Benno Rabinof and Toscha Seidel (violins)
Harry Kaufman, Sylvia Rabinof (piano)
rec. c.1955 (Seidel) and 1964 (Rabinof)
Biddulph 85066-2 [83]
The two violinists who share this disc were great tonalists, lustrous and expressive exemplars of their art, and both were pupils of Leopold Auer. They were born nine years apart, Toscha Seidel in 1899 in Odessa and Benno Rabinof in the Lower East Side of New York in 1908. Seidel made the recordings preserved here circa 1955, Rabinof in 1964.
I reviewed a Parnassus disc of Seidel’s recordings a few years ago – the transfers were only so-so – but Biddulph is engaged on a restoration programme in a more focused way and there will be more to come from them. For now, they have focused on two sonatas made for the Impresario label, a privately-made record with a catalogue number but which may not have been intended for commercial release, as Wayne Kiley makes plain in his booklet notes. I suspect there was minimal, if any, editing. Seidel and Harry Kaufman recorded Grieg’s Sonata No.3 in C minor and Franck’s Sonata. Kaufman was a well-known accompanist – he also recorded with inter alia Milstein, Szigeti, Primrose, Zimbalist and Salmond – but he was saddled with a ruinously sub-par piano. It has little body of tone and could well be an upright. Seidel, by this stage in his career, was in terrible decline and it would be unfair to compare and contrast this recording of the Grieg with the recording he made of it in 1929 with Arthur Loesser, which was released by Biddulph on LAB013 back in 1990. This is his only recording of the Franck but it too shows the tattered remnants of a once fabulous player. There’s no tonal richness, intonation is frequently compromised, he can’t always get his way around the notes, and though there are a few passages where something of the old wizard can be heard, it’s a depressing experience to hear these two sonata recordings. In fairness, I should note that Ian Lace took a decidedly different view when the Franck was reissued by Biddulph in the past.
Thankfully Rabinof, much the less well-remembered player – though Seidel isn’t much better recalled, more’s the pity – saves the day with his ‘Gypsy Violin Classics’ LP, made for Decca. This is a fabulous example of ardent and communicative playing from someone who made very few recordings, so packed was the American market. He was accompanied very well by his wife Sylvia, with whom he had a long-standing duo, and each of the nine pieces they play is enriched by colour, richness of tone, technical assurance and real Old School swagger. Brahms’ Hungarian Dance is something Seidel could have put over back in the 1920s in something of the same way but Rabinof’s fingertip impulse vibrato is a perfect medium to ensure a molten rapturous result. His Sarasate is lustrous, dashing and virtuosic, full of flair and fire (but discipline too, something Seidel lacked) and there’s soaring lyricism in the Albéniz-Kreisler Tango, and a delectable Granados-Kreisler Spanish Dance. He dispatches Kreisler’s Gypsy Caprice with verve and allure sufficient to make you wonder why it’s not more often performed.
In sports terminology this is a disc of two halves. The first is depressing but the second half picks up memorably. The transfers are excellent.
Jonathan Woolf
Buying this recording via the link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
Contents
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Violin Sonata No.3 in C minor, Op.45 (1886-87)
César Franck (1822-1890)
Violin Sonata in A (1888)
Toscha Seidel (violin), Harry Kaufman (piano)
rec. 1955, Impresario Records
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Hungarian Dance No.20 arr Joseph Joachim
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Slavonic Dance in G minor, arr. Fritz Kreisler
Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)
Zigeunerweisen
Introduction and Tarantelle
Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
Tango in D, Op.165 No.2 arr Fritz Kreisler
Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Spanish Dance in E minor arr. Fritz Kreisler
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
Jota arr. Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
La Gitana
Gypsy Caprice
Benno Rabinof (violin), Sylvia Rabinof (piano)
rec. 1964, American Decca
