[78-L] heifetz

[DAVID BURNHAM]

To me, the most hair-raising Heifetz recording ever made was "La Ronde des Lutins", particularly the first acoustic recording.  He nails every run, every harmonic and, having just listened to a couple of You Tube performances by Vengerov and Perlman, you can hear how these very accomplished violinists bury handfulls of wrong notes in the rapid clusters.  Listen to the acoustic Heifetz and forget about anything Heifetz would have become in later years.  Try to appreciate that you're hearing a 15 or 16 year old boy, who could have missed a lot of the runs and still would have been impressive, and wonder at the shear perfection of the performance, the harmonics are flawless and sound effortless.  Heifetz' later recordings of this work are no less exciting but youth is no longer an element.

db