Donald Vorhees, Nathan Milstein, The Bell Telephone Orchestra & Jascha Heifetz
The Archive - J. Heifetz & N. Milstein
The Archive - J. Heifetz & N. Milstein
In this episode of ‘The Archive’ we see two of the greatest Russian violinists, Jascha Heifetz and Nathan Milstein, who both studied in St Petersburg with the famous Leopold Auer. At six, child prodigy Jascha Heifetz first performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, his favourite concerto. Here we see him in 1949, performing the first movement with the Bell Telephone Orchestra conducted by Donald Voorhees, in the USA. The rest of the program is devoted to Nathan Milstein, whose favourite composer was Bach. He performs the Chaconne from Bach’s second Partita in this 1969 recording. It is followed by ‘Paganiniana’, his famous arrangement of Paganini’s ‘Caprices’. In 1957, he recorded Caprices No. 11 in C major and No. 5 in A minor by Paganini in the BBC studios, followed by De Falla’s ‘Suite populaire espagnole’, transcribed by Kochanski, as well as Novácek’s ‘Perpetuum mobile’. In all these works, Milstein is accompanied by Ernest Lush on the piano.