Like several other composers from central Europe who left a troubled continent
in the 1930s, the Hungarian Miklós Rózsa turned to writing music
for films to make a living in his adopted countries. It was Arthur
Honegger who suggested to Rózsa that he consider this path when
the Hungarian arrived in Paris in 1931. From Paris, Rózsa went to London where he wrote his first
film score – for compatriot Alexander Korda’s Knight Without
Armour in 1936. In 1940 Rózsa was on the move again, accompanying
Korda to California, where he would remain
for the rest of his life. Rózsa became the most sought after and
highly regarded composer in Hollywood and composed more than
100 film scores between 1940 and 1981. Among his most notable
films were the Academy Award-winning Spellbound (1945)
– which bore the famous Spellbound Concerto – A Double
Life (1948) and Ben Hur (1959), as well as others such
as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Ivanhoe (1952), El
Cid (1961) and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1981).
Such was Rózsa’s
success in Hollywood that he took-off around three months of
every year to devote time to his ‘serious’ compositions. As
well as other émigré composers, Rózsa rubbed shoulders with
the great soloists of the time such as Jascha Heifetz and Gregor
Piatigorsky. Rózsa approached Heifetz about writing a violin
concerto for him, despite Schoenberg’s earlier lack of success
in having Heifetz play his new concerto once it was complete.
It was written very quickly – in six weeks during 1952. Heifetz
obviously liked the new concerto and advised Rózsa on some of
the finer points of the solo violin writing. The Concerto was
finally performed in Dallas on 15 January 1956, with Heifetz’s
famous – and, until the early 1990s, rather lonely – recording
following soon afterwards. This is a very welcome issue; especially
at Naxos’s budget price. It presents two of Rózsa’s most dramatic
and idiomatic concerto works in full-blooded performances and
with a recording to match.
The Violin Concerto
is cast in three substantial movements very much in the mould
of a great Romantic concerto such as the Brahms. Rózsa’s Hungarian
roots are discernible throughout and this beautiful, lyrical
work reminded me somewhat of a Magyar Barber Violin Concerto,
with which it shares a wonderful melodic fluidity and sense
of purpose. The soloist here is Anastasia Khitruk, a Russian
émigré now living in the USA. She plays no second fiddle to
the great Heifetz; hers is a big, warm tone, spot-on intonation
and great musicianship. She is more than a match for Rózsa’s
big-boned Concerto and its expansive lyrical writing.
The Sinfonia Concertante
for Violin and Cello followed in 1958, written for again Heifetz
and additionally Gregor Piatigorsky. However, it was not greeted
with the same enthusiasm by Heifetz as the Violin Concerto,
complaining that the cello had more of the limelight than the
violin. Rózsa reworked the piece – even composing an entirely
new slow movement – but Heifetz never warmed to it and the pair
for whom the Sinfonia Concertante was written never performed
it. Ironically, they did perform and record the original slow
movement (a theme and variations) with Jean Martinon and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra. One of the things which rankled
with Heifetz was that the cello is the first of the soloists
to be heard in each of the Sinfonia Concertante’s three movements;
albeit in the last movement with only a brief run leading to
the solo violinist’s first theme. Even in its revised state
one feels the presence of the cello more strongly than that
of the violin and one can only wonder about the effect that
Piatigorsky would have had on the part. The cellist who joins
Anastasia Khitruk here is Andrey Tchekmazov, who doesn’t seem
to have any other CDs in the catalogue, despite his obvious
mastery of his instrument.
The Russian Philharmonic
Orchestra under its conductor Dmitry Yablonsky plays excellently
throughout and is well served by its Russian sound team. Although
recorded in a studio, the sound has an openness and warmth that
one would normally expect from a concert hall, allowing Rózsa’s
music to resonate as it needs to.
Derek
Warby
see
also Review
by Kevin Sutton
Anastasia Khitruk
(violin); Andrey Tchekmazov (cello) 
