""The Art Of the Violin"" "Yehudi Menuhin, Berlin, 1963 Mozart, Concerto in G major" "With the passing away on March 12, 1999 of the last true legendary violinist, Yehudi Menuhin" "The final page of the history of violin and 20th century was turned" "Fabulous enriched era came to a close." "Part 1" " The Devil's Instrument" "David Oistrakh, Moscow, 1958 Mendelssohn, Concerto in E minor" "[Ithak Perlman] If you compare violinists of today and violinists of, let's say, the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s" "In my mind, or into my ear" "I don't feel that one of them sounded like the other" "I feel they were all individuals." "Let's talk about Kreisler," "Elman" "Heifetz" "Francescatti" "Milstein" "Menuhin" "Oistrakh" "Stern, Everybody sounded different." "Isaac Stern, Paris, 1967" "Christian Ferras, Paris, 1963" "Fritz Kreisler, 1927 Recording 1935" "Nathan Milstein, Stockholm, 1966" "[Irvy Gitlis] Yehudi, Heifetz, Huberman, Francescatti..." "Szigeti..." "Enescu..." "With them, each piece Seemed a different work." "When someone says, "Now that's the benchmark performance!" ".." "Or.."That's how it should be played"" "It's an insult to music." "It implies that the music is very poor indeed, if there is only one way to play it." "Yehudi Menuhin, Monte Carlo, 1979" "[Ida Haendel] Yehudi Menuhin, Hollywood, 1947 Conducted by Antal Dorati" "No one can say what makes one sound differ from another" "This is, in my opinion, the individuality of the person:" "The strength of the pressure, the pressure of the bow on the strings the pressure of the actual fingers on the violin, the whole position..." "Arthur Grumiaux, Nice, 1961" "Jascha Heifetz, 1952" "Boston Symphony orchestra Conducted by Charles Muench" "Recording 1959" "Mischa Elman, London, 1962" "The problem really is the difficulty of playing the violin" "It's very very difficult it's very difficult, and you can tell the difficulty because" "How long does it take for a beginner, average beginner, to make a decent sound on the fiddle and how long does it take for a average beginner to make a decent sound on the piano no comparison you know, you play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the piano right away" "It will sound decent, can't do that on a violin, unless of course you are some sort of genius." "The genius of Paganini, his satanic image and his demonic virtuosity light of source of contempoary art of violin" "Paganini, Caprice No, 24 Alexander Markov" "All the giants of the 20th century" "We will not deal here with chamber music, jazz, or the Gypsy violin are in a one way or another, decendents of Paganini" "Paganini, Concerto No, 2, "Campanella" Ivry Gitlis, Paris, 1966" "I think there is "before Paganini" and "after Paganini"" "and I think the whole music, the whole writing of music has been changed through Paganini" "Paganini to me, was not a development" "In the sense" "Viotti, Correli, Tatini, Then Paganini, then on" "I think there was all these, and then..." "There was Paganini" "Paganini, Variations on "God Save the King" Ruggiero Ricci, 1973" "The evolution in the style... of playing between contempoary violinists and violinists of in the 40s" "It has to do with what they did with the music" "Something to do with shifting or slides, if you wanna call it there were different slides they were, some of these old fiddle players, would slide back and forth, back and forth and these days, you know, it is taboo" "you don't slide back and forth cause you will be called "old fashioned"" "and, I wish I had more of those "old fashioned" things..." "Josef Szigeti, Hollywood, 1944 Drdla, "Souvenir"" "You know, when you listen to somebody like Szigeti you know for me... was the most contempoary sounding fiddle player musically..." "He actually didn't sound like what we were talking about old" "You know, the old fashion..." "He was, what makes him so amazing, he was actually if you were to hear him today" "You would not feel that... his musicianship and the way he perform the Beethoven sonata has aged at all" "Now Szigeti, Who was a kind of long noodle, a kind of Spaghetti..." "I can't stand up with all your equipment around..." "He was very tall, he had very long arms." "Seeing him play, people would say that he looked as if he was playing in a phone box..." "But when you hear his recordings, are they dated?" "No!" "He was criticized sometimes for the very wide vibrato that he had but it was so focused..." "I would say he was the Aristocrates of the violinsts..." "Mr. Joseph Szigeti" "We are going to play the "Bee" by Franz Schubet" "Josef Szigeti, Hollywood, 1944 Franz Schubert, The Bee," "Some of the older players were very aware what's going on around them and others on the clip that I saw were not doing anything to help the orchestra whatsoever" "They would just play with their playing and hope the orchestra, not even hope, just assume the orchestra will be with him, and they don't need to show anything at all and they were just distant themselve from everything around" "and just play" "We have... when I say we I mean the old generation we have the right to think the way we think" "I wouldn't say that... the old generation are better, but let's be very frank if the young generation are as good as they are" "I think they owe us a kind of gratitude" "Mischa Elman, Hollywood Bowl, 1932 Tchaikovsky, Concerto in D major" "What impressed me about Elman and I remember seeing a video of him play among other things" "Humoresque of Dvorak, was his incredible bow division that everything was in such order, and of course now comes the great debate about the "Elman sound"" "and what made the Elman sound" "Mischa Elman, 1926 Dvorak, "Humoresque"" "If you look at Elman, he's a really really small guy" "With very thick fingers" "And..he plays... he puts his fingers in a way I've never seen other people play with their fingers" "Like, he has nails on his left hand" "It looks like a guitarist hand, you know" "So he has... he sort of glued his nails to give him some support" "So when he put his fingers down flat" "His fingers have a lot of meat anyway, I couldn't do it but" "You know, he can put it down flat and get a full vibrato swing" "It's really interesting to see that" "Because he plays with the violin up, his fingers flat and he's really short" "So his arms are very short, so he plays like this" "And he has to lower the scroll just to get the high position" "Elman was so incredibly concerned with the way his violin sounded" "Becaus he was so sensitive to the sound" "That he would actually go, I don't know, once or twice a week to the violin adjuster" "And move the sound post" "I think I probably do practise every morning with my pianist Mr. Seiger" "But two hours, two and a half hours" "And one of the stories go like this upon their rehearsing" "Mischa told Joseph, "Joseph"" "I can see that, "Joseph, you're not playing in time!"" ""Let's do it again!"" "So they do it again." "He stops him again and he says "You're not playing in time"" "But "I'm playing in time"." "He says, "Maybe you're playing in time, but not in my time"" "The plague of his life was Heifetz" "Because OK, Heifetz was younger, that's OK" "And before Heifetz he was, you know, sold more records than anybody else" "Elman suffered from Heifetz disease, that was his problem" "And, fortunately or unfortunately, when Heifetz came into the scene, everybody suffered from the same kind of disease" "There is Heifetz" "You know, all of a sudden, everybody had to compare themselves to this incredible..." "phenomenon" "Jascha Heifetz, 1952 Paganini, Caprice No, 24" "I remember listening to him and I couldn't close my mouth for like a week" "I couldn't believe what I was listening to" "It was... and he of course looked very cool on the stage" "You know, he didn't move much He just moved what was necessary" "And that was, in my estimation, the reason that people called him very cold" "And people say for example for Heifetz, he was cold" "Close your eyes and listen" "What you heard, from me I could describe it like a tornado" "Moving in one place, just staying with the most incredible heat coming out" "The thing was in the playing" "How did they find" "I could say that Joseph Hassid in some way could've been more perfect in some way" "Milstein also sometimes" "Heifetz see from time to time, not it was exactly that" "You know the story was true" "They wrote in the toilet, "Please do some faults to know we are human"" "The sound had a kind of edge to it that in the concert hall just carrying the most beautiful.." "It was a lot of beauty to the sound which actually does not exist as much on the recordings" "Because he insisted on having the microphone quite close" "So you heard all of that..." "My old teacher used to call it jet sound that jee right there, which get lost in the hall" "And just was an illuminous, wonderful wonderful sound" "Jascha Heifetz, 1952 Wieniawski, Polonaise in D major" "Heifetz is getting a free concert inside" "Hey, guys, Heifetz is getting a free concert inside" "Part of Heifetz is that... tone production has to do with the bow speed" "He moved the bow very very quickly He did not use a sort of as much bow pressure" "This was a Russian way of doing it, you know, moving the bow very very quick and get this incredible edge to the sound" "I think since Heifetz, and, I guess Milstein as well but particularly Heifetz who could play so brilliantly and so cleanly" "And you can hear every single note" "It's not like, it sounds brilliant and perfect" "And you listen closer, some notes are missing or some notes just passed over quickly" "With Heifetz it was all there" "Particularly when he played concerto by Tschaichovsky, concerto by Wieniawsky" "Works like that would suit him to perfection" "He played certain things, even the Chaconne by Vitali" "That is so much drama, that were just so expressive and so impressive It makes you shudder almost" "But of course when it came to the classics, then that's a different world entirely" "You can like, not like, you can agree or not agree" "But Heifetz was unique, there's no doubt" "Jascha Heifetz, Carnegie Hall, 1945 Tchaikovsky, Concerto in D major" "Conducted by Fritz Reiner" "Sometimes I think it's so silly for a grown-up person to come on the stage and scratch the violin" "Really, I mean it." "It's silly of that thing" "That's what he says, but Nathan Milstein doesn't mean it" "Nathan milstein, New York, 1982 J.S. Bach, Sonata in C major" "He's been playing for more than 60 years" "And he's one of the most supreme violinists of our age" "A master of his instrument" "Nobody had a kind of concept of cleanliness of articulation that Milstein had" "He was absolutely as intense as Elman was about the tone" "That's how intense Milstein was about articulation and cleanliness of between the notes" "He was searching all the time." "when I visited him, he'd say.." "...I found something new..." "He was constantly searching." "He was like a kind of watchmaker." "With him, it was a way of life" "With him, it was "Give me the fiddle and I'll just play all the time."" "I'll just play all the time, all the time I'll joodle, practise, practise, doodle" "You know, do little things, investigate" "Trying, let me see, which passage, which fingers" "I should use that make the passage sound cleaner" "Some more articulated" "All the time he was on new tricks, on new things" "I would come to his house and expect, you know, one time he lived in Paris for several months" "We saw each other practically every night, every day" " You know what it is?" " Circus" "Not at all, not at all" "It's a military band passing the street, the small village" "Let's go home" "You could love him if you knew him" "I mean he was..." "I don't know, I see that little sign there I don't know why, but it says "perfect", he was" "And he was absolutely nonchalant That was a cool character when it came to the playing of the violin" "Nathan Milstein, Paris, 1969 Milstein, "Paganiniana"" "I don't know what "difficult" means?" "Either one can play or one cannot" "I can't think about what I'm doing." "If I start thinking..." " You're Jewish?" " Yes" "Why do Jewish musicians, why do they make good executive musicians, performers?" "I know many Jewish musicians that are not good" " Yes, but a part of..." " I don't think it has to do with the race in that respect" "It's not reconditioning." "I think it's most the social background that made some Jews take to the violin or the piano" "Why did you leave Russia?" "Why I left Russia?" " Cause you didn't leave till 1925 - 25, yes" "I left because Mom and many people" "They said I could leave and after I went to play, study and then I can come back" "He, Horowitz and Piatigorsky" "Three young urchins from Russia" "In 1924 left Russia and I think they went to Berlin first" "And there they play in plenty of cafes and things like that I don't know, Bordelo" "They want a living" "You know, they came out with a friend of theirs, Mirowitch, who was their manager" "Imagine what treat of that kind of thing" "Horowitz, Vladimir Horowitz" "Gregor Piatigorsky and Nathan Milstein" "Nathan Milstein, London, 1963 Brahms, Concerto in D major" "Philharmonia orchestra Conducted by Norman Del mar" "Were you actually a child prodigy?" "you played at a very early age" "I couldn't be a prodigy because I wasn't good, I'm sure" "A prodigy should play well" "I'm sure I didn't play well" "You have to start playing the violin as a child" "Absolutely" "You grow into it" "Obviously you have to develop the talent" "But the real talent has to be born" "Mama got me started and sensed I was a born violinist." "He did as he was told, he was obedient." "He started the violin at 5." "A wonder!" "He'd play a three-octave G major scale." "You remember that?" "" " It was so long ago!" "" " Extraordinary!" "Zino Francescatti..." "The whole Mediterranean is in that one name!" "I'm drawn to a beautiful sound, to anything that is genuine, that is beautiful, that shines..." "like the sun!" "So I put it in my music, I put it in my violin." "He was a Mediterranean, his sound was full of light." "The bel canto of violin!" "When I Speak, I want to be heard." "or else why bother?" "Francescatti was a great violinist." "And a charming man." "And so simple." "Had I not been a violinist, I'd have been a gardener." "I just love it!" "Zino Francescatti, Bordeaux, 1961 Bazzini, "Dance of the Elves"" "Once people start noticing a little boy has some talent, tyranny begins." "Everyone starts fussing." "And the little boy I was..." "maybe the others, too..." "Where could he take refuge?" "In this instrument." "Shutting himself up in his room, Conversing with this instrument." "I'd spend hours improvising in my room." "I'd also improvise to cheat." "Mama was cooking Pozharski cutlets in the next room, and I improvised while reading comics." "She thought I was practicing." "Like all the masters of the violin, Ruggiero Ricci was alreadcy an accomplished performer at the age of 12" "Ruggiero Ricci, Hollywood, 1932 Vieuxtemps, Concerto in A minor" "But not all child prodigies are destined for a great career" "Fate is not always kind to them" "Barely in his teens, Boris Goldstein was considered by his peers to be one of the greatest hopes of the Soviet violin" "Was it political circumstances, war, or simply bad life which prevented his early brilliant early years from blossoming into a real career" "Boris Goldstein, 1937 Poldini / Kreisler, La Poupee Valsante," "In the West, the lives of two young dazzling violinists ended tragically" "After a brief, but brilliant career" "Michael Rabin died of drug overdose in New York in 1972" "Still in his youth" "The terrible pressures which sensation saking middleman inflict on child prodigies were too much for him to bare" "Ladies and gentlemen, with the great deal pleasure that I present to you" "A very wonderful young violinist that comes to stage, 15-year-old, Michael Rabin, ladies and gentlemen" "Michael Rabin, New York, 1951 Kreisler, "Tambourin Chinois"" "Well, let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen" "This is really one of the greatest wonders in the show business" "And I believe that young Rabin has a great future" "Fantastic violinist, a wonderful sound and a real tragey that he died so young before his time" "Another prodigy destined for a brilliant career met with a similarily tragic end" "Josef Hassid, with whom the distinguished pianist Gerald Moore wrote," ""with the possible exception of Menuhin, he's the most incandescent talent I've ever heard"" "Hassid was born in Poland and made a spectacular debut in London in 1940 at the age of 16" "His fingers had pads, little pads." "They were like velvet." "Three years after his first appearance, he fell silent" "He was comitted to a psychiatric clinique for schizophrenia" "He became..." "He must have been disturbed before." "To play the way he played, you can't be normal." "Josef Hassid never performed on stage again" "He died in 1950 as a result of lobotomy" "He was 26" "A few heart rending recording are all that remained of his art" "Josef Hassid, 1940 Achron, "Hebrew Melody"" "If somebody has a wonderful career past the age of 40, I think it's... a bloody miracle" "Really, so many things can go wrong to keep it up, and to do it..." "it's very difficult" "It's tough"