ago? There is a Stern recital programme here
on CD in one of the shops- it has quite an interesting programme - I'm
toying with getting it...
> >Unfortunately he had the ability to be good and bad in the same
> >performance - I loved his Lalo, yet it had some abominable intonation
> >moments....the paradoxical violinist....
> He declined in his later years on the intonation front. I have also
> heard him screw up passages in Mozart 5, once in a radio broadcast
> while I was in college (and in his 40s) and again live during a five
> concert series he did in Washington for his 60th birthday (I saw two
> of these)
When you say screw up???
> >> He could be variable and I once heard him in the Brahms (I saw him do
this
> >four times) concerto in which he distorted things like he was bored with
the
> >piece and didn't quite know what to do with it. In the standard repertory
of
> >"big" concerti he would usually be my second or third choice in each
piece.
> >Unlike some of the others he committed his recital repertory to disk,
> >especially the great sonatas. He and Oistrakh probably had the best
> >communication with their audiences and Stern also had charisma away from
the
> >violin.
> >Well, did you watch "From Mao to Mozart"???.....and part II???
> I saw the first one, didn't know there was a sequel.
Oh you must see it - I found it even more moving than when I first watched
Part I......it has the follow-up on the careers of all the Chinese kids -
who are obviously all adults now, and some of them amazing solists - like
the cellist - they all speak candidly about their experiences with him and
under the socialist yoke......gripping stuff....unfortunately Stern is quite
aged by then.....he plays a Kreisler encore - one of the Viennese ones -
could it be Liebeslied - battling....
> >> I really regret that he never committed the Bach sonatas and partitas
to
> >disk. I saw him do the D minor partita with the Chaconne and that
Chaconne
> >may have been the greatest single piece of music I have ever heard live.
> >I assume you are speaking of Oistrakh here, not Stern, and I felt the
same.
> I was referring to Stern.
Wow!
I have never heard any recordings of
> Oistrakh in the S & Ps. I don't ever recall seeing them on any of his
> programs when I used to see ads of his recitals in the NY Times or the
> Times of London.
I have never seen them either - I wonder why he never did them - must be
story there.
No, I don't have that - I do have a wierd double sonata by Ysaye though - he
played it with his wife - the sister of Gilels.
> >>I saw Menuhin twice, once each in the Beethoven and the Brahms. While he
> >was only middle aged (younger than I am now (63) ) he was clearly past
his
> >prime. His tone was rough, he distorted the music and slopped through the
> >runs. Some of his recordings in the stereo era are amazing that they were
> >ever issued, they are that eccentric. I have heard a few of his early
> >recordings and it is easy to see what the fuss was about. Had he showed
up
> >on the prodigy circuit now instead of the 1920's he might have been
> >dismissed as an also ran.
> >Jon Teske, violinist
> >Did you manage to see any of these? - they're also my favourites:
> >Kyung Wha Chung (Lalo, St Saens #1& 3)
> Doesn't tour the US much, I never remember her being in Washington. I
> had a whole bunch of her recordings when cassette tape was the only
> medium for car stereo and I had a 45 minute commute each way when I
> worked.
She is an amazing interpreter and has a stunning palette of vibrato's....an
amazing looker too....I have some beautiful photos of her...I love her Lalo.
>Aaron Rosand (French/Spanish works)
His Carmen fantasy (Sarasate) is the best one I have ever heard - by far -
way outstripping the modern brace like Midori, Sarah Chang, Chloe etc. The
running thirds at the end are simply out of this world. Ditto for the
Sarasate Zigeurnerweisen, Spanish Dances, St Saens Havanaise and Ravel's
Tzigane. I find that French/Spanish music so difficult to pull off, hence my
deep respect for his talent....I understand he was a pupil of Zimbalist, but
he seems to have strong Franco-Belgian signs (or am I sticking my foot in my
mouth - where did Zimbalist originate from - was he descended from Auer's
teachings or did he have connections with Ysaye???)
> >Henryk Szeryng (solo Bach)
> in the Brahms above.
Lucky you.
> >Artur Grumiaux (St Saens #3, Paganini #4 )
> Didn't tour in the US very much.
Sweet romantic playing. A gentleman of the violin. His St.Saens 3 is
incredible.
> >Salvatore Accardo (Vivaldi & Bruch)
> I like the Bruch set. I particularly like the neglected Third
> concerto. Never saw him though.
Love the 3rd concerto. Can't understand why more people don't champion this
and his other works.....I hope that some family descendant or copyright
house isn't holding the modern violinist fleet at bay with impending legal
recourse....
> >Viktoria Mullova (Bach, Paganini, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokoviev,
> >Schostakovich......all before her terrible relocation to the UK, and
other
> >dalliances!)
> I saw her do the Sibelius with Ozawa and Boston, shortly after she
> defected and just before her recording of the piece with the same
> forces...they made the recording the next week. I have also seen her
> in the Brahms. Her stage demeanor is that of the ultimate "Ice
> Princess" She played the spots off the fiddle though, especially in
> the Sibelius.
She plays spots off anything - I watched the video where she won the
Tchaikovsky competition, when I was a child.....mesmerizing playing. I
always wanted to know whether Repin was the tied winner with her - it was
someone who looked like him....
Have you heard her solo Bartok, and the Paganini variations? Bach Partita
#1?
> >Miriam Contzen (sp? encores & solo stuff)
> I have the Arte Nova CD which I really like.
There are two:
1) encores
2) solo stuff
Which one do you have? The recital one has the fastest piece I have ever
heard - some Hungarian csardas I think.
> >Joseph Hassid (miniatures from wax-disc)
> I'm not THAT old.
Ha-ha.....
> I think he was dead before I was even interested
> in violin. One recording I regret not buying was one with Joseph
> Hassid coupled with recordings by Guila Bustabo.
The one I have has him coupled with Ginette Neveu. Her Sibelius (not on the
recording though - she does the Suk 4 pieces et al) was also raved
about...of course she was killed in a tragic plane crash at the height of
her prowess....
It is my feeling that Hassid would have been in the league of Heifetz and
Oistakh had he not been struck down with the mental affliction...
My interest in
> Bustabo was that she was born in my hometown of Manitowoc, Wisconsin
> (although I was not born there, I spent most of my young life there).
> She was a good friend of my wife's early mentor when my wife was an
> intern at our local newspaper and majoring in Journalism. This mentor
> was the society editor of our local paper and used to write frequently
> about Bustabo...more from the "local girl" angle.
> Bustabo had an overbearing "stage mother". As a young woman, Bustabo
> had great success in Europe and was the muse or mistress (stories vary
> on this) of composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, many years her senior. She
> made the very unfortunate choice of remaining in Nazi occupied Europe
> during WW II despite being an American Citizen. She made some notable
> recordings during the war years in Holland with Mengelberg. The
> decision to remain in Europe was essentially her mothers as she was a
> total naif. After the war, she was almost unmarketable because of her
> tainted past, but she did make some recordings under pseudonyms. She
> did teach in Europe and ultimately came back to the US where she ended
> up as a rank and file violinist in the Birmingham AL symphony. She
> died about five years ago. I never heard her except for a couple
> recordings. Her Sibelius was said to be a favorite performance of the
> composer's. There are still a few of her relatives in the hometown,
> on her father's side and some of them are friends with members of my
> wife's family. They all say that the mother was a "real piece of
> work."
My students have mothers too.......I fear for the kids sometimes.....what
can you do??? It's so frustrating when you have interference by
'peasants'....and wannabees that didn't make it when they were kids, now
trying to re-live their dreams....
Strangely enough I learnt how to focus on a student's individuality from the
way Kremer spoke about his relationship with his mentor: David Oistrakh, who
perservered with his quirkiness despite the regime's (Kremlin) wish for
mass-production....
> >I wonder if you can shed some light on one of the greatest mysteries I
have
> >ever had with regards to recordings: when I was young we used to take out
an
> >LP from another library which had the Tchaikovsky concerto coupled with
the
> >Tartini "Devils Trill' sonata
> I don't recall this at all.
> Jon Teske
Let me know if something comes to you, or if you see something - that
Tchaikovsky/Tartini coupling is a very special recording to me....
Ciao for now...
By the way, further to my admiration of Heifetz, let me say that the Vivaldi
larghetto is growing on me in a big way - the piano part sound positively
Brahmsian now....!!! Heifetz was a phenomenon!
Italiano.....
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>I was under the impression that Oistrakh had published Mozart 3,4,5 in
>Peters edition complete with the cadenza's that he played...I have no.3. I
>love the cadenzas he uses - the Khatchaturian one being the most
>notable....they have such a sense of composition about them....
The Peters I saw (a few years ago of #4) had no cadenza in it. This
situation may have changed, or may be a difference between US and
European editions.
>
>> The LOC had acquired the sheet music in 1905 and nobody
>> had ever checked it out in the 85 years it had been there at the time.
>> The paper, being cheap and acidic, had almost disintegrated, but I did
>> manage to make a photocopy. The rest of the edition aside from the
>> cadenza is laughable by present standards of Urtext, with runs
>> rewritten in thirds and octaves.
>> >> Try to find a video of him playing the Hora Staccato to see some
>amazing
>
>Did you download them by any chance?
No
>
>What was interesting about the
>> overhead views was that it showed him using more bow on each pop of
>> the staccato than was apparent in the profile views of similar
>> passages. He also didn't maintain rigid perpendicularity which was
>> also surprising.
>
>It doesn't surprise me - I have the Bell telephone hour DVD, and quite a few
>of the greats seem to be doing strange things....I loved the close-ups of
>Michael Rabin....interesting - I love his Tchaikovsky.....
I hate it when film directors try to do clever things when filming
violinists. I really don't need to see Mischa Fiddlewhiz' nose hair on
video.
>
>There was a CD anthology of all of his recordings that I was trying to buy
>recently, but Amazon said it was out of stock...incidentally it had the
>Tartini too...maybe it is him that is my 'mystery' great....
>
>> >I heard he chopped quite a few minutes off the Brahms in terms of
>> >conventional performance....
>> I don't have the timings, but it was quite fast.
>
>I have just found his Beethoven which I haven't listened to yet.....I think
>it has the Brahms on it.....will listen on the way to my student's lesson
>tonight...
The Beethoven/Munch was just reissued. This same performance was the
first beethoven Cto I ever had. Its slick. Cadenza is an Auer/Heifetz
hybrid.
>
>I think it is one of those grey-cover EMI DVD releases....I also have a
>stunning rendition of the Walton Cello concerto by Piatigorsky in that
>collection, along with some great stuff by Oistrakh, Kogan, Menuhin,
>Christian Ferras, Szeryng, Milstein and Grumiaux, and also incidentally,
>rare footage of one of my favourite Italian pianists: Aldo Ciccolini.....
>
>> >>I grew up in an era when Heifetz (at the end of his touring days which I
>> >why I never saw him), Stern, Oistrakh, Milstein, Kogan and Menuhin were
>all
>> >active and I saw them all except Heifetz.
>> >Did you hear Aaron Rosand in his heyday?
>> Only on TV.
>
>I always rated him in my top-5 of all time....of course he is very old now:
>when he told me about his recent recording of the Khatchaturian and Sibelius
>with the Singapore (Phil?) orchestra, I asked him if they were as good as
>his earlier days with Sarasate/Ravel....he laughed - afterwards I felt like
>I had been so rude....
>
>> His physical mannerisms remind me of Salerno-Sonnenberg.
>
>I was never quite impessed by her at all - way over-rated....I have only
>seen his latest DVD - a recital of encores at some famous music college
>(can't remember the name for the life of me).....unfortunately he does well,
>but is past his prime - and by that I mean his prime, he's still way better
>then me...!!! I don't remember him moving around too much
It may have been a tic of his youth. I used to move around a lot too
when I was young. Now even my wife calls me "the Great Stone Face."
The real reason I don't move around a lot now is the astigmatism
correction in my glasses causes the music staves to do the
hootchy-chootchy if I move too much :-).
>
>> (I'm not very big on musician falling all over the stage, grimacing
>> etc.
>
>Me too - one of the biggest turn-offs of any musician....of course one must
>bear in mind that some of it is completely subconscious.....like when Monica
>Selez used to rally from the base-line.
Or tennis players who yelp. Sounds like barking dogs (but Elena
Dementrieva is awfully pretty though.)
>
> I detest the physical mannerisms of folks like pianist Lang Lang
>> or even the pained expression of Anne-Sophie Mutter...she's far too
>> pretty to frown like that when she plays.
>
>Hey, you and von Karajan would have had a lot to talk about.
Heh-heh...we never met.. I wouldn't grant him an interview :-).
I am not a fan
>of Mutter as I think she is too rough at times, but I like her Beethoven and
>fell in love with the Heifetz-Gershwin Porgy and Bess transcriptions thanks
>to her and newly acquired hubby, André Previn (or was it Lambert Orkis?).
>Any how, she plays those very well.....
I found her Beethoven Sonatas eccentric. BTW Schneiderhan/Seeman set
of those, one of my favorites and the first ones I ever had, were
reissued on a DG Trio at a superbudget price.
>
>> >Ruggiero Ricci? Uto Ughi? Franco Gulli? Ivry Gitlis? Artur Grumiaux?
>Henryk
>> >Szeryng?
>> Szeryng, of that group...playing the Brahms with Dorati conducting the
>> local pro orchestra.
>
>Oh yeah, that was quite a good pairing - I think I have that pair on a
>recording - not bad!
>
>> >Do you have any recordings of Bronislav Hubermann? - he had such a
>> >magnificent poise....
>> I have never knowingly heard him.
>
>> >by composers who made their name writing film scores or were resident in
>> >Southern California where he lived.
>> >Did he do the Korngold?...or are you talking about Waxman?
>> Vague memory seems to recall a mono of the Korngold. He also recorded
>> things by Castlenuovo-Tedesco, Rosza and a bunch of others who did
>> film music. These mono recordings were owned by my college roommate so
>> I really haven't heard them since 1964, the year I got out of college.
>
>Yeah, he was a champion of Castelnuovo-Tedesco - the tango comes to mind -
>but I never heard anything by Miklos Rosza....would be interesting...
>> >voice.....like Gidon Kremer, without him I would have never heard the
>> >concerto by Schumann, Milhaud's Le boef sur le toit and the Vieuxtemps
>> >Adagio Appassionata e Tarantella (did I get that title right?)
>
>Sorry, I think that is actually called the "Fantasia Appassionata and
>Tarantella"
>
>> I just heard Kremer's second Schumann (with Harnoncourt) on the radio
>> while in the car the other day. I found the last movement (the only
>> one I heard and about half of the slow movement) to be eccentrically
>> slow. The first recording of it I heard was with Szeryng who does it
>> almost twice as fast.
>
>I must have the first recording then - I have a feeling it is with Ricardo
>Muti.
>
>> >person I have ever seen do the running third in the last movement of the
>> >Sibelius Concerto all in down bows.
>> >That I have to see! ;-)
>> Too late...he's dead.
>
>Ha-ha, very funny......I meant on film.....crikey, I hadn't realized he had
>passed away - was that a while ago?
Stern died the week after 9/11 so news of his passing kinda got
swallowed up in the news of the time. Kinda like Prokofiev dying the
same week as Stalin.
There is a Stern recital programme here
>on CD in one of the shops- it has quite an interesting programme - I'm
>toying with getting it...
>
>> >Unfortunately he had the ability to be good and bad in the same
>> >performance - I loved his Lalo, yet it had some abominable intonation
>> >moments....the paradoxical violinist....
>> He declined in his later years on the intonation front. I have also
>> heard him screw up passages in Mozart 5, once in a radio broadcast
>> while I was in college (and in his 40s) and again live during a five
>> concert series he did in Washington for his 60th birthday (I saw two
>> of these)
>
>When you say screw up???
Fingers got tangled up in passage work.
>
>> >Did you manage to see any of these? - they're also my favourites:
>> >Kyung Wha Chung (Lalo, St Saens #1& 3)
>> Doesn't tour the US much, I never remember her being in Washington. I
>> had a whole bunch of her recordings when cassette tape was the only
>> medium for car stereo and I had a 45 minute commute each way when I
>> worked.
>
>She is an amazing interpreter and has a stunning palette of vibrato's....an
>amazing looker too....I have some beautiful photos of her...I love her Lalo.
>
>>Aaron Rosand (French/Spanish works)
>
>His Carmen fantasy (Sarasate) is the best one I have ever heard - by far -
>way outstripping the modern brace like Midori, Sarah Chang, Chloe etc.
Chloe's recordings haven't made it to this side of the pond. I've read
about her in Grammophone. Surname is Haislip isn't it????
The
>running thirds at the end are simply out of this world. Ditto for the
>Sarasate Zigeurnerweisen, Spanish Dances, St Saens Havanaise and Ravel's
>Tzigane. I find that French/Spanish music so difficult to pull off, hence my
>deep respect for his talent....I understand he was a pupil of Zimbalist, but
>he seems to have strong Franco-Belgian signs (or am I sticking my foot in my
>mouth - where did Zimbalist originate from - was he descended from Auer's
>teachings or did he have connections with Ysaye???)
Zimbalist was Russian/American. His son was a famous actor here as
well Efram Zimbalist Jr. Very popular on TV some years ago, had a show
about the FBI.
>
>> >Henryk Szeryng (solo Bach)
>> in the Brahms above.
>
>Lucky you.
>
>> >Artur Grumiaux (St Saens #3, Paganini #4 )
>> Didn't tour in the US very much.
>
>Sweet romantic playing. A gentleman of the violin. His St.Saens 3 is
>incredible.
>
>> >Salvatore Accardo (Vivaldi & Bruch)
>> I like the Bruch set. I particularly like the neglected Third
>> concerto. Never saw him though.
>
>Love the 3rd concerto. Can't understand why more people don't champion this
>and his other works.....I hope that some family descendant or copyright
>house isn't holding the modern violinist fleet at bay with impending legal
>recourse....
That happened with a Bruch Double Piano Concerto. About 25 years ago,
the then concertmaster of the Baltimore symphony, Isadore Saslav, took
up the Bruch 3rd. Back then the BSO did concerts all over the suburbs,
and if you had a subscription to one of these venues, you could go to
concerts in any of the other venues for free. Since the concertmaster
was always available (the suburban concerts tended to use less well
known soloist (understatement) they did this Bruch 3rd 4-5 times when
I was there. There was another time when the BSO was to do an outdoor
concert (which also had a Brahms Double with my teacher, Gerle) and
they were to do the Bruch two piano thing, but the legal issue and I
don't remember what that was exactly) caused them to program the Bruch
3rd again. I think the legal thing was not with the Bruch family, but
with a pianist named Twining (son of a famous US General, Nathan
Twining) who prepared a performance edition of the work...kinda like
the current issue with Hyperion recordings.
>
>> >Viktoria Mullova (Bach, Paganini, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokoviev,
>> >Schostakovich......all before her terrible relocation to the UK, and
>other
>> >dalliances!)
>> I saw her do the Sibelius with Ozawa and Boston, shortly after she
>> defected and just before her recording of the piece with the same
>> forces...they made the recording the next week. I have also seen her
>> in the Brahms. Her stage demeanor is that of the ultimate "Ice
>> Princess" She played the spots off the fiddle though, especially in
>> the Sibelius.
>
>She plays spots off anything - I watched the video where she won the
>Tchaikovsky competition, when I was a child.....mesmerizing playing. I
>always wanted to know whether Repin was the tied winner with her - it was
>someone who looked like him....
>
>Have you heard her solo Bartok, and the Paganini variations? Bach Partita
>#1?
Yes, Have it, will have to relisten to it.
>
>> >Miriam Contzen (sp? encores & solo stuff)
>> I have the Arte Nova CD which I really like.
>
>There are two:
>
>1) encores
>2) solo stuff
I have the solo stuff. I haven't seen the other...will look for it.
>
>Which one do you have? The recital one has the fastest piece I have ever
>heard - some Hungarian csardas I think.
>
>> >Joseph Hassid (miniatures from wax-disc)
>> I'm not THAT old.
>
>Ha-ha.....
>
>> I think he was dead before I was even interested
>> in violin. One recording I regret not buying was one with Joseph
>> Hassid coupled with recordings by Guila Bustabo.
>
>The one I have has him coupled with Ginette Neveu. Her Sibelius (not on the
>recording though - she does the Suk 4 pieces et al) was also raved
>about...of course she was killed in a tragic plane crash at the height of
>her prowess....
I have the Neveu Sibelius/Brahms or at least one of them (there are
several). Great playing, but the dated sound does get in the way.
I used to see this all the time in athletics (I used to photograph
team pictures for a local youth sports program) where I saw some
truely overbearing parents, absolutely convinced that there son was
the next great star in whatever sport it was; or, that this was the
only path their daugther would get to go to college,by winning an
athletic scholarship. In the 17 years I did this, I probably
photographed 10,000 individual kids. Three of them were all that made
it to the pros. One had a brief basketball career, one had a modest
career for 15 years in football (US style), and another, who I
photographed at 4 years of age, is now the Captain of the Washington
professional NHL hockey team. All three are or were journeyman players
rather than superstars. Pretty low odds, I'd say.
Jon
>
Peter Schug
jdt...@comcast.net wrote on 5/9/06 12:02 PM:
[snip]
>
> I hate it when film directors try to do clever things when filming
> violinists. I really don't need to see Mischa Fiddlewhiz' nose hair on
> video.
Years ago I got permission to record a highly regarded amateur choral group
using my binaural headphones. (way better than ordinary stereo) The most
surprising and unexpected thing was that having set my mic/headphone in the
church center aisle as far forward as I could I managed to get the squeek of
the conductor's shoes. I could hear it in the monitor, but it was too late
to do anything about it.
There was also a small error in the entry of one singer in "London Street
Cries" (I think that was the name) and the conductor actually stopped the
performance and after admonishing the singer they started again. At the
party after the performance the singer asked me if he could listen to the
recording, still certain that he had not been in error. His blush told all
when he got to his entrance. (wow I can really get carried away babbling)
Pete
RWACPB
I can shed light on this, the violinist was Henryk Szeryng (the Tchaikovsky
crto/Devil's Trill coupling on LP) and I have the recording. I too remember
the interpretation and performance as something special. However, my vote
for the violinist of the century is HEIFETZ. Listen to the Bruch 2nd violin
concerto, the Saint-Saens sonata, and innumerable other recordings... it is
beyond me how anyone can enliven music with greater musicality and good
taste. I just received copies of some private recordings he made for fun
imitating a 'nervous and rather bad' violinist by the pseudo name of Joseph
Hague. Even in comic satire with the intentional out of tune, unrhythmic and
short of breath playing you can hear a great artist behind it all (as a well
known violin pedogogue once said, that is the best worst violinist I've ever
heard when sent a sampling in the guise of an audition tape). He did a
filmed version of this stunt at the end of one of his UCLA masterclasses,
playing the Vieuxtemp 4th concerto and had his students rolling on the
ground in laughter. I have been a great Kreisler, Menuhin, Szigeti and, to a
lesser extent, Oistrahk fan for years, but Heifetz remains unique.
Richard
italiano
RWACPB <rwa...@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:44618ada$0$12856$626a...@news.free.fr...
>
> I can shed light on this, the violinist was Henryk Szeryng (the
Tchaikovsky
> crto/Devil's Trill coupling on LP) and I have the recording. I too
remember
> the interpretation and performance as something special.
Thank you so much....is there any chance you can give me more details on
this ie lable, orchestra, conductor, pianist....
Thanks so much....
I owe you big-time....I have been searching for this for absolutely ages....
Ciao Marco
italiano
Peter Schug <Pete...@att.net> wrote in message
news:C08689B1.4D5A%Pete...@att.net...
> in article ppc162tffana395q0...@4ax.com, J. Teske at
> jdt...@comcast.net wrote on 5/9/06 12:02 PM:
>
> [snip]
> There was also a small error in the entry of one singer in "London Street
> Cries" (I think that was the name) and the conductor actually stopped the
> performance and after admonishing the singer they started again. At the
> party after the performance the singer asked me if he could listen to the
> recording, still certain that he had not been in error. His blush told all
> when he got to his entrance. (wow I can really get carried away babbling)
> Pete
Babble away, I love hearing stories like this. I remember in one of my
favourite recordings - the one I was telling Jon about recently - Viktoria
Mullova plays the Presto (IV) from the solo sonata by Bartok......in the
middle of the movement, there is a switch in texture where the mute comes
on/off and you hear the sound of something metallic ringing - like the bow
hitting a stand.....
Weird is that I actually look forward to hearing that sound now......
M
italiano
> On Tue, 9 May 2006 13:23:45 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
> >> >> Try to find a video of him playing the Hora Staccato to see some
> >amazing
> >Did you download them by any chance?
> No
> >What was interesting about the
> >> overhead views was that it showed him using more bow on each pop of
> >> the staccato than was apparent in the profile views of similar
> >> passages. He also didn't maintain rigid perpendicularity which was
> >> also surprising.
You will not believe this - I went through all my DVD's last night to get
clarity on who that conductor was in the Heifetz Tchaikovsky (that
performance is on the "Art of the Violin" documentary by the way, and it is
brilliant) and I actually found that performance of Hora Staccato with the
front and top views - it's on my EMI 'grey' series - I think it was part of
the Bell 'telephone hour' with Donald Vorhees conducting the BTHO. I didn't
remember it because the sound quality is quite poor and that upset
me.....but yeah, you do see the bow doing weird things see-sawing sideways
et al.....another thing I noticed is how close to the bridge he gets -
almost touching it at one point. Definitely worth another look...
That piece always bothers me - so difficult to pull off.....I have heard it
played badly many times. I would never recommend it to a student, unless
that absolutely insisted on playing it....
> >It doesn't surprise me - I have the Bell telephone hour DVD, and quite a
few
> >of the greats seem to be doing strange things....I loved the close-ups of
> >Michael Rabin....interesting - I love his Tchaikovsky.....
> I hate it when film directors try to do clever things when filming
> violinists. I really don't need to see Mischa Fiddlewhiz' nose hair on
> video.
Ha-ha.....did you see that one shot where his (Elman's) hair is sticking up
as the spotlight silhouettes his head???
Close-ups are great for other things though...
Ciao M
J. Teske
wrote:
Ah yes, I remember that album now although I never owned it. I already
had a copy of the Tschaikovsky in that era, and one was all I could
afford of any one concerto.
Jon
>
>Ciao Marco
>
J. Teske
wrote:
One of the first times I listened to a recording with my roommates
earphones, you could hear extraneous noises not usually heard
listening to the same recording through loudspeakers. I belive one of
them was the famous Dorati/ Philharmonia Hungarica recording of
Respighi's "Ancient Airs and Dances" in which you could hear babbling
in German in the background. Another I remember like this was
Bernstein's recording of the Shostakovich 2nd Piano Concerto where
the whole orchestra must have had a page turn at once. Using
headphones, the page turn was VERY audible.
This past winter, when one of my orchestras did Tan Dun's "Paper
Concerto" there is a section where the strings, except the first
fiddles" are tacet, but are asked to turn their pages back and forth
in a very audible way...as part of the effect of having paper
percussion. We first fiddles, in that piece, were actually disbursed
throughout the audience doing our own thing.
Jon
>
>M
>
>
J. Teske
wrote:
I haven't seen the new DVD of the Bell Telephone Hour, but I did see
the Elman (in Kriesler and Wieniawski "Romanza") when it was first
broadcast in 1960. I was in high school. I don't remember that
detail, but that effect was something I was taught when I took a photo
portraiture course...as something to avoid.
Jon
>
italiano
Any light you can shed on the orchestra/conductor/pianist/label will be
gladly appreciated.
M
PS: Of course I will employ Google today....
italiano
I had some similar photos in my youth - my dad believed religeously that
youngsters were only respectable if they had a crew-cut. Needless to say my
bother and I were mocked at school, so much so that one of my nicknames (the
other was Beethoven - yeah, I should be so lucky) was 'tennis-ball'...
Also needless to say that when I left school and headed off for university,
I grew my hair elbow length to his intense annoyance.... ;-) It kinda stayed
that way until I was employed as a chemical engineer. Last year I re-grew it
in defiance of the totalitarian authority at the company - that is until I
met my wife - she chopped it instantly...I must say it is no longer a
bother - thinking of shaving it right down to the roots now!
M
italiano
> On Wed, 10 May 2006 09:04:07 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
> One of the first times I listened to a recording with my roommates
> earphones, you could hear extraneous noises not usually heard
> listening to the same recording through loudspeakers. I belive one of
> them was the famous Dorati/ Philharmonia Hungarica recording of
> Respighi's "Ancient Airs and Dances" in which you could hear babbling
> in German in the background. Another I remember like this was
> Bernstein's recording of the Shostakovich 2nd Piano Concerto where
> the whole orchestra must have had a page turn at once. Using
> headphones, the page turn was VERY audible.
I have just remembered another anecdote. I have a beautiful re-release
(price was very decent too) of the Bach concerti by Salvatore Accardo - it
really is superb playing - in the middle of one of them, can't remember
which, an ambulance siren is clearly audible, as the passion rises in the
music - it's another noise I love hearing now....
> This past winter, when one of my orchestras did Tan Dun's "Paper
> Concerto" there is a section where the strings, except the first
> fiddles" are tacet, but are asked to turn their pages back and forth
> in a very audible way...as part of the effect of having paper
> percussion. We first fiddles, in that piece, were actually disbursed
> throughout the audience doing our own thing.
> Jon
I know that name from somewhere - didn't Tan Dun do the film music (with
Yo-Yo Ma) for one of those beautiful Eastern films? Was it 'Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon'?
M
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:ga14621fm0d76aq3e...@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 10 May 2006 08:59:48 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
>> wrote:
>> Ah yes, I remember that album now although I never owned it. I already
>> had a copy of the Tschaikovsky in that era, and one was all I could
>> afford of any one concerto.
>> Jon
>
>Any light you can shed on the orchestra/conductor/pianist/label will be
>gladly appreciated.
Well it definitely was originally on RCA Victor...late 50's early
stereo. Considering the RCA stable at the time, it might have been
Boston/Munch. Szeryng also regularly used pro accompanist Charles
Reiner (so did a lot of folks...I saw him with Antonio Janigro in '62)
These of course are just guesses.
Szeryng had been teaching in comparative obscurity in Mexico City when
he went backstage to great Artur Rubinstein after a recital. They
conversed in Polish and Rubinstein remembered him from before the war.
During the War, Szeryng, a Jew, fled Poland and served as a translator
for the Polish Government in Exile in England...in addition to doing
some recitals for troops. He helped to negotiate an agreement with
Mexico to accept some WW II refugees and fell in love with the place.
He took out Mexican citizenship and was actually awarded a status as a
Mexican ambassador (to the UN for cultural matters, a distitinction he
shares with Jaime Laredo who once did the same thing for his native
Bolivia.) After their meeting, Rubinstein pulled some strings to get
Szeryng some international exposure with Hurok, and got RCA to sign
him for some recordings. I remember a Lalo Symphonie Espagnol with the
Chicago Symphony and Walter Hendl (subbing for the indisposed Reiner)
also issued about that time ca 1960. Szeryng also made some
recordings with Rubinstein including a memorable Brahms Sonata set,
the Horn Trio, and at least one Beethoven Sonata (the 8th op30 #3)
Jon Teske
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:rp14625qiu166g7k2...@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 10 May 2006 09:17:38 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
>> wrote:
>> I haven't seen the new DVD of the Bell Telephone Hour, but I did see
>> the Elman (in Kriesler and Wieniawski "Romanza") when it was first
>> broadcast in 1960. I was in high school. I don't remember that
>> detail, but that effect was something I was taught when I took a photo
>> portraiture course...as something to avoid.
>> Jon
>
>I had some similar photos in my youth - my dad believed religeously that
>youngsters were only respectable if they had a crew-cut. Needless to say my
>bother and I were mocked at school, so much so that one of my nicknames (the
>other was Beethoven - yeah, I should be so lucky) was 'tennis-ball'...
I had a crew cut twice in my life, only for two summers at age 10 and
11. My mother thought it would be cool (temperature wise) for the
summers. The fact that I grew up in one of the coolest halfway
populated summer places (the shores of Lake Michigan) in the whole of
the US during summers never really occured to her. I grew it back out
each fall, and never had either particularly long or short hair
thereafter to the present day. The closest I came was once in college.
Being broke students, we cut one another's hair in the dorms until we
located the guy who seemed to have the most talent for it. When he was
located, we would chip in to buy him a decent set of scissors/clippers
and he got the opportunity to earn a few bucks from the rest of the
dorm. On one such trial, a fellow who did NOT get the nod as dorm
barber clipped the back of my head to near baldness. I didn't need any
hair cut in that area for another three months.
>
>Also needless to say that when I left school and headed off for university,
>I grew my hair elbow length to his intense annoyance.... ;-) It kinda stayed
>that way until I was employed as a chemical engineer. Last year I re-grew it
>in defiance of the totalitarian authority at the company - that is until I
>met my wife - she chopped it instantly...I must say it is no longer a
>bother - thinking of shaving it right down to the roots now!
Moderate Midwesterner that I am, I would never go to those extremes.
OTOH, at my last class reunion I was very glad to note that I was one
of the few males there with roughly the same amount of hair coverage
as I had in high school. I was also among the few with a very small
percentage of grey hair (only the temples and a bit of a forelock.) I
think I am going to lose that battle soon, I can tell that the rest is
greying a bit even if most of it is still pretty much mouse brown.
Jon
>
>M
>
>
>
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>> This past winter, when one of my orchestras did Tan Dun's "Paper
>> Concerto" there is a section where the strings, except the first
>> fiddles" are tacet, but are asked to turn their pages back and forth
>> in a very audible way...as part of the effect of having paper
>> percussion. We first fiddles, in that piece, were actually disbursed
>> throughout the audience doing our own thing.
>> Jon
>
>I know that name from somewhere - didn't Tan Dun do the film music (with
>Yo-Yo Ma) for one of those beautiful Eastern films? Was it 'Crouching Tiger,
>Hidden Dragon'?
Yes he did and won an Oscar for it. The work was written for the
opening of the new Disney theater in Los Angeles (home of the LA
Philharmonic) and has been performed in Hong Kong and Tokyo. We were
the first non-pro group to ever do it. We got a stunningly good
reaction to the piece from our audience, most of whom really came to
hear our Scheherezade (Rimsky).
This weekend BTW, another of my orchestras is doing Brahms First Piano
Concerto which will be the last major Brahms Orchestral work I have
performed. I've done all the symphonies, the four concerti, the
overtures, variations, German Requiem. The only orchestral things left
are some choral stuff with orchstra such as the Alto Rhapsody which I
seriously doubt I'll ever do (most of our venues do not have room for
both a chorus and orchestra.) We will be playing in the magnificent
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on the University of Maryland
Campus. The have a marvelous 2200 seat auditorium with some great
acoustics for both audience and orchestra.
Jon
>
>M
>
>
italiano
> On Thu, 11 May 2006 09:04:02 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> >news:ga14621fm0d76aq3e...@4ax.com...
> >> On Wed, 10 May 2006 08:59:48 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> >> wrote:
> >> Ah yes, I remember that album now although I never owned it. I already
> >> had a copy of the Tschaikovsky in that era, and one was all I could
> >> afford of any one concerto.
> >> Jon
> >
> >Any light you can shed on the orchestra/conductor/pianist/label will be
> >gladly appreciated.
>
> Well it definitely was originally on RCA Victor...late 50's early
> stereo. Considering the RCA stable at the time, it might have been
> Boston/Munch. Szeryng also regularly used pro accompanist Charles
> Reiner (so did a lot of folks...I saw him with Antonio Janigro in '62)
I have a DVD of him and Janigro...
> These of course are just guesses.
> Szeryng had been teaching in comparative obscurity in Mexico City when
> he went backstage to great Artur Rubinstein after a recital. They
> conversed in Polish and Rubinstein remembered him from before the war.
> During the War, Szeryng, a Jew, fled Poland and served as a translator
> for the Polish Government in Exile in England...in addition to doing
> some recitals for troops. He helped to negotiate an agreement with
> Mexico to accept some WW II refugees and fell in love with the place.
I think he was rumoured at one stage to have been a spy....he did a lot of
Mexican composers like Ponce et al...
> He took out Mexican citizenship and was actually awarded a status as a
> Mexican ambassador (to the UN for cultural matters, a distitinction he
> shares with Jaime Laredo who once did the same thing for his native
> Bolivia.) After their meeting, Rubinstein pulled some strings to get
> Szeryng some international exposure with Hurok, and got RCA to sign
> him for some recordings. I remember a Lalo Symphonie Espagnol with the
> Chicago Symphony and Walter Hendl (subbing for the indisposed Reiner)
> also issued about that time ca 1960. Szeryng also made some
> recordings with Rubinstein including a memorable Brahms Sonata set,
> the Horn Trio, and at least one Beethoven Sonata (the 8th op30 #3)
I have both the sets: Brhams 1,2,3 and Beethoven, 5,8,9.....marvelous Spring
and Kreutzer sonata's. The thirds in the 1st movement of the spring are the
best I have ever heard.
italiano
> On Thu, 11 May 2006 09:14:40 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> >> This past winter, when one of my orchestras did Tan Dun's "Paper
> >> Concerto" there is a section where the strings, except the first
> >> fiddles" are tacet, but are asked to turn their pages back and forth
> >> in a very audible way...as part of the effect of having paper
> >> percussion. We first fiddles, in that piece, were actually disbursed
> >> throughout the audience doing our own thing.
> >> Jon
> >
> >I know that name from somewhere - didn't Tan Dun do the film music (with
> >Yo-Yo Ma) for one of those beautiful Eastern films? Was it 'Crouching
Tiger,
> >Hidden Dragon'?
>
> Yes he did and won an Oscar for it. The work was written for the
> opening of the new Disney theater in Los Angeles (home of the LA
> Philharmonic) and has been performed in Hong Kong and Tokyo. We were
> the first non-pro group to ever do it. We got a stunningly good
> reaction to the piece from our audience, most of whom really came to
> hear our Scheherezade (Rimsky).
I love this work, in fact it is one of my all time orchestral favourites -
used to pour over the score in my youth - one of the best performances of
all time is Orchestre de Suisse Romand under Ernest Ansermet (sp?)....
> This weekend BTW, another of my orchestras is doing Brahms First Piano
> Concerto which will be the last major Brahms Orchestral work I have
> performed. I've done all the symphonies, the four concerti, the
> overtures, variations, German Requiem. The only orchestral things left
> are some choral stuff with orchstra such as the Alto Rhapsody which I
> seriously doubt I'll ever do (most of our venues do not have room for
> both a chorus and orchestra.) We will be playing in the magnificent
> Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on the University of Maryland
> Campus. The have a marvelous 2200 seat auditorium with some great
> acoustics for both audience and orchestra.
Enjoy - I love that piano concerto.
M
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>
>> These of course are just guesses.
>> Szeryng had been teaching in comparative obscurity in Mexico City when
>> he went backstage to great Artur Rubinstein after a recital. They
>> conversed in Polish and Rubinstein remembered him from before the war.
>> During the War, Szeryng, a Jew, fled Poland and served as a translator
>> for the Polish Government in Exile in England...in addition to doing
>> some recitals for troops. He helped to negotiate an agreement with
>> Mexico to accept some WW II refugees and fell in love with the place.
>
>I think he was rumoured at one stage to have been a spy.
Well "spy" might be a bit strong. As a translator to the Polish
government in exile in England during the war, it is almost certain
that he had some exposure to intelligence matters. That isn't quite
James Bond stuff (nor was what I did for most of my career...99% of
was I did was while I was in command of a BGMD [Big Gray Metal Desk]
except for the last years of my career when I commanded a BMD [Big
Mahogony Desk.])
...he did a lot of
>Mexican composers like Ponce et al...
>
And a fine violin concerto by Carlos Chavez, issued only on LP AFAIK.
Jon
>
>
italiano
> On Mon, 15 May 2006 12:27:26 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
> >I think he was rumoured at one stage to have been a spy.
> Well "spy" might be a bit strong.
I seem to recall that there was quite a lot of discussion on this topic a
few months ago (or was it years)...??? I'll check the Google groups.
As a translator to the Polish
> government in exile in England during the war, it is almost certain
> that he had some exposure to intelligence matters. That isn't quite
> James Bond stuff (nor was what I did for most of my career...99% of
> was I did was while I was in command of a BGMD [Big Gray Metal Desk]
> except for the last years of my career when I commanded a BMD [Big
> Mahogony Desk.])
Ha-ha......
> ...he did a lot of
> >Mexican composers like Ponce et al...
> And a fine violin concerto by Carlos Chavez, issued only on LP AFAIK.
What's the music like? I seem to remember I listened to a concert work of
his by Szeryng and found it not so interesting - I was much younger then -
then there are some encores I think.....Heifetz liked them too...
> Jon
I keep wondering where guys like Heifetz, Oistrakh and Szeryng had time to
do the many other things they did in addition to their playing......they
must have had to practise, despite their genius.....???
By the way, I drove up from Durban to Johannesburg this weekend (I fly or
drive up almost every weekend - it's about 650 km one way) to visit my wife,
and passed a German town on the way up (saw the steepled Lutheran Church
from the freeway), and was reminded of your article about the German
outposts in your neck of the woods. We have some exclusively German towns
out here like Wartburg, Warden and Muzen, where one finds almost all the
cute little shops as you would in 'Mutter Deutschland'.....gorgeous little
backerei (sp?) and sausage shops...etc.....almost as if one momentarily
stepped out of South Africa into Europe......
The German community is quite established here in KwaZulu-Natal, and even
close outside our borders in countries like Namibia.....
Ciao M
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:nctg62dn63gfid6ke...@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 15 May 2006 12:27:26 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
>> wrote:
>> >I think he was rumoured at one stage to have been a spy.
>> Well "spy" might be a bit strong.
>
>I seem to recall that there was quite a lot of discussion on this topic a
>few months ago (or was it years)...??? I'll check the Google groups.
>
>As a translator to the Polish
>> government in exile in England during the war, it is almost certain
>> that he had some exposure to intelligence matters. That isn't quite
>> James Bond stuff (nor was what I did for most of my career...99% of
>> was I did was while I was in command of a BGMD [Big Gray Metal Desk]
>> except for the last years of my career when I commanded a BMD [Big
>> Mahogony Desk.])
>
>Ha-ha......
>
>> ...he did a lot of
>> >Mexican composers like Ponce et al...
>> And a fine violin concerto by Carlos Chavez, issued only on LP AFAIK.
>
>What's the music like?
I don't remember, I'll have to find it and listen to it again when I
get home from my trip (I'll be gone from tommorrow until next
tuesday.)
I seem to remember I listened to a concert work of
>his by Szeryng and found it not so interesting - I was much younger then -
>then there are some encores I think.....Heifetz liked them too...
>
>
>I keep wondering where guys like Heifetz, Oistrakh and Szeryng had time to
>do the many other things they did in addition to their playing......they
>must have had to practise, despite their genius.....???
Well a lot of their out of the ordinary things were done under the
exigencies of wartime. Szeryng was an exile, Oistrakh performed under
fire in Leningrad several times, Heifetz served in the USO (the
privately funded but quasi-official entertainment arm of the US
Military. Soldiers and Sailors in the US Military are often
entertained by famous and not-so-famous persons at what are called USO
shows. USO is an acronym for United Service Organization which does a
variety of cultural and charitable things for US Service personnel.)
Of course, a war, such as WW II effectively cut artists off from a
major portion of their potential performance opportunities.
>
>By the way, I drove up from Durban to Johannesburg this weekend (I fly or
>drive up almost every weekend - it's about 650 km one way) to visit my wife,
>and passed a German town on the way up (saw the steepled Lutheran Church
>from the freeway), and was reminded of your article about the German
>outposts in your neck of the woods. We have some exclusively German towns
>out here like Wartburg, Warden and Muzen, where one finds almost all the
>cute little shops as you would in 'Mutter Deutschland'.....gorgeous little
>backerei (sp?) and sausage shops...etc.....almost as if one momentarily
>stepped out of South Africa into Europe......
Well its not quite like the ethnic Germans in my home area go around
wearing Lederhosen :-). There is really very little external in my
home town that would lead one to believe that a sizable percentage of
the inhabitants are of German ancestry. You'd have to just know that
we would have a Bratwurst fry on a weekend, or uniquely German
sausages for our hot dogs or serve a German style of potato salad.
Almost noone would speak German anymore. You'd have to know some
subtle things like the fact that Lutherans are the majority of the
Protestant population. Even that isn't unique, we have a couple of
Lutheran churches in my town whose roots are Scandanavian, but even
those distinctions are becoming blurred. I attended a church as a kid
which had Norwegian roots only because they sponsored the Boy Scout
troop I belonged to and had the best childrens choir. Today only a
comparatively small minority of congregants are actually of Norwegian
ancestry. Our Germanness was not something any of us really gave much
thought to. We knew our surnames were German (or whatever, we also had
sizeable Polish, Czech (Bohemian) and Norwegian populations) but that
was about it. If we studied foreign languages, we were as likely to
study Latin, French or Spanish as German. We had utterly no racial
minorities there when I grew up. Today there is a significant
population of Hmong refugees from Laos living in the area, but that
was a consequence of the Vietnam War which occured after I lived
there. I don't even think there is a decent German restaurant there
now.
>
>The German community is quite established here in KwaZulu-Natal, and even
>close outside our borders in countries like Namibia.....
The Germans in America are the second largest historic immigrant
population after the English. Most came between about 1750 and 1900.
They are also among the most assimilated. The Two World Wars did much
to kill the Germanness of any cultural things as there was a
perception that things German were inherently unpatriotic and many
ethnic Germans took great pains to demonstrate that they were 200%
American. We still like our beer :-)
Jon
>
>Ciao M
>
>
italiano
> On Mon, 15 May 2006 15:01:35 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
> >> ...he did a lot of
> >> >Mexican composers like Ponce et al...
> >> And a fine violin concerto by Carlos Chavez, issued only on LP AFAIK.
> >What's the music like?
> I don't remember, I'll have to find it and listen to it again when I
> get home from my trip (I'll be gone from tommorrow until next
> tuesday.)
Sorry - I meant to ask if you know what the Ponce is like.....didn't read my
post before sending!
....but I'd be keen to know what the Chavez is like as well....
> I seem to remember I listened to a concert work of
> >his by Szeryng and found it not so interesting - I was much younger
then -
> >then there are some encores I think.....Heifetz liked them too...
> >I keep wondering where guys like Heifetz, Oistrakh and Szeryng had time
to
> >do the many other things they did in addition to their playing......they
> >must have had to practise, despite their genius.....???
> Well a lot of their out of the ordinary things were done under the
> exigencies of wartime. Szeryng was an exile, Oistrakh performed under
> fire in Leningrad several times, Heifetz served in the USO (the
> privately funded but quasi-official entertainment arm of the US
> Military. Soldiers and Sailors in the US Military are often
> entertained by famous and not-so-famous persons at what are called USO
> shows. USO is an acronym for United Service Organization which does a
> variety of cultural and charitable things for US Service personnel.)
Yeah I remember that - wasn't there another famous soloist that served in
the USO as well? Was it Stern or Horowitz...? (Milstein?
> Of course, a war, such as WW II effectively cut artists off from a
> major portion of their potential performance opportunities.
Yeah, and some got branded with fallout ever since....(von Karajan etc)
> >By the way, I drove up from Durban to Johannesburg this weekend (I fly or
> >drive up almost every weekend - it's about 650 km one way) to visit my
wife,
> >and passed a German town on the way up (saw the steepled Lutheran Church
> >from the freeway), and was reminded of your article about the German
> >outposts in your neck of the woods. We have some exclusively German towns
> >out here like Wartburg, Warden and Muzen, where one finds almost all the
> >cute little shops as you would in 'Mutter Deutschland'.....gorgeous
little
> >backerei (sp?) and sausage shops...etc.....almost as if one momentarily
> >stepped out of South Africa into Europe......
> Well its not quite like the ethnic Germans in my home area go around
> wearing Lederhosen :-).
Oh, I bet you wear yours when no-one is watching ;-)
Ha-ha.....
That is something I didn't know....I thought there a lot of Italians and
Irish as well as Swedish initially...
> They are also among the most assimilated. The Two World Wars did much
> to kill the Germanness of any cultural things as there was a
> perception that things German were inherently unpatriotic and many
> ethnic Germans took great pains to demonstrate that they were 200%
> American. We still like our beer :-)
> Jon
When I still drank alcohol, I used to prefer the Austrian and Italian
beers - much lighter than the malty Bavarian stuff....maybe it's symptomatic
of the differing climates, although I can't imagine there is much between
'Osterreich und Bayern'.....
Ciao M
Christian Tessier
"italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net> a écrit dans le message de news:
11477629...@proxy.jhb.stormnet.co.za...
1857. Grosse Île the entry station were a great many of them died was made a
National Historical Site of Canada a few years ago. Also there's a memorial
to the many Irish who build, and died during the construction of Victoria
Bridge in Montreal. Many French Canadians are really Irish, like three
premiers of the Province of Québec who were of Irish descent (Daniel Johnson
and his two sons, Daniel Jr. and Pierre-Marc). And one friend of mine
(Maurice Harvey) whose grand-father has been Mayor of my city (now a
burroughs of a larger city). As for Italians one of the largest, if not the
largest Italian community in Canada is here in Montreal.
Christian
italiano
Christian Tessier <cste...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:Eykag.7798$aa4.1...@news20.bellglobal.com...
> >> The Germans in America are the second largest historic immigrant
> >> population after the English. Most came between about 1750 and 1900.
> >
> > That is something I didn't know....I thought there a lot of Italians and
> > Irish as well as Swedish initially...
> >
> The Irish came to North America mainly during the famous "famine" around
> 1857. Grosse Île the entry station were a great many of them died was made
a
> National Historical Site of Canada a few years ago. Also there's a
memorial
> to the many Irish who build, and died during the construction of Victoria
> Bridge in Montreal. Many French Canadians are really Irish, like three
> premiers of the Province of Québec who were of Irish descent (Daniel
Johnson
> and his two sons, Daniel Jr. and Pierre-Marc). And one friend of mine
> (Maurice Harvey) whose grand-father has been Mayor of my city (now a
> burroughs of a larger city). As for Italians one of the largest, if not
the
> largest Italian community in Canada is here in Montreal.
> Christian
Hi Christian,
Thanks for this wonderful insight....How does the historical immigration of
the US compare with Canada? A while back someone told me that there are tons
of Swede jokes in the US based on the huge proportion of Swedes that
immigrated there....???
Surely there must be tons of French settlers - obviously in Canada - that
came across to America during the war of independence....? I was also under
the impression that many Polish had wandered across to the US.....
It would be interesting to study the proportions of various cultural groups
in the early days. Last year I visited my sister in Perth and was amazed to
learn of the constitution of the fleet of early immigrants to Australia,
when I visited a museum in Freemantle....
M
Christian Tessier
in the Prairies. They were recruited by the Canadian Pacific and offered
free land to settle the Prairies. It's why we have many Ukrainians there,
even a former Governor General. Many Polish came to Canada after WWII,
mainly the ones who served in the Polish Brigade who fought along side the
Canadians in Italy (Monte Casino, it's where an uncle of my wife met his
wife) and Northern Europe (Arnhem where the Polish helped extract the
Canadian paratroopers who survived the German slaughter, less than 2,000 out
of about 10,000).
Christian
italiano
> > I was also
> > under
> > the impression that many Polish had wandered across to the US.....
> At the turn of the last century many Eastern European came to Canada,
mainly
> in the Prairies. They were recruited by the Canadian Pacific and offered
> free land to settle the Prairies. It's why we have many Ukrainians there,
> even a former Governor General. Many Polish came to Canada after WWII,
> mainly the ones who served in the Polish Brigade who fought along side the
> Canadians in Italy (Monte Casino, it's where an uncle of my wife met his
> wife) and Northern Europe (Arnhem where the Polish helped extract the
> Canadian paratroopers who survived the German slaughter, less than 2,000
out
> of about 10,000).
> Christian
My dad always complains about Monte Casino - how the US forces destroyed a
beautiful piece of Italian history. Apparently it was a big bone of
contention whether it really was an army outpost or not....I am certainly
clueless. What I do remember is a beautiful story I read on this ng about
someone who made a violin from a piece of wood - that was born of that
bombing of Monte Casino - as debris. Was that your story Jon - or was it my
violin maker friend?
So I am curious what were cultural origins of your wife's uncle and his
spouse?
Ciao M
Christian Tessier
(the Polish ground troops were placed under Canadian command at the start of
the war, while Polish airmen were integrated in the RAF). His wife, Pia was
Italian. My wife's grand-parents were born in Poland. Her father's parents
immigrated to France were he was born. He later moved to Canada with his
brother (after their military service). Her mother's parents immigrated to
Canada.
Christian
> Ciao M
>
>
>
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>Yeah I remember that - wasn't there another famous soloist that served in
>the USO as well? Was it Stern or Horowitz...? (Milstein?
Isaac Stern, who was rejected for military service because of flat
feet, did serve as a USO performer as did a lot of entertainers.
Yehudi Menuhin did virtually the same thing but he actually was in the
US Army. A lot of men of military age had exemptions. Many were for
some physical impairment which would prevent them from effectively
serving. Some were in wartime industry (my father was one of
those...he built submarines...but he was eventually drafted when the
submarine contract at his ship yard was curtailed when it was clear
who was going to win. Many farmers were exempt because of the need for
the food supply. During Vietnam, I was exempted from the draft
because I was a critical linguist with a rare language skill (Arabic)
and I was already working for the military as a civilian.
>
>> Of course, a war, such as WW II effectively cut artists off from a
>> major portion of their potential performance opportunities.
>
>Yeah, and some got branded with fallout ever since....(von Karajan etc)
This is a tough ethical question. I suspect that many so-called
collaborators in German were really more opportunists than pro-Nazi.
If you had no real personal safety issues...e.g. were not Jewish...it
wasn't always particularly easy to get out of Germany or Austria and
not every allied or neutral country would accept a rather junior (at
the time) conductor. (Many didn't even accept refugees, the US being
one of them for people of less than an Einsteinian reputation.) I
look at it this way based upon experiences in this country during
Vietnam. Most of us of military age during that era remained in the
country regardless of our position on the war. I opposed the war, yet
I remained in the service of the Department of Defense (although my
duties at the time had almost nothing to do with the Vietnam war.)
>
>
>> Well its not quite like the ethnic Germans in my home area go around
>> wearing Lederhosen :-).
>
>Oh, I bet you wear yours when no-one is watching ;-)
Heh heh...not bloody likely. I didn't even wear leather pants for
disco dancing. Come to think of it, I never went disco dancing either
:-)
>
>> >The German community is quite established here in KwaZulu-Natal, and even
>> >close outside our borders in countries like Namibia.....
>>
>> The Germans in America are the second largest historic immigrant
>> population after the English. Most came between about 1750 and 1900.
>
>That is something I didn't know....I thought there a lot of Italians and
>Irish as well as Swedish initially...
In the US, there is a lot of everybody. Aside from the original
English settlers, the Germans are probably distributed throughout the
country more evenly than many others. You will find ethnic Germans
almost everywhere in the US...cities, countryside East West North and
South. Along with the English, they were also more likely to go into
agriculture in the 19th century. The US does have, of course
significant immigration from nearly every European country. Some had a
tendency to be more urbanized than rural. The Irish became the
backbone of many Northeastern cities. Many, such as the Poles, Czechs
(usually called Bohemians back then) had a tendency to go into heavy
industry as factory workers...in part because much of the available
land had already been settled. The Italians were mostly city dwellers
once in the US and every major city has a district which was once
known as "Little Italy" (some cities still have this). The Swedes and
Norwegians had a real tendency to settle in the upper Midwest, notably
in Minnesota. There is a US Public Radio Show called the Prairie Home
Companion led by today's best folk humorist, Garrison Keillor (think
of a modern day Will Rogers or Mark Twain) and much of his humor
centers upon a mythical Minnesota village called "Lake Wobegon" which
is so Scandanavian that they have a statue to "The Unknown Norwegian."
Unlike many countries, the US, since the White Settlers had no prior
presence here and were able to overcome the indigenous population,
they were pretty much free to settle anywhere over time. So there is a
lot of migration within the US (witness my move after college from the
rural Midwest to the Urban East.) Since most of us ultimately switched
from our heritage language to English within a generation of
immigration, we were pretty well able to function anywhere in the
country (a big issue here today with a lot of people concerned about
massive immigration legal and otherwise from Mexico and Central
America, populations who have come in such numbers that they are often
able to function in their native Spanish for quite some time. This is
becoming a very devisive issue for many.) Many American's tend to
think of this country as a "melting pot" and for many the ethnic
heritige is now very blurred. I happened to remain pretty much of
German heritage because they were very predominant in the area where I
grew up, but my own kids both married people with virtually no German
background. The barriers to ethnic intermarriage have long been down.
Religious barriers are no longer the issue they once were and racial
intermarriage, which 50 years ago would have raised eyebrows (or even
been illegal in some states in the South) are now considered routine.
>
>> They are also among the most assimilated. The Two World Wars did much
>> to kill the Germanness of any cultural things as there was a
>> perception that things German were inherently unpatriotic and many
>> ethnic Germans took great pains to demonstrate that they were 200%
>> American. We still like our beer :-)
I was reminded of our beer loving culture during my trip to my
hometown last week. On one end of our mainstreet is a huge complex of
cylindrical grain elevators. This is for a company which for over a
century and a half has processed barley grain into malt for beer
brewing. This malting works is now owned by Anhauser-Busch...the
largest American brewer (Budweiser et al). The three cylinders, each
nearly 150 feet tall and something like 35 feet in diameter are
painted to look like beer bottles (and in the pas,t beer cans) so when
you travel down the mainstreet towards the elevators, you appear to be
looking at a giant six-pack. The major league baseball team in
Milwaukee, the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, is nicknamed
"the Brewers" and the once heavily German city of Milwaukee was once
the location of the largest breweries in the country (but no
more...the city switched to water gathered from well underneath
Lake Michigan which is not considered suitable for beer compared to
well water from inland.)
>> Jon
>
italiano
> On Tue, 16 May 2006 08:58:48 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
>
> >Yeah I remember that - wasn't there another famous soloist that served in
> >the USO as well? Was it Stern or Horowitz...? (Milstein?
>
> Isaac Stern, who was rejected for military service because of flat
> feet,
Huh?
did serve as a USO performer as did a lot of entertainers.
> Yehudi Menuhin did virtually the same thing but he actually was in the
> US Army.
Yeah, that's it, Menuhin was the one I was thinking of....
A lot of men of military age had exemptions. Many were for
> some physical impairment which would prevent them from effectively
> serving. Some were in wartime industry (my father was one of
> those...he built submarines...but he was eventually drafted when the
> submarine contract at his ship yard was curtailed when it was clear
> who was going to win. Many farmers were exempt because of the need for
> the food supply. During Vietnam, I was exempted from the draft
> because I was a critical linguist with a rare language skill (Arabic)
Jon, you never cease to amaze....
> and I was already working for the military as a civilian.
> >> Of course, a war, such as WW II effectively cut artists off from a
> >> major portion of their potential performance opportunities.
> >Yeah, and some got branded with fallout ever since....(von Karajan etc)
> This is a tough ethical question. I suspect that many so-called
> collaborators in German were really more opportunists than pro-Nazi.
Yeah, I thought the same.....you still see this today...
> If you had no real personal safety issues...e.g. were not Jewish...it
> wasn't always particularly easy to get out of Germany or Austria and
> not every allied or neutral country would accept a rather junior (at
> the time) conductor. (Many didn't even accept refugees, the US being
> one of them for people of less than an Einsteinian reputation.) I
> look at it this way based upon experiences in this country during
> Vietnam. Most of us of military age during that era remained in the
> country regardless of our position on the war. I opposed the war, yet
> I remained in the service of the Department of Defense (although my
> duties at the time had almost nothing to do with the Vietnam war.)
Yeah, I think Richard Strauss also had some sort of tag.....I remember
Menuhin saying something about Nazi collaborators and conductors - i think
he mentione Furtwangler as a shining example of a pseudo-martyr.....then
again he even ventured back into Russia.....
> >> Well its not quite like the ethnic Germans in my home area go around
> >> wearing Lederhosen :-).
> >Oh, I bet you wear yours when no-one is watching ;-)
>> Heh heh...not bloody likely. I didn't even wear leather pants for
> disco dancing. Come to think of it, I never went disco dancing either
> :-)
Had it been invented then? ;-) I was looking at a site yesterday that listed
inventions and discoveries on a sort of time chart, and it was interesting
to see what you guys already had in your time...;-)
Sorry for the rude comments - just joking!
Our country is way behind....
> >> They are also among the most assimilated. The Two World Wars did much
> >> to kill the Germanness of any cultural things as there was a
> >> perception that things German were inherently unpatriotic and many
> >> ethnic Germans took great pains to demonstrate that they were 200%
> >> American. We still like our beer :-)
> I was reminded of our beer loving culture during my trip to my
> hometown last week. On one end of our mainstreet is a huge complex of
> cylindrical grain elevators. This is for a company which for over a
> century and a half has processed barley grain into malt for beer
> brewing. This malting works is now owned by Anhauser-Busch...the
> largest American brewer (Budweiser et al). The three cylinders, each
> nearly 150 feet tall and something like 35 feet in diameter are
> painted to look like beer bottles (and in the past, beer cans) so when
> you travel down the mainstreet towards the elevators, you appear to be
> looking at a giant six-pack. The major league baseball team in
> Milwaukee, the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, is nicknamed
> "the Brewers" and the once heavily German city of Milwaukee was once
> the location of the largest breweries in the country (but no
> more...the city switched to water gathered from well underneath
> Lake Michigan which is not considered suitable for beer compared to
> well water from inland.)
> >> Jon
I must pass this on to friend of mine - a brewmaster - who recently returned
from a sabbatical in the US.....
Ciao M
J. Teske
wrote:
>
>J. Teske <jdt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:acb97219kag150pso...@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 16 May 2006 08:58:48 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>>
>> >Yeah I remember that - wasn't there another famous soloist that served in
>> >the USO as well? Was it Stern or Horowitz...? (Milstein?
>>
>> Isaac Stern, who was rejected for military service because of flat
>> feet,
>
>Huh?
"Flat feet" e.g. fallen arches has been demonstrated to reduce the
ability of a soldier to march long distances. It was a fairly common
reason for a person to be considered 4F (the US Draft System code for
"rejected for military service due to physical, medical impairment"
Other codes (and you hear this used a slang ..."I was 1A, back then"
that meant "1A" suitable for military service (and being drafted")
2A (which is what I was) meant "occupationally deferred", 2S was a
student deferment. There were others for such things as family
deferment e.g you had kids you were supporting, clergy, conscientious
objector (meaning you opposed all war as part of your religion).
You could still be drafted as was my father at the end of WW II after
3 years of occupational deferment and even though he had a family
(me).
>
> did serve as a USO performer as did a lot of entertainers.
>> Yehudi Menuhin did virtually the same thing but he actually was in the
>> US Army.
>
>Yeah, that's it, Menuhin was the one I was thinking of....
>
>A lot of men of military age had exemptions. Many were for
>> some physical impairment which would prevent them from effectively
>> serving. Some were in wartime industry (my father was one of
>> those...he built submarines...but he was eventually drafted when the
>> submarine contract at his ship yard was curtailed when it was clear
>> who was going to win. Many farmers were exempt because of the need for
>> the food supply. During Vietnam, I was exempted from the draft
>> because I was a critical linguist with a rare language skill (Arabic)
>
>Jon, you never cease to amaze....
I did Arabic for about the first seven years of my Gov't career, then
left for managerial opportunities at the same agency. I think I have
almost systematically forgotten the Arabic I once knew.
>
>> and I was already working for the military as a civilian.
>> >> Of course, a war, such as WW II effectively cut artists off from a
>> >> major portion of their potential performance opportunities.
>> >Yeah, and some got branded with fallout ever since....(von Karajan etc)
>> This is a tough ethical question. I suspect that many so-called
>> collaborators in German were really more opportunists than pro-Nazi.
>
>Yeah, I thought the same.....you still see this today...
>
>> If you had no real personal safety issues...e.g. were not Jewish...it
>> wasn't always particularly easy to get out of Germany or Austria and
>> not every allied or neutral country would accept a rather junior (at
>> the time) conductor. (Many didn't even accept refugees, the US being
>> one of them for people of less than an Einsteinian reputation.) I
>> look at it this way based upon experiences in this country during
>> Vietnam. Most of us of military age during that era remained in the
>> country regardless of our position on the war. I opposed the war, yet
>> I remained in the service of the Department of Defense (although my
>> duties at the time had almost nothing to do with the Vietnam war.)
>
>Yeah, I think Richard Strauss also had some sort of tag.....I remember
>Menuhin saying something about Nazi collaborators and conductors - i think
>he mentione Furtwangler as a shining example of a pseudo-martyr.....then
>again he even ventured back into Russia.....
Strauss was very old during the war. Menuhin championed Furthwangler
after the war, apprearing with him in occupied Germany and elsewhere.
(Most Jewish musicians active during the war years refused to ever
play in Germany, among them Stern and Artur Rubinstein. Stern went to
Germany late in his life to lead a masterclass, but he pointedly left
his violin at home. OTOH Stern did encourage the younger generation of
Jewish musicians (Perlman, Zukerman, Barenboim et al) to perform there
as he said that boycotting Germany was his fight, not theirs.
>
>> >> Well its not quite like the ethnic Germans in my home area go around
>> >> wearing Lederhosen :-).
>> >Oh, I bet you wear yours when no-one is watching ;-)
>>> Heh heh...not bloody likely. I didn't even wear leather pants for
>> disco dancing. Come to think of it, I never went disco dancing either
>> :-)
>
>Had it been invented then? ;-) I was looking at a site yesterday that listed
>inventions and discoveries on a sort of time chart, and it was interesting
>to see what you guys already had in your time...;-)
In my days we had this really ingenious communcations invention...it
was sort of like a cell phone, you could talk to other people with it,
but unlike a cell phone, it was attached to a wall and had a cord
between the wall and the phone so you never had to go looking for
where you left the phone. ;-)
>
>Sorry for the rude comments - just joking!
>
Jon
>
>
italiano
> On Thu, 25 May 2006 09:09:19 +0200, "italiano" <qtones*@telkomsa.net>
> wrote:
> "Flat feet" e.g. fallen arches has been demonstrated to reduce the
> ability of a soldier to march long distances. It was a fairly common
> reason for a person to be considered 4F (the US Draft System code for
> "rejected for military service due to physical, medical impairment"
> Other codes (and you hear this used a slang ..."I was 1A, back then"
> that meant "1A" suitable for military service (and being drafted")
> 2A (which is what I was) meant "occupationally deferred", 2S was a
> student deferment. There were others for such things as family
> deferment e.g you had kids you were supporting, clergy, conscientious
> objector (meaning you opposed all war as part of your religion).
> You could still be drafted as was my father at the end of WW II after
> 3 years of occupational deferment and even though he had a family
> (me).
Well, I learnt something. I narrowly missed conscription - as I graduated
from university, the last intake was closed. I think the army would have
killed me....figuratively...
> > did serve as a USO performer as did a lot of entertainers.
> >> Yehudi Menuhin did virtually the same thing but he actually was in the
> >> US Army.
> >Yeah, that's it, Menuhin was the one I was thinking of....
> >A lot of men of military age had exemptions. Many were for
> >> some physical impairment which would prevent them from effectively
> >> serving. Some were in wartime industry (my father was one of
> >> those...he built submarines...but he was eventually drafted when the
> >> submarine contract at his ship yard was curtailed when it was clear
> >> who was going to win. Many farmers were exempt because of the need for
> >> the food supply. During Vietnam, I was exempted from the draft
> >> because I was a critical linguist with a rare language skill (Arabic)
> >Jon, you never cease to amaze....
> I did Arabic for about the first seven years of my Gov't career, then
> left for managerial opportunities at the same agency. I think I have
> almost systematically forgotten the Arabic I once knew.
That's a shame - any language skill is a blessing - a potential way of
increasing the humanity in our collective race...
Interesting anecdote...left his violin at home - quite idiosyncratic...
> >> >> Well its not quite like the ethnic Germans in my home area go around
> >> >> wearing Lederhosen :-).
> >> >Oh, I bet you wear yours when no-one is watching ;-)
> >>> Heh heh...not bloody likely. I didn't even wear leather pants for
> >> disco dancing. Come to think of it, I never went disco dancing either
> >> :-)
> >Had it been invented then? ;-) I was looking at a site yesterday that
listed
> >inventions and discoveries on a sort of time chart, and it was
interesting
> >to see what you guys already had in your time...;-)
> In my days we had this really ingenious communcations invention...it
> was sort of like a cell phone, you could talk to other people with it,
> but unlike a cell phone, it was attached to a wall and had a cord
> between the wall and the phone so you never had to go looking for
> where you left the phone. ;-)
Ha-ha - good on ya mate - I had a good laugh - that was very quick...
Take care..
M