[78-L] Enesco plays Bach^

[Howard Friedman]

Dave,

Sentiment's fine, but for schmalz I'll take Lehar, Kalman, and Strauss.  There's nothing like a good old fashioned Hungarian czardas to make one's blood boil and one's skin tingle.  Especially when sung by someone like Ljuba Welitch.    And again, sentiment is fine, but Kreisler in his later years '30's, i.e., was positively maudlin.  He should have been accompanying Granma Schumann-Heink at that period, she was in the same category.  My goodness, did these great performers of the first two decades of the last century make such poor investments that hey had to work into their 60's and 70's?  Horszowski, Stocki, and Toscanini were still playing and working into their 90's, but they were still magnificent!

And if you really want sentiment and schmalz, try a few of Chaliapin's Russian folksongs, unaccompanied, of course!  Or even Lawrence Welk!

And Jazzwise, Venuti did absolutely nothing for me.  Guess I'll stick to Louis, Charlie Christian, and (if you really want sentiment) Lady Day.  Now there's sentiment.  Each not practically drips with tears!

As I have said and will say again,  chacun à son goût, but of course the diacritical marks never do get through in these exchanges.  Someone ought to fix that!

Howard