I’d been hoping against
hope that a company such as Doremi might
release a chunk of Yulian Sitkovetsky’s
legacy on disc. They’d certainly be
easier to locate than has proved to
be the case with previous editions such
as that offered by SYD, whose five CDs
didn’t get much coverage. I never even
saw them. Doremi have a good line in
Russian fiddle players; alongside such
titans as Heifetz and Elman they also
sport some Julian Olevsky (émigré,
born in Germany, brought up in Argentina).
But into the breach steps Aulos – praise
be! – and admirers of what I shall have
to stoop to calling "cult violinist"
Sitkovetsky (1925-58) now have a wider
base for the international marketing
of these records, not least because
Aulos has had access to the master tapes.
I suppose Sitkovetsky
was one of the violinists for whom fiddle-journo
platitudes like "jaw dropping"
were invented. His status as a near
legendary figure was compounded by a
tragically early death at the age of
thirty-three – his American parallel
was Michael Rabin – and the rarity of
his discs in the West. This first volume
takes in a rather mix and match selection
of recordings but admirers will have
to spurn the niceties of selection principles
and grab hold of these discs whilst
they can. The major work is the Sibelius
recorded in concert in Prague with the
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Nicolai
Anosov (father of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.
Ed.), a conductor I had reason to praise
recently for his high class Liszt accompaniments
for Ginzburg in Moscow. Here we are
again – he’s splendid (Aulos – what
about a disc of Anosov?) We hear the
soloist’s very fast vibrato, especially
in the upper two strings, and that characteristic
nutty sound in the middle of his register.
It’s a feature of his playing that the
lower strings don’t sound as quickly
and seem rather less responsive. Despite
the recession of the live concert acoustic
the orchestra is well marshalled and
any brass blare is probably an acoustic
matter. Try to listen
out for those Dvořákian winds (no
other word will do) in the first movement
and also to the dazzlingly well-played
left hand work in the cadenza. Brass
statements are big and bold, the performance
pretty speedy and very exciting (in
truth a little too much so).
Despite the fact that he has always
been compared with Kogan Sitkovetsky
was by now very much his own player;
one or two moments at the climax of
the first movement suggest a Heifetz
influence, and indeed he takes a Heifetz
kind of tempo throughout. Another characteristic
of the performance is that he often
attacks from slightly under the note
and this compromised intonation recurs
though it’s not overly problematic if
you listen through it. It’s a young
man’s performance from the teaky middle
voicings to the fast upper ones, and
he imparts tremendous varieties of colour
and characterisation in the second movement
– it becomes a kaleidoscopic character
study in his hands in effect. This narrative
gift serves him well – the fervour is
unceasing and the graph of the movement
is charted with feverish intensity.
Certainly some tone production in the
finale can be a touch glassy but he
slashes into the harmonics and drives
to the final bars with panache. It’s
certainly not one for patrician Sibelians
or those who admire Anja Ignatius’s
wartime recording but the world can
encompass a wide range of readings and
this is certainly one of those.
There are some virtuoso
warhorses here as well but let me just
draw your attention to La Campanella,
the piano accompanied version that seems
to be derived from a 1950 78 disc. I
say seems because whilst there’s
no evidence that any air checks are
here it sounds like one; it’s certainly
by a long chalk the worst recorded of
all these pieces. And yet it’s also
the most outrageous. Cramped and congested
though it may be and with quite a deal
of overload Sitkovetsky unleashes the
most astounding example of bowing I’ve
heard in many a long, long year, the
results of which can be compared to
the whinnying of an agitated horse cloned
with the time-lapse accelerated sound
of a flock of starlings. Outrageous.
I note he doesn’t dare replicate this
in the orchestra-accompanied version,
also here.
In Malaguena his tone
is not especially attractive – it’s
unusually tense and hoarsely over wrought
as if he lacked the sensitivity to inflect
subtly. Technically though he’s approaching
the Kogan class as he is in Habanera,
which is despatched with incredible
panache though once again – his fatal
flaw – with smeary lower strings and
an air of almost incipient vulgarity.
With his wife Bella Davidovich he recorded
Mozart’s Sonata K378, a relaxed and
leisurely Old School performance. Attractively
limpid to begin with one notices as
the performance develops a tendency
to overplay accompanying figures in
time honoured virtuoso fashion and a
rather limited arsenal of inflections.
It sounds rather one-dimensional. Compare
older Mozartians such as Goldberg, with
Lupu, or Shumsky with Balsam; both violinists
were very much older than the Russian
but recorded their Mozart sonata cycles
a long while after his death. And both
were sensitive, true chamber players.
So not everything is
equally convincing in this, the first
of what I hope will be an extensive
and comprehensive edition of Sitkovetsky’s
Melodiya recordings. If so we can look
forward to the Glazunov Concerto with
Kondrashin and the Lyapunov with Gorohakov,
as well as Bach’s Partita No.2, his
quartet work (with Sharoyev, Barshai
and Slobodkin – Beethoven and Shostakovich),
some Rakov, the Shostakovich-Tsiganov
Preludes, Tartini’s Devil’s Trill and
Ysaÿe’s Sixth Sonata, as well as
much else. Note; the third (La Campanella)
movement in this volume with Mark Pavermann
conducting is extracted from the complete
recording on Melodiya D1089/90 –so it
looks as if we won’t be getting that
complete. Otherwise it’s a warm, generous
welcome to these well engineered and
DSD transferred discs. More please –
and soon.
Jonathan Woolf
USSR State Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mark
Pavermann (Paganini) 
