Nathan Milstein (violin)
The American Columbia Solo Recordings – Volume 1
Leopold Mittmann (piano)
rec. 1935-38, Columbia Studios, New York City, USA
Pristine Audio PACM125 [73]

This first release in Pristine Audio’s American Columbia solo recordings series (the first in a projected three volumes) replicates Biddulph LAB055, ‘Early Columbia Recordings 1935-38; Baroque Masterpieces’, released more than three decades ago. Those transfers were in the hands of Jon Samuels whereas these new ones are the work of Mark Obert-Thorn. The copies used in here are cleaner than those used by Biddulph and whilst the latter was cut higher in the transfer they were also noisier, so 30-plus years has seen an advance in transfer quality.

Milstein’s clean-limbed, athletic and focused playing is generally admirable in music of this type. This 1935-38 selection features works to which he was to return two decades later – the Bach, obviously, but also Vitali’s Chaconne, which he re-recorded with Artur Balsam in 1955 for Capitol, his favourite Vivaldi-David Sonata, and the Tartini Devil’s Trill, both with Leon Pommers in 1959. He re-recorded both the Nardini movement in 1956 and the Pergolesi Sonata in the Longo arrangement as well. One escapee was the Vivaldi-Respighi Sonata of which this was his only commercial recording.

However, given that Milstein’s legacy continues to be fractured and no comprehensive box set exists, you may well be attracted to these pre-war examples of his way with these works. His Vitali is cumulatively powerful but remains full of clarity, whist the Vivaldi-David Sonata is lithe and incisive, the Vivaldi-Respighi – a bigger edifice – similarly compelling, The Nardini, in the David arrangement, is a persuasive, romantic effusion and the Pergolesi an example of virtuoso sensitivity. Where I find Milstein less compelling, though, is in the Tartini and in – strangely, perhaps – Bach. The Devil’s Trill is assured but oddly faceless. I don’t know whether the three days allocated to it, presumably because of re-takes, indicates any unease on Milstein’s part but the performance tends to reflect the blander side of his interpretative art. 

So, too Bach’s Partita No.2. His two LP sets of the complete Sonatas and Partitas, on Capitol/EMI and later on DG, are lodestars to many. However, he rattles through the Partita in 1935, and especially its Chaconne, in a way that’s both sleek and superficial. Having had the good fortune recently to hear Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté’s almost contemporaneous recording of the Chaconne – made just a month earlier than Milstein’s, in Canada – on Parlophone, it’s clear that her voice-leading and harmonic awareness are both noticeably in advance of Milstein’s, notwithstanding any questions of technique.

I certainly can’t complain about the fine-sounding transfers, which have been most sensitively handled.

Jonathan Woolf  

Contents
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Adagio from Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001
Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Tomaso Vitali (1663-1745)
Chaconne arr. Charlier
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Sonata in A major, Op. 2, No. 2, RV31, arr David
Sonata in D major, Op. 2, No. 11, RV9, arr. Respighi
Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770)
Sonata in G minor, “The Devil’s Trill” arr. Kreisler
Pietro Nardini (1722-1793)
Larghetto from Sonata No. 2 in D major arr. David
Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736)
Sonata No. 12 in E major arr. Longo