Jascha Heifetz - Double Concertos: Bach, Mozart, Brahms (2006)

A smart concept smartly executed, this disc called Heifetz: Double Concertos features the great violinist dueting with three different string soloists in three different concerts from three different periods. How well it works is a matter of taste. In all three works, Heifetz lives up to his reputation for brilliance: slashing in Bach's Concerto for two violins in D minor, elegant in Mozart's Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola in E flat, and sternly passionate in Brahms' Double for violin and cello in A minor. Performing with the dashing Erick Friedman and the New Symphony Orchestra of London under Malcolm Sargent in the 1961 Bach, the velvet-toned William Primrose and the RCA Symphony under Izler Solomon in the 1956 Mozart, and the magnificent Gregor Piatigorsky and the RCA Symphony under Alfred Wallenstein in the 1960 Brahms, Heifetz is by no means an accommodating partner, but rather an assertive, nearly belligerent opponent challenging his partners to keep up with him. But while Friedman is sometimes overpowered by Heifetz and Primrose adopts strategies to accommodate the overbearing violinist, Piatigorsky pushes back right, daring Heifetz to keep up with him, and the result, remastered here in splendid super audio sound, is perhaps the most combative performances of Brahms' Double Concerto ever recorded.