These are significant
additions to the discography of the sadly short-lived Rabin,
better known for his virtuoso fireworks in Paganini and
the flashier repertoire in the book. In fact he had long
been an adherent of the Fauré sonata, a piece he’d been
performing since his teens, and with which he was certainly
no stranger when he came to broadcast it in Berlin in 1961
by the time he was twenty-five. His accompanist here, as
in the 1962 Beethoven G major, was Lothar Broddack, a very
diligent though not especially inspiring musician from the
sound of things.
The Fauré doesn’t
show Rabin in quite such scintillating form, tonally and
expressively, as one can hear elsewhere. His tone isn’t
hard-pressed, it’s true, but he certainly doesn’t go in
for the kind of battery of inflections that his hero Heifetz
espoused in this work when he recorded it in the 1930s (on
Biddulph). Similarly he doesn’t modify and mould the lyric
line with as much sensitivity as Grumiaux (try the Crossley
recording which I admire most of the violinist’s traversals
of it). Though he does lavish some well-calibrated bigger
tone on the second subject quite a bit of his passagework
generally is very straightforward and rather plain. With
a rather undifferentiated slow movement, more than a bit
hard toned as well, we have a few intonational blips - though
he does bring out some finger position changes that impart
vibrancy and intensity to some of the playing. Oddly for
such a wonderful player his scherzo sounds a touch rushed
in places, even though it’s the same tempo that Grumiaux
and Crossley take; the distinguishing feature is that the
Belgian’s articulation is the finer. The piano action is
rather nosily evident in the finale where chewy playing
from Rabin doesn’t compensate for some unrelaxed phrasing.
The Beethoven
receives in many ways a far more unproblematic interpretation
though there’s not a great deal in it that rivets attention,
even from a player of Rabin’s class. In terms of stylistic
matters it receives an acceptable traversal though the central
movement is certainly not slow – more a Rosand tempo than
a Perlman. But whilst the finale is quite buoyant one is
left with a feeling that nothing especially distinctive
has been said. The fill-up is in the context a pleasant
anomaly; a Bell Telephone Hour three-minute snippet of an
orchestrally accompanied Paganini Caprice from 1950, Rabin’s
youth. Despite the mushy recording and the syrupy accompaniment
we can still hear Rabin’s dazzling affinity for the repertoire.
I began by saying
that this issue is valuable for the preserved radio recordings
because they represent items otherwise absent from Rabin’s
meagre discography. I’ll reinforce that even though the
performances are in some ways disappointing. What’s not
at stake is the fine work Doremi have demonstrated in making
these performances widely available for the first time.
Jonathan
Woolf
Michael Rabin (violin)
