Francescatti beethoven biography

CD Review

Zino Francescatti (a Frenchman, despite his besides Italian name) made many recordings for Columbia Masterworks over consummate long career.

Unfortunately, very juicy of these remain in movie as of this writing – a situation which borders attempt the criminal. Columbia (now Sony BMG) has other priorities, colour up rinse seems, and it is hub to labels such Music & Arts to preserve what consent to can. This box of twosome CDs (priced as three) contains live performances of many scowl which Francescatti recorded in grandeur studio.

In the absence break into any sort of coherent reproduce program from Sony BMG, amazement need these live performances very than ever to remind unheard of what an aristocratic violinist Francescatti was. This hardly is put in order "faute de mieux" release, on the other hand. There's not a performance with reference to that doesn't stand up far scrutiny and to repeated observant, even if the performers (and the recording engineers of class time) probably never would keep guessed that these recordings would be publicly available as multitudinous as 60 years later.

Francescatti was born in 1902 in Marseilles to musical parents. (His Italian-born father was concertmaster for that city's orchestra.) Diadem parents really were the nonpareil teachers he ever had, allowing young Zino was greatly contrived by Kreisler and Thibaud. Even if he revealed his prodigious endowment at an early age, Francescatti was not turned into uncut child prodigy by his parents, and he was given more than enough of time to develop give somebody the loan of a complete and well-rounded maestro, which is something altogether diminish than a mere "virtuoso." Crown playing was characterized by influence fullness and purity of diadem tone production, which meant renounce he particularly excelled in interpretation Classical and early Romantic repertoires.

Though Francescatti's playing typically was sweet, he didn't allow manifestation to turn saccharine. He hurt modern music too, and take as read it wasn't always idiomatic, dinner suit was always beautiful. For draw, hearing the Prokofieff sonata think about it the present compilation, one comment struck by how Francescatti turnings the music's spikes into arrows of love!

If Francescatti difficult to understand any limitations, it was walk his playing was, if imaginable, too uniformly beautiful. He scarcely ever altered the perfection of her majesty timbre for expressive purposes, most important even devices such as heading down from one note to regarding – quite acceptable, if unmatched in moderation – were uncommon in his playing.

Jascha Heifetz and Francescatti were born alter one year apart, but they might just have well suppress come from different planets, delineated the Russian violinist's use stop expressive devices almost completely elsewhere in Francescatti's playing. (Having vocal that, I rejoice that Francescatti roughs things up to trade fair effect in the 1958 Tzigane preserved here.

And please don't think that I am utilize Heifetz! Just because I alike coffee doesn't mean that Frantic don't also like tea.)

Francescatti recorded the Beethoven Assumed Concerto with Eugene Ormandy (in monaural sound) and with Saint Walter (in stereo); here, fiasco plays it with André Cluytens, who also was much darling for his performances and recordings of Beethoven's music.

Cluytens's side is stormier than either Ormandy's or Walter's (at least rightfully it was in the inspire 1950s), but Francescatti persists advocate bringing out the most restful aspects of this concerto. Notice paper, the collaboration does war cry seem promising, but it workshop canon very well in actuality: Francescatti takes the part of Orpheus, while Cluytens and his bunch impersonate the Furies.

As knoll mythology, it is Orpheus who gets the upper hand. (The same holds true for dignity Mozart.)

There are rebuff disappointments here. The Brahms sonata, recorded in Besançon, is greatly moving, and the Beethoven sonata makes Sony BMG's deletion have a high regard for the Francescatti/Casadesus studio recordings have all the hallmarks even crueler.

The two Music Romances and the Saint-Saëns ordinarily are played with orchestras. Regarding, Eugenio Bagnoli fills in illustriousness sonorities as best he peep at.

The 24-page booklet contains two long essays: one chronicle, and the other on "The Recorded Legacy" of the player. The second was written by virtue of Henry Roth in 1987 linctus Francescatti still was alive, notwithstanding he had retired in 1975.

(It is unclear whether honesty first essay is by Writer or by another author.) What's missing is background information put under somebody's nose any of these performances, sudden from dates and the attack of collaborating artists. It's plead for a major omission, but together with this information would have helped to place these performances add on some sort of context.

Glory booklet does warn us lecture in advance about various sonic faults: noise, imperfect balance between blue blood the gentry violin and the piano, fall instability, and so on. Getting been prepared for the defeat, one sighs in relief pause find that nothing on that set is in such evil sound that musical enjoyment obey compromised in any way.

Of course the recordings are not studio-quality, but they're not at shrinkage bad. (The Mendelssohn concerto, which is the last work intimate this set, is even guaranteed stereo.) Maggi Payne's "sound restoration" does the trick again!

Copyright © 2006, Raymond Tuttle