The Heifetz Collection

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A documentary film by Bruno Monsaingeon devoted to the 20th century's greatest violinists, The Art of Violin really cannot be faulted. The same, incidentally, can also be said of the similar volumes that cover the piano and singing, so there's never been a better time to collect a personal audio-visual archive of some wonderful historical performers. The added dimension provided by the painstakingly collected film material (here featuring no fewer than 20 outstanding soloists Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, David Oistrakh, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, and Eugene Ysaye) is of exceptional value when observing violin technique, and the diversity of approaches presented here in loving detail is in itself a subject for endless comparison.

Existing fans of violinist Joshua Bell are already well-acquainted with the broad scope of repertoire and performance abilities ranging deftly from the classical concerto repertoire to his well-known collaborations with Edgar Meyer. For those unfamiliar with Bell's recorded works, this two-disc set of The Essential Joshua Bell provides quite a comprehensive overview of his wide-ranging talents. Of course, it could also be argued that if one movement of a concerto is "essential," so too should be the rest of the movements.

Salvatore Accardo gave his first professional recital in 1954 at the age of 13, in a programme that included Paganini Capricci. In 1956, when he was 15, Accardo won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 became the first winner of the Paganini Competition in Genoa. His vast repertoire ranges from pre-Bach to post-Berg; composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla and Xenakis have written for him…

Hailed as ‘the Jascha Heifetz of our day’ (The Globe and Mail, Canada), the violinist James Ehnes is widely considered one of the most dynamic and exciting performers in classical music, appearing regularly with the world’s finest orchestras and conductors. Accompanied here by the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda, Ehnes is the soloist in Bartók’s two violin concertos in which he plays the ‘Marsick’ Stradivarius of 1715, as well as in the viola concerto, performing on the ‘Rolla’ Giuseppe Guadagnini viola of 1793, on loan from the Fulton Collection.

The greatest cellist of his time, and a man of enormous generosity and charisma, Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007) became an influential figure in the world’s culture. Composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Britten numbered among his many friends, and his mastery of traditional repertoire was matched by his passion for new music. Exiled from the Soviet Union in the 1970s for daring to advocate freedom of expression, Rostropovich later played an active role in Russia’s transition from Communism to democracy. The range and richness of his life and art are expressed in the magnificently varied music in this 3-CD collection.