Joseph Szigeti has not the spritual embodied respiration of Szeryng, no one has anyway, he was not a virtusoso like the god Heifetz, his tone dont have the perfect transparency or sun-light quality of a Milstein or a Grumiaux...
But why a so powerful, expressive, sometimes " unclean" tone, tear our heart apart, when listening this Bach interpretation with a powerful rythmic constrasted almost unbalanced control like someone walking near an abyss, on par with the best violonist, but so personal that it was completely unheard before or after...Nobody among all violonist nowadays will dare to play like that in a so risky dance on one leg sometimes and near the fall....
Perhaps the less " perfect" of all versions i love, but one of the most expressive one and one which sound like a complete improvisation....
And this explain perhaps why : " In 1923 Ysaÿe set about composing his most extraordinary music: the Six Solo Violin Sonatas, op.27. It was a recital by Joseph Szigeti of Bach’ sonatas and partitas that set Ysaÿe on the path to composing these works."
«Imperfection is the peak» René Char
The Vanguard people like Japan with Ervin Nyiregyházi clean very well the old recording with the best possible audiophile sound mix...One of the less known great Bach interpretation...These two hungarian masters, one on violin the other on piano, had something in common in their "sound" and expressive movement, they never practice to be better they only play the more powerfully they could...Volcanos never study or practice before eruption...
At the end music is a complete mystery and any musician is unique and incomparable, but in love like in music we must chose one god, one wife, or one mistress, and many friends....
