Jascha Heifetz (violin)
‘Live’ Recordings
The Telephone Hour Orchestra and Chorus/Donald Voorhees
Emanuel Bay (piano) with Jack Benny
rec. 1942-51
Biddulph 85053-2 [78]

Heifetz appeared on The Bell ‘Telephone Hour’ radio broadcasts numerous times between its inaugural broadcast in April 1942 until well into the 1950s. It gave him the opportunity to perform pieces that don’t otherwise appear in his extensive commercial discography and a case in point in this release is his superb recording of Vieuxtemps’ Ballade and Polonaise from January 1949. Many of these broadcasts have been issued over the years though I’ve not come across them all. Cembal d’amour has released concertos and smaller pieces in a multi-volume CD edition and The Strad released a two-LP set. Both overlap in certain areas with this Biddulph release as both have reissued the Jack Benny sketch. The Strad LPs also contain five other items that are here and Cembal d’amour has a couple of others.

That said, we have here an excellently selected and varied repertoire divided into orchestrally-accompanied by The Telephone Hour Orchestra under Donald Voorhees and piano-accompanied by Emanuel Bay. The disc starts with Heifetz’s arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner and thenceforth we range across the years with nuggets from the programme that reflect different aspects of Heifetz’s musical charisma or excavate discographic novelties. One is the Allegro from Divertimento No.17 in D, K334 of which he recorded only the Minuet on disc. The orchestra under Voorhees can’t help but impart a slight heaviness to some of the items such as the Novacek Perpetuum mobile or Kreisler’s Tambourin chinois but it’s good to hear Villa-Lobos’s Moth Circling Around the Flame, first cousin of Rimsky’s Bee, and even more so the gauzy romance Heifetz brings to Rachmaninov’s Melodie Op.21/9. We’ll have to overlook the choral contribution to Gounod’s Ave Maria but the orchestral selection compensates on a high with a rehearsal of Mairzy Doats full of Big Band panache and plenty of chat. Heifetz amuses the orchestra by playing some country style fiddle and this four-minute cut shows him fooling around with an unusual amount of verve; not the sardonic stone face of popular imagination.

For Bach’s Sicilienne, from the Flute Sonata in E flat, Donald Voorhees plays the harpsichord, something I’ve not come across before, and it is rather affecting. Then there’s the Kreisler Recitativo and Scherzo Caprice, for solo violin, which Heifetz plays with suave dexterity though lacking the composer’s own ineffable tonal sensuality – though this is a piece Kreisler never recorded. There are five tracks with Bay ranging from 1943 to 1951. Once more, it’s the Rachmaninov arrangement, again by Heifetz, of the slow movement from the Cello Sonata that most catches the ear. He plays it beautifully and it reminds one of the breadth of his arranging skills and his magisterial projection of them in recital. The Jack Benny sketch is a wartime classic. It starts with an introduction by Edward Arnold, Heifetz plays Schubert’s Ave Maria and Drigo’s Valse Bluette with Bay and then the fun starts. If you’ve never heard it, you’ll enjoy two masters of deadpan – Heifetz deader of pan even than Benny – operating at a high level. The Benny-Heifetz performance of To a Wild Rose never fails to hit the spot.

Wayne Kiley’s notes are apt and instructive and the transfers are first-class. This selection shows a lighter side to Heifetz. He never condescended to his audience, though, and everything is played straight and true.

Jonathan Woolf       

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Contents
Francis Scott Keyes: The Star-Spangled Banner arr Heifetz
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Divertimento No. 17 in D Major, K. 334
Ottakar Novácek: Perpetual Motion
Henry Vieuxtemps: Ballade and Polonaise in G Major, Op. 38
Heitor Villa-Lobos: Moth Circling Around the Flame
Sergei Rachmaninoff: 12 Romances, Op. 21, No. 9 arr Heifetz
Fritz Kreisler: Tambourin chinois, Op. 3 in B Flat Major
Charles Gounod, J. S. Bach: Ave Maria
Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston: Mairzy Doats (rehearsal)
The Telephone Hour Orchestra and Chorus/Donald Voorhees
Johann Sebastian Bach: Sicilienne from Flute Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, BWV1031
Donald Voorhees (harpsichord)
Fritz Kreisler: Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice in D Minor, Op. 6
Traditional: Londonderry Air arr Kreisler
Jenő Hubay: Zephyr; Blumenleben, Op. 30 in E Major
Sergei Rachmaninov: Andante from Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 arr Heifetz
Karol Szymanowski: Nocturne and Tarantella in E Minor, Op. 28
Heinz Provost: Intermezzo; Souvenir de Vienne in F Major
Comedy Skit with Jack Benny, introduced by Edward Arnold including;
Franz Schubert: Ave Maria, Op. 52 No. 6, D839
Riccardo Drigo: Valse Bluette; 4 Airs de ballet
Edward MacDowell: To A Wild Rose