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....

I can believe the never practice alright. I love Vanguard but I pass

on this .

When I read of the past greats not practicing all I can think of is what a lot of missed opportunities to be even greater than what they were because of lack of practice. Milstein was an inveterate practicer who always said I owe it to my public to be at the top of my game because the people in the cheap seats have paid a lot of money ( to them ) to come and hear me. Heifetz was exactly the same , he also practiced a lot , even as an old man. When Segovia said the immortal words that John Williams was touched by the hand of God , Williams said he may have said that but he also told me to practice as if there was no time left in the world.

Wonderful article that explain what i listened to and why....Thanks frogman...

I understand better why i love him so much now WITHOUT being able to explain the shift from some perceived relative perfection and cleanliness in many other interpretations to the Szigeti spoken words in sentence where each word is destabilizing like a passionate love poem or like a discourse near an abyss before dying...

Thanks for this article so moving.... And now i can learn to listen to him in a new light....

This article confirm what i wrote: he never practice to reach a sound perfect for itself but he played like we speak to reach the more truthful articulation between "words"....

More than ever i think that this interpretation ressemble more of an improvisation and a volcanic eruption than to a beautiful perfect object...Like when someone speak we must read between the line to understand....And anyway human speech is too complex mystery to be understood completely in the deep , music is the same and linked to language like Szigeti taught it...Sometimes beauty only for itself deceived us but spoken words are always a window into the soul....

By the way i NEVER said that this interpretation was the BEST there is...

I said that i dont understand why this interpretation was so much powerful...

When we listen music like a child for the first time forgetting or putting aside our learned taste, we are ready then to open ourself to discovery...

There is no better at the end, only powerful suprizing meaninful new worlds of expression...

Music is not only object to be idolized for their perfection but gesture inviting us to a new kind of participation...

“For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

« At a deep level every word and every chord is an angel»-Anonymus Smith