Milstein, 120
Daily Comfort ZoneThose of us old enough to hear Nathan Milstein in our youth will never forget the sound, the charm, the sheer joie de vivre of a violinist who made the greatest of his rivals seem cold and showy.
A Jewish prodigy from Odessa, born in 1904, Milstein was allowed to leave Russia in 1925 with his friend Vladimir Horowitz as ambassadors of the Bolshevik revolution. While Horowitz was an instant hit in Berlin and New York, Milstein was a slow burner, one for the connoisseurs. He lived life at his own tempo and played into his 80s.
I probably learned more about music from Milstein than any other performing artist I have met.
Here‘s a fine assessment by Robert Levin on violin.com.
I may add some reminiscences of my own tomorrow.
The first time we worked together, my mother flew into St. Louis to attend the performance. At dinner afterward, Milstein learned that she was the first cellist for the show Dallas. That is all he wanted to talk about the whole evening.
What a privilege to have conducted for him several times. There was always something to learn.
I once found him engrossed in watching the ice-dancers Torvill and Dean on TV. ‘You can learn something from all performers,’ he said.
Is this the same Robert Levine who connected the Japanese violin child prodigy Himari with Muti? https://slippedisc.com/2024/04/berln-phil-to-feature-12-year-old-violinist/
If so, could Mr Levine explain if there is any truth to the rumour that Muti got “offended” by the child prodigy? If there is any truth to this rumor, how could Muti, an 80+ something, have gotten offended by a child? I was hoping Mr Levine could enlighten us as to the nature of the offense. Thank you
Where did you find the “rumors” you mentioned? Asking out of curiosity
Dear Chicago Musician (I believe also known on Slipped Disc as Chicago Rat),
Himari was in Chicago two months ago and attended a CSO concert with Muti on the podium. She went backstage to greet the maestro and he was absolutely delighted to see her – he could not have been more charming or pleasant. I don’t know the source of your information, but I’m afraid you are totally misinformed. Indeed, what you wrote is a most unfortunate rumor. CSO board members, if you happen to be one, should know better than to spread malicious rumors, especially if they are false!
Isaac Stern took me to a Millstein recital when we were working together because, he said, “I want you to hear what a truly great musician sounds like.”
When I worked at Salchow’s bow shop in the 80s, I asked him to autograph a copy of an old 10″ LP. “What is this?” he asked me. “Your recording of the ‘Spring Sonata,” I replied. “With Balsam?” he queried. “Yes,” I replied. “Is it any good?” he smiled.
Mr Milstein seemed to pick up the violin and play with the kind of ease us mortals use have towards brushing teeth; he was always fiddling with the fiddle, discovering a new fingering or bowing to capture the sound and expression he wanted.
I was fortunate to carry his groceries for him once when he was visiting my parents in LA in the late 70s. What a joy it was to be around someone so full of music but also so interested in everything.
It should be added that Mr Milstein studied with Ysaye as well as Auer, and although Milstein would say Ysaye paid little attention to him Milstein had certainly absorbed a lot from the rounder tone of the Belgian master. Very few violinists on record studied with both. Mr Milstein also had learned early on from Stolyarsky, noted teacher of Oistrakh and leading pedagogue of the Soviet violin school.
I often wondered what would dinner be like sitting between Ivry Gitlis and Mr Milstein.
I was lucky enough to hear Milstein three times, twice with orchestra and once in recital with (a then-young) Georges Pludermacher. The memories are incredibly strong from those long-ago evenings. I would say that Milstein was one violinist whose sound “live” was very much the sound heard on recordings — even very old ones on 78 rpm discs — and his overall approach was immediately identifiable after just a few notes. I could always guess Milstein if I happened upon a broadcast mid-piece. His tone production and exquisite bowing took extremely well to being recorded.
But early in the CD era, EMI released a multi-disc set of performances and in an effort to give the sound the “sparkle” that people evidently wanted to hear from compact discs, they really falsified Milstein’s tone in spite of the wonderful performances that set contains.
Effortless technique with every challenge and every problem having found its solution. You were never distracted by (or even noticed) any evidence of the mechanical/physical side of getting around the instrument. My teacher once heard a Milstein recital where, to his shock and the shock of his violin student friends at Indiana University, Milstein began the Bach Chaconne upbow, and kept that opposite bowing going for the entire work, yet at all times the interpretation was exactly what you’d want from Milstein. Opposite bowing of that sort is what a teacher sometimes makes the student do (or rather, try to do) just to test how deep their mastery of the work at hand really is, because it is a built-in distraction. When asked after the concert, Milstein said simply that he just felt like seeing what it would be like. Or just maybe, he knew he was playing for IU’s hotshot violin students (and their professors).
Milstein’s autobiography “From Russia to the West” (co-written with Solomon Volkov, yes, the same Volkov whose book “Testimony,” a memoir by or with Shostakovich, caused so much controversy) contains any number of fascinating stories, and some strong opinions. Just an example — the fastidious Milstein was offended and horrified by Prokofiev’s eating habits. Where else would you even read about this? One of his cousins was the famous film director Lewis Milestone, who was well established enough by the 1920s to ease Milstein’s initial approach to the US. Perhaps that relationship with his cousin is why Milstein showed so much evident interest in the more popular sides of entertainment.
Before reading that book I was unaware that Milstein had a deep love of playing chamber music on the cello. I had been aware, because Ruggiero Ricci had mentioned it in an interview, that Milstein in common with Ricci took great pleasure in playing the etudes and other works of Chopin on the violin, just for the sheer challenge of it. Nor had I been aware that it was Milstein who was one of the first to take up the then-new Stravinsky Violin Concerto after Dushkin and gave first performances in many European cities. By the time his book was written he had decidedly fallen out of love with the piece and with Stravinsky’s violin music in general, but does go on at some length about how much he liked the Berg Concerto — what a pity his record companies over the years (Columbia, RCA Victor, Capitol, EMI, DG) failed to record his interpretation. Nor have I been able to track down a broadcast. While we are blessed with two complete sets of unaccompanied Bach, there are many sonatas one would have liked to have had with him, but again his record companies let him (and us) down and there were shamefully long periods where Milstein recorded nothing for anybody, until his Indian summer affiliation with DG.
Even some very serious violin record collectors are surprised to learn that Milstein recorded several 78 rpm sides with Arthur Fiedler conducting, both commercial recordings for RCA Victor and “V Discs” for sale to US soldiers during WWII.
Milstein’s unaccompanied Bach is his monument — either set, the Capitol set on monaural LPs or the stereo DG set — but the one recording everyone HAS to hear, because it is in that rarified air of being among the greatest recordings of anything by anybody, is his Karl Goldmark Violin Concerto. Listen to Milstein’s recording and you wonder why every violinist does not play the piece, and why every orchestra does not program it every season. Then you hear another violinist’s recording (and some fine violinists have recorded it) and you say “Oh yeah. That’s why.”