Mischa Elman Tchaikovsky Concerto Mvt 3

Don't listen to this! Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aORO4Sx3I and listen to merrihew's post of entire concerto from 78s. Get over the noise, mostly at beginning and sink into the depth of tone Elman was capable of producing. My upload pales in comparison.

Here's the 3rd movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Conerto with Mischa Elman, (January 20, 1891 April 5, 1967) violin, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Barbirolli, December 1929. Even though I used a picture of a Naxos CD this recording came from an LP I've had for 20 years.

The extraordinary thing about Elman is that he seems to have emerged fully formed as a violinist. Its difficult now to appreciate quite how revolutionary his playing must have sounded when, at the age of 12 and trained by Alexander Fidelman, he auditioned for Fidelmans own teacher, Leopold Auer. The great pedagogue had never heard anything like it, as he freely admitted, and Elman remains one of those rare cases of the development of an independent tonal aesthetic in isolation of other influences He had never heard either Ysaye or Kreisler. His period of ascendancy was real but brief. Chronology has tended to telescope his primacy in the concert halls of Europe and America but it was an unarguable one, lasting from his debut in Berlin in 1904 until the arrival of Heifetz in 1917.

Throughout Elmans performance we can hear the battery of devices open to a player of his standing succulent portamenti, a ravishing tone, lava-like in its molten flow, which no-one, not even Toscha Seidel, could ever match. It remains one of the most remarkable sounds in recorded music. We can also hear the unhurried tempi, the unobtrusive excellence of Barbirollis conducting, and a performance of persuasive cohesion strictly on its own terms.

From a review by Jonathan Woolf

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Elman
• Mischa Elman
• violin
• Tchaikovsky

[2ndviolinist]

For richness of sound, listen to merrihew's post of entire concerto from 78s. Get over the noise, mostly at beginning and sink into the depth of tone Elman was capable of producing. My upload pales in comparison.

[farzadvengerov]

He speaks with his violin!!

[A4440HZ]

Hehe in this video, its Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in E flat Major

[shubox22]

great interpretation but I prefer oistrakh's

[violatione]

@A4440HZ Word!!!!!

[CurzonRoad]

Yes, yes, yes! Wonderful, indeed! Many thanks for sending my way! ALL BEST. Cheers, etc. Doug --

[paulostroff99]

Thank you for this brilliant posting of this best ever performance of this great concerto. Beyond superb!!!

[petrof4056]

he had really the way of playing from 19th century. It's amazing! Incredible violonist!

Thanks