In Music Sound Isn't Everything It's Only What It's Made Of

I thought I'd post a performance of Jascha Heifetz and compare it to a couple of others.  I chose the Brahms Sonata 3 op 108 (for one thing I've performed the piano part so I'm very familiar with the score) and I've posted a couple of other performances of it over the years.

Here is Heifetz rather equally matched with the younger and very great and tragically short-lived William Kapell in the first movement (you can hear the rest at Youtube).

Knowing the piece, there's nothing to fault in terms of fidelity to the score, the several instances of portamento in Heifetz's playing is, actually, typical of the playing of the period when it was written so I would almost guarantee that Brahms would have expected it, though it fell out of fashion later in the 20th century only to be reintroduced by some performers as a part of authentic performance practice.  

The sound of Heifetz's playing is gorgeous, there's no other word for that, it is refined and never rough his technique is magnificant.  Did he violate anything in the score?  Nothing I can see or hear.  Would this be my favorite recorded performance of it?  No. I'd certainly listen to with a lot of pleasure but there is something missing from the performance that you might hear from the other two performances.  I will say that I might not kill to be able to play the piano part like Kapell did but I'd think about it.  

Here is one of my favorite performances of the piece, with the great David Oistrakh, violin and one of my piano heroes, Sviatoslav Richter, piano

There is no doubt that despite the extreme beauty of Oistrakh's tone, it is not as golden and smooth as Heifetz's, the tempo isn't as fast (Brahms didn't specify a metronome marking, as I recall he officially opposed posting those).   But the performance is far deeper and far more varied, I would say that in terms of how the tone and technique is used in service to the music is far more beautiful.  In Richter's playing were're getting closer to where I'm considering murder to be able to do what he does.   Good Lord, what a great pianist he was.

Here is a recording that I had never heard until a couple of years ago by Adolph Busch and the piano player I once wished I was (and occasionally still do when I'm listening to his recordings), Rudolph Serkin.

So different.  For a start there is the tempo which is the fastest I've ever heard the fast movements of this piece played.  I noted when I posted it that both Adolph Busch and Rudolph Serkin's pedagogical history placed them far closer to both Brahms and Joseph Joachim for whom he wrote the piece and, as I recall, with whom Brahms, himself, performed it.  They learned from people who knew Brahms' playing from hearing it, from working with Brahms.  

The performance is so great, so radically spot on that the sound of Busch's playing is hardly worth mentioning for all of its beauty.  It is sound in service to the music.  The effect is terrifyingly direct, I'd go so far as to say they present you with about as direct a path to the mind, the soul of Brahms as you're likely to get.  I can't do it justice by describing it.  I'd have to listen to it a lot with the score to get used to the tempos used in the last movement but the only thing I can think to say is that it is supernatural compared to the other performances.

Update:  I couldn't find the fascinating recording of the Brahms Trio op. 87 by the Busch Trio where they were joined by Adolph Busch's brother Hermann Busch on cello but if you think the Brahms was fast, there's the first movement of Beethoven's "Ghost" Trio op. 70 that is on the flip side of the LP I have of it.

That is what I'd call "bracing".  I'd be looking for a victim if I thought committing murder would get me the ability to play like Serkin did there.

I don't do Discogs or the such, but you can find it here.