AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

Cisco Impex - LSC-2577  - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - AAA 100% Analogue

Both of these reissue LPs are worth your hard earned money. The sound of both is excellent - just about as good as it gets on reissue LPs. You won't be disappointed. Postive Feedback

This Impex LP was remastered by Kevin Gray and Robert Pincus, using pure analogue components only, from the original analogue studio tapes through to the cutting head and was pressed on 180-gram virgin vinyl at RTI.    

RCA LSC-2577 - Beethoven "Kreutzer" Sonata with Jascha Heifetz and Brooks Smith and the J. S. Bach Concerto for Two Violins (BWV 1043) with Erick Friedman and Sir Malcolm Sargent conducting the New Symphony of London

The "Kreutzer" Violin Sonata is the most famous of all of Beethoven's violin sonatas. This is primarily due to the emotion, the angst contained in the presto of the first movement. That first presto of the "Kreutzer" expresses Beethoven's despair and inner turmoil caused by his realization that he had lost his six year fight with deafness and that he would never hear again. Never before in chamber music had such depth of emotion, such agitation, been expressed. This presto would forever divide the old, refined, polite, aristocratic world of chamber music from the new world of emotions and feelings—of chamber music for the masses. One year later, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, the "Eroica", would accomplished the same thing - introducing deeply felt emotions into symphonic music.

By today's standards the depth of emotion expressed in the "Kreutzer" is not unusual. Thus, it is difficult for us to see the division of chamber music between the polite background chamber music of ‘before Kreutzer' and the emotionally involving chamber music of ‘after Kreutzer'. Beethoven wrote the "Kreutzer" in 1803. In 1889, Leo Tolstoy wrote a short novel entitled The Kreutzer Sonata . Tolstoy said regarding the "Kreutzer":

"How can that first presto be played in a drawing-room among ladies in low-necked dresses? To hear that played, to clap a little, and then to eat ices and talk of the latest scandal? Such things should only be played on certain important significant occasions, and then only when certain actions answering to such music are wanted."

Eighty-six years after the "Kreutzer" was written a non-musician like Tolstoy was able discern that there was something immensely different about the "Kreutzer" and the polite chamber music that was still being played at musical recitals.

As the most famous of Beethoven's violin sonatas, the "Kreutzer" as been recorded many times over the years. On LSC-2577 you have the pairing of Jascha Heiftez, violin, and Brooks Smith, piano. There is no question that Heifetz was the most technically brilliant of all of the violinists recorded in the 20th century. His fans are legion and they will be immensely pleased with this new Cisco reissue. This is Heifetz at his jaw-dropping best with superb RCA sound. That being said, I had a discussion with Robert Pinkus at Cisco records regarding his choice of this particular recording of the "Kreutzer". Brooks Smith is not a Rubenstein, Ashkenazy, or Argerich. If you listen to the Szeryng/Rubinstein performance recorded by RCA a year earlier on LSC-2377 you readily hear the difference a great pianist can make to this sonata. Not that I particularly like the Szeryng/Rubinstein. Both LSC-2377 and LSC-2577 in my estimation lack the emotional impact that the presto demands. This is Beethoven. This is music that is meant to be felt in our inner core. To my taste, the 1973 Perlman/Ashkenazy on Decca/London or the 1998 Perlman/Argerich on EMI are more emotionally satisfying. However, that is just me. I am sure that others will agree with Robert that LSC-2577 is a wonderful performance. I will agree that the sheer brilliance of Heifetz's playing is a marvel well worth the price of this reissue LP.

Coupled with the "Kreutzer" is a very nice performance of Bach's Concerto for Two Violins. There are a number of fine performances of the Double Concerto. The Perlman/Zukerman, Szeryng/Rybar, and David and Igor Oistrahk are three of the more famous recordings. I find the Heiftez/Friedman to be just as satisfying. BWV 1043 is a real crowd pleaser. I just wish Bach had written a few more pages of music for it.