Jascha Heifetz’s celebrated position as one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century seems unassailable. Along with that of Fritz Kreisler, his name is associated with the evolution of the instrument’s technique and style in the first half of the century. Famed though Heifetz was for his extraordinary reliability and dazzling technique, his reputation nonetheless suffered slightly from intimations that he was a rather uninvolved player. Early in his career, he attended a gathering of several notable players in a private house in Berlin where he gave a performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with Kreisler at the piano; Kreisler commented to the other violinists present: ‘We may as well break our fiddles across our knees.’ Upon Heifetz’s London début in 1920 at the Queen’s Hall (having already sold 70,000 recordings in the UK) Bernard Shaw wrote to him, remarking: ‘Your recital has filled me and my wife with anxiety. If you provoke a jealous God by playing with such superhuman perfection, you will die young. I earnestly advise you to play something badly every night before going to bed, instead of saying your prayers. No mortal should presume to play so faultlessly.’

After initial training by his father, Heifetz attended the Vilna School of Music (under the direction of Elias Malkin, a former pupil of Leopold Auer). Later he went to Auer himself as the youngest member of his class in St Petersburg and remains one of Auer’s best-known pupils.

Heifetz’s own teaching engagements were both exacting and sporadic. Erick Friedman became his first regular pupil in 1957, cancelling a large number of concert engagements to take up intensive study with him which was given free of charge. Heifetz undoubtedly transformed Friedman’s playing and moulded him in his own image in terms of interpretation (he reputedly never imposed his own technical methods upon others), eventually paying him the greatest of compliments by inviting him to record Bach’s Double Violin Concerto (the only recording of the work made by Heifetz in which he is partnered by another violinist, Heifetz famously having otherwise recorded both parts himself ). From 1962–1972 he was Professor of Violin at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Well known for being methodical in his preparation, Heifetz was noted for remaining consistent in his interpretation (rather in the manner of Rachmaninov as a pianist) as opposed to the older tendency towards spontaneity in each performance. In this sense his approach can be seen as the antithesis to Joachim’s (although via Auer he had a linked pedagogic lineage). He recorded remarkably widely, his first commercial discs being made in 1917. Early accounts of Heifetz’s playing whilst still in St Petersburg c.1910 reveal that he had already acquired something of his distinctively penetrating and devastatingly accurate tone. His recordings show amazing technique, as well as a highly influential style of playing: accurate to the letter of the musical score, sweetened by an intense and (some might argue) rather too regular vibrato. Claims for his modernity can however be overstated. His use of portamento throughout his career (uniquely linked to a fast accentual vibrato which came to be termed the ‘Heifetz slide’) sounds unfamiliar to today’s ears even though, as in the case of recordings by the actor John Gielgud, it is remarkable how little his tone varied throughout his life. Many readers will find it surprising that Heifetz played on gut strings throughout his career, the sound he desired being achieved with a silver-wound gut G, plain gut D and A, and a ‘Goldbrokat’ steel E.

Heifetz’s discography is so large it is hard to do it justice here in so small a space. This said, his playing has a notable consistency that makes generalisation rather less problematic. His distinctive style – the tautness of sound, with regular but generally well-controlled vibrato; his frequent employment of a distinctive portamento, quite different from those employed by violinists of the nineteenth century – enlivens many cantabile passages, and his peerless agility and intonation are remarkable even by today’s standards. Much of this sound, however, admits relatively little variation, so that in truth one is hearing Heifetz first and the composition as a mere vehicle. This works better in some contexts than others. The Bach and Mozart concertos selected here (including a famous 1946 recording of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with Heifetz playing both parts) seem comparatively un-nuanced to our modern ears. His 1951 performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 is typical in its rather steely character, although the finale is taken in a poised and stately fashion. The 1939 and 1956 recordings of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto show a little change in style: the earlier recording is fastidious but tonally subtle; the later employs a harder, perhaps more brash sound. The extent to which this perception is the result of changing recording technology or Heifetz’s own advancing years is debatable (similar traits mar later Elman discs as well, but to a much greater extent). For me, though, Heifetz’s recorded performances of Franck’s Violin Sonata (1937) and Walton’s Violin Concerto (1941) are masterly. Here his sound, (which one might describe as that of an iron fist in a velvet glove) seems more appropriate; from the tough yet mysterious opening of the Walton to the laconic performance of Franck’s first movement it is counterpoised throughout by an electric, if tightly controlled, sense of excitement.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Milsom (A–Z of String Players, Naxos 8.558081-84)

Each year since its founding in 1919, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been hailed as Southern California’s leading performing arts institution. Today, under the dynamic leadership of Gustavo Dudamel the Philharmonic is recognised as one of the world’s outstanding orchestras. Both at home and abroad it has, as the Berliner Zeitung stated, “…proved that it belongs among the best in the United States.”

This is a view shared by the more than one million Southern Californians who experience performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic each year. There is a 30-week winter subscription season at Walt Disney Concert Hall and a 12-week summer festival at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, where “Music Under the Stars” has been a popular tradition since 1922.

But the orchestra’s involvement with Los Angeles extends far beyond regular symphony concerts in a concert hall. It embraces the schools, churches, and neighborhood centers of a huge and vastly diverse community. In fact, the Los Angeles Philharmonic devotes much of its energy and resources to ensuring that its presence is felt in every corner of Los Angeles.

The Philharmonic owes its birth to William Andrews Clark, Jr., a multi-millionaire and amateur musician, who established the city’s first permanent symphony orchestra in 1919. The 94 musicians of the new ensemble met for their first rehearsal Monday morning, October 13 of that year, under the direction of Walter Henry Rothwell, whom Clark had brought from the St Paul (Minnesota) Symphony Orchestra. Eleven days later, Rothwell conducted the orchestra’s première performance before a capacity audience of 2,400 at Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. Following its opening season in 1919–1920, the orchestra made Philharmonic Auditorium, on the northeast corner of Fifth and Olive, its home for the next 44 years. Mr Rothwell remained the orchestra’s music director until his death in 1927. Since then, ten renowned conductors have served in that capacity: Georg Schnéevoigt (1927–1929), Artur Rodzinski (1929–1933), Otto Klemperer (1933–1939), Alfred Wallenstein (1943–1956), Eduard van Beinum (1956–1959), Zubin Mehta (1962–1978), Carlo Maria Giulini  (1978–1984), André Previn (1985–1989) and Esa-Pekka Salonen (1992–2009); and Gustavo Dudamel (2009–present).

Since its first season, the Philharmonic has made downtown Los Angeles its winter home. It was in December 1964 that it began its residency at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center of Los Angeles County.

In the fall of 2003, the Philharmonic took up residence in the acoustically superb, stunning Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall—the fourth performing venue in the Music Center complex. At the same time, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association vastly increased the number of concerts it presents during the winter season, which now includes jazz, world music, organ recitals, Baroque concerts, holiday programs, and much more.

William Steinberg was clear about the future direction of his life from an early age: when he was only thirteen years old he conducted his own setting for chorus and orchestra of excerpts from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in addition to being active as a pianist and violinist. He studied piano, theory and conducting at the Cologne Conservatory, where his tutors included Hermann Abendroth, and graduated in 1919, winning the Wüllner Prize for conducting. He immediately joined the Cologne Orchestra as a second violinist, only to be dismissed by Otto Klemperer for using his own bowings. Shortly afterwards however Klemperer took him on as an unpaid assistant, and in June 1922 he conducted Halévy’s La Juive at short notice. Promoted to the post of principal conductor at Cologne in 1924, during the following year Steinberg succeeded Zemlinsky at the German Theatre in Prague; and after making his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the beginning of 1929 he was appointed chief conductor of the Frankfurt Opera. Here he led the first performances of George Antheil’s Transatlantic and Schoenberg’s Von Heute auf Morgen, as well as the local premières of Berg’s Wozzeck and Weill’s Aufsteig und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. In addition he appeared regularly in Berlin at the Staatsoper.

As a result of the assumption of power by the Nazi party in 1933 Steinberg was sacked from his post in Frankfurt, but was permitted to conduct for the Jewish Culture League. He became chief conductor of the Berlin branch of this organization in 1936, the year in which he managed to leave Germany, travelling to Palestine by way of Antwerp, Stockholm and Vienna, in each of which he enjoyed success as a conductor. In Palestine he took charge of the orchestra formed by his colleague the violinist Bronislaw Huberman and prepared it for concerts with Toscanini at the end of 1936, as well as conducting it from 1937: Toscanini was sufficiently impressed with Steinberg’s work to invite him to take over from Rodzinski as assistant conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York. Steinberg first conducted this orchestra during June 1938 and broadcast with it until the end of 1940.

Helped by colleagues from Europe, such as the brothers Adolf and Fritz Busch, Steinberg soon began to gain guest engagements in America: he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941 and the New York Philharmonic in 1943, and served as permanent guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1944 to 1948, alongside Pierre Monteux. On Toscanini’s recommendation he was appointed as chief conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in 1945. Referring to himself during his period with the orchestra, 1945 to 1953, as ‘Buffalo Bill’, having already taken American citizenship in 1944, he recruited many players from Europe and through his relentless demand for impeccable performance he raised the standard of the orchestra significantly, as may be heard in its first recording, that of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 ‘Leningrad’.

Steinberg’s success in Buffalo established his name as a conductor of note in the USA, and in 1952 he was appointed to his most significant position, as chief conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He remained with this orchestra effectively for the rest of his life, until 1976, and, to quote the critic Richard Freed, it was he who gave it ‘definition’. In addition to his work in Pittsburgh he also held several other important posts, as chief conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1958–1960), principal guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1966–1968), and chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1969–1972), by which time he was already suffering from poor health.

Steinberg expressed his vision of the ideal artistic interpreter eloquently in print in 1965: ‘I think it is only he who is capable of making the work speak entirely for itself, who, besides integrity, possesses all implied spiritual traits and virtues of character which he polishes in the furnace of intuition and inspiration, and he who can muster enough modesty to hide himself from the eyes of a crowd craving to be entertained or provoked.’ As a conductor he shared the philosophy of Toscanini in that it was the conductor’s first responsibility to reveal as far as possible the intentions of the composer without any personal gloss. At his best he was held to possess an exemplary command of the baton in terms of clarity and precision and his recordings faithfully reflect his straightforward, uncluttered and deeply considered approach to performance.

For the Capitol label Steinberg made numerous recordings with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; these included powerful accounts of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathétique’, as well as eloquent readings of two excerpts from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. His support for the contemporary music of his lifetime is well exemplified by his recordings of Vaughan Williams’s Five Tudor Portraits (an unusual recording taken from a live concert), Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony and the Symphony No. 3 of Ernst Toch, commissioned and first performed by Steinberg in 1955 and notable for its highly unusual orchestration, including a ‘hisser’, a tank of carbon dioxide which produces sound by the release of a valve, and a contraption filled with wooden balls set in motion by a rotating crank.

After the orchestra’s relationship with Capitol and EMI ended it made a number of excellent ‘audiophile’ recordings for the Command Classics label, several of which show Steinberg and the Pittsburghers at their very considerable best. These included the complete symphonies of Brahms, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2, and Stravinsky’s Petrushka. During his short time with the Boston Symphony Orchestra Steinberg made a number of recordings for RCA and Deutsche Grammophon. These included typically strong-boned accounts of Holst’s The Planets, Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, and the Symphonies No. 6 of Bruckner and No. 9 ‘Great C major’ of Schubert. A vivid image of Steinberg’s character as a musician has been given by one of his players in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra: ‘He was giving something to the people, handing it gently to them, beautifully.’

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).