Berl Senofsky (violin)
American Virtuoso
rec. 1955-1980, further details after review below
Rhine Classics RH-030 [2 CDs: 157]

I’ve written often enough about Berl Senofsky, a prophet largely without honour in his own country, but one whose art has been caught on the wing over the years in broadcasts. He was taped live with Gary Graffman, and Cembal d’amour has devoted volumes to him, the second volume of which sees him in heavyweight concertos conducted by Monteux and Stokowski, no less. Bridge has a disc devoted to his performance at the 1958 Brussels EXPO and another to a New Zealand performance of Walton’s Concerto, with the composer conducting.

Now here’s Rhine Classics’ twofer which charts the burly fiddler through a quarter-century span. The first disc is dedicated to Brahms and comes from a variety of original source material. The Second Sonata in A major was first released on a Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition LP, released in 1980. Senofsky always took this sonata at very slow tempos – the recording with Graffman takes much the same tempo decisions as this one with Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden – but by 1980 the performance seems leaden and devitalised. If you value players such as (I’m picking pretty much at random) Goldberg or Kogan or Suk, you’ll find this performance inert. One thing, though, is for sure. These are Senofsky’s tempi not the pianist’s.

The Third Sonata comes from much earlier. It was given at the Queen Elizabeth competition in 1955, at which he became the first American winner, and was preserved on acetate. The conception is much more visceral than the A major and one can take pleasure in his stirring, masculine playing. He is fully up to conventional tempi and even presses ahead for the finale which is genuinely ‘agitato’. His characteristically fast vibrato is much in evidence.

In 1959 he and his then wife, cellist Shirley Trepel, were recorded live in the Double Concerto in A minor with the Atlanta Symphony directed by Henry Sopkin. I take it that the dates of 5-6 March 1959 indicate that the concerto was repeated. Trepel was certainly a conscientious player and I believe that at the time, or near it, she was the principal cellist of the Houston Symphony. The tempos reminded me strikingly of a much later recording by Stern and Ma with Abbado in Chicago – but in tempi only. The bluntly mono Atlanta recording, direct from the Tower Theater, is of local interest only. It’s a small-scaled reading, the most successful movement of which is the Andante where the two players’ chamber instincts are most engaged. The orchestra is so-so, and there’s a very brief tape glitch in the finale.

Sonatas occupy the second disc. Senofsky joined Ellen Mack for a concert at the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress in 1979 to perform Mendelssohn’s much-overlooked Sonata in F major and Saint-Saëns’ Sonata No.1 which one can’t possibly accuse of being underplayed. (I’ve not actually heard it in concert for years but the last time I did, Lydia Mordkovitch took the finale so fast her bow ricocheted out of her hands onto the floor with a resounding thud.) This is a fine brace of sonata performances. Senofsky was at something like his prime at 53 and he brings real lyric communicativeness to the Mendelssohn and the rapport with Mack is first class. Even his extremely pressing vibrato, which might repel unsympathetic auditors, is under good control and serves his emotive playing well. The finale is played with firefly brilliance. The Saint-Saëns is just as good, up to tempo throughout, and Mack plays the chorale in the Allegretto just before the final section very beautifully. As an encore there’s a loving, but over-lingering, Kreisler Liebesleid.

The final work is Strauss’ dashing, exuberant and occasionally long-winded Sonata which he plays with rich tone and an engagement with Eynden, from the same LP, that they had conspicuously failed to find in the Brahms.

The performances, as I’ve noted, are variably successful but at their best they illustrate that Senofsky was a compelling player with a strong personality who deserved far better treatment from the American cabals of those years.

Jonathan Woolf

Previous review: Stephen Greenbank (August 2024)

Contents
Brahms Violin Sonata No 2 in A major, Op 100
Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, piano
studio | Gent, V.1980 | LP 33rpm ℗1980
Brahms Violin Sonata No 3 in D minor, Op 108
Claude Frank, piano
live | Brussels, 7.VI.1955
Brahms Double Concerto for violin and cello in A minor, Op 102
Shirley Trepel, cello | Atlanta SO | Henry Sopkin
live | Atlanta, 5.III.1959
Mendelssohn Violin Sonata No 3 in F major, MWV Q26
Saint-Saëns Violin Sonata No 1 in D minor, Op 75
bis/encore, announce by Berl Senofsky:
Kreisler Liebesleid
Ellen Mack, piano
live | Washinghton D.C., 11.XI.1979
R Strauss Violin Sonata in E-flat major, Op 18
Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, piano
studio | Gent, V.1980 | LP 33rpm ℗1980