Comparison Recordings:
Sonata #1, Jascha Heifetz, Brooks Smith
RCA 7707-2-RG
Saint-Saëns is
notorious for organising the riot at
the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite
of Spring and leading the (he had
hoped) mass walk-out of musicians. He
was such a notoriously sarcastic wit
that only Rimsky-Korsakoff ever out-insulted
him face-to-face. Saint-Saëns was
brutally dominated by his mother, to
whom he fled after the deaths of his
children and the failure of his marriage,
and he thereafter spent Winters in Egypt
obtaining for his pleasures Arab boys
from procurers, and paid for his vices
by living to the ripe old age of 86.
He also wrote some of the most truly
and uncontroversially beautiful music
ever, not merely the ubiquitous and
much arranged "Swan" movement
from Carnival of the Animals,
or the ravishing "Mon cœur s’ouvre
à ta voix" from Samson
et Dalila. Excoriated in the early
20th century, perhaps he is finally
receiving some of his due in this neo-Romantic,
post-dodecaphonic era as we redefine
and rediscover just what constitutes
beautiful sound.
Although Saint-Saëns
was one of the first composers to take
up Franz Liszt’s invention of the tone
poem, he was otherwise mostly a very
conservative composer and generally
stretched the limits of sonata form
no further than Brahms. The first and
second violin sonatas were composed
in conventional four movement form with
Italian tempo names for the movements
— allegros, adagios, andantes,
and a scherzo. When for his third
violin sonata he produced only three
movements, his scruples obliged him
to give it another name, and he even
allowed himself to give the movements
exotic names: Prémice, Vision
Congolaise (in spite of its title,
a quite European sounding rhapsody duet),
Joyeuseté. The Elégie
is denoted a moderato espressivo,
beginning as a simple tune and rising
to a flaming, passionate utterance.
This music is very
difficult, requiring the seemingly casual
virtuosity of Heifetz, which Ulf Wallin
certainly commands. Pöntinen and
Wallin are perfectly matched and collaborate
with great skill and intelligence, and
they produce an almost perfect performance.
But the violinist needs to have available
a soaring, crooning, sobbing, wailing
tone. Heifetz is really just too cool,
and Ulf Wallin, who is much warmer than
Heifetz, still does not open quite far
enough. This music requires someone
like Aaron Rosand (who recorded only
the first sonata), Michelle Auclair,
or the young Arthur Grumiaux, and I
don’t know who among the new violinists
is the one to do it. Some day perhaps
our vision of the perfect performance
of this music may be fulfilled but,
while we wait, this recording is an
excellent way to become acquainted with
this unjustly ignored, beautiful music.
Paul Shoemaker
Ulf Wallin, violin; Roland Pöntinen,
piano 