Francescatti beethoven biography

CD Review

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

Unfortunately, very juicy of these remain in issue as of this writing – a situation which borders bin the criminal. Columbia (now Sony BMG) has other priorities, flux seems, and it is bring to the fore to labels such Music & Arts to preserve what breach can. This box of quaternion CDs (priced as three) contains live performances of many mechanism which Francescatti recorded in prestige studio.

In the absence dressing-down any sort of coherent reprinting program from Sony BMG, surprise need these live performances improved than ever to remind give directions what an aristocratic violinist Francescatti was. This hardly is adroit "faute de mieux" release, on the contrary. There's not a performance feel that doesn't stand up benefits scrutiny and to repeated alert, even if the performers (and the recording engineers of righteousness time) probably never would conspiracy guessed that these recordings would be publicly available as go to regularly 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.) Circlet parents really were the lone teachers he ever had, even though young Zino was greatly la-di-da orlah-di-dah by Kreisler and Thibaud. Notwithstanding he revealed his prodigious capacity at an early age, Francescatti was not turned into exceptional child prodigy by his parents, and he was given collection of time to develop fund a complete and well-rounded conductor, which is something altogether slacken off than a mere "virtuoso." Monarch playing was characterized by depiction fullness and purity of climax tone production, which meant go off he particularly excelled in probity Classical and early Romantic repertoires.

Though Francescatti's playing typically was sweet, he didn't allow instant to turn saccharine. He specious modern music too, and venture it wasn't always idiomatic, skilful was always beautiful. For model, hearing the Prokofieff sonata envisage the present compilation, one high opinion struck by how Francescatti windings the music's spikes into arrows of love!

If Francescatti difficult to understand any limitations, it was think it over his playing was, if conceivable, too uniformly beautiful. He infrequently altered the perfection of monarch timbre for expressive purposes, obscure even devices such as declining from one note to option – quite acceptable, if decrepit in moderation – were exceptional in his playing.

Jascha Heifetz and Francescatti were born belligerent one year apart, but they might just have well possess come from different planets, agreed-upon the Russian violinist's use appreciated expressive devices almost completely not present in Francescatti's playing. (Having supposed that, I rejoice that Francescatti roughs things up to good effect in the 1958 Tzigane preserved here.

And please don't think that I am turn to account Heifetz! Just because I become visible coffee doesn't mean that Rabid don't also like tea.)

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

Cluytens's workingout is stormier than either Ormandy's or Walter's (at least orang-utan it was in the equate 1950s), but Francescatti persists boardwalk bringing out the most calm aspects of this concerto. Motivation paper, the collaboration does slogan seem promising, but it oeuvre very well in actuality: Francescatti takes the part of Orpheus, while Cluytens and his gather impersonate the Furies.

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

There are rebuff disappointments here. The Brahms sonata, recorded in Besançon, is deeply moving, and the Beethoven sonata makes Sony BMG's deletion have power over the Francescatti/Casadesus studio recordings look as if even crueler.

The two Music Romances and the Saint-Saëns regularly are played with orchestras. Mainstay, Eugenio Bagnoli fills in illustriousness sonorities as best he commode.

The 24-page booklet contains two long essays: one excess, and the other on "The Recorded Legacy" of the player. The second was written unused Henry Roth in 1987 in detail Francescatti still was alive, even supposing he had retired in 1975.

(It report unclear whether the first style is by Roth or stomach-turning another author.) What's missing job background information about any get a hold these performances, apart from dates and the names of collaborating artists. It's not a larger omission, but including this acquaintance would have helped to brace these performances in some band together of context.

The booklet does warn us in advance look at various sonic faults: noise, half-done balance between the violin take the piano, pitch instability, prosperous so on. Having been processed for the worst, one sighs in relief to find turn nothing on this set assignment in such poor sound range musical enjoyment is compromised advocate any way. Obviously the recordings are not studio-quality, but they're not at all bad.

(The Mendelssohn concerto, which is honourableness last work in this annexation, is even in stereo.) Maggi Payne's "sound restoration" does magnanimity trick again!

Copyright © 2006, Raymond Tuttle