Stephen_Murray's Full Review: Heifetz, Rubinstein, Feuermann- Beethoven, Schuber...
I'm not at all sure why I listen to so little chamber music. I listen more to solo violin, solo cello, or solo piano than I do to chamber music and much more to concerti for any of those three instruments and orchestra. I own the complete Bartók string quartets, the complete Shostakovich string quartets, and a couple of CDs of Beethoven string quartets that I have played through once, a recording of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet with his "Death and the Maiden Quartet' and half a dozen recordings of the Kronos Quartet playing "exotic' music with indigenous musicians that I have played a few times. The only one that has made it onto my regular playlist is the Kronos Quartet's 1992 "Pieces of Africa" disc (with seven African composers/performers) and I consider this more "world music" than "string quartet."
Though I played both piano and violin in high school and sometimes accompanied friends (in private) taking the part of the orchestra reduced to piano for violin and for clarinet concerti, I never played in a trio or a quartet. There are certainly opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area for me to hear live performances of chamber music, but I don't avail myself of them... or even spin the chamber music discs I have at home.
As a child I had an "RCA Vault Treasure' recording from 1941 of the first Schubert piano trio played by "the God of the violin," Jascha Heifetz (1901-87), the very celebrated Romantic pianist Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982), and cellist Emanuel Fuermann (1902-42) who was highly regarded by other cellists but whose life was cut short by a fatal infection after minor surgery eight months after the recording was made. (Obviously, he did not live into the era of stereo recordings, as Heifetz and Rubinstein triumphantly did.)
The Schubert Piano Trio, opus 99, is the one chamber recording that I grew up with. No doubt, I heard other chamber music, but this is the piece that stuck.
Searching to see if the recording was available on CD. As a worshipper at the Heifetz cult (since I was a junior-high beginning violinist), I was discomfited that where I found it was on the twelfth disc of a 94-disc Rubinstein Collection. Heifetz would bristle, and I did for him, but ordered it, nonetheless.
On the CD, the Schubert is preceded by probably the most famous piano trio, Beethoven's "Archduke" trio (his seventh). Beethoven was a pianist who wrote music, including five piano concerti, to showcase his own performing, and the piano seems predominant in the "Archduke" trio, opus 97. I like better the piano accompanying the strings in Schubert's piano trio. The violin announces the first theme in the Schubert, the piano in the Beethoven.
I think that both pieces run on too long, though I prefer the melodies and development of the (well-remembered) Schubert more. The elegant burnished tone of all three musicians is remarkably clear in the digital remastering of both recordings from the 12th and 13th of September 1941.
The liner notes are all about the tensions during the recordings between the perfectionist Heifetz, his acolyte, and the somewhat pranksterish Rubinstein. Rubinstein complained about Heifetz overmiking, and the sound engineers had to turn off the piano mike in order to hear the cello over the heavy pedal-foot of Rubinstein. They achieved balance whether in opposition to the divas (Rubinstein and Heifetz, not Feurmann who was in awe of Heifetz, new to America, younger, and less established on the international concert stage than the pianist and violinist were).
I don't know from other performances or recordings how either piano trio is "'spozed to sound,' but I really cannot imagine any trio improving on the Schubert recording. I am not as imprinted on the Beethoven, but it also offers great artists at the peak of their abilities. Heifetz seems to have provided a Beethovian drive (insistent forward thrust) to the Schubert, while Rubinstein provided a lightness that seems more Schubertian (or Mozartean) than Beethovian to the Allegro moderato third movement of the Beethoven. (The finale of the Beethoven also has a Mozartean lightness and speed, showing Rubinstein's virtuosity in playing many notes in rapid succession.)
Bright and melodic as both piano trios are, even a legendary great performance does not incline me to seek out more chamber music. if it is an acquired taste, I have yet to acquire it. The Schubert is an exception (as the Romantic violin concerti were when I avoided Romantic music, which is evidence that I sometimes broaden my tastes).
Anyone who appreciates great violin, cello, and piano playing and their blending should have this disc, and it might well appeal to others who rarely listen to chamber music.
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